The convoy departed at dawn.
Tatsuya found himself in the middle of the formation—walking wounded interspersed with supply wagons and civilian refugees, bracketed fore and aft by combat-ready shinobi. The arrangement made tactical sense: soft targets in the center, hard shells on the outside. A formation designed to survive ambush rather than prevent it.
He counted thirty-seven people in total. Twelve wounded shinobi, himself included. Eight civilians, mostly women and children, Yuki among them. The rest were escorts and wagon drivers, their eyes never still, hands resting on weapon pouches with casual readiness.
The road wound west through dense forest, following the river he'd crossed two days ago. The terrain was rougher than he'd expected—not the manicured paths of his old world, but packed dirt and exposed roots, muddy where rain had collected in ruts. The wagons creaked and groaned over every obstacle.
He walked in silence, conserving energy. His ribs ached with each step, but the pain was manageable—a dull background throb rather than the sharp grinding of fresh fractures. The medic's work was holding. He'd have to thank her properly before they parted ways.
Around him, the other wounded moved with similar economy. A Chuunin with a bandaged head stared straight ahead, his expression empty. A young woman—Genin, from her lack of flak jacket—limped on a splinted leg, her face set in grim determination. An older man coughed wetly every few minutes, his chest wrapped in bandages that showed spots of old blood.
War's harvest. He'd seen it before, in a different context—the parade of trauma cases that rolled through emergency departments after accidents, disasters, violence. The specific wounds were different here, but the fundamental truth remained the same: the human body was fragile, and the world was full of things that could break it.
The first hour passed without incident. Then the second. The sun climbed higher, burning off the morning mist, and the forest began to thin. More light filtered through the canopy. The air grew warmer.
"Konoha's maybe six hours ahead," someone said behind him. One of the escort shinobi, speaking to a colleague. "If we don't hit any trouble."
Six hours. Half a day of walking, and he'd be there. The place where he'd need to build a life, establish an identity, figure out how to navigate a world that shouldn't exist.
No pressure.
He caught himself smiling at the thought—a grim, private expression that had nothing to do with humor. The surgeon's black comedy, surfacing at inappropriate moments. He'd always laughed at the worst times. Colleagues had found it unsettling; patients' families had found it cruel. But it was just how his mind worked, finding absurdity in horror because the alternative was drowning in it.
A world of ninja magic. Child soldiers. Tailed beasts that were apparently eldritch abominations. And somewhere in the future—maybe decades away, maybe sooner—apocalyptic threats that would make this war look like a border skirmish.
And here he was, in a twelve-year-old's body, walking toward a village he'd only half-heard about from a nephew he'd never see again.
Hilarious, really.
They stopped twice for rest and water. During the second break, Yuki found him.
She approached hesitantly, clutching a canteen that looked too large for her small hands. Her eyes were clearer today—still haunted, but present in a way they hadn't been yesterday. The thousand-yard stare was receding, replaced by something more like wary alertness.
Good. Healthy, even. The mind's way of coming back online after shock.
"Tatsuya-san?"
The honorific startled him. He hadn't expected formality from a child he'd carried through a war zone. But this was a different culture, with different rules. He'd need to learn them.
"Just Tatsuya," he said. "How are you feeling?"
She considered the question with the same seriousness she'd shown before. "Better. I think." A pause. "I dreamed about them last night. My family."
"Good dreams or bad?"
"I don't know. They were just... there. Talking. Like nothing had happened." Her grip tightened on the canteen. "Is that normal?"
"Yes," he said. "The mind processes trauma in strange ways. Dreams are part of it."
She nodded slowly, accepting this. Then: "The lady said the orphanage is nice. That there are other children there."
"That's good."
"She said I might be adopted. If someone wants me."
The flatness in her voice caught him. Not hope—something more like resignation. As if she'd already accepted that she was a burden to be managed, a problem to be solved by administrative process.
Eight years old, and already learning that she was alone in the world.
"Yuki." He waited until she looked at him. "Whatever happens with the orphanage, you have my name. Tatsuya Meguri. If you need anything—if anyone gives you trouble—you find a way to get word to me. Understood?"
