The sun was setting—it was already dusk.
Every day, the sun rises in the east and sets in the west—that's a law of nature.
But during wartime, a once-prosperous village followed another cursed law: people must die every day.
While the entire village remained shrouded in the gloom of war, silently mourning the fallen heroes, one fed-up little brat snuck out quietly, hiding in the Nara clan's reindeer pasture.
"Damn it all, I downloaded a cheat for a mobile game and got sent to another world? Damn you, heavens! If you were gonna make me transmigrate, couldn't you at least drop me into the Naruto world at a better time? End of the Third Great War ahead, Nine-Tails attack right after... Do you know how dangerous this is? People are gonna die—a lot of people!"
After ranting for a long while, the brat finally calmed down a bit. But the strange mark on the palm of his right hand just brought the depression flooding back.
The brat's name was Yueye Nara, though his previous name didn't matter anymore. All he needed to know was that now he was Yueye, a branch family member of the Nara clan in the Hidden Leaf Village.
What? The Nara clan doesn't have a branch family?
Well, as a veteran Naruto fan, Yueye considered himself more informed than even Kishimoto himself. But even he had never heard of a Nara branch family!
In the original work, the Nara, Yamanaka, and Akimichi clans had always been close allies, forming the Ino-Shika-Cho trio in every generation—loyal defenders of the Hokage and the Leaf Village. But after transmigrating, Yueye learned the hard truth: that "generational loyalty" was utter bullshit.
Take that symbol on his palm, for example. It looked like the Nara clan's emblem—but in reality, it was a curse mark used by successive Hokage to control the Nara clan.
Its function was basically the same as the Hyuga clan's Caged Bird Seal. Every child born into the Nara, Yamanaka, or Akimichi clans had to undergo the curse mark ritual under Hokage supervision upon turning four. In other words, once it was active, if the Hokage wanted you alive, you lived; if they wanted you dead, you died—without even a chance to resist.
The only "fortunate" aspect of being in the Nara clan's branch family was that, unlike the Hyuga clan, there wasn't much infighting. After all, whether you were main or branch family, your fate was in the hands of the Hokage—there wasn't much point in internal strife.
Yueye had been in this world for three months now. He had a rough understanding of his background and the current era of the Naruto timeline.
As a child of the Nara branch family, Yueye had lost his parents to the Third Great Ninja War shortly after birth. All they left behind was a ninjutsu scroll, now in the hands of his uncle, Shikaku Nara. He hadn't enrolled in the Ninja Academy yet, so he wasn't even qualified to look at it.
Currently, the Third Hokage had just stepped down, and the Fourth Hokage had taken over—but wartime policies were still in effect. Any child over five could enroll in the academy.
That meant Yueye, now four, only needed to survive a few more months to qualify and reclaim his parents' scroll. But when Shikaku told him this, instead of being happy, Yueye felt even more bitter.
Because Yueye, unlike anyone else in this world, knew the truth—power doesn't come from bloodline techniques or hard work. It comes from having a cheat.
Look at the original story: being from a powerful clan didn't guarantee anything. Even the mighty Hyuga and Uchiha clans weren't spared.
The Hyugas were so irrelevant in the plot they were barely extras. Even genius Neji Hyuga, Naruto's brother-in-law, died like a background character.
The Uchihas had it worse—massacred in just a few years. Without the Mangekyo Sharingan, you had no hope of surviving to the endgame. In fact, by the end, you could count the remaining Uchiha on one hand!
In the original plot, only those favored by destiny—those inheriting the blood of Asura or Indra, like Naruto or Sasuke—could shape their own fate.
So every time Yueye thought about all those tragic plotlines, all he could do was sigh about his bleak future and throw himself into grueling training, determined to fight his cursed fate!
"Ugh, enough whining. So I don't have a cheat—so what? I'll just train anyway! If I slack off, I'll probably die when the Nine-Tails attacks in a few years. Better to sweat now than die like cannon fodder later!"
Shaking off his frustration, Yueye turned to the carefree reindeer grazing nearby and felt a little envious. But he brought his hands together to form a very peculiar hand sign—the secret sign of the Nara clan.
