Gojo Yoru was six years old this year, and he was a transmigrator. One sudden death had turned him from a twenty-five-year-old man into a newborn infant, tossed headfirst into a world he had only ever watched from the outside.
Thanks to the Japanese classes he had taken in high school, and the translation-group side job he had picked up in college, Yoru knew what kind of place he had landed in almost from the moment he was born. This was not some random fantasy world. It was a two-dimensional universe where everyone spoke Japanese, and worse, it was Naruto—one of the three great shonen manga.
The instant he realized he had been reborn into Naruto, and into a family without any bloodline limit at that, it felt like the sky had collapsed on top of him. In hindsight, maybe that reaction had been dramatic. But only maybe.
After all, the so-called three great shonen series might as well have been three great bloodline comics. The protagonists all started out looking ordinary, only to end up as the chosen favorites of the world itself.
Just look at One Piece. Who would have believed that the Paramecia-type Gum-Gum Fruit, serialized for over a thousand chapters, would suddenly be rewritten into the Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Model: Nika? Before that reveal, Naruto had always been the one readers loved to mock as the ultimate bloodline manga.
And honestly, they weren't wrong. This was a world where pedigree ruled everything. Strip away the smoke and mirrors, and the entire plot boiled down to the brutal internal struggle of the Otsutsuki clan.
Talented ninjas like Mu, the Second Tsuchikage, or A, the Third Raikage, were already monsters by mortal standards. Even so, they still only stood at the peak of the Five Kage tier. To go any higher, one had to latch onto the Otsutsuki line somehow—or become the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki and win Kurama's full approval.
So yes, being born a civilian without a bloodline limit was already a disastrous opening hand. Then, when he was three, his father—an all-round jonin—his mother, a special jonin, and the comrades who went on the mission with them all died during a large-scale operation. That was the day Yoru's vision had truly gone black.
His backing was gone. His connections were gone. Every safety net he might have relied on had been ripped away in one blow.
Logically speaking, that kind of cursed beginning ought to have belonged to the protagonist. But even now, years after his parents' deaths, Gojo Yoru still hadn't discovered any cheat ability whatsoever.
If there hadn't still been the faintest sliver of hope left, he might really have chosen to die again just to see whether a second transmigration was possible.
He unlocked a sealed box and pulled out a small red scroll hidden beneath a pile of others. The moment he fed chakra into the seal, the characters inscribed across it slowly faded. When he unrolled it, the inside was blank.
Yoru bit his thumb and smeared blood across the surface. Then he formed hand seals, pressed both palms onto the scroll, and said softly, "Release."
A bang echoed through the dim basement. White smoke billowed out all at once, filling the room before slowly thinning away.
When the smoke dispersed, the blood on the scroll had vanished. In its place sat several neatly stacked diaries and a box of pens.
As usual, Yoru sat cross-legged before the scroll and picked up the top diary. The notes inside were all written in pinyin and Cantonese. Japanese existed in this world. So did English and Chinese characters. But unless someone could pry open the memories in Yoru's brain, nobody here would ever decipher what he had written.
He flipped through the pages quickly, using the diaries to reinforce his memory and make sure he didn't lose the greatest advantage he possessed as a transmigrator. Summaries of the main plot. Profiles, personalities, and key experiences of important characters. A full list of Akatsuki members. A rough chronology. Guesses about the years when the flashback scenes had taken place.
When he reached the final diary, his pace slowed. At the same time, his other hand reached into the pencil case and drew out a pencil. His eyes deepened, no longer merely reading, but thinking—sorting, connecting, revising.
The title on the first page was bold enough to sting the eyes: On the Possibility of Defying Fate!
Everything beneath that title was a strategy guide he had compiled for himself—a game walkthrough created by someone who knew the plot and characters of the original work far too well.
Shortcuts for obtaining status and resources. The balance between Sharingan and Hashirama cells, and the odds of surviving as a Wood Release test subject. Whether becoming a jinchuriki and shaping the identity of the Child of Prophecy could win the goodwill of the nine tailed beasts. The perfect opening to seize the Rinnegan...