It was a reckless promise. He was a Genin with no standing, no connections, no power to actually help her if something went wrong. But the alternative was letting her walk into the system with nothing—no anchor, no backup, no sense that anyone cared what happened to her.
He'd seen what happened to children who felt disposable. In his old world, they became statistics. In this one, they probably became something worse, the thought further cemented the reality and brutality of the situation.
"Understood," Yuki said quietly. And for just a moment, something like warmth flickered behind her eyes.
The break ended. They resumed walking.
The forest gave way to farmland around midday.
The transition was gradual—trees thinning, clearings growing wider, until suddenly there were fields instead of undergrowth. Rice paddies stretched toward the horizon, their flooded surfaces reflecting the grey sky. Farmhouses dotted the landscape, small and practical, smoke rising from chimneys.
Civilians worked the fields. Actual civilians, not refugees—men and women in simple clothes, doing the mundane work of agriculture. They looked up as the convoy passed, some waving, others simply watching. A few children ran alongside the wagons for a while, laughing and calling out to the shinobi.
Normal life. Continuing despite the war, because war or no war, people needed to eat.
He found the sight oddly grounding. The forward camp had been pure military—every person a combatant or support staff, every action oriented toward the conflict. Here, there was evidence that something existed beyond the fighting. Farms and families and futures that didn't end on a battlefield. A reminder that regardless of your hardships, the world keeps on trudging on, for better of for worse.
Small comfort, but comfort nonetheless.
The road improved as they traveled. Packed dirt gave way to gravel, then to something almost like pavement—flat stones fitted together with surprising precision. The wagons rolled more smoothly. The pace quickened.
And then, around a bend in the road, he saw it.
Konoha.
The village was larger than he'd imagined.
A massive wall encircled the settlement—timber and stone, easily fifty feet high, with watchtowers at regular intervals. Behind it, buildings rose in a chaotic sprawl, rooftops visible in every direction. And dominating the skyline, carved into a cliff face that loomed over everything else, were faces.
Three of them. Massive stone portraits, each maybe a hundred feet tall, staring out over the village with expressions that ranged from stern to benevolent. The Hokages, he realized. The leaders. Their faces immortalized in rock as a reminder of... what? Legacy? Authority? The weight of tradition pressing down on everyone below?
Probably all of the above.
The gate came into view as they approached—a massive wooden structure set into the wall, flanked by guard posts and crowned with the leaf symbol. Shinobi in uniform stood watch, their posture professional but not aggressive. The convoy's escort exchanged hand signals with them as they approached, and the gates swung open without ceremony.
They passed through, and Tatsuya entered the Village Hidden in the Leaves.
First impressions: organized chaos.
The streets were crowded—civilians and shinobi mingling in a flow that somehow worked despite no obvious traffic rules. Vendors called out from stalls that lined the main thoroughfare. Children ran between adult legs, laughing or arguing or simply existing in that heedless way children had when they felt safe.
The buildings were a mix of styles—traditional wooden structures with tiled roofs, more modern concrete edifices, everything packed together without apparent planning. Power lines (power lines! Electricity existed here!) strung between poles. Signs advertised shops and services in a script he couldn't read—no, wait, he could. The characters made sense when he focused on them, another gift from the body's education.
And everywhere, the leaf symbol. Carved into walls. Painted on banners. Stitched into clothing. The village's identity, omnipresent and inescapable, not to mention the "Will of Fire" that got hammered into him during his academy days.
Have to motivate children to early graves somehow he guessed.
The convoy split as they entered. Civilians were directed toward one district, wounded shinobi toward another. Tatsuya caught a glimpse of Yuki being led away with the other refugees—she looked back once, found his eyes, and raised a small hand in farewell.
He returned the gesture. Then she was gone, swallowed by the crowd.
"Wounded to the hospital," one of the escort shinobi called. "Report to triage for processing. Anyone ambulatory, follow me."
Tatsuya followed.
The hospital was a large building near the village's center—white walls, clean lines, multiple stories. It looked almost normal, almost familiar, except for the shinobi guards at the entrance and the subtle wrongness of certain architectural details. The windows were reinforced. The walls were thicker than they needed to be. Hidden defensive measures, seals? probably.
