It Was All the World's Fault

On the second night since arriving in this world, Mizuki didn't feel the emptiness and loneliness of home until he returned. The weight of having no one to confide in about his secrets, and the alienation of being in an unfamiliar place, had eluded him last night.

"Then, I guess it's time to deal with the danger lurking inside me~" In the bathroom, Mizuki let the warm water pour over him from the showerhead as he stared at the terrifying tattoo-like pattern on his arm. "A Cursed Seal? Is it a cheat, or a death warrant?"

It would be a lie to say he hadn't given the thing Orochimaru had bestowed on him as if it were a joke a second thought. In the original anime, Mizuki had been unable to resist the temptation and had taken a desperate gamble. But judging by how things turned out for him, this thing clearly couldn't be trusted. The Cursed Seal was dormant and completely impossible to activate. With his abilities, he probably couldn't do anything about it. In fact, across the entire Shinobi World, only a handful of people besides a research maniac like Orochimaru could understand it, let alone use it. And his was only a prototype, with side effects severe enough to kill him. Compared to the Heaven Curse Mark and Earth Curse Mark possessed by Mitaraishi Anko, Kimimaro, and Sasuke Uchiha, calling his the "Tiger Curse Mark" was far too generous. The others could at least be used, and as long as their power wasn't overused, they were not particularly harmful. Their users could transform into their second forms without a care. His, on the other hand, was like a death warrant that accelerated the exhaustion of his life force—a one-use ticket to an early grave. It had no practical value at all.

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From that perspective, aside from forcibly activating and suppressing the Cursed Seal with overwhelming power, the only solution was to acquire extraordinary vitality and regenerative abilities to offset the damage. There were examples of such abilities throughout the Shinobi World: Naruto Uzumaki and the powerful constitutions and life force of the Uzumaki Clan, for instance, or Kabuto Yakushi's artificially modified rapid regeneration. But the most effective method was undoubtedly transplanting Hashirama Cells. They were an ultimate weapon: Danzo used them to heal his injuries and fuse with the Sharingan; Obito and Madara used them to obtain the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and Rinnegan; and Tenzō used them to gain Wood Release, among other things.

Unfortunately, none of those methods had anything to do with Mizuki. He couldn't count on any of them.

"This thing is a land mine. I don't know the specifics, but even if I don't use the formula Orochimaru gave me to activate it, there's no guarantee it won't suddenly erupt under certain circumstances and drain me dry. I need to deal with it as soon as possible."

He wiped the condensation from the mirror and looked at himself. His appearance did seem a little different from before. His hair was just too short. Maybe it would look better later. Would glasses suit him? He thought about it, then decided against it. Kabuto wore glasses too. It wouldn't do.

After his bath, Mizuki reclined comfortably on his bed. Unlike the night before, he finally had time to let his mind wander before falling asleep. He picked up a book and glanced at it. "Not Icha Icha Paradise?"

It turned out to be some kind of heroic tale, The Tale of the Gallant, or something like that. He hadn't expected even a villain to have heroic fantasies. Konoha's education system was pretty successful.

Mizuki casually tossed the book aside, leaned back on the bed, and extended his left hand. He silently circulated his chakra, and a pale-blue orb of light appeared.

"Being a ninja... Is this what created this absurd world? It's incredible."

For a transmigrator who had arrived in the world of Naruto, their real thoughts might be completely different from what everyone expected. If you treated this world as nothing more than an anime to pass the time, there were plenty of unclear details, but no one would bother to examine them closely. But once you were living in a world like this, you couldn't help thinking about a lot of things.

There was a saying in his previous life that put it well: "The biggest pancake is still smaller than the pan it's cooked in." The natives of the Shinobi World were limited by their perspective. They treated things Mizuki considered outright miracles as everyday facts, taking them completely for granted. As a transmigrator, Mizuki felt his greatest advantages—aside from the impractical perks of his situation—were his god's-eye perspective and his foreknowledge, which gave him an overwhelming edge in information. Those were his most reliable assets. If he truly had a cheat, the first thing he would worry about wouldn't be anything else. It would be the cheat itself. In any world, nothing was gained for no reason. An inexplicable cheat could only mean he had already paid a terrible price, even if he didn't know it or didn't care from the moment he was born until the day he died.

"Chakra, the source of a ninja's power. Countless ninjas chase powerful techniques to satisfy their desires, yet they ignore the treasure right under their noses." Mizuki couldn't help looking down on all ninjas—except genuine geniuses like the Second Hokage and Orochimaru.

Legend had it that chakra had not originally existed in the Shinobi World, and that ninjas had originated with the Sage of Six Paths. Based on what he knew from his previous life, it was possible to confirm that chakra had originated with Kaguya Otsutsuki. But Madara Uchiha's claims about the God Tree during the final battle were not credible. A God Tree shouldn't have needed to arise in the physical world, much less bear fruit that produced chakra.

