Immortality

Back in the days of the Nine-Tails Incident.

Obito, masquerading as Uchiha Madara, seized the moment of Kushina's labor to unseal the Nine-Tails and wreak havoc in Konoha.

Although the Fourth Hokage and his wife eventually stopped the beast at the cost of their lives, the incident still resulted in significant casualties.

The parents of Iruka, the father of Kurenai Yuhi, and many other elite ninja perished that night.

Beyond that, a massive number of homes were destroyed, leading to heavy civilian losses.

Among them was the three-member Kimura family.

It was then that the soul of a modern person transmigrated into the body of that infant.

The body, which had already completely ceased to function, slowly regained its vitality.

The soul from another world clearly felt the new body slowly reviving, and realized he had arrived in the ninja world, bearing the name Kimura Takuya.

At only one year old, Kimura Takuya was rescued from the ruins and taken to the Konoha Orphanage.

Konoha, having suffered the attack, lost its two greatest high-end combat assets: the Fourth Hokage and the Nine-Tails jinchuriki.

It also lost a large number of elite ninja, leaving its strength greatly diminished.

Naturally, life in the orphanage was far from easy.

Difficult living conditions were secondary; the real headache was the dark forces within Konoha, which reached their peak of unchecked growth during this period.

With the Hokage faction weakened, Danzo of Root took the opportunity to expand aggressively.

He rounded up children of appropriate age for secret training in Root to bolster his forces.

The primary source for these children was the Konoha Orphanage.

These civilian orphans, unclaimed by any kin, were selected and taken to Root under the pretext of becoming the "roots" of Konoha, protecting the village from the shadows.

In reality, it was nothing more than a "gu-poison" ritual designed to cultivate killing machines loyal only to Danzo.

First, extinguish all emotion; then, destroy individual will; finally, exert total control through sealing jutsu.

Especially regarding that final sealing jutsu, Kimura Takuya was certainly not naive enough to believe it was merely meant to prevent Root ninja from badmouthing Danzo.

If a seal can be triggered passively, would it be difficult to trigger it actively?

To evade Root, Kimura Takuya deliberately displayed extremely low ninjutsu aptitude once he reached the appropriate age.

The chakra refinement technique that others learned in a day or two was something Kimura Takuya pretended to struggle with for over ten days just to extract a tiny amount.

Deemed to have abysmal talent as a ninja, Root let this "waste" go, allowing him to return to a life as a commoner.

In truth, Kimura Takuya had grasped the chakra refinement technique the moment he laid eyes on it, for he could feel the death and rebirth of every single cell in his body.

Just as when he first transmigrated, he could sense the renewal of every cell within that tiny corpse.

Thus, controlling his learning progress to deceive the sensory ninja of Root was effortless for him.

And so, he was rejected by Root and released, but he could no longer return to the orphanage.

Thinking he could stay in the Konoha Orphanage until he was eighteen?

That was pure dreaming.

Even the protagonist Naruto didn't get that kind of treatment!

At only five years old, Kimura Takuya was forced to start making a living.

Fortunately, ninja are quite adept at infrastructure; the destroyed civilian housing had long since been restored.

Although his family assets were gone, he was at least allocated a house.

A small, empty house became the starting point for Kimura Takuya's new life in this world.

Oh, right!

There was also the chakra refinement technique he had "stolen" from Root.

While it was a common, dime-a-dozen skill, without a proper ninja to teach you, a commoner would be completely lost even if they held the manual.

Finally, there was the ability brought by his transmigration.

Kimura Takuya called this ability Immortality, though he had never tested if he could truly die.

He had only tested it with ordinary cuts and scrapes; while it would take a normal person a week or so to fully scab over and heal, Kimura Takuya could recover as if nothing had happened in less than a night.

This recovery ability wasn't incredibly powerful, but it was dozens of times faster than an ordinary person.

If such an ability were discovered by Root and reached the ears of Orochimaru, wouldn't that be a disaster?

Although Orochimaru had long since defected, Root had actually maintained contact with him all along.

Fearing he would be sliced up for research, Kimura Takuya headed straight for Konoha Hospital.

He took odd jobs at the hospital, cleaning floors and tidying up beds.

Sometimes, he would also take on jobs caring for patients.

Just like that, Kimura Takuya survived.

Within a year, relying on his "meager" ninja talent, he managed to learn basic medical ninjutsu.

The acting director felt that although his chakra refinement was "slow," his ability to learn medical ninjutsu indicated that his chakra control was exceptional.

Medical ninjas do not necessarily require massive amounts of chakra; rather, they demand a much higher level of precision in chakra control.

Therefore, the director recommended Kimura Takuya for enrollment in the Ninja Academy, with the plan to recruit him into Konoha Hospital as a medical ninja under a special talent program upon graduation.

Kimura Takuya had no objections to this; after all, learning medical ninjutsu was the perfect cover for his own abilities.

Furthermore, in both his past life and this one, being a doctor was a respectable profession.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have attended medical school in his previous life, even if he had been "shipped" to the ninja world by a strange truck right after graduation.

However, his medical knowledge was leagues ahead of this world.

So, in this world, a medical student transitioning into a medical ninja was a natural fit.

It was like an old man unscrewing a bottle cap—a perfect match.

But Kimura Takuya was certainly not going to be satisfied with just that.

"Sickly weakling and dead weight, sickly weakling and dead weight!"

"Hahaha, what a perfect pair! Truly, birds of a feather flock together; trash always piles up in the same place!"

"Hey, sickly weakling, we have the taijutsu exam this afternoon. Can you be in my group? I want a guaranteed pass, hahaha!"

"And you, dead weight, you're really lucky this time. We aren't testing ninjutsu, we're testing taijutsu. You actually have a chance to graduate!

You're hanging so close to the sickly weakling—don't tell me you're trying to secure a pass too?

Ha, I've caught you! You're quite the cunning one, aren't you!"

Troublesome brats.

Sixth grade, Class 10 of the Ninja Academy.

A group of civilian ninjas with the worst talent.

Kimura Takuya looked around; aside from Lee, they were all small fry.

As for where Neji and Tenten were?

One was a genius from a major clan, and the other was a wealthy girl; naturally, they were both in Class 1.

Just as the protagonists Naruto and Sasuke, along with the other main characters of their year, were all in the first grade of Class 5.

Come to think of it, Lee had been specially recruited into his squad by Guy.

As "small fry" of Class 10, they wouldn't even have a regular jonin as a team leader; they would only be assigned a chunin.

In the tenth class of any grade at the academy, dreaming of having an elite jonin like Guy as a teacher was pure fantasy.

Facing these small fry, Kimura Takuya had no desire to engage; in fact, he almost wanted to laugh.

He held back Lee, who was about to argue, and continued eating.

But while Kimura Takuya didn't want to bother with the small fry, someone else was furious and itching to give them a beating.

"That's too much! Shut your mouths! Takuya-kun could take on ten of you by himself!"

Ino, holding her bento, stood at the classroom door, ready to charge in and pummel the small fry.

She was only held back by the duo of Shikamaru and Choji.

"Ino, don't be impulsive. Even though they're just from Class 10, they're a grade above us. We don't have the numbers advantage either, so calm down."

"Crunch, crunch. Yeah, don't be impulsive, crunch."

Shikamaru wore an expression of pure headache, his hands restraining the furious Ino.

Choji was helping hold Ino back as well, though his other hand was still busy pouring potato chips into his mouth.

"Hey, you little brats. Daring to look down on the Five Tigers of Class 10? Are you looking for death?"