Inside, the triage area was efficient chaos. Medics moved between patients, sorting by severity. A desk near the entrance processed arrivals, taking names and unit assignments and injury reports. Tatsuya joined the queue and waited.
When his turn came, a tired-looking Chuunin examined his papers and asked clipped questions.
"Name?"
"Tatsuya Meguri."
"Rank?"
"Genin."
"Unit assignment?"
"Third Division. Field attached." He wasn't sure where that information came from—the papers, maybe, or some residual knowledge from the body. "They're gone. The whole unit."
The Chuunin's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his eyes. Recognition, maybe. Or just weary acceptance of yet another casualty report.
"Injuries?"
"Fractured ribs. Dislocated shoulder, reset in the field. Minor lacerations."
"Current status?"
"Ambulatory. Mobile. I can function."
The Chuunin made notes on a form, then stamped it with mechanical precision. "You're assigned to the reserve pool pending reassignment. Report to the Administrative Building tomorrow at oh-eight-hundred for debriefing and new orders. Barracks assignment will be provided. Any questions?"
A dozen. A hundred. None that he could safely ask.
"No."
"Dismissed. Next."
The barracks were located in a district that seemed to house primarily military personnel. Row after row of identical buildings, functional rather than comfortable, designed to store bodies efficiently between deployments.
Tatsuya found his assigned room—a small space, maybe eight feet by ten, containing a bed, a desk, a storage chest, and nothing else. The walls were bare. The single window looked out on an interior courtyard where other shinobi were going about their routines.
He sat on the bed. It creaked under his weight.
Home.
The word felt wrong, but there was no better one. This was where he lived now. This cramped room in a military barracks, in a village full of child soldiers and ninja magic, in a world that shouldn't exist.
He let himself feel it—really feel it—for the first time since waking. The disorientation. The loss. The sheer impossible strangeness of everything that had happened.
His old life was gone. His career, his colleagues, his identity—all of it erased, replaced by this. A body that wasn't his. A name that meant nothing to him. A future full of wars and massacres and apocalyptic threats that he might not be able to prevent.
He'd known this intellectually. Had acknowledged it, processed it, compartmentalized it the way he'd learned to compartmentalize everything. But sitting here now, in this tiny room, surrounded by evidence of a world he didn't belong to...
It hit different.
He gave himself five minutes. Let the grief and fear and confusion wash through him, let himself feel small and lost and completely out of his depth. Five minutes of weakness, of humanity, of being something other than a survival machine.
Then he locked it away and started planning.
First priority: information.
He knew broad strokes—the major events, the key players, the general shape of what was coming. But broad strokes weren't enough. He needed details. Political structures. Social hierarchies. The rules of this village, both written and unwritten.
More importantly, he needed to know when. The timeline his nephew had mentioned was vague at best, and his memories of those conversations were fragmentary. The Second Shinobi World War was ending—he knew that much. But how long until the Third? until the Kyuubi attack, until all the other disasters that were supposedly coming?
Years, probably. Maybe a decade or more. But "probably" and "maybe" weren't good enough. He needed precision, or at least better estimates.
Second priority: capabilities.
The body had foundations—trained reflexes, ingrained skills, decent chakra reserves. But foundations weren't mastery. He'd seen enough in the forward camp to know that a Genin, even a trained one, was barely a speed bump against serious opposition.
He needed to improve. Systematically, ruthlessly, with the same obsessive focus he'd brought to surgery. Figure out what he could do, what he couldn't, and what he needed to learn to bridge the gap.
Third priority: connections.
He was a nobody. An orphan Genin with no clan, no team, no mentor, no political backing. In a village that apparently ran on exactly those things, that made him invisible at best and disposable at worst.
He needed allies. People who could teach him, protect him, or at least warn him when threats were approaching. The names from his nephew's ramblings—Minato, Jiraiya, Tsunade—they were out there somewhere. Finding them, earning their trust, getting close enough to matter...
That was the long game. The years-long project of building something from nothing.
