The clan hall was silent. Only the ragged, subdued sounds of breathing proved that those seated within were living people, not lifelike wax statues.
The Great Elder was, after all, an old man who had weathered countless storms. He quickly pulled himself out of his gloom. No matter what, he had to preserve at least a little of the clan's bloodline.
Yet after sweeping his gaze around the room, he too fell silent, just like the other elders. The clan had seen pitifully few newborns over the past ten years. Coupled with disease and various other causes, infant mortality remained alarmingly high. In the entire clan, there were only two children under ten years old.
The old man's heart clenched painfully. It was something he had long known, yet every time he faced it head-on, it still hurt.
"Kushina, Katsuki, come here." The Great Elder put on a kindly expression and beckoned to the two children.
Uzumaki Katsuki pursed his lips. He had already guessed what the Great Elder wanted to say. There were no other children their age in the village, only him and his sister. If someone truly had to be sent to Konoha, there was a ninety-nine percent chance it would be the two of them.
Six-year-old Uzumaki Katsuki had shoulder-length crimson hair, which his unscrupulous older sister had tied into a row of little braids like a girl's. With bright black eyes and a round, fair face, he looked like an adorable little boy. Yet despite being only six, his every movement was more polite and refined than that of his sister, who was a year older.
That was right. This little boy was one of the countless transmigrators, casually toyed with by some unknown god. With one death and one rebirth, he had stumbled into this bloodthirsty ninja world and been born aboard the Uzumaki Clan's great ship, which was about to sink. He was even Kushina Uzumaki's biological younger brother.
According to Uzumaki Katsuki's memories of Naruto from his previous life, the Uzumaki Clan would soon suffer a great calamity. The entire Land of Whirlpools would be destroyed and become dust in the pages of history. That had terrified him for quite some time. Even an ant clung to life, so naturally he was unwilling to be crushed beneath the wheels of history.
But as a mere little boy, aside from the bit of Taijutsu he had learned and his ability to throw a few Shuriken, all he could do was act cute. With these tiny arms and legs, he could not even leave the isolated island that was the Land of Whirlpools. Without people around him, he had no ability to survive. Any random illness could knock him down.
Fortunately, perhaps the god who had sent him here felt that tossing him into this murderous ninja world without so much as a care package was a little heartless. When he was five, a year ago, he found a particularly strange apple in a basket of apples. It was covered in spiraling patterns. As an exemplary young man raised on the big three manga of One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach in his previous life, he naturally recognized what this wildly out-of-place fruit was.
His little hand trembled, and tears filled his eyes. At last, that god had not merely handed him a ticket for transmigration and called it a day. It seemed his transmigrator's gift package had been sent through the wrong courier and arrived late.
To be safe, he ate the entire "apple," leaving not even a crumb behind. He experienced the taste of something truly [bleep]ing extraordinary, and then... his tear ducts broke. Silent tears soaked his pillow, not because of that horrifically terrible flavor, but because...
Why did it have to be the Human-Human Fruit? And not even some variant Fruit with a Great Buddha form, just the most basic Human-Human Fruit—the very one eaten by that hat-wearing reindeer.
After eating the Fruit, he soon learned its name, and Katsuki began roaring inwardly. He did not expect some absurdly powerful Logia Fruit that would let him embark on the path of spreading seeds... spreading martial might across the world. That kind of cheat was sleeper-car treatment. Considering he had not even seen so much as a hair on that transmigration god, he was definitely stuck with a regular seat. Maybe even a standing ticket.
But even so, couldn't it at least have been an ordinary Zoan Fruit? He could not handle an Ancient Zoan or Mythical Zoan, but a tiger or lion would have been fine! Why did a human like him have to eat the Human-Human Fruit? What kind of joke was this?
After grieving, Katsuki began studying the Human-Human Fruit's abilities with the mindset that one bird in the hand was worth ten in the woods. After all, hadn't someone-or-other said that there were no useless Fruits, only useless users? That reindeer had managed to play all sorts of tricks with the Human-Human Fruit, too. After comforting himself for a while, he finally felt somewhat better.
After a year, he had finally noticed that the Human-Human Fruit seemed to have enhanced every aspect of his body. His eyesight, hearing, recovery ability, and many other traits had improved significantly, finally calming his indignant heart somewhat. He had also discovered something else. Perhaps the Human-Human Fruit had trouble adapting after crossing worlds, but he could still roll around and play in shallow seawater by the beach.
But even with the Human-Human Fruit, it could not be of much help in the short term. Now, he would likely have to face the first great crisis since his transmigration.
If he remembered correctly, Kushina Uzumaki had gone to Konoha partly because Mito Uzumaki did not have long to live and a new Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was needed. The other reason was that the Land of Whirlpools had been destroyed, leaving only a scattered handful of Uzumaki Clan members wandering the ninja world.
"Great Elder."
Katsuki followed Kushina to the Great Elder and knelt respectfully before the current leader of the Uzumaki Clan. Ever since their father, the Uzumaki Clan's chief, had died on the battlefield five years ago, and their mother had also perished in that battle, the Great Elder had been steering the clan's great ship.
The Great Elder looked kindly at the two little children before him. For some reason, his heart, hardened by wind and frost, softened. If his four sons had not died in battle, perhaps his grandsons and granddaughters would have been about this age.
"Do you... want to go to the Land of Fire?" the Great Elder asked softly.
Katsuki blinked his large eyes but said nothing. He was busy acting cute.
"I'm not going." Kushina reacted fiercely. The girl puffed out her cheeks, making her already round face completely round. "I'm not going to any Konoha. I want to stay in the village. I'm an Uzumaki Clan member too. I don't want to leave the village."
Compared with Katsuki, whose wisdom came from being a transmigrator, Kushina had sensed the hidden meaning in the Great Elder's words through a girl's sharp intuition. Tears welled up in her large eyes, which were just like Katsuki's. This small island was the land that held her parents' souls. She did not want to leave.
"Wherever my sister goes, I'll go." Katsuki's answer was clever. It sounded like something a younger brother dependent on his sister would say, but in truth, he genuinely had no idea where he should go.
The destruction of the Uzumaki Clan was nearly inevitable. The stubborn clansmen clung to this island and refused to leave, but they were no match at all for the massive Land of Water.
Defeat and ruin were their only possible end.
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