The Boy in the Prophecy

A stone pillar stretched from floor to ceiling, bearing the weight of the grotto above and sparing this spacious cavern from the fate of collapse. The thick rock walls muffled the sound of the rain outside, while a vibrant bonfire in the center of the cave brought waves of warmth to Yuehua Ai. As his mind cleared slightly, he realized he had arrived in such a place.

He looked around in a daze, his brain still feeling heavy and sluggish. Most of his consciousness remained fixated on the golden silhouette from the previous night.

"You're awake! Thank goodness, you really scared me!"

A soft, gentle voice rang out, followed immediately by a pair of bright eyes peering into Yuehua Ai's face, causing him to shrink back instinctively.

Yuehua Ai's adorable, bewildered reaction made the girl kneeling before him laugh.

Once Yuehua Ai collected himself and relaxed his expression, the girl reached out to tuck the blanket tighter around him, then placed the back of her hand against his forehead to check his temperature.

The sensation on her hand told her he didn't have a fever, which allowed her to set aside some of her worry. One had to understand that for an orphan, falling ill was a dangerous prospect.

When she had found this child curled up in a corner last night, she knew he was an orphan, and the ill-fitting clothes he wore only further exposed his plight.

This country had been ravaged by war for years; there were many orphans like him, homeless and alone. She herself was one of them, and her companions were likewise victims of the war.

Although she had encountered many orphans while fleeing, this was the first time she had met a child as young as three or four wandering on his own. In her mind, a child this small in such chaotic times should have long ago lost the chance to survive without the protection of adults.

He was too young; he lacked the self-sufficiency of someone older like her. She could only imagine how much suffering such a child must have endured to stay alive.

Seeing Yuehua Ai's small, childish face in the firelight, the soft spot in the girl's heart was inevitably touched. Although taking in such a small child might make her own life more difficult, the thought of such a young life fading away in the rain without care was unbearable. In the end, she made up her mind to bring him into their life, so she called over her two companions to help bring Yuehua Ai back to their small home.

"My name is Konan. What's yours?"

"Um, I'm Ai. Yuehua Ai." Yuehua Ai didn't react immediately to the girl's question; he hadn't communicated with anyone for a very long time. Once he processed it, he responded.

Although he had stated his name, Yuehua Ai noticed something amiss. Because his body was weak, he found his voice not only as faint as a mosquito's hum, but his naturally clear, childish tone had become strained and raspy.

Afraid she hadn't heard him clearly, Yuehua Ai raised his voice and repeated, "My name is Yuehua Ai. 'Yue' for moon, 'Hua' for magnificent, and 'Ai' for love!"

"Ai, huh..." the girl murmured. Before she could react further, a boisterous voice filled with teasing broke through. "Love, huh? Haha, you little brat, do you even know what love is?"

A boy who looked to be about eleven or twelve, roughly Konan's age, laughed as he crossed the bonfire to appear before Yuehua Ai. His smiling face radiated a sun-like, scorching passion. Following closely behind him was a red-haired boy. The red-haired boy's hair hung to his shoulders, obscuring most of his face, making it hard to discern his expression. Yuehua Ai could only sense his curiosity through the gaze that occasionally leaked from between his locks.

These two boys appearing before Yuehua Ai must have been sitting on the other side of the fire; because of the glare, Yuehua Ai hadn't noticed them when he first woke up.

"Yahiko, keep your voice down! You'll scare him!" Konan pouted, feeling helpless at the yellow-haired boy's lack of tact, and turned to glare at him in annoyance.

"Uh, hehehe..." The boy named Yahiko scratched his head in embarrassment, putting on a pitiful, "I didn't mean it" expression.

The red-haired boy's demeanor was the complete opposite of Yahiko's. His personality seemed quite introverted; even when facing a small child, though he was curious, his movements remained somewhat awkward.

"Don't be afraid. That's Yahiko; he's a good person... um... oh, and my name is Nagato."

The boy crouched down two steps away from Yuehua Ai, wrapping his arms around his knees, and peered curiously at the child Konan had brought back.