For now, he had more immediate concerns. Debriefing tomorrow. New orders. Whatever the village decided to do with a surviving Genin from a wiped-out unit.
He needed to sleep. Let his body heal, let his mind process, prepare for whatever came next.
But first—
He pulled out the papers the chuunin had given him. His official records, such as they were. Tatsuya Meguri, orphan, genin, Third Division. Date of commissioning. Mission history (sparse—the body was new to active service). Academy graduation scores (middle of the class, nothing remarkable).
And there, at the bottom, a field he'd overlooked before: Bloodline status.
Unknown.
He stared at the word for a long moment. Unknown. Not "none" or "civilian." Unknown, implying that the question had been asked and not answered. That someone, at some point, had looked at this body and wondered if there was more to it than met the eye.
The high chakra reserves. The muscle memory that felt almost too sharp. The dreams he didn't recognize, surfacing at odd moments with emotions that weren't his.
Who were you? he asked the absent Tatsuya. Who was your family? What secrets did you carry without knowing it?
No answer came. Of course not. The dead didn't explain themselves.
He folded the papers and stored them in the chest. Stripped off his equipment and set it within arm's reach. Lay down on the hard mattress and closed his eyes.
Sleep came slowly. When it did, he dreamed of operating rooms and battlefields, of faces he didn't recognize calling names he couldn't remember.
Morning arrived grey and cold.
He woke before dawn—force of habit from his old life, when early rounds and emergency calls had trained him to sleep light and rise fast. For a moment, he didn't remember where he was. The ceiling was wrong. The sounds were wrong. Everything was—
Then it came back. All of it. The battlefield. The convoy. The village.
His new life.
He rose. Washed with water from a basin in the corner—cold, but he'd had worse. Dressed in the cleanest clothes he had, which wasn't saying much. Checked his equipment: kunai secure, sword across his back, pouches organized.
Ready. Or as ready as he could be.
The Administrative Building was easy to find—a large structure near the center of the village, marked by the largest leaf symbol he'd seen yet. Shinobi flowed in and out in a steady stream, some in uniform, others in civilian clothes. He joined the current and let it carry him inside.
The debriefing room was on the third floor. Sparse furnishings: a table, two chairs, overhead lighting that hummed faintly. A chuunin waited for him—different from yesterday, older, with a scar that ran from his temple to his jaw.
"Tatsuya Meguri?" At his nod: "Sit."
He sat.
"You were attached to the Third Division, Fourth Company. Correct?"
"Yes."
"That unit was declared lost eight days ago. Thirty-seven personnel. You're the only confirmed survivor."
The words landed like stones. Thirty-seven people. An entire company, gone. And he was here, wearing the body of one of them, with no memory of how that body had survived when everyone else died.
"What happened?" the Chuunin asked.
"I don't know." Truth, technically. "I woke up after the fighting was over. Enemy withdrawal, maybe, or they thought they'd finished us. I found a civilian survivor and made for friendly lines."
"You don't remember the engagement itself?"
"No. Head injury, probably. There are gaps."
The Chuunin studied him for a long moment. His expression was unreadable—professional, detached, the face of someone who'd heard a thousand stories like this and was just going through the motions.
"Medical says your injuries are consistent with heavy combat exposure. Fractured ribs, concussion trauma, multiple lacerations. You should be dead."
"I'm not."
"No. You're not." The Chuunin made a note on his form. "Lucky."
Lucky. Sure. If being trapped in another world in a body that wasn't his counted as luck.
"Your unit had no surviving officers. No team structure to reassign you to. You'll go into the reserve pool until command finds a use for you. Regular training rotations, mission assignment as needed. Standard orphan Genin placement."
Orphan Genin. It sounded like a category. A bureaucratic designation for people like him—nobodies without clan or connection, to be deployed as the village saw fit.
"Understood."
"Report to Training Ground Three tomorrow at oh-six-hundred. You'll be assigned to a rotation with other reserves. Questions?"
"What about the civilian I brought in? The girl, Yuki. Is there a way to check on her?"
The Chuunin's expression flickered—surprise, maybe, that a Genin was asking about a refugee instead of his own situation. "Civilian processing is handled by a different department. You'd have to inquire there."
