Uchiha Jin

Sunset.

Land of Fire, Konohagakure, Uchiha Clan Compound.

"Boss, give me a boxed lunch."

Jin wore a plain black short-sleeved shirt and shorts, the Blaze Fan on his back marking him as an Uchiha.

He drooled as he stared at the boxed lunches arranged on the counter.

Though honestly, it would have been fine even if he wore nothing at all.

Under normal circumstances, no villager would dare enter the Uchiha Clan Compound anyway.

"Uchiha Jin, you disgrace to the Uchiha Clan!!"

The furious rebuke made Jin, who had been picking out a boxed lunch, look up.

The one who came out of the store was not the middle-aged owner, but a little bean.

The shop owner's son was named Uchiha Nobi.

"Forget it."

Uchiha Jin shook his head. He no longer planned to buy a boxed lunch. There were still some vegetables at home; he could just make something.

Seeing that Jin was completely ignoring him, Nobi sneered.

"Don't think you can get away with it by pretending not to hear me. You failed the Ninja Exam again, didn't you?"

But Jin flashed his teeth in a grin, raised a thumbs-up, and looked immensely proud.

"You got it right!"

Nobi's anger surged. How could someone be this shameless?

When had the Uchiha Clan ever produced a member who could not even pass the Ninja Exam?

"You bastard, do you have any pride as an Uchiha?"

"Sorry to interrupt, but you'd better look behind you."

Jin suddenly cut Nobi off.

But Nobi remained resolute.

"I'm not falling for your nonsense!"

He was certain that the moment he turned his head, Jin would vanish and become impossible to find. He had experienced that at school before.

"What are you saying to Jin, you little brat!?"

A large hand grabbed Nobi by the scruff of his neck, making him flail around and cry out.

A limping middle-aged man with a livid face held his son.

The owner of the store.

Uchiha Nomugi.

"I'll deal with you later."

With that, Nomugi threw Nobi into the shop, then turned to Jin with a gentle expression.

"That brat needs a beating. Ignore him. It's fine that you didn't pass this time, Little Jin. Just keep working hard."

He handed Jin a carefully prepared boxed lunch.

"And take this. Don't go hungry."

"Uncle Nomugi, how much is this?"

"It's free. Take whatever you want when you're hungry."

"Okay, Uncle." Jin nodded and headed toward home. Once he had gone some distance, he took out a fifty-ryō coin and casually tossed it. It landed on the counter in an arc.

"That kid." Nomugi chuckled as he picked up the coin, then hurriedly called out, "That's too much!"

"Put it toward next time." Jin's voice drifted back from afar.

Nomugi watched Jin leave, his expression complicated.

"What a pity."

His parents had both been jonin, yet he was a ninja with no talent for ninjutsu at all.

Life was not easy in a clan that worshipped strength, but Nomugi could do nothing about it. He could only sigh helplessly.

Nobi rubbed his head as he walked over.

"Why, Dad!?"

Why was he treating his own son like this over some worthless loser? He was his real son. Why did it feel like he treated Uchiha Jin better than him?

"You brat!" Nomugi rolled up his sleeves. Nobi realized things were going badly and tried to run, but was caught immediately.

Nomugi grabbed a broom from beside him and began hitting Nobi with it, berating him as he did.

"Your old man's life was saved by Jin's old man! How dare you treat Jin like that! Don't you know he comes here to support our business too!?"

Nobi could not hear any of it. Pain had already overwhelmed his mind.

"Stop hitting me!! I know I was wrong!!"

"If I don't teach you a lesson today, you'll never take my words seriously."

Smack! Smack! Smack! The fierce whipping sounds made passersby suck in cold breaths.

Jin's trip home was not peaceful either. A group of little sprouts who had not even started school yet appeared out of nowhere and surrounded him, circling him as they sang.

"Uchiha's glory, Uchiha Jin, Uchiha's trash, can't become, a ninja."

Jin even hummed along with their tune, completely unconcerned by the lyrics.

It was already a fact, anyway. A few insults would not cost him any flesh.

"Hmm~ hmm~."

Still not satisfied, he even started dancing along with them. After all, he was only twelve, so it was not that strange.

The Uchiha Clan Members passing by looked at him with contempt, scorn, disdain, and even sympathy.

Jin skipped and hopped along to the little sprouts' improvised rhyme, and his mood improved considerably. The little sprouts, however, were unhappy.

They had come to mock Jin, not provide him with accompaniment.

"Bleh." The little sprouts all made faces at him before running away.

Jin did not stop. He hopped all the way home.

"As expected, childhood is when you should enjoy a child's happiness."

Though the atmosphere was not particularly pleasant, entertaining himself was enough.

After returning home, he lit three incense sticks for the parents of this life, who had died in the war.

"Though it isn't a custom in this world, I suppose it still means something."

Jin looked at the black-and-white photograph of his parents and sighed helplessly.

He was deeply grateful to the parents of this life for giving him a new life.

In his previous life, he had failed to watch the traffic lights and ended up doing business for a truck.

A promising life had simply vanished. When he opened his eyes, he had arrived in this Naruto World of endless war—and had even been reborn into the Uchiha Clan.

