Konoha as It Is Now

After washing up, Hyuga Shinichi returned to his room. He lay on his bed without turning on the light, gazing at the dim ceiling as all sorts of thoughts filled his mind.

When he closed his eyes, Hyuga Nikku's gentle smile lingered in his mind, impossible to shake. It held helplessness and resignation, along with approval of him as a member of the Main House. Only after an unknown amount of time did Hyuga Shinichi finally drift off to sleep.

Hyuga Nikku's room was much the same. When he saw Hyuga Shinichi display a talent for fist techniques, he had, for a moment, seen his former self: using the Gentle Fist to leave many of the Main House members his age unable to hold their heads up, before being punished with the Caged Bird.

Hyuga Nikku usually showed little respect for the clan's elders or for the useless members of the Main House. Even so, he silently carried out his duty to protect the clan head, his older brother Hyuga Nimitsu. He had no complaints about it, because he believed his brother was more capable than he was.

If he had to manage the clan's affairs, Hyuga Nikku couldn't do as good a job as Hyuga Nimitsu.

What Hyuga Nikku didn't know was that Hyuga Nimitsu also felt his younger brother was more talented than he was. When it came to the Gentle Fist and the Byakugan, he was nowhere near as good as his brother.

After all these years, Hyuga Nikku had long since grown used to his status as a member of the Branch House. His resentment was no longer because he belonged to the Branch House and had the Caged Bird seal placed on him.

Just like the day before, Hyuga Shinichi got up early and headed to the training ground, planning to continue his training.

He saw a group of clansmen practicing movements demonstrated by two elders, while several junior clan officials patrolled among them, correcting their movements and explaining the key points from time to time.

Hyuga Shinichi could tell that the clansmen were all practicing Taiji Fist. He didn't go over to disturb them. He bowed to an elder who noticed him and wished him good morning, then went to the lakeside alone to begin his training for the day.

After finishing his morning training, Hyuga Shinichi wandered around the village's commercial district. On the way, he ran into Inuzuka Gai and Aburame Tomohiro shopping. They greeted him, then both said they had something to do and hurried off.

Hyuga Shinichi lowered the hand he'd raised in greeting.

"Man, what are those two up to, acting so suspiciously?"

Come to think of it, Nawaki had come looking for me yesterday. I hadn't known at the time because I was in the meeting room. Later, a gate guard found me and said Nawaki wanted me to visit him at his house around noon today.

"Nawaki didn't say what he wanted me for, either. He's being mysterious, too. Oh, right—I broke the wooden sword I borrowed from him. I should buy him something to make up for it."

He stopped in front of what looked like a decent weapons shop. Nawaki had recently started practicing shuriken throwing, so he'd buy him a larger ninja tool pouch.

He browsed around the weapons shop but didn't find what he'd planned to buy. He did find a nice ninja tool pouch, though. After paying and leaving the shop, he saw that it was still early, so he continued wandering around the village.

Konoha's facilities weren't yet as developed as they were in the sixty-fourth year of Konoha, when the anime began. It was now the twenty-eighth year of Konoha, thirty-six years earlier.

By Naruto's time, they already had refrigerators and televisions. Hyuga Shinichi hadn't even seen any electrical appliances yet. It was as backward as the remote countryside where he'd lived as a child in his previous life.

He remembered that in the manga, when the Second Shinobi World War began in the thirty-sixth year of Konoha, Amegakure already had power poles, and its buildings were somewhat industrialized. Pipes even carried wastewater out into the sea. That meant electrical appliances wouldn't appear for another eight years or so.

Smartphones wouldn't begin to emerge until Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, meaning they wouldn't appear until before the eighty-third year of Konoha.

That was still about fifty-five years away. No matter how much he wanted to use a phone, the technology simply wasn't there yet.

By then, he'd be a man in his sixties. What would he need a phone for? To record videos of himself doing square dancing with the old ladies and post them online to document his retirement?

"Man, there's still the Second Shinobi World War and the Third Shinobi World War to get through before then. Who knows if I'll even live that long?"

Konoha had taken part in both the Second and Third Shinobi World Wars, fighting several countries each time. The battlefronts stretched over vast distances, and many people died. After the Third Shinobi World War ended, Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi took responsibility and resigned as Hokage.

His already hazy memories of his previous life brought Nawaki's face to mind as he thought of all the people who had died.

"Nawaki seems to have died in the Second Shinobi World War. He stepped on a trap and got blown up, too. I'll have to keep an eye on him when the time comes. What a fool. He's such a pain."

And then there were Gai and Tomohiro. He'd never seen either of them in the manga or anime in his previous life. Maybe they'd never appeared, or maybe they'd died on the battlefield.

Although he'd been reincarnated into Naruto, after living in this world for two years, he'd felt that the people around him were all living beings, not just fictional characters from a manga or anime.

He smiled, stopped dwelling on it, and continued wandering around.

When he reached the Hokage administration building, he saw many ninja teams accepting missions. He thought that teaming up with Gai and Tomohiro would be a good idea. All three of them had excellent scouting abilities. As long as they had an information advantage, their chances of completing missions would improve greatly, as would their odds of surviving on the battlefield.

If he remembered correctly, Nawaki would eventually become a student of Orochimaru, who would later become one of the Konoha Sannin. He wouldn't have time to team up with them.

Speaking of the Konoha Sannin, he'd only met Tsunade so far. He hadn't seen the other two yet.

Orochimaru wasn't as cold and sinister as he'd become later, but after every mission, he'd head straight for his laboratory.

He was probably just doing ordinary research. The village hadn't started researching Wood Style yet, and he hadn't experienced the deaths of several people close to him or felt how fragile life was. He wouldn't be conducting those inhumane experiments yet.

But that was just how science worked. Even without experiencing those things, Orochimaru would eventually come into contact with those taboos. Progress required the pursuit of scientific knowledge.

When Jiraiya didn't have a mission, he was probably off somewhere gathering material, which was why Shinichi never saw him. And what kind of material was he looking for? Obviously, it was material for Icha Icha Paradise, the book Kakashi, the Sixth Hokage, would later enjoy.

How did Shinichi know? Because he could already hear many ninja discussing a mission to find and capture a peeping tom at the bathhouse. The target was described as having a head of white hair.

Jiraiya probably hadn't started writing Icha Icha Paradise yet. Shinichi remembered that it had been published when Jiraiya was in his forties.

Jiraiya had already met the Toad Sage and learned of the prophecy. He knew he would write books in the future, so he was probably thinking about how to write a novel... maybe.

All right, he'd stop making excuses for Jiraiya.

Jiraiya was only fifteen now. He was probably just sneaking peeks, and he was as lecherous as his teacher, Hiruzen Sarutobi. But Hiruzen Sarutobi was much more skilled about it. Using a crystal ball and the Telescope Technique, he could watch what was happening throughout the entire village.

Near the end of the Second Shinobi World War, Jiraiya met Nagato and the others. Hoping to make up for the harm caused by the war, he took in those war orphans until they were old enough to look after themselves.

When he saw Nagato's Rinnegan, he believed Nagato was the Child of Prophecy spoken of by the Toad Sage. He took them all on as his students, then drew inspiration from Nagato to write The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi, which later led to Icha Icha Paradise.