"Where would I find that?"
"Third floor, west wing. Ask for the Refugee Placement Office." A pause. "You actually care what happens to her?"
It was a genuine question, not a challenge. Tatsuya considered his answer.
"She watched her family die. She's alone. Someone should make sure she's okay."
The Chuunin studied him for another long moment. Then, slowly, he nodded. "Rare attitude. Most shinobi learn to stop caring pretty quick."
"Maybe I'm a slow learner."
Something that might have been respect crossed the man's scarred face. "Maybe. Dismissed, genin. Don't be late tomorrow."
He found the Refugee Placement Office without difficulty. The woman behind the desk was civilian—he could tell by the absence of that constant alertness shinobi carried—and overworked, if the stacks of files on her desk were any indication.
"Name?"
"Tatsuya Meguri. I'm inquiring about a refugee I escorted in. A girl named Yuki. Eight years old, dark hair. Arrived with yesterday's convoy."
The woman shuffled through papers, found the relevant file, scanned it briefly. "Yuki. Processed yesterday afternoon. Assigned to the Third District Orphanage pending permanent placement." She looked up. "Relation?"
"None. I just wanted to make sure she got somewhere safe."
"She's housed, fed, and receiving psychological evaluation. Standard procedure for war refugees." The woman's voice was matter-of-fact, neither warm nor cold. "Is there anything else?"
"Can I visit her?"
A pause. "The orphanage has visiting hours. Tenth bell to fourteenth bell, open days only. You'll need to sign in at the entrance."
"Thank you."
He turned to leave, then stopped. "One more question. Where would I find information about... general village operations? History, structure, that kind of thing?"
"The library." The woman gestured vaguely westward. "Near the Academy. Open to all shinobi."
A library. Of course there was a library. Knowledge was power in any world; it made sense that a military village would have an information repository.
"Thank you," he said again, and left.
The library was larger than he'd expected—a three-story building filled with scrolls and books and what appeared to be filing cabinets stuffed with mission reports. He spent the afternoon there, reading everything he could find on basic village operations.
Konoha's structure was military-feudal. The Hokage at the top, with absolute authority in theory and political constraints in practice. Below him, a council of advisors, clan heads, and department chiefs. Below them, the jonin—the elite, the officers. Then the chuunin—the sergeants and specialists. And at the bottom, the genin—the grunts, the cannon fodder, the expendable.
The clan system complicated everything. Major families—Uchiha, Senju, Hyuuga, Nara, Yamanaka, Akimichi, and others—held political power disproportionate to their numbers. They had seats on councils, hereditary privileges, specialized techniques passed down through blood. The clanless, like the body he wore, were second-class citizens by default.
Good to know. Made his path forward even harder, but at least he understood the terrain.
He found a section on recent history—the First and Second Shinobi World Wars, the founding of the village, the Hokage lineage. The current Hokage was Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third. His predecessor, Tobirama Senju, had died in the last war. The faces on the mountain made sense now: Hashirama, Tobirama, Hiruzen.
Minato. The name surfaced from his fragmented memories. The Fourth Hokage was supposed to be Minato Namikaze. The Yellow Flash. The protagonist's father.
How old would Minato be now? A teenager, probably. Maybe younger. If the timeline tracked the way he remembered it, Minato wouldn't become Hokage for years—maybe a decade or more. Which meant he was out there somewhere, training, rising through the ranks, becoming the legend he'd one day be.
Tatsuya filed the information away. Minato was a target—not for elimination, but for cultivation. If he could get close, earn trust, become useful... that was a path forward. A connection to someone who'd matter.
But not yet. First he had to become someone worth connecting to.
He left the library as the sun was setting, his head full of new information and his plans slightly more refined.
Tomorrow: training. The beginning of a long, brutal process of turning this body into something useful.
Tonight: sleep. As much as he could get.
He returned to his barracks room, ate a ration bar from his remaining supplies, and lay down on the hard mattress.
The ceiling stared back at him, blank and indifferent.
One day down. A lifetime to go.
He closed his eyes and waited for morning.