Wuji and Fu (Part 1)

Sure enough, by the time breakfast rolled around, Ken, Rei, and Yuta were all gone. Only Tomomi was there, preparing breakfast. Of course, Ye Wuji ate with her.

After they finished, Tomomi told him why the three of them weren't around. Just as he'd expected, they'd had some business to take care of and wouldn't be back for a while. Ye Wuji could only nod to show he understood.

Once Tomomi had finished taking care of things, she left too. It seemed she was learning something, and she told Ye Wuji she'd be out every afternoon from now on, returning in the evening. He'd have to make his own lunch. As for breakfast and dinner, she'd still be home, so he shouldn't worry.

When he learned how to use the device, which was pretty much the same as the microwave from his previous life, Ye Wuji was thoroughly stunned. The microwave in front of him looked exactly like one on Earth. The only difference was that its buttons weren't labeled in Chinese, but in Japanese.

After he'd figured it out, Tomomi gave him a few more reminders before heading out. Once she was gone, Ye Wuji was left alone in the enormous house. At last, he had time to investigate everything inside. For the past few nights, he'd been too preoccupied with the Hero Water to pay much attention to the furnishings. And since there had been other people around, he hadn't looked into anything.

Now that he was alone and had the Hero Water, Ye Wuji felt he could finally set some of his worries aside. He could focus on training, and he had time to look into other things as well.

After walking around the entire compound, Ye Wuji realized just how large the place was. It had four courtyards. He had one to himself, Ukyo's family had another, and Yuta and his siblings had a third. When Ye Wuji went to check out the last one, he discovered it was specifically set aside for training. It was full of all kinds of weapons, as well as targets for practicing with throwing weapons.

Ye Wuji was delighted to find the training yard. At least now he had somewhere to practice. Of course, he didn't start training right away.

He also discovered that every occupied room had air conditioning. The courtyard's common room even had a refrigerator. He took a closer look and saw that electricity for the refrigerator and air conditioners came through power lines, and the rooms were lit by electric lights.

After looking around, Ye Wuji decided that if someone stayed here without going outside, they wouldn't even feel like they were in the world of Naruto. It was far too modern.

He examined the construction of some of the electrical appliances. Certain details were different, but the overall design was remarkably similar.

After that, Ye Wuji stopped thinking about it. Judging by how modern everything was, he wouldn't have to adapt to a completely unfamiliar way of life. He was starting to feel lucky he'd been reincarnated into this world. If he'd ended up in an ancient feudal society, it would have driven him crazy. Once you were used to modern life, suddenly finding yourself somewhere without any modern conveniences was hard to bear. A feudal society with no electric lights, television, or entertainment would be unbearably dull.

Ye Wuji had read plenty of stories in his old life. Back then, reincarnation had been all the rage. Even if you didn't read online fiction, you'd still know the term. After all, nine out of ten shows on television seemed to be about reincarnation. In the stories he'd read, ending up in a high-martial-arts world was one thing—you could always train. But if you ended up in a low-martial-arts feudal society, that was another matter. Most of those who reincarnated were shut-ins, and he felt sorry for them. Somehow, they never seemed to have any trouble adjusting. As for Ye Wuji, he knew he wouldn't be able to stand it.

As these unrelated thoughts wandered through his mind, Ye Wuji made his way to the training yard. After looking over all the weapons, he decided he should start practicing with throwing weapons—in other words, throwing a ninja's Kunai. He'd practiced for a while before, but he could only hit most of his targets, not every one, and there were some angles he couldn't hit at all. He needed to work on all of that. No ninja could afford to be bad at throwing Kunai. At the very least, you had to be able to throw one past a teammate without hitting him. If you weren't skilled enough, you might miss the enemy and hit your own teammate instead. Now that would be a joke.

So Ye Wuji spent the entire day practicing his aim. After dinner, he went back to bed. Throwing Kunai all day was exhausting. There really were no shortcuts. Even if you were a genius, you still had to train hard.

Lying in bed, Ye Wuji slowly trained his chakra. He wasn't worried about anyone finding out. They might assume he'd learned how to cultivate chakra from Ukyo. After all, samurai had to train their chakra too.

As he practiced, Ye Wuji thought about the changes in his room. So they really did suspect me. I was so careful, and they still got suspicious. I guess they really are ninjas—never letting a single clue slip by.

