At the border of the Land of Fire, the air of death was like a rotting swamp, thick and clinging.
Lin Chen's consciousness drifted through the darkness like a lone boat about to capsize.
Hunger seared his stomach over and over like a branding iron, burning away the last of his strength. He curled beneath tangled tree roots, his scrawny body almost blending into the dirt. Only his breathing, so faint it could stop at any moment, proved he was still alive.
It had been several days since he transmigrated into the body of this child, only a few years old. There was no food, no water, only endless forest and the fear of death.
He had no idea where he was or why he was here. He had simply opened his eyes and discovered that he had become a little boy of three or four.
But now he felt he was about to starve to death in this forest.
Just as his consciousness was about to fade completely, an immense surge of energy erupted in the distance, like thunder rolling across the earth.
After so many days of scrambling through this forest, this was the first sound Lin Chen had heard other than insects and birds-and it was such a powerful explosion.
In that instant, Lin Chen's survival instinct overwhelmed everything else, pulling his battered body along like an invisible thread.
With the last of his strength, he crawled forward on his hands and knees, his nails peeling back in the dirt and leaving faint trails of blood. His vision had long since blurred. All that remained of the world in his eyes were wavering lights, shadows, and patches of color.
At last, he crawled out of the dense forest, and a devastated battlefield entered what remained of his vision.
Broken kunai, scorched earth, and several bodies that had long since gone cold. The air reeked of blood, burnt matter, and soil.
That survival instinct exhausted the very last of his energy. His vision went black, and Lin Chen lost consciousness completely. His scrawny body slumped into the grass at the edge of the battlefield, his life force as feeble as a candle flickering in the wind.
"The mission's finally over. Those Iwagakure bastards were as foul and stubborn as stones in a latrine."
A boisterous male voice broke the battlefield's deathly silence. Jiraiya tossed his long white hair and rested both hands behind his head, looking utterly nonchalant.
"Lord Jiraiya, please watch your language," Shizune reminded him quietly from behind, a hint of helplessness on her face.
The blonde woman walking at the front ignored the bickering behind her.
Tsunade frowned, her amber eyes sweeping over the gruesome battlefield, an unshakable irritation and sorrow lingering between her brows. Every time she saw a scene like this, the faces of her younger brother, Senju Nawaki, and her boyfriend, Dan Katō, would rise unbidden before her eyes. Her heart felt as though an invisible hand had gripped it tight, leaving her unbearably stifled.
Her chakra grew chaotic as a result, like a tangled knot of thread.
"Let's go. We're heading back to the village for a drink," Tsunade urged impatiently, wanting only to leave this suffocating place as soon as possible.
Tsunade intended to stop taking missions altogether after returning to the village this time, and even leave Konoha, distancing herself from war and missions from then on.
Yet the instant she turned, her steps halted.
As a top medical ninja, her ability to sense life far exceeded that of ordinary people. On this land shrouded in death, she caught a spark of life that was exceedingly faint yet incomparably pure. It lay in the grass nearby, seemingly about to go out at any second.
"What's wrong, Tsunade?" Jiraiya noticed something was off.
Tsunade did not answer, walking straight toward what she had sensed. She parted the waist-high weeds, revealing a tiny, curled-up figure.
It was a child who looked no more than four or five. Dirt and bits of grass clung to his disheveled black hair. His little face was filthy, his lips cracked and pale. His clothes were in tatters, and he was nothing but skin and bones.
He lay there silently like an abandoned kitten. If not for the almost imperceptible rise and fall of his chest, he would have been no different from a corpse.
"Lady Tsunade, it's a child!" Shizune exclaimed, hurrying over with worry filling her eyes.
Jiraiya also put away his flippant expression, his face growing serious. A child of unknown origins appearing on a battlefield was anything but ordinary. He scanned their surroundings warily, sensing for any possible ambush.
But Tsunade had already crouched down. Her instincts as a healer made her reach out immediately, pressing her fingers to the boy's neck.
His pulse was so faint it was almost nonexistent.
"He can still be saved."
A fierce struggle took place within her, but at last, green light glowed from her hands, and she gently placed them against the boy's frail chest.