According to what he had learned in his previous life, in a closed environment without an influx of "negative entropy," entropy would continually increase, and the entire system would gradually descend into chaos and ruin. Once entropy reached its maximum, the world would be over. People died, and so did worlds. It was impossible to understand how the Shinobi World could spontaneously give rise to a God Tree, bear fruit, and then have Kaguya Otsutsuki eat it. That was as ridiculous as forging a knife, handing it to a stranger, and having them kill you with it. Unless the world's underlying structure was incredibly vast and sturdy, with an exceptionally high tolerance for power—and these supernatural abilities were merely normal fluctuations within it.

But the thousand-year history of the Shinobi World proved that impossible. No one had ever reached the level of the Sage of Six Paths. That made the events in the latest movie far more credible. The world had most likely been invaded and plundered by an advanced power from beyond it. The God Tree was the means, and its fruit was the plundered prize. Kaguya Otsutsuki was the thief, and the Sage of Six Paths was the one who ultimately gained the most. As for his motives, that remained unknown. But his act of dividing Yin-Yang and the five elements was highly suspicious. The result was that, aside from himself, the only way to achieve the most powerful Yin-Yang Release was through the God Tree—that is, the Outer Path.

Even so, the world was already in utter chaos. Never mind the reincarnations of Indra and Asura's chakra, who couldn't even rest in peace after death. The Second Hokage had actually created Impure World Reincarnation, a technique that blurred the boundary between life and death. Then there was the Dead Demon Consuming Seal, which could borrow the Shinigami—an entity of unknown nature—to attack souls directly. And in the end, there were all those large-scale resurrection techniques involving the Rinnegan and Tenseigan. The world was like a meek, mistreated wife, abused again and again until even its fundamental rules, like life and death, had been completely broken. In his previous life, there had been no supernatural powers at all. Humanity had only managed to convert mass into energy, and played around with nuclear power and atomic bombs. The only things that could be associated with science fiction or fantasy were cutting-edge theories like gravitational waves and quantum entanglement. Compared to that, the future of this world was truly uncertain. Of all the things said about the Shinobi World, Kakashi's opening line was the most reliable: "Ninjas can't be judged by common sense." In other words, the same went for the world. There wasn't a single completely dependable truth. What were the laws of conservation of momentum and energy? What did those even mean? The protagonist could travel through time and space. He could make every other transmigrator look like dirt.

The information Mizuki had before he transmigrated suggested that the Shinobi World would still exist more than a decade later. He probably wouldn't live to see the end of the world. But the butterfly effect was beyond anyone's control.

All in all, the Shinobi World was riddled with secrets. Every villain wanted to take a turn as the mastermind behind the scenes. They raised the banner of saving the world high, but the only ones they wanted to save were the people living in it. No one even thought about what might happen to the world itself. Perhaps some had, like the Sage of Six Paths and the Three Great Sage Regions. But they had all vanished into the shadows and played at being gods. It was impossible to tell what they were planning.

"After all's said and done, it's still chakra—the power born from combining the body and spirit~. What's left of a person besides their body and spirit? Heh, Orochimaru really is a genius. The Cursed Seal and Living Corpse Reincarnation are both incredible."

From all this, the conclusion was obvious: chakra was the residue of a chain of upheavals in the world, a legacy of its rules being changed and its authority falling into other hands. Put simply, chakra shouldn't exist at all. Just knowing how to extract it was like getting a free cheat code from the world. The Sage of Six Paths used it well. Indra, Asura, Madara, Hashirama, Naruto, and Sasuke used it a little less well. Those less fortunate became Kage, elite Jonin, and other highly intelligent pillars of the community. Then there were mid- and low-ranking ninjas like Mizuki, who had no instruction manual for their cheat. Those who never became ninjas were probably disposable extras who had never activated their cheat.

His head spinning, Mizuki grew drowsy and muttered, "This damn world where everyone gets a cheat." Then he rolled over and went to sleep.

Half-asleep, he found himself surrounded by multicolored bubbles, each containing a bizarre and fantastical scene. He reached out to touch the bubbles around him. "Is this the anxiety and stress of the college entrance exam? Is that the joy of getting a raise? And this one... the Nine-Tailed Fox?"

Each bubble was a memory and an emotion. As Mizuki wandered among them, he felt them. Most belonged to his previous life, while a small number belonged to the original Mizuki.

Suddenly, something in the distance seemed different. At a single thought, he drifted toward it. In the middle of a dense cluster of bubbles, a figure appeared. His body was curled up, his eyes vacant, his expression eerily calm. He showed no reaction at all, like an empty shell with nothing inside. "It's Mizuki? That can't be."

Overcome with emotion, Mizuki suddenly felt a disturbance. He opened his eyes and sat bolt upright, panting hard.

A voice came from beside him. "Having a nightmare? For a ninja, your alertness is terrible." An Anbu wearing a mask stood by his bed.

"The Third Hokage wants to see you."

"Understood. I'll get ready and join him shortly."

He looked out the window. "It's already morning."

"With chakra as such an excellent medium for reflection, it's entirely possible for changes in the body and mind to manifest as dreams. If that wasn't just an ordinary dream, but a premonition, then I'm full of vulnerabilities, from body to mind." Mizuki touched the Cursed Seal on his arm and couldn't help smiling bitterly.