Born in the Hidden Sand Village

[This book uses the databook settings, with a total history of 68 years by the end of Shippuden.]

Coldness, darkness, and an indescribable sense of crushing pressure.

Then came a sudden lightness and blurred light piercing through his fragile eyelids.

Liu Yu's consciousness struggled up from chaos, only for him to discover in horror that he could not control his body. Even the simple act of opening his eyes had become immensely difficult. He felt himself being carefully cradled in a pair of hands. Around him were noisy, distant voices speaking a language he could not understand, though the urgency and tension in their tones were unmistakable.

An overwhelming exhaustion surged over him like a tide, dragging his fragile consciousness back into the abyss of darkness. Before he completely lost awareness, he caught a woman's shrill, agonized cry, followed by even more frantic voices and footsteps.

Who knew how much time passed before he barely woke again.

This time, he struggled to open a narrow slit between his eyes.

His blurred vision gradually focused. Before him was a dim lamp, seemingly fueled by some kind of oil or grease. Its flickering light cast wavering shadows across the rough, ochre-colored stone walls. The air was filled with a strange mixture of dust and medicinal herbs.

He tried to turn his neck, only to find that he did not even have the strength for that. An extreme weakness filled his body, as though every tiny breath required an enormous amount of energy.

Where... is this? he thought blankly. Wasn't I working overtime, debugging a new production line?

The last fragments of his memory remained fixed on the reassuring roar of automated machine tools and the code scrolling across a screen. As a thirty-year-old mechanical and automation engineer, overtime had been his norm. His dream of someday saving enough money and energy to build a large Gundam model that could run and jump with his own hands had been one of the few lights in his dull life.

And then? It seemed like... overwork? Heart palpitations?...

And after that, this.

Rebirth? Transmigration? An absurd thought, yet the only one capable of explaining his situation, surfaced in his mind. Had that overused webnovel trope really happened to him?

He focused with all his strength, sensing his own body. Tiny, weak limbs. A body he could not precisely control... This was clearly an infant!

Starting on nightmare difficulty, huh... Liu Yu—or rather, Shaye, as he should now be called—laughed bitterly to himself. He could even feel the frailty emanating from the deepest roots of this body. Every heartbeat seemed so labored, as if it might stop at any moment.

"Chun Zi... Chun Zi..." A hoarse, choked male voice sounded nearby, filled with endless grief.

Shaye laboriously rolled his eyes and caught sight of a man in coarse gray clothes, a Hidden Sand Village forehead protector wrapped around his head, kneeling not far away. The man had a broad back, but his shoulders were shaking violently. His forehead pressed against the edge of a crude bed, and both hands tightly gripped a pale, limp hand utterly devoid of life.

On the bed lay a beautiful young woman with no color in her face. Her eyes were shut, as though she were merely asleep, but the faint scent of blood in the air and the sorrow that refused to disperse told Shaye clearly—his mother in this life had just died giving birth to him.

An inexplicable ache rose in his heart. Though his soul was foreign, this body's instincts and the bond deep in its bloodline made him feel an indescribable grief.

"Ah..." An aged sigh sounded.

Only then did Shaye notice there was a third person in the room. A woman stood beside the bed, her expression grave and weary. Her clothes differed from the man's, and she possessed a dignified bearing. Her eyes held the wisdom of someone weathered by time, along with a trace of helplessness. Shaye's gaze was drawn to the blood still clinging to her hands.

"Shaliu, my condolences." The woman spoke in a steady yet powerful voice. "Chun Zi was a strong woman. Her final wish was for the child to live safely."

The man named Shaliu suddenly raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and tears mixed with dust to carve two streaks down his resolute face. He looked at Shaye, wrapped in swaddling clothes, with an incomparably complicated gaze—grief, love, and perhaps a faint, imperceptible helplessness born from losing the woman he loved.

"Elder Chiyo..." Shaliu's voice was hoarse. "I..."

The woman called Chiyo stepped forward and carefully examined Shaye's condition. Her brow furrowed slightly. "Premature birth. Congenitally deficient. A weak foundation. This child's future will be difficult."

Her words struck Shaliu's heart like a hammer and made Shaye's heart sink as well. As a mechanical and automation engineer, he was highly proficient in Japanese and writing, and in his previous life he had dealt extensively with Japanese heavy industry groups.

Chiyo looked once more at the grief-stricken Shaliu. After pondering for a moment, she said, "You cannot go to the front lines for now. With a state of mind like this and a child who needs care, going to the battlefield would only add to the casualties."

Shaliu remained silent and did not argue.

"Then let's do this," Chiyo decided. "The old squad leader of Logistics Maintenance Squad Four retired before the new year, and the position has remained vacant. Go there. Serve as the leader of Squad Four and take charge of puppet maintenance. It is relatively safe there, and the hours are more flexible, making it easier for you to care for the child."

Chiyo's gaze swept over Shaliu and the infant Shaye as she added, "Come to think of it, Chun Zi was also a distant relative of mine. Whether publicly or privately, I hope this child survives."

Shaliu looked at the child in his arms, whose breathing was weak and whose little face was wrinkled, then at his wife, who had fallen asleep forever. In the end, he nodded heavily, burying his endless sorrow and whatever resentment he might have felt deep in his heart. With a rough finger, he touched Shaye's cheek with extreme gentleness.

"From today on... your name will be Shaye." He spoke softly, as though making a promise to his departed wife. "I will raise you. I swear it."

Shaye... Liu Yu silently repeated his new name. Shaye??? Hidden Sand Village?

The world of Naruto? That ninja world where war was frequent and danger lurked everywhere?

A tremendous sense of powerlessness swept over him. Other people who transmigrated were either born into powerful Konoha clans or had systems backing them up, dominating heaven and earth in seconds. What about him? A hopeless start! Reborn in the Hidden Sand Village, which barely accomplished anything throughout the plot and had an incredibly harsh environment! A body as weak as porcelain that could shatter at any time! His only family was a mere Chunin, still drowning in the grief of losing his wife! His only "cheat" might be the thirty years of science and engineering knowledge and crafting hobbies from his previous life...

No system, no bloodline, no cheat... and I even started with a 'sickly and weak' debuff... Shaye felt an unprecedented exhaustion descend upon him again. His tiny body simply could not support much more thought. It's over. This is truly nightmare difficulty...

His consciousness began to blur again, and the sounds of the outside world gradually faded away.

Before completely falling into the sleep an infant required, his final thought was: Survive... First, I need to find a way to... survi... ve...

The swaddled infant closed his eyes, his breathing weak yet steady, as if that brief burst of mental activity had drained all his strength. Under the dim lamplight, only his father Shaliu's suppressed sobbing remained, along with Elder Chiyo's silent sigh.

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