He thought about how, after returning to his room, he'd checked the trap he'd set before leaving that morning: a strand of hair left casually in place. That wouldn't make anyone suspicious; people lost hair all the time. He'd gotten the idea from detective shows he'd watched in his old life. In those, people would place a hair across the door, but Ye Wuji had tucked his between some books instead. Before he left, he'd made sure to memorize its position. When he came back and checked, the strand had shifted slightly. It was a tiny movement, but he'd noticed.

Since this was a world of ninjas, Ye Wuji hadn't put the hair on the door. It wouldn't have worked, and might even have backfired. Before bed, he'd also spent some time reading. It was a book about learning to read, the kind that wouldn't attract anyone's attention.

The scroll he'd hidden among the books hadn't been found either. As for the Hero Water, he'd made it look like a decoration by putting some attractive stones in the bottle and leaving it on the table. That had been a gamble: he was betting that the others wouldn't recognize the Hero Water. It looked no different from ordinary water. He'd inspected it beforehand and hadn't noticed any smell. As for whether it gave off chakra, he couldn't remember the movie mentioning anything about that.

Ye Wuji hadn't even considered hiding the items somewhere else. He'd left the ninja's pouch in his room and used it like an ordinary bag, with a few odds and ends inside. The Kunai Minato had given him, of course, was on his person.

Everything he'd done had been a gamble. Now it seemed he'd only drawn suspicion, and no one had come to confront him directly. They'd already searched his room, so as long as he kept his head down for a while, no one would pay attention to him again. Ye Wuji knew hiding the items would have been safer, but he simply had nowhere to hide them. In this world, ninjas' abilities had to be rated as highly as possible. He couldn't count on his enemies making mistakes. With his current skill at hiding things, they'd definitely be discovered. After all, Ye Wuji didn't know how to use things like barriers yet.

The saying that the most dangerous place was the safest was complete nonsense. People only said that when they had nowhere to run and needed to comfort themselves. If you had a chance to get far away, where no one could find you, would you stay on enemy territory? Only those with no other choice clung to that saying. It was nothing more than hoping the enemy would make a mistake.

Ye Wuji knew he was hoping for the same thing, but he had no choice if he wanted to deal with the enemies waiting for him in the future. He wasn't some high-IQ genius like Shikamaru, and he didn't have some godlike Kekkei Genkai. If he didn't seize a few opportunities, Madara and the others would eventually destroy him. Still, he couldn't help wondering whether getting the Hero Water and the scroll had been a little too easy.

It almost seemed as if someone had deliberately let him get them. But if someone had wanted him to have them, refusing to take them might have made that person act on the spot. Ye Wuji had only thought of this later, when he looked back on what had happened. At the time, he hadn't given it much thought.

For now, it seemed Ye Wuji had passed the test. With that thought, he drifted off to sleep.

Several days passed without anyone disturbing him. With every day that went by, Ye Wuji felt a little safer. Judging by the situation, once the poison in the Daimyo was cured and his health recovered, everything should be fine. By then, Ukyo ought to be back. With Ukyo's strength and standing, no one should keep monitoring this place.

With that in mind, Ye Wuji spent the next few days training hard and studying characters. Although Konan had taught him all the characters, and his twenty years of speaking Chinese made some of the Japanese characters familiar, he still had to study seriously if he wanted to master them. As he studied, he encouraged himself: he was working this hard so he'd be able to read the Scroll of Sealing in the future. He also read other books, such as simple guides to medicinal herbs.

Forget the other countries' sealing scrolls; Ye Wuji was determined to get Konoha's. He was also set on obtaining ninjutsu from several villages. It was all for his plans for the future. At the moment, he only had a rough grasp of the plot of Naruto, and trying to act without affecting the original storyline was much harder than he'd thought. For instance, he wanted to save the Fourth Hokage and his wife, Kushina, while still making Naruto the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. That was a contradiction. If Naruto didn't become the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, who knew what would happen? But if he did, then the Fourth Hokage and Kushina would have to be sacrificed.

If he didn't care about all that, it would be simple. He'd only have to warn the Fourth Hokage when Masked Obito attacked. With Konoha's resources, Obito wouldn't be able to release the Nine-Tails, and Kushina would remain its Jinchuriki.

But what if changing things made Madara or Black Zetsu launch some plan ahead of time? Then it would all be over. From the moment he'd arrived in the world of Naruto, Ye Wuji had never thought he'd become its savior. Nor did he want to be one. He'd leave that job to Naruto. As for himself, he could just help from the sidelines. Most importantly, Ye Wuji didn't think he could beat Madara. And Madara was only a pawn in the end. Whoever wanted to deal with Kaguya Otsutsuki could do it themselves. Ye Wuji had no interest in fighting someone that powerful.