Konoha

Chapter One: Konoha Ayato

In Konoha, within an ordinary, somewhat shabby Small Courtyard.

"Ayato, today's your first day of school. Don't cry, okay?" The boy's mother teased him as she held his hand.

"Don't worry, Mother. I won't." The boy named Kamitachi Ayato felt somewhat helpless. Looking at his mother's hand tightly clutching his clothes without letting go, he wondered when he had ever cried.

Uh, after thinking about it, Ayato realized he actually had cried once. When he had just been born, his confused self had been smacked until he cried. But as an "outstanding" young man of the new twenty-first century, although he did not know the exact reason, he knew that newborns had to cry. If they made no sound, there was probably something wrong with them.

So, from childhood until now, Ayato had cried only that one time. But that could not be helped; it was a physiological necessity. Even if he could have held it in, the medical staff beside him would not have allowed it.

Kamitachi Sinai looked at her son with a touch of reluctance. The two of them had depended on each other since he was little, and it had not been easy. Fortunately, her son had been independent from a young age. He could even help her with simple chores much of the time, sparing her plenty of worry.

Still, the one flaw was that her son had none of the childishness other children had. Sinai could barely feel what it was like to be a mother. She wanted her son to act cute and cling to her more at such an adorable age.

"Come home early after school." Sinai gave up and spoke helplessly.

"Okay, Mother. You should let go now, or I'll be late on my first day."

In the end, Sinai still released him. She had originally wanted to take the day off to walk Ayato to school on his first day, but after learning of it, Ayato had sternly refused.

Still, Sinai was not too worried. Ayato had loved wandering around the village since he was little, and more importantly, he had never gotten lost. He had visited the Ninja Academy many times already.

Now that Ayato had gone to school, she needed to go to work as well. There were only the two of them in this household, and she alone had to support them.

Kamitachi Ayato was six years old this year and had been born into a single-parent household. His father was said to have been a Chunin, but he had died during a mission. According to his father's teammates, his father had taken on missions even more desperately after his mother became pregnant, trying to earn money for baby formula. Then, exhausted from overwork, he had met with an accident during a mission, leaving behind Sinai, who was about to give birth.

Sinai had originally been a ninja as well, though only a Genin. After starting a family, she had voluntarily given up her Genin status. After giving birth to Ayato, she began taking on work alone to make a living. Fortunately, having once been a ninja, her abilities were quite outstanding among ordinary people, so finding work was not difficult. Coupled with Ayato's "early maturity," the hard days had only lasted for a while. Their lives had now gotten back on track.

Kamitachi Ayato was naturally a transmigrator, one who had grown up from within his mother's womb as a native of this world. When Ayato learned that he had transmigrated into the world of Naruto, he did not feel much about it.

After all, he had not started a family in his previous life and had little worth missing. It was only regrettable that he had not been able to fulfill his filial duties. As for Naruto, Ayato had naturally watched the anime. Unfortunately, he had absorbed the plot rather superficially. There had been too many flashbacks, and he had been too lazy to watch them, skipping plenty of plot. Still, having watched it was better than not having watched it at all.

Then there was the matter of his cheat ability. After confirming it over the past six years, Ayato helplessly admitted that he did not possess the traditional cheat ability every transmigrator was supposed to have. All he had was his memory of some of the plot, though that could count as a cheat ability too.

Oh, and perhaps his only other cheat-like advantage was a stronger soul. Ayato found that he remembered things far more easily than in his previous life. Though he could not memorize things at a glance, it was already quite good.

Lastly, there was his bloodline. Based on Ayato's observations, he was just an ordinary person. He did not possess a Sage Body, nor was he an Uchiha, an Uzumaki, or a Senju.

That gave Ayato a bit of a headache. He definitely wanted to become a ninja. Since he was already here, he had to try out the local specialty. If he only wanted to scrape by, he might as well marry into some ramen shop. A major clan probably would not think much of him marrying into their family, but an ordinary ramen shop might work.

Still, it was fortunate that he was not an Uchiha. When Ayato had previously looked into things, he had discovered that he was the same age as Naruto, the protagonist of Naruto. If he had really transmigrated as an Uchiha without a cheat ability, he would probably be dead soon.

As for his current circumstances, Ayato might not compare to those with cheat abilities, powerful bloodlines, or special bloodline limits, but they were not too bad... At least there was nothing about him worth coveting.

Over the past six years, Ayato had not idled around either. Though his body still could not extract chakra or learn ninjutsu, training had to begin young.

But while it was called training, Ayato worried that his body was too small and that he might injure himself, so he did not train much. He mainly trained his fingers.

After all, although hand-signless ninjutsu would become common everywhere later on, hand seal speed was still extremely important in the early stages. The speed of forming hand seals depended on maintaining flexibility and dexterity in one's fingers. With a firm goal in mind, Ayato had naturally begun training in this area as an infant.

If he kept it up, Ayato felt that reaching the fastest hand seal speed was not impossible. Even if he could not become the fastest, he should still rank among the best.

For now, his hand seal speed was close to three seals per second. Of course, that was without chakra, so it was naturally a little faster. But that was like a basic setup; once he became familiar with chakra later, he would still be able to reach that limit.

Before he knew it, Ayato had arrived outside his classroom. At that moment, he took a deep breath. He had already done everything he could in the early stage. His coming years at the Ninja Academy would still be a period for accumulating strength, but he had to work even harder than before. As an ordinary person, hard work was his only chance to become a powerful ninja. More importantly, this period contained an extremely important objective in his plans!

At this time, the teacher had not yet arrived. Ayato looked at the familiar faces one by one and smiled. Luckily, among several classes, he had been assigned to the familiar one—the class containing Naruto Uzumaki, whom Iruka would teach.

Ayato swept his gaze across the classroom without deliberately searching for familiar faces. He casually found an empty seat and sat down.

Looking at the noisy classroom without a teacher, where some children were even crying, Ayato placed his hands beneath the desk and casually formed one hand seal after another.

At that moment, a figure entered the classroom. He had short blond hair and fox-like whiskers on his face. His gaze swept across everyone in the classroom, and then delight appeared on his face.

Because he saw Ayato.

PS: This newbie humbly asks for bookmarks and votes~

December 13, 2023. The contract invitation came, and the signing process had begun~ Keep it up!