[A Naruto wish-fulfillment story with multiple female leads. Illustrations appear later, for reference only~]
Konoha~
Mid-June, clear skies~
In the Ninja Academy's elite class~
At the window seat in the second-to-last row on the right~
The black-haired boy who had been slumped over his desk was awakened by a knock, knock, knock at the door.
The boy raised his head slightly and slowly opened his black eyes. Looking at the plain wooden classroom and the male teacher standing straight in front of the lectern, he felt somewhat dazed.
Memories of his previous life flashed before his eyes.
In his previous life, in a brightly lit room~
Yu Lei sat on a large yellow Simmons bed, his back slightly curved as he leaned comfortably against the edge of the bed. A laptop rested on his thighs, and his fingers flew across the keyboard so fast they left afterimages as he stayed up late to meet his novel's word count.
Thirsty, he picked up the glass on his bedside table with his right hand and took a sip of water. When both hands touched the keyboard to continue writing, he suddenly felt an electric shock, and everything went black...
He opened his eyes to this unfamiliar classroom. A flood of memories poured into Yu Lei's mind, and he held his aching head and closed his eyes.
In those memories~
The body's original owner was named "Uchiha Lei," an ordinary member of the Uchiha Clan. He and his mother, Uchiha Yumi, had always depended on each other.
A month earlier~
His mother, Uchiha Yumi, had died of illness. Before her death, she had told him about his origins:
His mother, Uchiha Yumi, had been a Chunin. At eighteen, while away on an escort mission at the border, she had been attacked by two Rain Ninja.
All the members of Uchiha Yumi's squad had been killed, leaving only his mother struggling to hold on. Just as the Rain Ninja were about to assault her, a Chunin from the Senju Clan named "Chiaki" had passed by and saved her.
Chiaki was Lei's absent father; his father too had finished a mission with only himself left alive, yet their circumstances had been vastly different.
Seeing that his mother intended to continue the escort mission despite being alone, his father had been moved by her tenacity and accompanied her to complete it. On their return journey, feelings had quietly blossomed between them, and they had privately pledged themselves to each other for life.
But the good times had not lasted. A month later, on their way back to the border of the Land of Fire, they had been ambushed by a Jonin from Amegakure. To save his mother, his father had resolutely chosen to use an Explosive Tag to take the enemy down with him.
The booming explosion had not only taken his father's life but left his mother so devastated that she fainted on the spot. When she woke again, she found herself back at Konoha Hospital.
Remembering the vow she had made with his father, his mother had tearfully taken a Kunai from her ninja pouch and pressed it to her neck, wanting to follow him in death. But her close friend Uchiha Miko, who had been keeping watch beside her, stopped her and told her she was pregnant.
Overcome with both grief and joy, his mother had gently stroked her lower abdomen with her right hand and, after her friend's earnest persuasion, decided to give birth to the child born of their love.
After leaving the hospital, his mother had returned to her home in the clan compound. As her pregnancy progressed, she grew thinner by the day. Fortunately, her friend had looked after her, and on a stormy night seven years earlier, she had finally delivered the child after a difficult labor and named him "Uchiha Lei."
Childbirth had left his mother with a lingering illness, and she remained thin. To support the young Lei, she had taken missions while ill, until last winter, when she could finally hold on no longer and, bedridden, left Lei forever.
In his immense grief over his mother's death, Lei had not awakened the Uchiha's kekkei genkai, the "Sharingan," but had unexpectedly awakened the even stronger Rinnegan.
Under the Rinnegan's enormous drain, the young Lei had passed out on the spot, his body instantly wasting away to skin and bones, and the Rinnegan had deactivated on its own.
The next day, his mother's close friend Uchiha Miko had come to visit her, discovered her death and the unconscious Lei on the floor, and taken him to the hospital.
Afterward, under the care of Uchiha Miko and her daughter Uchiha Mikoto, he had awakened three days later.
Uchiha Miko held a funeral for his mother, and Uchiha Lei dragged his frail body through it.
At the funeral.
Only Uchiha Miko's family and Lei had attended, but the fact that he had not awakened the Sharingan had still become known to the clanspeople. Word spread through the clan, and its members began calling him useless.
Fortunately, Uchiha Miko's husband was the grand elder, Uchiha Yama. Uchiha Yama had suppressed the matter, forbidding anyone from openly speaking ill of Uchiha Lei.
