The world was dark.
No... it was deeper than darkness. It was nothingness. I couldn't feel my arms. My legs. My breath. Only a weightless drift, like I was sinking into water with no bottom.
Suddenly—
Pain. Crushing, suffocating, blinding pain exploded through my skull like fire meeting dry parchment.
"Ugh—!"
I jolted up from the futon, drenched in cold sweat, my throat parched like sandpaper. A rush of fragmented memories poured into me—three years' worth of moments, emotions, sensations flooding my mind like a broken dam. But they weren't mine.
They belonged to someone else.
His name... was Hyuga Arashi.
In the pale morning light filtering through the paper windows of the Hyuga compound, the room felt both spacious and suffocating. Tatami mats lined the floor. A small incense burner released the faintest trail of smoke in the corner. The distant sound of training echoed through the inner courtyard. This wasn't a dream. It was real.
"I... transmigrated?"
The taste of blood coated my tongue, and a sharp pulse pounded behind my temples.
Outside the room, footsteps—calm, sharp—approached. The paper door slid open.
A Konoha ninja stood at the doorway, his forehead protector gleaming. He had the short cropped hair and stern look of a Hyuga clan guard. His eyes widened slightly when he saw me upright.
"You're awake..."
"Water..." My voice rasped like dried leaves.
A gasp followed. A woman in a pale lavender kimono—probably a maid—rushed in from behind him. Her eyes welled up with tears the moment they met mine. "Young Master Arashi... you're awake!"
She knelt beside me quickly, gently cradling my head and lifting it with surprising care. "Please, wait—just a moment!" She poured water from a porcelain jug into a cup and brought it to my lips. I drank greedily, the coolness burning down my throat like ice.
"Slowly, young master. You've been unconscious for three days," she said softly, brushing strands of damp hair from my forehead. Her hands trembled.
Three days...?
A chill crawled down my spine.
In those sudden fragments of memory, I saw it. The body's original soul—Arashi—had just awakened his Byakugan for the first time. But the strain was too much. Overwork, chakra exhaustion, and relentless pressure... his body couldn't take it. He collapsed in the training hall.
And died.
His grandfather—an elder of the Hyuga Clan—had trained him mercilessly ever since he turned five. This world was not kind. Especially not to prodigies born to the main family. Especially not during an era still licking its wounds from the Third Great Ninja War.
This body... no, my body now, was five years old. But it held the weight of a clan's expectation, the shadow of a dead father who'd fallen in that brutal war, and now... me, a foreign soul.
The maid wiped her eyes, smiling through her tears. "I'll go inform the Grand Elder immediately! He has been waiting by your side all this time...!" She stood and hurried out.
I sat there, the taste of water lingering on my tongue, staring blankly at the paper door as it slid shut.
"What the hell did I get dragged into?" I muttered. "This world... this is the world of Naruto. The shinobi world where only the strong survive..."
A deep breath. The air carried a subtle dryness of spring, tinged with the scent of blossom petals and incense. Outside, young Hyuga trainees practiced in synchrony, their precise steps echoing through the compound. The atmosphere of the clan was... cold. Silent. Structured. Tradition pressed against the walls like invisible iron.
This was Konoha. The Hyuga Compound, in the year 60 after the founding of the Hidden Leaf. Around five years before Naruto graduates from the Academy.
And I am Hyuga Arashi. Main branch. Grandson of one of the Hyuga Elders.
In another space far, far away—beyond the perception of mortals—the void stirred.
A figure floated in the infinite cosmos, his eyes like twin galaxies.
The Sage of Six Paths, Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, sat in silent meditation.
His eyelids fluttered open as a ripple passed through the spiritual fabric of this dimension. Something had entered. A soul not born of this world.
"What is this anomaly..." His voice was calm, but beneath it simmered caution.
He reached into the stream of fate, but was stopped.
Impossible.
He couldn't see the origin of the soul—only that it had fused into a vessel of Hyuga blood. Of his mother's clan.
His face darkened.
"A power beyond even my foresight..." Hagoromo whispered. "From mother lineage..."
His eyes turned cold. Watching.
End of the Chapter.