Hearing the red-haired boy's introduction, Yuehua Ai felt his head swell.

He searched his memory, confirming he hadn't misheard the words. Nagato? Yahiko? How could this be?!

He looked at the boy again, his heart filled with disbelief. Yuehua Ai's expression suddenly froze, for through a strand of the red-haired boy's bangs, he saw a unique eye with a pupil at the center, radiating outward in concentric ripples.

The perfect, ring-like ripples bloomed in circles. The light black patterns looked as if they were constructed from the most mysterious threads in the universe, and the whites of his eyes, tinged with a hint of purple, carried a sense of vastness. It was an eye that, when met, felt like staring into the starry sky of the cosmos. This was... the Rinnegan. And the boy who possessed such eyes, just as he had shyly introduced himself, was Nagato.

Yuehua Ai's state of mind at this moment could only be described as turbulent.

Four years ago, when he had just been born into this world and gained a sliver of consciousness, he had witnessed his parents die in an explosion. Still in his swaddling clothes, Yuehua Ai's first and final impression of his parents, aside from those two blurry figures, was the blood that splattered onto his face and lips—salty, with a faint metallic tang.

Later, because of his crying, Yuehua Ai was fortunately discovered by an old man. The old man took him on a journey of flight and wandering, a trek that lasted three years.

In those three years, he learned the local language and became accustomed to the sight of death. He learned that the ones who took his parents' lives were ninjas, and that the ones who destroyed his home were wars.

This war was a conflict between ninjas. Ninjas were the strongest force in this world and its protagonists. This was a world of ninjas, filled with brilliant and strange ninjutsu; ninjas possessed the power to create and destroy.

When he was a little over a year old, Yuehua Ai discovered that this world was highly consistent with the world of Naruto from his past life. The headbands with their distinct symbols from different factions told Yuehua Ai that he had likely been reborn into the world of Naruto, and that he was currently in the Land of Rivers. Based on his knowledge from his past life, he knew there was only one ninja village in the Land of Rivers: Amegakure.

Regarding Naruto, whether as Yuehua Ai or as Lu Beichen in his past life, he held a unique affection for it. Naruto was far more than just an anime to him; it had witnessed his friendship and his childhood.

In his past life, doctors had given him a death sentence early on, which meant he couldn't make friends. No child, nor their family, wanted to be associated with someone who was dying. But among the millions of people in the world, there were always one or two mavericks. One afternoon, Lu Beichen met a guy who loved to laugh and was incredibly thick-skinned. He didn't care about the rumors surrounding Lu Beichen, and they became friends. That night, he took Lu Beichen home and shared his favorite anime with him: Naruto. The passage of time didn't fade their friendship, and Naruto became the only anime Lu Beichen followed and finished during the twenty years he spent racing against his own life.

Although he knew he had been reborn into the Naruto world, and while he had some understanding of the timeline, it didn't help his daily survival. He couldn't even determine the era based on his experiences; for four years, he had only drifted with the tide of refugees. What information could one gather from the bottom-dwellers? They only knew that war was happening around the villages and that those participating were mostly ninjas. As for which Great Ninja War this was, they had no idea. They were just ordinary refugees, scurrying like rats, living in constant fear, unable to touch anything of a higher level.

For the previous Yuehua Ai, even if he had figured out the era, it would have been meaningless. He was still just a child, barely out of his swaddling clothes, with no ability to act. All he could do was try his best to survive.

But today, having unfortunately become separated from the refugee group, Yuehua Ai was lucky enough to discover this settlement. Here, he met Nagato, Konan, and Yahiko, and at the same time, he saw the ultimate existence of the Naruto world on Nagato's face: the Rinnegan, which held the power of the Six Paths.

In that instant, Yuehua Ai felt like a lost ship finally seeing a lighthouse, or a wandering traveler finally seeing home. Fate seemed to flow around him like water; he had never felt its trajectory so clearly.

The great wheel of fate, which would change and decide everything, finally stood before him and the prophesied youths, waiting quietly for them to reach out and set it in motion.