Ryota lay on the futon, staring at the ceiling beams while his mind sorted through two lifetimes of memories. The process felt like organizing files on a computer, except the files were corrupted and half of them wouldn't open properly.
The original Ryota's memories came in fragments. Thin pieces that gave him enough context to function but left gaps everywhere. He remembered attending the Academy, but specific lessons blurred together. He remembered his grandparents clearly, their voices and habits and the way they moved through the house. His parents were barely there at all—just vague impressions of a woman with dark hair who sang while cooking, and a man with calloused hands who'd worked at one of the larger forges in the commercial district. Nothing he could hold onto.
They'd died when he was three years old. Disease, according to what his grandparents had told him over the years. Some illness that had swept through the civilian quarter two years before the Kyuubi attack, killing dozens before the medical corps got it under control. His parents had caught it early in the outbreak. They'd deteriorated fast, coughing blood and burning with fever. His mother went first, then his father three weeks later. The original Ryota had been too young to understand what was happening, too young to remember much beyond the funeral. Black clothes and incense smoke and his grandmother's hand tight around his.
After that, Takeshi and Sachiko had taken him in without discussion. He'd grown up in this house, learned to help in the forge when he was old enough to hold tongs without dropping them, started at the Academy when he turned six like most civilian children.
The adult memories were clearer but also stranger. A different world entirely. Concrete and steel instead of wood and tile. Cars instead of rooftops. Computers, smartphones, electricity that came from walls instead of lightning jutsu. He'd been a construction worker, framing houses and commercial buildings for a mid-sized contractor. Physical labor, long hours in the sun, the smell of sawdust and fresh lumber. Nothing glamorous. Just steady work that paid the bills and left him tired at the end of each day.
He'd read Naruto during his lunch breaks. The manga first, years ago when it was still running. He'd borrowed volumes from a coworker who collected them, reading through the entire series over the course of several months. Then the anime later, watching episodes on his phone while eating convenience store sandwiches in his apartment. He'd never been obsessed with it, wasn't the type to collect merchandise or attend conventions, but he'd followed the story through to the end. Knew the major beats. Remembered the important characters.
Ryota sat up slowly, testing his body's responses. His head didn't spin this time. The fever had broken, apparently, or at least subsided enough that he could move without vertigo.
He stood and walked to the small mirror hanging on the wall beside his chest of drawers. The glass was old, slightly warped at the edges, but clear enough in the center. A six-year-old boy stared back at him.
Dark hair, almost black, cut short, with the sides and back kept close and the top slightly longer and rounded rather than angular. The texture was straight and soft, lying mostly flat with just enough natural volume to avoid looking stiff. Brown eyes slightly too large for his face gave him a younger appearance than he probably wanted. He had a thin frame, the result of burning through calories faster than he could replace them.
No distinguishing features. No scars, no birthmarks visible on his face or arms. Nothing that would make him stand out in a crowd or mark him as special. A kid who'd most likely blend into the background at the Academy and get forgotten by instructors who had more talented students to focus on.
His clothes were simple. A dark grey shirt that had been washed so many times the fabric felt soft and thin between his fingers. Black pants that were starting to get too short at the ankles, riding up when he moved. His grandmother would need to make him new ones soon, or barter for them at the market.
Ryota touched his face, watching the reflection mirror the movement. The disconnect was still there, this wasn't the face he remembered seeing in mirrors for thirty-two years. This was a child's face, round-cheeked and unformed, years away from developing into anything distinctive. His jawline was soft, his features still carrying baby fat that would take another few years to burn off.
He stepped back from the mirror and focused on cataloging what he actually knew about this world. The major story arcs came first, the ones he remembered most clearly because they'd been the focus of entire manga volumes and anime seasons.
The Uchiha Massacre would happen when Itachi was thirteen. He was currently six according to the original Ryota's memories, which meant roughly seven years from now. Itachi would kill his entire clan except for Sasuke, following orders from Konoha's leadership to prevent a coup. That event would shape Sasuke's entire character arc and drive most of his actions throughout the story.
