A stone pillar ran from floor to ceiling, bearing the weight of the rock above and keeping the spacious cavern from collapsing. Thick stone walls shut out the sound of the rain, while a blazing campfire in the middle of the cave filled Yuehua Ai with warmth. Once he'd come to his senses, he realized he was in a place like this.
He glanced around, somewhat dazed. Yuehua Ai's mind was still foggy, and most of his thoughts remained fixed on the golden silhouette from the night before.
"You're awake! Thank goodness. You gave me such a fright!"
A soft, gentle voice rang out. A pair of bright eyes appeared right in front of Yuehua Ai's face, making him shrink back instinctively.
Yuehua Ai's dazed reaction made the girl kneeling in front of him laugh.
Once Yuehua Ai recovered and relaxed his expression, the girl reached out and tucked the blanket more snugly around him. Then she pressed the back of her hand against his forehead to check his temperature.
The feel of his skin told her he didn't have a fever, easing her worry a little. For an orphan, falling ill could have dangerous consequences.
When she'd found the child curled up in a corner last night, she'd known he was an orphan. The woefully ill-fitting clothes he wore only made his situation clearer.
This country had been ravaged by war for years. There were many orphans like him, all alone and with nowhere to go. She was one of them, and so were her companions—all victims of the war.
She'd encountered plenty of orphans while fleeing, but this was the first time she'd met a child as young as three or four wandering alone. She thought that in such troubled times, a little one like him could hardly have survived without adults to protect him.
He was too young to fend for himself the way she could. She was older and had already learned to handle the basics of survival. She couldn't imagine how much hardship a child like him had endured just to stay alive.
When the girl saw Yuehua Ai's childish little face in the firelight, she couldn't help feeling a pang of tenderness. Taking in a child would make her life even harder, but if no one looked after him, such a tiny life would be snuffed out in the rain. In the end, she decided to take him in. She called over two companions, and together they brought Yuehua Ai back to their little home.
"My name's Konan. What's yours?"
"Mm, I'm Ai. Yuehua Ai." Yuehua Ai didn't respond to the girl's question right away. It had been a long time since he'd spoken to anyone. Once he realized what she'd asked, he answered.
Though he'd managed to say his name, Yuehua Ai realized something was wrong. His body was weak, and his voice was so faint it was barely more than a buzzing murmur. Even his normally clear child's voice had turned hoarse.
Afraid she hadn't heard him, Yuehua Ai raised his voice and repeated himself. "My name is Yuehua Ai. Yue as in 'moon,' Hua as in 'splendor,' and Ai as in 'love'!"
"Ai..." the girl murmured. Before she could say anything more, a boisterous voice rang out teasingly. "Love, huh? Hahaha! What would a little squirt like you know about love?"
An orange-haired boy who looked about eleven or twelve, around Konan's age, grinned as he stepped over the campfire and came to stand before Yuehua Ai. His smiling face radiated a sunny, fiery enthusiasm. A red-haired boy followed close behind him. His shoulder-length hair obscured most of his face, making his expression hard to read. Yuehua Ai could only catch glimpses of the curious gaze peeking through his locks.
The two boys had apparently been sitting across from the fire. With the flames between them, Yuehua Ai hadn't noticed them when he first woke up.
"Yahiko, keep your voice down. Don't scare him!" Konan pouted. Exasperated by the orange-haired boy's lack of tact, she turned and glared at him.
"Uh, heh..." Yahiko awkwardly scratched his head, putting on a sheepish, apologetic look to show he hadn't meant to.
The red-haired boy acted quite differently from Yahiko. He seemed more introverted. Though curious, he looked a little awkward even around a small child.
"Don't be afraid. That's Yahiko. He's a good person... Um... Oh, right. My name's Nagato."
The boy crouched down two steps away from Yuehua Ai, wrapped his arms around his knees, and curiously studied the child Konan had brought back.
Hearing the red-haired boy introduce himself, Yuehua Ai felt his head start to throb.
He thought it over and was sure he hadn't misheard. Nagato? Yahiko? How could that be?!
He studied the boys again. Disbelief made Yuehua Ai's expression stiffen as he spotted, through a lock of hair in front of the red-haired boy's face, a unique eye whose patterns radiated outward in concentric rings from its pupil.
Perfect spirals bloomed in ring after ring. The pale black patterns seemed woven from the most mysterious markings in heaven and earth, while the whites of the eye, tinged with purple, seemed to hold boundless depths. Meeting its gaze felt like facing the vastness of the cosmos. This was the Rinnegan—and the name of the boy with those eyes was exactly as he'd shyly introduced himself: Nagato.
At that moment, Yuehua Ai's emotions were in turmoil.
Four years ago, just after he'd been born into this world, he'd gained a little awareness and witnessed his parents die in an explosion. Still an infant, Yuehua Ai's first and last impressions of them—besides two indistinct figures—were the blood that splattered across his face and lips. It tasted salty, with a faint metallic tang.
Later, his cries led an old man to find him. The old man took him along as he fled from place to place, and they spent the next three years on the run.
During those three years, Yuehua Ai learned the local language and grew accustomed to death. He learned that shinobi had taken his parents' lives, and that war had destroyed his home.
It was a war between shinobi. They were the strongest military force in this world, and its protagonists as well. This was their world, a world of dazzling, extraordinary ninjutsu. Shinobi had the power to create and destroy.
When he was a little over one, Yuehua Ai realized this world closely resembled the one from Naruto, the anime he'd watched in his previous life. The Forehead Protectors, each bearing a distinctive symbol for a different faction, told him he'd likely been reborn in the Naruto World. He was in the Land of Rivers, and from what he knew of his previous life, it had only one hidden village: Amegakure.
Whether in this life as Yuehua Ai or his previous one as Lu Beichen, he'd always felt a special attachment to Naruto. To him, it was far more than just an anime. It had witnessed his friendship and his childhood.
Doctors had given him a death sentence when he was young, so he'd never been able to make friends. Neither children nor their families wanted anything to do with someone who was dying. But among the countless people in the world, there were always one or two oddballs who didn't care about anything. One afternoon, Lu Beichen met a carefree, boisterous fellow who didn't care about the rumors surrounding him. They became friends, and that night, the boy took Lu Beichen to his house to share his favorite anime with him: Naruto. The years did nothing to weaken their friendship, and Naruto became the only anime Lu Beichen had ever followed from beginning to end during his twenty years racing against death.
Though he knew he'd been reborn in the Naruto World and had some understanding of its timeline, that knowledge didn't help him live or survive. He couldn't even determine what era he was in from his own experiences. For four years, he'd been swept along with the waves of refugees. What information could he hope to get from people at the very bottom of society? They knew only that war had broken out near their village and that most of those fighting were shinobi. They didn't know which Ninja World War this was. They were just ordinary refugees, scurrying like rats and never knowing when disaster would strike, with no access to anything beyond their narrow world.
For Yuehua Ai, figuring out the era he lived in would have been pointless anyway. He was still just a child, barely out of infancy and with no ability to act. All he could do was try to stay alive.
Today, after getting separated from the refugees, Yuehua Ai had been lucky enough to find a settlement. Here he'd met Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko. He'd also seen the ultimate presence in the Naruto World on Nagato's face: the Rinnegan, which possessed the power to control the Six Paths Power.
In that instant, Yuehua Ai felt like a lost ship finally sighting a lighthouse, or a wanderer at last returning home. It was as though destiny flowed past him like water. He had never sensed its course so clearly.
The wheel of destiny that would change and decide everything finally stood before him and the boys of prophecy. It waited in silence for them to set it turning with their own hands, and set things in motion.
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