A Truly Wonderful World

Gojo Yoru was no stranger to this feeling.

Before a person suddenly died, their body would give warnings.

When someone stayed up too late, they sometimes could not sleep at all. Instead, they became more and more wired, their mouth dry and throat parched, their body temperature rising.

Even worse, their heart would start racing. The sensation of panic and tightness in the chest created the terrifying fear that, once they fell asleep, they might never wake up again.

Gojo Yoru had experienced this feeling many times in his previous life. He had simply been young and never taken it seriously.

Now that feeling had returned, and Gojo Yoru could not help but feel afraid.

Without the slightest hesitation, Gojo Yoru immediately got up to drink some water. He did not dare gulp it down, only taking small sips.

After the dryness in his mouth and throat eased slightly, Gojo Yoru carried the kettle back to his room, lay down again, and tried to empty his mind so his heartbeat could return to normal.

However, no matter what he did, Gojo Yoru's heartbeat did not slow in the slightest.

In the silence of the night, Gojo Yoru's room sounded as though someone were beating a drum.

When he lifted his clothes, his pounding chest seemed to reveal the heart inside, as though it wanted to burst out of Gojo Yoru's body.

His overstimulated mind, along with his periodically rising temperature and worsening thirst, left Gojo Yoru unable to sleep. He could only keep boiling water and drinking it.

Gojo Yoru even took several cold showers, but nothing eased.

This situation still had not disappeared by noon the next day.

Not counting the half-hour nap he had taken yesterday, Gojo Yoru had gone a full thirty hours without sleep.

Yet Gojo Yoru did not feel uncomfortable at all.

In his previous life, after staying awake for so long, even if he were mentally excited, he would still have felt the nerves in his brain stretched taut, his eyes bloodshot, perhaps even congested.

But in this life, Gojo Yoru had none of those symptoms.

Once he calmed down, he even discovered that his energy was incredibly abundant, like a perpetual-motion machine.

Clearly, it was the effect of his heart, that blood-pumping organ, beating so violently.

This condition lasted for a full seven days.

Gojo Yoru also suffered from insomnia for seven days, not closing his eyes for nearly two hundred hours.

What was more, during those seven days, Gojo Yoru did not eat a thing. He only drank large amounts of water.

It was not that he did not want to eat. He simply could not eat at all.

Miraculously, despite going seven days without food, his body had not changed in the slightest. He remained full of energy.

Gojo Yoru's mood gradually shifted from initial fear to excitement.

If this had been sudden death, then after seven sleepless days, he would have long since been lying dead.

But he had not died, which meant it was not sudden death. Instead, his body was undergoing some unknown change.

Perhaps... his Golden Finger had arrived!

Could it be an unknown Kekkei Genkai of the Gojo Family awakening in his generation?

Or perhaps it was a special ability that had crossed over with him from his previous life, perhaps even the main reason he had transmigrated?

The feeling of impending sudden death continued until noon on August 28th, Year 30 of Konoha, before finally fading away.

"Finally—"

When his heartbeat returned to a normal rhythm and the feverish temperature and dry, parched feeling vanished, Gojo Yoru had not even finished sighing in relief or checked whether his body had changed when his vision suddenly went black. He collapsed onto the bed and fell into a deep sleep.

He did not know how long he slept. Only the hunger of stomach acid churning dragged Gojo Yoru out of his deep slumber.

"So tired..."

After opening his eyes, Gojo Yoru had no desire to get up at all.

It had been a long time since he had felt the exhaustion of not getting enough sleep.

If the ceiling and his surroundings had not reminded him otherwise, Gojo Yoru would have thought the past six years had all been nothing more than a long dream.

Turning to pull open the bedside drawer, Gojo Yoru took out a box containing two rows of six pills. They were the Naruto World's compressed biscuits and mana potions—Ration Pills.

One was not enough. Gojo Yoru ate three Ration Pills in one go before his hollowed-out body finally regained some strength.

He got out of bed and stood before a full-length mirror. After taking off his clothes, he turned in place to inspect his reflection. Once he found no changes to his appearance, he immediately sat cross-legged and used the method for refining Chakra to see whether anything inside him had changed.

Thump—

A sound like a war drum exploded beside Gojo Yoru's ears, inside his mind, and in the depths of his soul.

At that moment, Gojo Yoru's gaze seemed to achieve inner vision, arriving in the chamber where the human heart resided.

