Land of Fire, Konoha.
Although the village as a whole was relatively peaceful, the smell of blood lingered in the air, and the streets were filled with tension.
It was the thirty-ninth year of Konoha. The Third Kazekage had just disappeared, and Hatake Sakumo had committed suicide not long ago.
Early morning.
The sky had only just begun to brighten. The sun had yet to rise, and mist filled the air.
A child of about five ran down the road. He wore a black short-sleeved cardigan with the Uchiha clan crest embroidered on the back, and a ninja tool pouch hung from his waist. He soon arrived at the open space in front of the Konoha Gate.
"That damn Fugaku! That damn Kakashi!"
"Why the hell should his early graduation have anything to do with me? Why do I have to graduate early too?"
"Fuck, what terrible luck!"
His name was Uchiha Jin, and he was a transmigrator.
Unlike other transmigrators, however, he had neither awakened a system nor received any cheat ability. Fortunately, his bloodline concentration was fairly good, and he could still be considered a genius among the Uchiha.
Unfortunately, he was in the same class as Kakashi!
In the original work, there were no Uchiha who could fight in that class, so when Kakashi graduated early, the Uchiha could only swallow their frustration helplessly.
Now that they had Uchiha Jin, the clan was naturally unwilling to let him lie low.
And so...
The moment Kakashi applied for early graduation, the clan submitted a graduation application for him as well.
The reason was plain and simple.
As Konoha's foremost clan, they absolutely could not be weaker than anyone else.
"Did I really choose the wrong path by trying to keep a low profile?"
"I should've learned from that Obito kid. If I'd pretended to be useless, maybe I wouldn't have had to graduate early."
"But if I pretended to be useless, life in the clan would have been unbearable!"
Uchiha Jin was actually feeling a little regretful now.
When he realized that he had transmigrated into an Uchiha, he had fashioned himself as aloof and arrogant. Since everyone in the Uchiha Clan had personalities like that, only by acting this way could he blend into the crowd.
The counterexample was Obito!
That guy had suffered plenty of ostracism and bullying within the clan. It was just that his mind was too simple, so he had never taken any of it to heart.
Thinking about it, that was probably why the Obito who fell into darkness in the original work became so deranged and cared nothing for the fate of the Uchiha Clan!
But who would have thought?
Although that guy was discriminated against within the clan, he could at least continue muddling through the Ninja Academy for two more years.
What about him?
Just because he was a traditional Uchiha, he had been forced to graduate early.
But pretending to be useless really wouldn't work either. Unlike what he had seen in anime, the real Konoha was a military fortress.
The Barrier Team, which seemed to have no presence in the original work, actually monitored Konoha with terrifying strictness. Training as a ninja wasn't as simple as sitting around meditating; it required frenzied practice on training grounds. He couldn't evade the Barrier Team's surveillance on that basis alone.
Hide his strength? He was dreaming!
Although Konoha had plenty of ninja, the Hokage couldn't possibly keep an eye on every individual. However, the Barrier Team submitted reports at regular intervals. Perhaps only the core regions of the various Ninja Clans had even the slightest chance of offering privacy.
He couldn't just lie flat and become truly useless either, or he definitely wouldn't survive the Third Shinobi World War!
Refuse the clan's arrangements? That was even more impossible.
Although the Uchiha were not as cruel as the Hyuga, unless he could become part of the Hokage faction's inner circle, he had to follow the clan's arrangements. He didn't even have the qualifications to leave the Uchiha.
As Konoha's foremost clan, killing him would be far too easy!
Moreover, the Konoha High Command would not casually interfere in the internal affairs of Ninja Clans. More precisely, an insignificant young Uchiha genius like him was not important enough to make the Konoha High Command choose to intervene.
What Sarutobi Hiruzen needed were super-geniuses like Itachi and Shisui!
Even taking the most pessimistic view, supposing Fugaku softened and let him off, once he lost the Uchiha's protection, he would most likely be captured by Root and turned into expendable material.
One had to understand that by this period, all kinds of research in Root had already begun. What they lacked most were top-grade expendable materials like Uchiha clan members.
Five minutes later.
After reaching the agreed meeting place, Uchiha Jin couldn't help wondering what kind of team he would be assigned to.
A ninja who had graduated early like him naturally couldn't wait for the Ninja Academy to assign him a team. The clan had notified him last night and ordered him to come here early that morning and wait.
Still, there was no point in thinking too much about it.
Someone like him, who had no support within the clan and wasn't talented enough to attract the Konoha High Command's attention, probably wouldn't be assigned to an elite team. So all he could pray for now was not to be sent to a cannon-fodder team.
After all, during wartime, he could be sent to the battlefield at any moment. A cannon-fodder team's odds of survival were far too low.
As he was thinking, a boy walked over.
He looked extremely lazy. As he walked along yawning, he froze when he saw Uchiha Jin, then awkwardly greeted him anyway.
"I'm Nara Shikaichi. Looks like we'll be teammates from now on."
"Uchiha Jin."
In response to the greeting, Uchiha Jin remained aloof and arrogant.
That distinctive pineapple-shaped hair, his perpetually sleepy appearance, and especially the clan crest on his back all showed that the boy before him was a member of the Nara Clan.
Uchiha Jin relaxed when he saw this. The Nara Clan followed Sarutobi Hiruzen, so it seemed this wasn't a cannon-fodder team after all.
Not bad!
Although he was delighted inside, he didn't say anything extra for the sake of maintaining his persona.
Meanwhile.
Nara Shikaichi was extremely helpless in the face of this aloof Uchiha.
He felt that his luck was terrible. His class hadn't been able to form an Ino-Shika-Cho trio in the first place, and his previous teammates had all sorts of problems. Finally, one of them had died a couple of days ago, but after the team was reorganized and reassigned, another hard-to-approach Uchiha had shown up...
It was truly—despairing!
As he lamented, another boy walked over.
When Nara Shikaichi saw him, the corner of his mouth twitched.
The new teammate was even harder to deal with than the Uchiha!
When Uchiha Jin saw the new teammate, he was equally bewildered and stunned.
"Ka! Ka! Shi!"
Uchiha Jin nearly lost his composure, and even his voice became somewhat distorted.
Wasn't this guy a genius of the Hokage faction? Why had he been assigned to a team of this level?
Wait...
Kakashi seemed to have joined quite a few other teams before entering Team Minato.
Later, because too many of his teammates had died, he became a problem child and was assigned to Team Minato. Could it be that he was destined to be sacrificed by Kakashi, the major supporting character?
"Yeah."
Kakashi wore a mask. With his eyes vacant, he merely nodded lightly.
Uchiha Jin was covered in black lines.
He felt as though dark clouds were hanging over his head. The good mood he had gotten from seeing Nara Shikaichi was instantly ruined without a trace.
Kakashi at this point was completely on par with Conan, that bringer of death.
No, he was even worse than Conan!
At least Conan didn't bring misfortune to his relatives and friends. That Kakashi guy, however, was a natural disaster for his teammates!
The original work had mentioned in its flashbacks that Kakashi's initial teammates had suffered devastating casualties.
At this thought, he couldn't help feeling despair.
It seemed that this transmigrator wasn't the protagonist, but a cannon fodder destined to be sacrificed for the protagonist.
[System notification...]
[Despair detected in the host. The Heavenly Fortune Plundering System is at your service.]
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