The Chunin Exams and Konoha Crush would happen when Naruto was twelve. That was eleven years away. Orochimaru would invade during the exams, kill the Third Hokage, and destabilize the village. Sand and Sound would attack together. Lots of people would die, both shinobi and civilians.
The Akatsuki would start making serious moves roughly a decade from now. They'd begin hunting jinchuriki, collecting the tailed beasts for some plan involving the Ten-Tails. Gaara would be one of their first targets. Then Naruto.
The Fourth Shinobi War would happen when Naruto was sixteen or seventeen, depending on how much time passed between events. Madara and Obito would try to cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi. The Allied Shinobi Forces would form. Massive battles across multiple fronts. Thousands of deaths.
Beyond the major arcs, individual deaths stood out in his memory. The Third Hokage would die during the Konoha Crush, killed by Orochimaru using the Reaper Death Seal after a long battle. Asuma Sarutobi would die fighting Hidan, killed by a ritual that required nothing but a drop of blood and a drawn circle. Jiraiya would die in Amegakure, killed by Pain after discovering the secret of the Rinnegan and sending a coded message back to Konoha. Neji would die during the war, protecting Naruto and Hinata from wooden spikes that came out of nowhere.
But the details got fuzzy fast. He couldn't remember exact dates for most of those events beyond rough estimates. Couldn't recall which year Orochimaru left the village or when exactly Itachi joined the Akatsuki or how long Sasuke stayed with Orochimaru before killing him. Minor characters were even worse, remembered names without faces, or faces without names, or neither. The Naruto world had hundreds of shinobi spread across multiple villages, and he'd only paid attention to the ones who mattered to the main plot or had memorable fights.
Specific techniques were another problem. He remembered the general concepts well enough. Rasengan was a spinning ball of chakra that required no hand signs and took years to master. Chidori was concentrated lightning chakra that made a sound like a thousand birds and required the Sharingan to use effectively. Shadow Clone Jutsu created solid copies that could transfer experience back to the user when they dispersed. But the actual mechanics? The hand signs, the chakra control methods, the specific training steps? Those details had been glossed over in the manga or explained so briefly that they hadn't stuck in his memory. He knew Naruto had trained with Jiraiya for weeks to master the Rasengan, starting with rotation then adding power then learning containment, but he couldn't recall the specific exercises beyond water balloons and rubber balls. He knew Sasuke had trained to improve his Chidori, but not how exactly.
The knowledge was there, but it was incomplete. Like having a map with half the roads missing and no scale to judge distances.
Ryota moved away from the mirror and walked to the window. The village spread out below, quieter now as evening settled in. Lights were starting to appear in windows, warm yellow glows that marked where families were gathering for dinner. Smoke rose from chimneys where people were cooking. The streets were emptying as civilians headed home and shinobi finished their day shifts.
He needed a priority list. Something concrete to organize his thinking and guide his actions going forward, because flailing around without direction would get him killed just as surely as being weak.
First priority: Protect his grandparents. Takeshi and Sachiko were civilians, which made them vulnerable to everything this world could throw at them. Village attacks, random violence, disease, accidents in the forge, political purges if those ever happened in the civilian quarter. The feelings weren't entirely his own—some part of the original Ryota's emotional connections had survived the transition, threaded through his nervous system like roots through soil. When he thought about them, his chest felt warm. When he imagined them dying, that warmth turned to ice and his throat got tight. He cared about them, or his body cared about them, and the distinction didn't really matter. They'd raised him when his parents died. They'd fed him and clothed him and taught him how to work metal. They deserved protection.