Inside that "chamber" was a black heart, beating with a thump-thump.

The image flashed by in an instant.

Gojo Yoru abruptly opened his eyes, his face filled with shock.

If he had not seen wrong, that heart seemed to be... black?

That couldn't be my heart, could it?! Gojo Yoru thought.

To confirm his guess, Gojo Yoru closed his eyes again and refined Chakra.

But the inner-vision image from before never appeared again.

Instead, just as Physical Energy and Mental Energy were about to fuse, a special energy suddenly surged from his cells and forcefully joined the fusion of the two energies.

Then, a strand of Black Chakra formed from the fusion of all three energies appeared in Gojo Yoru's abdomen.

"Black Chakra... could this be my Golden Finger?"

Gojo Yoru opened his eyes once more, then formed hand seals and tried to mobilize that strand of Black Chakra.

The Black Chakra seemed no different from ordinary Chakra. Drawn by the hand seals, it flowed through his meridians into Gojo Yoru's right palm.

Perhaps the amount was insufficient, or perhaps Gojo Yoru's Chakra control had not yet reached the required level, but that strand of Black Chakra failed to manifest outside his body.

And after only a few seconds, that strand of Black Chakra vanished inside Gojo Yoru's body.

In such a short time, Gojo Yoru could not possibly discover what was special about Black Chakra.

So, Gojo Yoru closed his eyes again and continued refining Chakra.

The special energy surged forth again, mixing with Physical Energy and Mental Energy to form strand after strand of Black Chakra.

After Gojo Yoru could no longer extract Physical Energy and Mental Energy from his cells, the special energy rushed straight toward the main core and merged into the blue vortex.

Like ink spreading across white paper, part of his Chakra gradually changed from blue to black.

By the time Gojo Yoru could no longer extract the special energy from his cells, one-third of the Chakra in his body had turned black.

"Let's see what effect you really have!"

Gojo Yoru stood up. With both anticipation and unease, he formed hand seals, mobilized the Black Chakra in his body, and began to perform a technique.

Since refining his first strand of Chakra at the age of three, Gojo Yoru had already gained a basic grasp of the Three Body Techniques taught at the Ninja Academy. During this break, he had also begun training in C-rank Five Element Ninjutsu.

Naturally, he could not use Five Element Ninjutsu at home, so Gojo Yoru wanted to use Black Chakra to perform the Three Body Techniques.

The result was... absolutely nothing!

He could not create a Phantom Clone, and his body's form did not change in any way...

Rather than being alarmed, Gojo Yoru was delighted by this discovery.

His inability to perform techniques proved that this Black Chakra was different from ordinary Chakra. The reason he had not discovered anything unusual was simply because its "special effect" was deeply hidden.

And mystery meant... power!

Gojo Yoru swallowed another Ration Pill, then opened the glass door to the balcony. Looking out at the dimly brightening sky, he formed hand seals with both hands, about to turn into an afterimage and leap outside.

Suddenly, Gojo Yoru's movements paused slightly. Recalling how he had successfully moved Black Chakra into his palm earlier, he mobilized the Black Chakra again and gathered it in his feet, preparing to use the D-rank Konoha Body Flicker Technique also taught at the Ninja Academy.

Just as when he tried to perform the Three Body Techniques, Gojo Yoru did not turn into an afterimage and vanish. However, he felt as if his feet had stepped into empty air.

Looking down, Gojo Yoru's pupils suddenly contracted sharply.

His feet looked as though they had sunk into a swamp, his lower legs submerged in the balcony.

Yet Gojo Yoru felt no squeezing or enclosing sensation around his feet, nor did his body continue sinking. It was as though his feet had not sunk into the balcony at all, but fused with it instead.

Gojo Yoru slowly lifted his leg and pulled his right foot out of the balcony.

Staring at the balcony floor, which bore no indentation whatsoever, Gojo Yoru could no longer control his expression. He lowered his head and covered his face with both hands, his shoulders trembling as he let out muffled sounds that could have been sobs or suppressed laughter.

After a long while, Gojo Yoru finally lowered his hands. He raised his head to look at Konoha, beautiful as a painting beneath the morning glow, as if seeing the place where he had lived for six years for the first time. His mouth was still split into a grin, and he could not help spreading his arms as he laughed and sighed, "What a beautiful village. What a... wonderful world!"