The morning sun had only just climbed over the rooftops when, in a relatively secluded house inside Konoha, Hikaru snapped his eyes open and immediately sat up.
He went straight to the mirror.
For a brief moment, he honestly wondered if he'd somehow turned into Kakashi Hatake.
A handsome face. Silver hair.
If his irises weren't brown instead of dark, then with a mask he could probably pass as Kakashi without anyone questioning it too hard.
It had been more than thirteen years since he'd arrived in this world, and by now, Hikaru had gradually gotten used to everything here.
But his luck really wasn't great.
He'd transmigrated at the worst possible time.
He still remembered the day he was finally old enough to enter the Ninja Academy. The moment he saw a kid in his class named Kakashi Hatake, and another one named Obito Uchiha, his heart had gone cold.
If those two were here, there was only one explanation—
His future almost certainly included at least one war on a scale he couldn't imagine.
The shinobi of this world were terrifying. Even children.
In wartime, kids could kill at six or seven like it was just another lesson.
Ten-year-olds on the battlefield were normal. And monsters like Kakashi… by twelve, he was already a jōnin, hands stained with more enemy blood than most adults would ever see.
Hikaru had been a modern person in his previous life. He couldn't do that.
At least back then, he didn't believe he could.
In front of him, there were only two roads.
One: march onto the battlefield like everyone else and pray he survived.
Two: find a way to avoid the front lines, keep his head down, and endure until the war ended—until those two so-called "saviors" rose up and changed the world.
Unfortunately… the second path was almost impossible for him.
Because his surname was Senju.
The Senju name was legendary. It had once stood at the center of the shinobi world's stage.
The Senju and the Uchiha built Konoha together. The First Hokage. The Second Hokage. Even the Third Hokage's era—so much of Konoha's foundation had been shaped by Senju Tobirama's teachings and policies.
Among Konoha's current high-ranking ninja, who hadn't been touched by Senju influence in one way or another?
Even the Uchiha could only use their power to highlight the Senju's sheer weight.
The enormous statues at the Valley of the End—what stood behind them wasn't just history, but Senju glory… and Uchiha humiliation.
But the sky could change in an instant. So could people.
After the Third Hokage took office, the Senju clan began to weaken.
The most bitter part?
That decline was tied to the Second Hokage's policies.
Of course, the Third Hokage also played a crucial role—no matter how gently he explained it, saying it was only because he hoped the Senju would "set an example."
In just over a decade, the Senju had almost lost the concept of being a "clan" at all.
Or rather… the Senju could no longer even be called a clan.
They had completely dissolved into the masses of ordinary shinobi.
Or, put more bluntly—they had become commoners.
Some of them rarely even used the name Senju anymore.
Take Hikaru, for example. Whether at the Academy or in ANBU, he used the name Fukami Hikaru.
Honestly, that name sometimes left him speechless.
Every now and then, he'd catch himself wondering where his "lotus bloom" was supposed to be.
A small number of people accepted the Senju's fate because they had no strength to resist it.
But plenty refused to swallow it.
The most typical example was the elder who had raised him.
After Hikaru transmigrated, his parents died in the Second Shinobi World War, and he'd been brought up by an old Senju elder.
That elder had drilled one idea into him since he was little:
"You must fight for the revival of the Senju."
Hikaru didn't really have much to say about it. Back when the Senju were collapsing, the elder had tried to force that belief onto almost everyone.
"Still… because of him, there was no way I could slip into some cushy job in the administration department."
Hikaru sighed.
Even if the Senju were finished as a clan, their connections hadn't disappeared overnight.
If the elder had been willing to spend his favors, he could've arranged for Hikaru to be placed in administration. If that was too hard, then at least a teaching track—anything that kept him away from the front lines.
But the elder refused.
The reasons were simple.
First: the Senju were a battle clan.
Second: Hikaru was too young—he "couldn't" go.
Instead, the elder had done something else.
When Hikaru turned eight, he was pushed directly into ANBU.
To be honest, that wasn't any better.
ANBU work… was that even meant for humans?
"And coming to the famous 'Eye World' without getting a pair of eyes… even Byakugan would've been nice."
After washing up, Hikaru stared into the mirror again and let out another quiet sigh.
He knew the story of the shinobi world far too well. In the end, it was basically—
A tale of an Ōtsutsuki family messing with the world, and then tearing itself apart.
The strongest "cheats" here, besides being the reincarnation of Indra and Asura's chakra, were those eyes everyone dreamed of.
The Senju bloodline wasn't bad. It was also a descendant line, after all.
But a bloodline only mattered if you could awaken it.
If you couldn't… it was no different from being ordinary.
A cheat that might as well not exist, even if he had access to a tiny bit of Senju training resources.
"Still… it's not like I have no cheat. It's just…"
…hard to explain.
He focused on the reflection.
The mirror still showed Hikaru's face, but in his vision, lines of numbers appeared—like a status screen layered over reality.
Name: Senju Hikaru
Gender: Male
Birthday: Konoha Calendar Year 34, March 24
Rank: Jōnin (Chūnin)
Bloodline Development: Beginner (Senju Secret Art)
Seeds:
Jōnin Chakra Pool Seed (60% mature)
Intermediate Sage Art Seed (80% mature)
Advanced Earth Release Seed (70% mature)
Advanced Water Release Seed (70% mature)
Fruits: 0
Quest: Become the true Big Boss of the Shinobi World (Unique) (1%)
That was his "cheat"—a bizarre interface that was almost like a data sheet.
And the cheat itself was… weirder than most.
He didn't know if it was something the system gave him, or something that came with being reborn into the Senju line, but either way, it felt like he was destined to never escape plants.
Through a Senju secret technique—whether innate or granted—he could absorb the life force of plants and convert it into special attributes.
Then the system would turn those attributes into seeds.
Those seeds were like the Aburame clan's insects in one way:
They had to be fed inside his body.
They grew by devouring his chakra.
When a seed finally matured, it would produce a fruit.
And if Hikaru ate that fruit, he'd gain the corresponding ability.
The most important part was—
He could master those abilities completely, as if they'd always been his own.
But those seeds also caused a problem.
They made his chakra output look nothing like a Senju's.
Even at thirteen, he hadn't become "Chakra-ton"—that absurdly huge pool people joked about.
Instead, he was stuck looking like a pretty average chūnin.
A weaker one, at that.
That was why his rank line read Jōnin (Chūnin).
His actual combat ability was jōnin-level, but his chakra reserves were chūnin-tier.
Now he finally understood what Kakashi's life felt like.
Or maybe…
It was more like being stuck at Third Stage of Qi