In private and at the Ninja Academy, however, clanspeople and academy students had continued bullying him and speaking ill of him.
Today, under the double torment of physical suffering and his classmates' ridicule, Uchiha Lei had unexpectedly died.
Yu Lei, electrocuted while staying up late to write his novel, had benefited from this, his soul entering Uchiha Lei's body and allowing him to go on living.
Just then, a young girl's voice came from the front of the classroom~
It pulled the now-recovered Uchiha Lei's thoughts back to reality, and he opened his eyes again to study the red-haired girl.
"I'm Kushina Uzumaki."
A wave of mocking chatter rose from below the lectern:
"That hair color is unbelievable. It looks like a tomato. Why don't we call her Little Tomato?"
A boy with an afro braced himself against his desk and pointed at Kushina with his index finger as he spoke!
Then a short-haired brown-haired boy beside him joined in with another taunt:
"I think her hair looks like a chili pepper. We should call her Little Chili Pepper."
"Little Tomato, Little Chili Pepper, what an ugly hair color!"
A boy with short black hair brazenly mocked her!
"All right, all right, quiet. All of you, quiet down."
The teacher raised a hand to signal for silence, and only then did the chatter below subside a little.
Kushina Uzumaki continued loudly:
"In the future, I'm going to become the village's first female Hokage."
The students below immediately began mocking her loudly again:
"That Little Chili Pepper wants to be Hokage? What a joke! Hahaha!"
"Exactly! Hokage? How does she even dare dream of that? Haha!"
"..."
Kushina Uzumaki raised her left hand to touch the red hair on her head. Listening to the mockery from below the lectern, her expression darkened, her brows knotting tightly in anger.
Seeing this and noticing that the teacher stood to one side without continuing to stop the students' insults, Uchiha Lei deeply furrowed his brow, immediately slammed his hand on his desk, and rose.
Bang~
The sound rang through the entire classroom~
The chatter abruptly stopped~
Uchiha Lei roared toward the students who had been talking:
"Shut your mouths! Nothing but insults every time you open them, and you think you're in the right?
This is the Ninja Academy, not a market!
If you want to insult people, do it somewhere else. Don't disrupt my lessons here."
After speaking, Uchiha Lei immediately sat down, not caring in the slightest how the rest of the class looked at him.
Still, Uchiha Lei nodded toward Kushina Uzumaki, then propped his chin on his right hand and turned to look at the scenery outside the window.
Seeing Uchiha Lei speak up for her, Kushina Uzumaki was instantly delighted. Her expression returned to normal, and the corners of her mouth involuntarily lifted into a sweet smile.
The sight left the blond-haired Minato Namikaze in the back row momentarily stunned, and he wanted to stand up and speak of his own dream of becoming Hokage.
But he had only risen halfway when the teacher stopped him with a light cough.
"Ahem~
Kushina, choose a seat yourself. Everyone else, quiet. Class is starting!"
Kushina Uzumaki glanced at the teacher, passed the first row of desks, and walked straight to the empty seat beside Uchiha Lei in the back, where she stopped.
A small dimple appeared on Kushina Uzumaki's face as she asked with a smile:
"Can I sit next to you?"
Hearing Kushina's young voice, Uchiha Lei paused slightly.
He turned to look at the tragic mother of Naruto Uzumaki, the original story's male protagonist, and nodded slightly:
"Go ahead."
"Thank you for speaking up for me just now."
After sitting down, Kushina Uzumaki carefully studied the boy before her.
Two long locks of black hair parted at the widow's peak in the center of his forehead and fell along either side of his face. His features were delicate and handsome, his nose high-bridged, his eyes deep-set, his cheekbones slightly prominent, and his jaw lean and sharp.
His skin was sickly pale, and his whole body was very thin. He wore a dark blue, high-collared short-sleeved top, with blue-and-white wrist guards on his forearms and the Uchiha emblem of a red-and-white fan on the back of his shirt.
An off-white ninja tool pouch hung at the back of his left hip. He wore white knee-length shorts, a black ninja pouch strapped to his right thigh, white shin guards around his lower legs, and dark blue ninja sandals!
Uchiha Mikoto had coordinated Uchiha Lei's entire outfit, matching her own as a couple's set.
Before you continue