Chapter 1: The Art of the Epic Fail
"I want to have your baby!"
Silence.
The desert wind howled, carrying the scent of dry sand and impending doom.
"Huh?" Temari blinked, her hand drifting toward the massive iron-ribbed fan strapped to her back.
"Sorry! I'm a little nervous!" I shouted, my face flushing a shade of red that would make a sunset look pale. "I just wanted to say: please have my baby!"
"I didn't quite catch that," she said, her voice dropping into a register that signaled a 100% chance of physical trauma. "Could you repeat it?"
My brain screamed Run. My mouth, traitorous and fueled by pure adrenaline-induced stupidity, ignored it. "Please have my—"
BANG.
The world tilted. A giant folding fan swung in a blur of gold and iron. The last thing I saw was Temari's disgusted expression before the blunt force of a gale-force wind sent me airborne.
I tumbled twenty meters, skipped across the sand like a flat stone on a pond, and finally introduced my spine to a dilapidated mud wall.
Crunch.
The wall lost. My ribs weren't doing much better.
Through the settling dust and the ringing in my ears, I watched the blonde girl walk away without looking back. She didn't even bother to see if I was breathing.
Smooth, Daimaru. Real smooth. Why stop at a confession when you can go straight to a restraining order?
A shadow fell over me. A guy with purple face paint and a bandaged bundle on his back looked down at my crumpled form.
"Hey," Kankuro said, poking me with his foot. "Are you dead?"
I pushed a heavy brick off my chest and wheezed, dragging myself upright. Every joint in my body felt like it had been marinated in acid. "Thanks to you... I'm still alive. I owe you one, Kankuro."
"You really are an idiot!" Kankuro recoiled as if stupidity were contagious. "If I had known you were going to say something that deranged to my sister, I never would've helped you corner her. Do you have a death wish?"
I wiped blood from my lip and grinned, though it hurt like hell. "You don't understand, brother-in-law..."
"Who's your brother-in-law? Get away from me!" He backed up, his hand twitching toward his puppet scrolls. "Don't infect me with whatever brain-rot you've developed. She's a sand-wielding Jonin-level threat, and you're... you."
"My feelings are true," I insisted, leaning against the ruins of the wall. "It's only a matter of time."
"She literally tried to delete you from the map, Daimaru. She didn't accept your love; she gave you a concussion. Next time, she won't use the back of the fan."
"She was just shy," I muttered, though even my internal monologue was calling me a liar. "Once she processes the shock, she'll see the passion behind the words."
Kankuro stared at me for a long beat, his expression shifting from disgust to genuine pity. "You're overthinking it. Knowing Temari? She just thinks you found a new, high-effort way to prank her. You're on your own. Don't drag me into the line of fire again."
He turned and vanished into the twilight, leaving me alone in the whistling wind.
Night in the Land of Wind is a beast with iron teeth.
The sandstorms don't just blow; they scream. They tear through the narrow alleys of the Hidden Sand Village like wailing ghosts, a sound that keeps outsiders awake and locals huddled in their beds.
But tonight, the wind wasn't the only thing screaming.
A shrill, bone-chilling shriek cut through the storm, followed by the heavy thud of a building collapsing.
I paused, my hand hovering over a jar of bruise salve in my cramped apartment. I didn't need to look outside to know what was happening.
Gaara.
The One-Tail Jinchuriki was losing it again.
Across the street, lights flickered on and were instantly extinguished. The villagers knew the drill: stay quiet, stay dark, and pray the monster doesn't pick your roof to land on. The air felt heavy, saturated with a killing intent so thick it made my skin crawl.
This village is a powder keg, I thought, looking at my reflection in a cracked mirror. And I'm just a spark with no fireproofing.
I lived in a block of single-ninja apartments—bare-bones concrete boxes for the expendable. To distract myself from the sounds of slaughter outside, I grabbed a pair of heavy dumbbells.
One. Two. Ten.
My muscles burned. Sweat stung the fresh cuts on my face.
Fifty. Sixty.
I pushed until my arms shook, until the memory of Temari's fan was replaced by the pure, rhythmic agony of physical exertion. Finally, I dropped the weights. They hit the floor with a resounding clatter that echoed through the thin walls.
Thump! Thump! Thump!
"Idiot Daimaru!" a sharp female voice yelled from the next room. "It's midnight! Shut up or I'll kill you myself!"
"Go back to sleep, Saya!" I yelled back, collapsing onto the floor. "I don't need lectures from a dry-hearted woman like you!"
"Scum! I'm going to curse your entire bloodline!"
I ignored her. Saya's curses were as regular as the sandstorms.
I dragged myself into the tiny bathroom and turned the shower on. Clear, warm water—a luxury in this desert hellhole—washed away the grime of a failed day.
I leaned my head against the cool tile, letting the mist swirl around me.
How did I end up here?
I wasn't supposed to be Daimaru, the village eccentric. I had memories of another life—a world of concrete jungles, digital screens, and a life that was safe, boring, and utterly different. I'd transmigrated into this body sixteen years ago.
I'd spent ten months in a womb, terrified and confused, only to be born into the tail end of the Third Shinobi World War.
My "father" was a name on a memorial stone, a man who survived the horror of Kikyo Mountain only to die of his wounds before I could even say his name. My mother and grandfather scraped by, raising a kid who was "different."
I had the mind of a grown man trapped in the body of a toddler. Do you know how frustrating that is? People talk about "genius" kids extracting Chakra at age one.
Bullshit.
Biology doesn't care about your past life. A one-year-old's nervous system is a mess. I couldn't even control my bladder, let alone complex energy networks. I had to wait. I had to grow.
And in that growing, something went wrong.
The "adult" me—the calm, cautious strategist—got buried. The hormones of a developing Shinobi body are no joke. The impulsiveness, the sudden bursts of rage, the desperate need to be noticed... they merged with my old soul.
I wasn't a "transmigrator playing a character." I was Daimaru.
The result? A teenager who acted first, thought later, and possessed a reputation for being the most annoying guy in the Sand.
I used to bully Temari because I didn't know how to talk to her, I thought, closing my eyes as the water turned cold. What kind of 'mature adult' does that?
I stepped out, toweling off. The reality of my situation was sinking in.
The Chunin Exams were coming.
In the original story, the Hidden Sand Village was about to make a move that would lead to its near-destruction. We were the pawns in Orochimaru's game. And me? I was an "average" ninja. No bloodline limits. No hidden scrolls. No legendary master.
Just a guy with a loud mouth and a crush on the Kazekage's daughter.
"I need to get stronger," I muttered, staring at my hands. "If I don't, I'm just another casualty in the background of someone else's protagonist story."
I laid down on my thin mattress, listening to the wind die down. The village felt silent now—the kind of silence that follows a predator's meal.
Suddenly, a strange sensation prickled at the back of my mind. A pulse of energy that didn't belong to me, nor to the village.
It was coming from inside my own head.
A shimmering, semi-transparent interface flickered into existence in the darkness of my room.
[System Synchronization: 100%]
[User: Daimaru]
[Status: Active]
My heart hammered against my ribs. After sixteen years... now?
[First Mission: Survive the coming 'Sand Waterfall.']
[Reward: Path of the Great Sky.]
Before I could process the words, a massive explosion rocked the apartment building. The wall facing the street disintegrated into powder.
I rolled out of bed, sand stinging my eyes, to see a giant, clawed hand made of compressed sand hovering just outside my window.
Gaara wasn't just killing random people tonight.
He was at my front door.
And he looked hungry.
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[End of Chapter 1]