"Shadow Imitation Technique!"
Buzz…
Buzz…
As Yueye gathered chakra, his shadow stretched under the sunlight and soon connected with the shadow of a nearby reindeer. It was unmistakably the Nara clan's signature technique—Shadow Imitation Jutsu, which allowed the user to bind an opponent by linking shadows and force them to mimic the user's movements.
At that moment, if any Nara clansman had been watching, they would have been shocked.
After all, even wartime children who started training at four couldn't easily change their chakra nature or produce Yin Release-type chakra required for clan jutsu. Yueye, after just three months of training since transmigration, had already altered his chakra nature enough to use Shadow Imitation—that was talent even canon genius Shikamaru Nara didn't possess!
But just as Yueye was about to manipulate the reindeer's movements to match his own—
"Snap!"
Suddenly, it felt like a nerve in his brain had snapped. Pain surged through his skull in waves.
"Damn it, failed again? I'm a transmigrator! I should be owning this world! But I can't even master a basic jutsu after three months? What a disgrace to all transmigrators!"
Others might be impressed by his rapid progress, but Yueye wasn't satisfied. He knew how many true geniuses were in this world!
Forget the distant ones—just look at those nearby:
Kakashi Hatake became a genin at five, a chunin at seven, and by ten had invented an S-rank jutsu. Freakish, right?
Then there was Itachi Uchiha, from the same generation as Yueye. He awakened his Sharingan at eight and had the Mangekyo before reaching adulthood!
From the moment he arrived in this world, Yueye had set Itachi and Kakashi as his goals. He begged Shikaku for a glimpse at his parents' scroll and memorized the chakra cultivation method and the Shadow Imitation Technique. Since then, he trained day and night, sleeping only five hours a night, fueled by superior mental energy.
And yet, he couldn't even fully perform Shadow Imitation.
The issue wasn't effort—it was talent.
More precisely, physical limitations.
Yueye was just over four years old, and the Nara clan was physically average. Compared to the Hyuga or Uchiha clans, their bodies weren't particularly strong. Even though Yueye could force chakra through his meridians thanks to his mental power, his chakra reserves were only about one-third that of a normal genin. That he could even use Shadow Imitation at all was a miracle. To master it? That'd take months of buildup.
Enduring the backlash from the failed jutsu, Yueye waited for the headache to subside. Then, staring at the cursed mark on his palm, he sighed quietly.
"If Uncle Shikaku hadn't planted this damn curse mark a few days ago, I might've started the next stage of Nara clan training by now…"
"But I can't blame him—it's not like he wanted to. This was set by the Hokage generations ago. All I can do now is follow Might Guy's lead and train like a masochist. I don't ask for much—just a bit more physical energy so I can finally master this technique!"
Ding!
"Dear Player: Yueye. Congratulations—your energy consumption has reached 1000. You've successfully unlocked the Accelerated Level-Up App. Binding now…"
"…Nani!?"
Just as he was heading toward the training grounds to push himself further, a strange voice echoed in Yueye's mind. He froze—and then broke into a grin.
"I do have a cheat after all! And the Accelerated Level-Up App actually works! This is awesome!"
Barely able to contain his excitement, Yueye asked the system:
"App, can I exchange for the Rinnegan?"
"Sorry, that feature is unavailable."
"Okay… what about techniques? Flying Thunder God, Shadow Clone Jutsu—I want to exchange!"
"Sorry, that feature is unavailable."
"Can I at least do weighted training with your help?"
"Sorry, that feature is unavailable."
"…Then what can you do?"
One question after another, each answer more disappointing than the last. The thrill of finally getting a cheat was quickly fading.
But just when Yueye was about to give up on the bootleg app entirely, it finally gave him a sliver of hope—
"Player, app successfully bound. You are currently in the Naruto instance. Energy expenditure reward: 1 Tree-Climbing Training Card, 1 Water-Walking Training Card."
"Player, under certain conditions, you may manually modify the progress of a skill. Would you like to proceed?"
"Yes!"
Now understanding some of the app's uses, Yueye felt a surge of excitement.
"App! I want to modify my physical attributes. Just make it simple—turn me into someone with a Sage Body!"