What rotten luck. It was like an old man eating arsenic because he thought he had lived too long.

He wanted to cry, but had no tears.

Leaving aside this unstable era of peace, where there was no major war but constant minor conflicts, the final battle was still waiting for him in the future.

Even if he survived that, there would still be the Third Great Ninja War. And if he was lucky enough to survive that too, the Uchiha Clan would face the danger of extermination.

How was that any different from having a guillotine hanging over his head?

He could lose his life at any moment.

As for failing the Ninja Exam, it was not an act he put on because of the danger. He had genuinely failed twice.

The previous Ninja Exam had tested the Clone Technique, while this one tested the Substitution Technique. Unfortunately, he could not perform either.

He could now be considered the only member of the Uchiha Clan unable to use ninjutsu.

As for the Uchiha Clan's hereditary ninjutsu, the Sharingan, he had never held out hope for it. He was embarrassing all transmigrators.

To awaken the Sharingan, one needed to experience emotional pain.

Not to mention the Mangekyo Sharingan. That thing required the most extreme love.

Madara Uchiha chose Obito not because Obito possessed some incredible talent, but entirely because Obito loved deeply enough to hate deeply enough.

For Jin, let alone extreme love, even emotional fluctuations were difficult. It was truly hard for him to form any sort of bond with this world.

Emotions were an important factor in awakening the Sharingan.

Just look at how Sasuke awakened a one-tomoe Sharingan in fury on Clan Downfall Night, and you would know how difficult such feelings were.

And the primary reason he could not use ninjutsu now...

Had to be mentioned.

"This damned Golden Finger!!"

His Golden Finger was called Deduction. It could deduce anything, from cultivation techniques for immortality to methods for falling asleep quickly.

It sounded powerful, right?

But it had so many requirements!! Such brutal restrictions!!

First, whenever it wanted to deduce something, a text box would appear, and he had to enter his idea and the direction of the creation.

Then he also had to provide the foundational knowledge!!!

For example, if he wanted to deduce postpartum care for a sow, he first needed biological knowledge about sows, techniques for sow childbirth, and techniques for caring for sows after delivery!!

Then why would he not just buy a book on postpartum care for sows instead!!

In other words, if he wanted to deduce something, he first had to provide the underlying logic.

"It's no different from studying it myself and then inventing it by combining the techniques!!"

Of course, the one thing worth praising was its accuracy. Anything it deduced would definitely work; there was absolutely no chance of taking the wrong path.

A scientific madman would be overjoyed.

"You should go find Orochimaru. Why come to me!!"

Fine, it was still better to have it than not, since it was the key to his rise.

Most importantly, once something was deduced, he would definitely learn it immediately—and forcibly!!

He had paid a painful price for that.

In order to use Deduction, he had looked through the ninjutsu his parents in this world had left him. There was quite a lot of it.

And the largest portion consisted of all kinds of Fūinjutsu.

He did not remember his parents in this life ever having served in the Sealing Corps, until he found this entry in his father's diary.

"If the Nine-Tails' seal is undone and it is sealed inside myself to become a Jinchūriki, could the Nine-Tails' power allow the Uchiha to become Hokage?"

He had never expected it. His parents had been members of the Radical Faction, and they had even been radical enough to foresee the future!

As an inheritor of the Uchiha Radical Faction's bloodline, how was that worth celebrating at all!!

Mito had not even died yet, but they had gone ahead and died first!!

What the hell was this!

Leaving the Radical Faction aside, he had obtained a huge pile of Fūinjutsu and studied them day and night.

Then he failed to understand them. But he remembered them, and afterward, an idea suddenly struck him.

What if he used Fūinjutsu as the foundation, changed Chakra extraction into Chakra accumulation to create a ninjutsu similar to inner cultivation, and then adjusted the Fūinjutsu to freely mobilize Chakra when needed?

The Golden Finger said it had great potential.

A Chakra-sealing version of Basic Chakra Inner Cultivation was born.

Chakra Inner Cultivation could slow aging, increase the body's recovery ability, and strengthen physical fitness.

It was basically a variant of Tsunade's Yin Seal.

That would have been fine on its own, but his Basic Inner Cultivation was incomparably domineering. Chakra could not be expelled from the body!!

The moment it left his body, Basic Inner Cultivation would even forcibly pull it back.

As a result, ninjutsu had become nothing more than a dream.

Being forced to learn it had not left him any room to regret it.

Jin's tears were nearly dry.

And that was not even the worst part.

The worst part was this.

To improve it further, he needed other people to raise its upper limit.

Golden Finger, could you at least act like a person?

It was not a person.

Then never mind.

Uchiha Jin: (╯‵□′)╯︵┴─┴

What could he do? He was helpless too.

The Chakra Basic Inner Cultivation he had designed had levels. He needed to gradually expand the seals, comprehensively strengthening everything from physical fitness to lifespan.

If he expanded it throughout his entire body, he would be able to use normal ninjutsu.

What kind of garbage game mechanic was this?!

"Destroy this world already."

Jin's face twisted in despair.