Every time inspiration struck, Yoru would return to this guide and patch in a new idea or refine an old one. Today was no exception.
As he read, he erased lines of pinyin and rewrote them in tighter, cleaner logic. Some pages ended up blank for a while, only to fill again as he wrote and erased, then wrote again. He revised until he could no longer think of a better route, then finally shut the diary, slipped the pencil back into the case, and sealed both away in the storage scroll once more.
By the time he climbed out of the basement, night had already fallen. The clock on the living room wall read 7:52 p.m.
Even with his stomach growling, he didn't settle for stuffing himself with whatever was easiest. He took ingredients from the refrigerator and made a simple dinner for one—not lavish, but balanced and nutritious.
After eating, he went out for a walk. No matter how much he preferred isolation, he couldn't let himself look too withdrawn. The aloof and school-bully image he wore at the academy was already pushing it; if he took it too far, the village would start paying attention for all the wrong reasons.
When he came back, he tidied the house, took a quick shower, and went straight to bed. It wasn't even nine yet.
Early to bed. Early to rise. Three proper meals a day. A balanced diet. Having died suddenly once before, Gojo Yoru treasured this body far more than most people ever could. He knew exactly how to take care of it.
That was also the main reason he stood taller than Minato Namikaze and had better stamina at the same age. Good habits mattered.
At six sharp the next morning, the alarm clock dragged him out of sleep. After washing up and changing clothes, he started the first morning run of the vacation. By the time he returned home at eight, sweat had soaked through him.
He cooked, bathed, read, and then began refining chakra. In terms of physical ability, Yoru already ranked among the best of his peers. Both of his parents had been jonin, and his innate talent could be called that of a minor prodigy—though compared with the truly broken monsters in this world, he was still far behind.
As for chakra, he already exceeded the norm for children his age by a wide margin. With the inheritance his parents had left behind, if he had simply grown up normally and not died young, becoming an all-round jonin would have been almost guaranteed. But that was all.
To become an elite jonin—or even step into the realm of a Kage—he would need to master at least one S-rank secret technique. And in front of a super-Kage powerhouse, the Five Kage themselves were only slightly sturdier cannon fodder.
Before a Six Paths-level existence, they were less than that. Mere ants with grander titles.
Gojo Yoru was not satisfied with any of it. That was why he had chosen to defy fate.
But defying fate was not something you did by wishing hard enough. To seize those future opportunities, he first needed the strength to grab them. The larger the goal, the more fiercely motivated he became.
The first-semester vacation was long, stretching for more than a month. During that month, Yoru lived with mechanical discipline. Every morning he exercised, read, and refined chakra. Every afternoon he practiced the fundamental skills of a ninja. Every evening he went down into the basement to organize his strategy guide, and every night he was in bed before nine.
He was so regular it was almost as if someone had installed a program inside him and set it to run.
Somewhere in the middle of that routine, he also celebrated his birthday. In this life, he had been born on August 18, Year 24 of Konoha.
Which meant that on this same day, Gojo Yoru turned six years old. And on that same day, his body underwent an enormous change.
"What... what's happening?"
As always, he had gone to bed before nine. But for some reason, tonight sleep would not come.
Normally, even with a child's abundant energy and a growing body, he could drift off with ease. Tonight, no matter how many times he turned over beneath the blanket, his mind only grew more restless. More agitated.
After midnight, he realized his body temperature had risen slightly. Not enough to count as a fever. But definitely hotter than normal.
His heart was pounding wildly, as if someone were hammering a drum inside his chest. That strange, vaguely familiar sensation made his eyes snap wide open.
An irregular heartbeat? At his age? How was that possible? He went to bed early, got up early, ate on time, trained on schedule—he had practically built the perfect anti-sudden-death routine for himself. So why was his body showing the warning signs of sudden death all over again?!