Uchiha Itachi (Ninja Prodigy)

Year 42 of Konoha, late March.

The school year was about to begin, and the bulletin board outside the Ninja Academy's main gate was already surrounded by a crowd.

A list was posted right in the middle, packed with the names of this year's new students. Parents stood on tiptoe to get a look while children squeezed through gaps in the crowd, chattering noisily.

"Ha ha! I told you my kid would make it!"

"If that guy in the green leotard can get in, there's no reason I can't!"

"No wonder he's the White Fang of Konoha's kid. Kakashi's scores are ridiculously good."

"Akiyama Shun's scores are great, too."

"He trains by himself every day. Of course he'd get good grades."

"..."

A commotion suddenly broke out at the edge of the crowd.

Two oddballs in green leotards were clutching each other and wailing. Their snot was smeared all over one another, but neither seemed to mind.

"Little Guy! To celebrate your successful enrollment, you're going to run five hundred laps around Konoha!"

"Yes, Father! If I can't finish, I'll walk a thousand laps on my hands!"

"Good! You're truly my son, Might Duy!"

After shouting, the father and son actually took off running. Their green figures vanished around the street corner in the blink of an eye.

The parents around them exchanged looks, then tacitly stepped three paces to either side.

Watching this, Kakashi, who was standing beside Hatake Sakumo, didn't know what to say. So this is the formidable rival Father mentioned?

Noticing Kakashi's expression, Hatake Sakumo said nothing. He only chuckled and patted Kakashi on the shoulder.

Nearby, Yuhi Kurenai was on tiptoe, scanning the list row by row and murmuring under her breath.

"Aki... Akiyama..."

"Shun! Your name's here! You got an A in everything! That's amazing!"

When Yuhi Kurenai spotted the name "Akiyama Shun," she was even more excited than when she'd found her own. She pointed at the name on the list and tugged at Akiyama Shun, her face alight with joy.

Akiyama Shun said, "I saw your name, too."

"We'll be in the same year from now on! I'll go tell my fa—"

Before she could finish, Akiyama Shun reached out and covered her mouth.

Yuhi Kurenai's eyes went wide. She let out two muffled sounds.

Akiyama Shun knew what she wanted to say. She was going to ask her father to put them in the same class. After all, Yuhi Shinku was a jonin, firmly part of the elite. Arranging something like that would be easy and perfectly normal. It just wasn't something to say here.

The people around them were all Konoha's unruly common folk, after all. They wouldn't treat you differently just because you had power and influence. They'd simply make sure you got a taste of Konoha's local flavor.

Akiyama Shun wasn't afraid of that, but he was worried Yuhi Kurenai might be affected.

"We'll talk about it at home."

Akiyama Shun lowered his hand from Yuhi Kurenai's mouth and ruffled her hair.

Yuhi Kurenai blinked up at Akiyama Shun and said nothing more. Her father often said Akiyama Shun was clever, and that if she ran into something she didn't understand, she should listen to him. If he told her not to say it now, he must have a good reason.

Akiyama Shun looked back up at the list, a smile spreading across his face.

Perfect!

All those years of effort hadn't been wasted. Ever since he'd learned to walk, he'd trained every day as soon as he opened his eyes. Finally, hard work had paid off!

Now all he had to do was wait for school to officially begin. Then his "rank" would advance to Trainee, and he'd be able to collect his monthly stipend!

Akiyama Shun looked at the transparent panel only he could see.

[Name: Akiyama Shun]

[Ninja: None]

[Summoning Beast: None]

[Secret Scroll: None]

[Artifact: None]

[Rank: None]

[Coins: 225]

That's right. He was a transmigrator, and the process had been simple and brutal: a truck had used him as a speed bump.

When he opened his eyes again, he was already in this world. His parents had been ordinary chunin who died during a mission, leaving him an inheritance just large enough to get by. He had an unremarkable identity, no connections, and no special bloodline. All he had was an utterly ordinary cheat.

Akiyama Shun was familiar with this cheat. It was a lot like a Naruto mobile game he'd played in his previous life, one that claimed to be "truly immersive."

The mechanics were familiar, too. You spent coins to draw, at 160 coins per pull, with a guaranteed reward every ten pulls: fragments for an A-rank or S-rank ninja. The prize pool included all the secret scrolls, summoning beasts, artifacts, and ninjas from Naruto Mobile Game.

There were two ways to get coins. One was to raise your "rank." As soon as you became a "Trainee"—that is, a student at the Ninja Academy—you'd receive a reward of 800 coins each month. The higher your rank, the greater the reward.

The other was daily sign-ins. The sign-in reward wasn't fixed; it increased with your rank, too. At the moment, Akiyama Shun wasn't even a "Trainee," so he didn't get a monthly stipend and earned only one coin per daily sign-in. But once he reached "Trainee" rank, his daily sign-in reward would jump to a whopping 30 coins!

That meant ten pulls a month!

Whenever he'd earned coins before, Akiyama Shun had used them to pull. He'd already done ten pulls and gotten the guaranteed rewards. The results were:

[Secret Scroll]

[Wood Release: Cutting Technique Fragment x1 (1/5)]

[Earth Release: Rock Fall Fragment x4 (4/5)]

[Fire Style: Ghost Lantern x1 (1/5)]

[A-Rank Ninja]

[Hidan Fragment x4 (4/40)]

[B-Rank Ninja]

[Ebisu Fragment x6 (6/40)]

[C-Rank Ninja]

[Yamanaka Ino x2 (2/10)]

The four Hidan fragments had come from the guaranteed reward. He was one Rock Fall fragment short of completing it. In other words, he'd gotten nothing useful so far—just a pile of fragments.

Looking at the things in his inventory gave Akiyama Shun a headache. Sure, when he'd played Naruto Mobile Game, he'd often spent more than three hundred pulls to hit the guarantee, but that had been a game. These were things he'd saved up for five years in real life.

Just looking at this stuff made his head hurt. If he'd gotten anything even remotely useful, he wouldn't have had to work so hard.

Akiyama Shun steadied himself and took a deep breath.

The cheers around him continued. Might Duy and his son had already started running laps around the school, while parents' laughter mingled with the children's chatter.

It was such a lively day, and he'd gotten into school without a hitch. His luck couldn't be bad!

He'd held out for so long. It was about time he treated himself to a pull!

Maybe he'd get the last Rock Fall fragment?

"Draw!"

As soon as Akiyama Shun made up his mind, his 225 coins dropped to a pathetic 65.

The moment he saw the reward, his pupils contracted. It really was a good day. He hadn't gotten a Rock Fall fragment, but he'd gotten something even better: a full ninja card!

S- and A-rank ninjas had to be assembled from fragments, but B- and C-rank ninjas could appear as full cards!

And the one he'd gotten was a C-rank ninja he'd especially liked using back when he played the game!

On the screen was a ninja wearing a smile, with tear troughs at the corners of his eyes, cat ears on his head, and his hands posed like a cat's paws.

[Uchiha Itachi (Ninja Prodigy)]