Mystical Palm Technique.
Pure, immense medical chakra, carrying the vast vitality innate to the Senju Clan, poured like a warm torrent into Lin Chen's body as it teetered on the brink of collapse.
Within the endless darkness, that warmth roused a little of Lin Chen's consciousness.
So warm... so comfortable...
It was like floating in his mother's amniotic fluid. Every parched cell greedily drank in that life energy.
At that very moment, a cold, emotionless mechanical voice thundered in the depths of his mind.
[Eligible energy source detected... "God-Level Stealing System" passively activating...] [Analyzing target... Analysis complete.] [Stealable target detected: Tsunade.] [Stealable abilities: A. (Talent); B. Medical Ninjutsu (proficient); C. Latent Wood Release bloodline (inherited from the First Hokage).]
Cold text listed itself in Lin Chen's mind. Even with his consciousness clouded, he instantly understood what this was.
A golden finger! A transmigrator's standard equipment!
Stealing abilities?
And the target... was Tsunade!
Tsunade? Wood Release? Was this Naruto? Had I transmigrated into the Naruto world?
In an instant, the desire to survive swept through all his thoughts like a wildfire. There was no time to hesitate, no energy to consider the consequences.
Wood Release! That was the power the First Hokage used to pacify a war-torn world, a godlike power that stood above the Tailed Beasts!
"The third one, the Wood Release bloodline."
He roared the command in his mind with all his strength.
[Command confirmed... Beginning theft of "Latent Wood Release bloodline"...]
The next moment, a force of life's very essence, sharing the same origin as Tsunade's medical chakra yet more ancient, gentler, and more immense, silently flowed upstream along that green light and poured into every part of Lin Chen's body.
It was not plunder. It felt more like... a return.
As though this power had belonged to him all along and was merely returning to its rightful owner. Every cell in his body cheered, frantically devouring and merging with this power. There was no rejection, no pain, only a sense of ease like being reborn.
A parched riverbed welcomed sweet rain; withered trees sprouted fresh buds.
Tsunade, who was concentrating on the treatment, suddenly furrowed her brows.
She felt something was wrong.
Her chakra was flowing out too quickly, like floodwater through an opened gate, surging uncontrollably into the child's body. And that child's body was like a bottomless whirlpool, greedily absorbing everything.
"Hey, Tsunade, this kid..." Jiraiya had noticed something too. This rate of chakra consumption did not look at all like treating an ordinary child.
Yet something even stranger happened.
The instant the theft was complete, a mysterious connection formed between Lin Chen and Tsunade.
In his perception, the world before him was no longer blurred light and shadow. He could "see."
He "saw" countless gray-black negative emotions, filled with sorrow, self-blame, and regret, entwined within Tsunade's immense chakra. Deep within that ocean of emotion, he saw a boy wearing a forehead protector and a radiant smile. That was Nawaki.
It was precisely these emotions, clinging like maggots to bone, that threw her powerful chakra into utter chaos and left a heart riddled with wounds beneath her strong exterior.
So... was she suffering this much inside?
Almost instinctively, Lin Chen stirred the newborn power he had just acquired-the Wood Release chakra brimming with vitality.
An almost imperceptible aura, like a tender shoot breaking through the soil in early spring, emanated from his small body.
This aura held no aggression, no intrusion. Like the mildest spring breeze, like the freshest scent of grass and trees after rain, it brushed softly, gently over Tsunade's chaotic chakra.
Hum-
Tsunade's entire body jolted, and her amber pupils abruptly contracted!
The immense grief that had occupied her heart for years, robbing her of sleep, driving her to drown her sorrows in alcohol, and making her tremble uncontrollably at the sight of blood, seemed at that moment to be gently soothed by a warm hand.
The chakra that had run wild and fallen into chaos because of her emotions also miraculously settled under this aura's soothing influence, becoming docile and fluid once more.
It was a kind of... peace she had never experienced before.
"This... this is..." Tsunade's voice trembled. She stared incredulously at the unconscious boy beneath her palms, her eyes filled with bewilderment and a shock that overturned everything she knew.