NIHM: Ch. 01

"Where the leaves dance, there the fire burns."

Kazuha had transmigrated. He found himself in the Naruto world, and ten years had already passed since then. Fortunately, he had the aptitude to become a ninja, and he had even become a member of the Uchiha clan.

Unfortunately, he was about to die.

Die on the night of the Uchiha clan's massacre.

He had thought about changing everything, but he was just a fourth-year student at the Ninja Academy. Even with the prestige of being an Uchiha, his performance at school was only just above average, enough to graduate steadily, but far from outstanding.

He was still a long way from being called a genius. He had no special talent, no cheats, and after transmigrating, not even stronger-than-average mental strength. In fact, he was a bit weaker.

Forget photographic memory, if not for the mental boost from his Uchiha bloodline, he doubted he would have even gotten into the Ninja Academy. In short, he felt that aside from living in a different world, he hadn't changed much as a person.

Still ordinary.

Still unremarkable.

The only thing he could be proud of, his identity as part of Konoha's most prestigious clan, had long since lost its luster in this dark world. With the crisis of Itachi's betrayal, he felt neither pride nor a sense of belonging. He had no power to stop Itachi, who would slaughter the entire Uchiha clan with Obito.

The only thing he could do was try to find a way to survive the disaster. Unfortunately, caught up in the situation, there was no way for him to resist. Even though he made many efforts, and everything seemed to be moving in the right direction, when the night of the massacre finally came, he lost to fate.

That day, he returned home as usual, and at his doorstep, he encountered the masked Obito. Before he could surrender, before he could even speak, he was stabbed straight through the heart.

Yes, he became the first sacrifice of the Uchiha massacre.

As his consciousness faded, there wasn't much resentment in his heart, just a bit of helplessness. He was, through and through, a small, insignificant character. Even though he knew everything, without the strength to act, all his ideas were just fantasies.

The future tale of Naruto and Sasuke's fiery bond? It was just a grand plan set up by the Sage of Six Paths to reseal a threat.

The real puppeteers were never Naruto's speeches or passion, nor Sasuke's angst and fury, but the Otsutsuki bloodline, and the power of the God Tree.

I did everything I could. Though there's regret, there's nothing worth mourning.

Whatever. I'm tired. Let it all be destroyed.

He collapsed in a pool of blood. His consciousness drifted, gradually sinking into darkness. But within that darkness, just as his mind was about to completely fade away, a white light enveloped him, pulling him into another space.

Vaguely, he heard voices calling out.

"Kazuha, Kazuha, Kazuha, Kazuha~"

The voices kept repeating his name, and his consciousness was drawn toward them. Eventually, at the moment his awareness touched the white light, he found himself in a white space.

A boundless white void, no up, down, left, or right. No sense of size or direction. What stood out the most was a striking round table at the center, surrounded by ten neatly arranged chairs. Other than that, there was nothing.

And Kazuha, upon entering the white space, found that his consciousness had formed a tangible body. He was still wearing the typical Uchiha uniform, with the clan's fan-shaped crest printed on his back, resembling a ping pong paddle.

His body instinctively sat down on one of the chairs. Immediately afterward, he felt a force being drawn from his body, channeling through the chair and merging into the center of the table.

A virtual blue light panel projected upward from the center of the table, floating in the air above it.

---

Name: Kazuha (Experience +1)

---

What does this mean?

He stared at the message in confusion. Before he could think too much, he noticed that across the table, a vague human figure was gradually taking form. When he saw the person clearly, Kazuha was stunned.

The figure looked exactly like him.

However, this version of him looked older, around fifteen or sixteen years old, with a physique that was burly and chiseled like it had been sculpted by blade and axe.

That other Kazuha also sat on a chair, and like before, a force was drawn from his body and merged into the central panel on the table.

The previously simple data panel now expanded with additional information:

---

Name: Kazuha (Experience +2)
HP: 10,000 (+0/300)

---

At that moment, a set of memories suddenly surged into Kazuha's mind. Part of the memory overlapped with his own, memories from before he transmigrated. However, unlike him, this version of Kazuha had transmigrated into the One Piece world.

His parents were shipwrecked while traveling on a passenger vessel. His mother survived, but after drifting to Little Garden, she gave birth to him and died soon after.

Pirate Kazuha was fated to die as a baby, until he was discovered by Dorry and Brogy, the two giant warrior kings who were fighting on Little Garden. They discussed it and decided to raise him together.

However, Dorry and Brogy were both rough brutes. All they knew how to do was fight, they had no idea how to raise a child. Fortunately, he retained his memories after transmigration. He didn't cry or fuss, and thanks to the strong life force of people in the One Piece world, he instinctively grasped basic swimming and digestion skills from an early age.

Otherwise, his survival would've been nearly impossible. Well, even with that, survival wasn't exactly easy.

After all, had you ever seen someone throw a starving infant into a beast-milk tub the size of a bath to let him swim and drink at the same time? Or seen anyone put a piece of roasted meat bigger than the baby itself in front of a toothless infant and let him gnaw on it?

That was exactly the kind of thing Dorry and Brogy did.

Yet somehow, Kazuha managed to survive. Under the not-so-careful guidance of his two giant godfathers, he learned some rudimentary training methods. His physical strength steadily grew thanks to a diet rich in beast meat.

By the age of fifteen or sixteen, he had developed a powerful body hardened through sheer effort, firmly securing his place as the third most powerful figure on Little Garden.

On a few occasions, he even encountered passenger ships that had accidentally drifted to Little Garden and managed to "trade" for some basic daily necessities.

Later, he came across a pirate crew.

Before transmigrating, he had actually liked the idea of being a pirate and was quite drawn to the adventurous lifestyle.

After all, who could resist the allure of sailing the seas?

But after waking up in this world and seeing his mother's lifeless body lying beside him, killed in a pirate raid, he realized everything stemmed from pirate brutality.