"Aaahh!" Yoshiki yawned as he woke up, staring at the familiar ceiling of his room with disappointment.
It has been two days since I came to this world. By now, I should accept the fact that I have reincarnated & there is no going back—but even knowing that, it still feels unreal.
He pushed himself out of bed, left his room, and headed downstairs to brush his teeth and relieve himself. As he walked along the ground-floor corridor, he ran into a black-haired boy a few years older than him.
"Hey, Yoshiki. You sure took your sweet time getting up."
"Good morning, ni-san. It seems you woke up early today," Yoshiki replied.
"Yeah, I woke up before my alarm went off." Yoshiki studied him for a moment before speaking again.
"Ni-san… you didn't sleep last night, did you?"
"Sssh, keep it down. If Mom hears and comes after me, I'll make sure to drag you down with me," Yosuke said. "And for the record, I did sleep. I just woke up early. I mean, today's the day I get assigned my jōnin instructor and teammates," he added, barely containing his excitement.
What are you so excited about? You're about to sign your own death warranty and get handed over to an elite assassin who'll tort—cough—train you relentlessly and turn you into proper cannon fodder for War or other such dangerous endeavor.
Yoshiki smiled faintly. "Good luck, ni-san."
"Thanks. And you'd better get moving, or you'll be late for the academy," Yosuke said as he passed him and headed toward the dining room.
Yoshiki sighed and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth.
"Yoshiki, hurry up and finish your breakfast or you'll be late for the academy," a woman in her late twenties said, glancing at the clock. She had straight black hair that reached just below her shoulders and warm brown eyes.
"Okay, Mom," Yoshiki replied, sitting down and picking up his chopsticks before lifting a bowl of steamed rice.
It still feels strange using chopsticks. I never used them in my past life.Good thing I practiced using them in my room. Otherwise, who knows what would've happened? The doctor already said I was fine and had just passed out from shock after getting bitten by a snake. If Mom or somebody else suddenly realized I'd forgotten how to use chopsticks, that would've raised far more questions.
Two days ago, when Yoshiki came to his senses, he found himself lying in the academy's medical room. That in itself had been shocking as he had no recollection of going to a doctor—but what truly unsettled him was realizing he was now in the body of an unfamiliar child, in an unfamiliar place.
Worse still, he hadn't inherited the original Yoshiki's memories like the reincarnated protagonists from novels that he had read. Forget those—his own memories felt fragmented and unclear.
He had seriously considered feigning amnesia.
But that idea vanished the moment his homeroom teacher entered the room.
A sudden jolt surged through his head, and in an instant, images flooded his mind: an orphan boy striving to become a ninja, a long journey to retrieve a friend who had abandoned the village, , and finally, the resurrection of the rabbit goddess- Kaguya, the boy achieving his dream of becoming Hokage.
The man standing in front of him was none other than Iruka.
Yoshiki wasn't sure whether it was Iruka himself or the familiar Konoha forehead protector and shinobi uniform that had triggered those memories- but either way, things became clear to him.
With that realization, he completely abandoned the idea of pretending to have amnesia. The village possessed shinobi skilled in mind-based techniques, such as the Yamanaka clan. If he lied, there was no guarantee that he wouldn't be examined with such techniques as he did not know what was the procedure for treating people with amnesia in this world. Even if the village chose not to use such method on a child, Iruka—or his parents—might know someone capable of uncovering the truth.
The risk simply wasn't worth it.
Instead, Yoshiki claimed he felt light-headed and that his memories were a little hazy—symptoms that weren't unusual after a traumatic shock.
"Thank you for the meal," he said after finishing breakfast. He returned to his room, grabbed his bag, and headed for the academy.
Can't I just choose not to become a shinobi? Being a shinobi is basically signing your own death warrant—constant danger, constant battles, and eventually the Fourth Great Shinobi War.
In the end, it doesn't even matter if you're a shinobi or a civilian. Everyone gets caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi. The only ways to avoid it are hiding inside a Six Paths–powered Susanoo or escaping to another dimension.
And the only person capable of that second option is the one trying to cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi in the first place. What a joke.
Wait… Kakashi has Kamui too.But there's no way he'd waste chakra sending some random nobody like me to another dimension in the middle of a war when the entire world is at stake. He'd choose Naruto and Sasuke without hesitation.
The only possible workaround would be finding a powerful summoning creature, somehow getting Obito or Kakashi to send it to the Kamui dimension, and then having it reverse-summon me there.But getting a powerful summon to listen to me at all already feels impossible after all such summons refuse to listen to just anyone.
Due to these Yoshiki had little interest in becoming a shinobi. Power in this world usually required a bloodline limit or an exceptional teacher. The body he inhabited belonged to a boy from a civilian family, which meant his prospects were bleak at best.
The best instructors went to clan heirs or top academy students, most of whom had already been trained by their families besides the training they receive in the academy.
I shouldn't get ahead of myself.For now, I should just focus on graduating from the academy.
Since Iruka was his homeroom teacher, there was a good chance he was in the same class as Naruto—assuming Naruto hadn't already graduated. If that was true, Yoshiki would simply return to the academy with the rest of the students as he already knew that only Nine students will actually graduate.
Whether I continue down the path of a shinobi could be decided later.
Lost in thought, Yoshiki soon found himself standing in front of the academy. He paused for a brief moment, staring at the building before walking toward it to begin his first day at the Shinobi Academy.