Second priority: Survive. Everything else depended on not dying. That meant getting stronger, learning faster, figuring out how to close the gap between his current pathetic skill level and something approaching competence. The Academy curriculum would help, but it wasn't enough. Academy students graduated at eleven and most of them were still weak, barely qualified for D-rank missions that involved weeding gardens and finding lost cats. He needed more than the standard training. Extra conditioning, better fundamentals, improved chakra control. Something to give him an edge over the average civilian-born student.
Third priority: Everything else. That category was deliberately vague because he didn't know what it included yet. Maybe preventing certain deaths if he could manage it without drawing too much attention. Maybe changing events to improve outcomes, assuming he could figure out which outcomes actually needed changing. Maybe just staying out of the way and letting the story unfold without his interference, because trying to play hero when he was weak would probably just get him killed. He'd figure it out after handling the first two priorities. No point planning for the long term if he didn't survive the short term.
Ryota moved back to the center of the room and tested his body's capabilities more thoroughly. The space was small but gave him enough room to move without hitting anything. He dropped into what he thought was a basic fighting stance, feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent, hands raised in guard position. His balance felt incorrect immediately. Too high in the shoulders, weight distributed poorly across his feet. He shifted, trying to correct it based on vague memories of watching MMA fights on television, and nearly fell over.
The original Ryota had been practicing taijutsu for a year at the Academy. A full year of basic stances, punches, kicks, and blocks. But the muscle memory was weak, barely present in his body. Either the original Ryota had been terrible at paying attention during training, or the transition between souls had disrupted the neural pathways, or both. Probably both.
He threw a punch at the air, trying to put his weight behind it like he'd seen people do. Slow, awkward, lacking any real power. His form was wrong in ways he couldn't identify but could feel. The punch wouldn't hurt anyone except maybe himself if he hit something solid. Trying to actually fight someone with this body would probably get him killed in seconds.
He tried a kick next, bringing his foot up in what he hoped was a proper front kick. His leg came up maybe waist-high before his balance failed completely and he had to catch himself against the wall. Pathetic. Most Academy students his age could kick head-high without losing balance, and some of the talented ones could manage spinning kicks that looked almost professional. He couldn't even manage a basic front kick without falling over.
The adult memories didn't help at all. He'd never trained in martial arts in his previous life, never taken a boxing class or learned any formal fighting system. Had watched some MMA on television after work, read some manga that featured detailed fight scenes with dramatic poses, but that wasn't the same as actually knowing how to fight. Knowing that a proper punch should rotate from the hips and extend through the shoulder didn't mean his six-year-old body could execute it correctly. Knowledge and capability were different things, and right now he had very little of either.
Ryota sat back down on the futon, breathing harder than he should have been from such minimal exertion. His stamina was garbage. His strength was worse. His coordination was barely functional. This body was weak in every measurable way, and fixing it would take time and effort he wasn't sure he had.
He had seven years before the Uchiha Massacre. Twelve years before the Chunin Exams. More than a decade before things got truly catastrophic with the Fourth Shinobi War. That sounded like a lot of time when you said it out loud, but he knew from the original Ryota's memories that progress in the Academy was slow for average students. Most kids didn't properly unlock their chakra until they were nine or ten years old. Combat skills took years of consistent training to develop. The talented students, the clan heirs and natural prodigies like Itachi or Kakashi, started with inherent advantages that civilian kids couldn't match. Better genetics, family training from before the Academy, access to clan jutsu and private instructors.
Itachi Uchiha had graduated the Academy at seven and made Chunin at ten. Kakashi Hatake had graduated at five and made Chunin at six. Those were outliers, exceptional talents that came along once in a generation if you were lucky, but they set the bar for what was actually possible in this world. Meanwhile, the original Ryota had been on track to graduate at eleven if he was lucky, maybe twelve if he struggled, and his chances of ever making Chunin were low even with a full career.
The original Ryota's chakra reserves were small according to what the Academy instructors had told him during his first year evaluations. Not the smallest in his class, there were a few kids who were worse off—but below average. His chakra control was even worse, which made learning ninjutsu harder than it should have been. The Academy taught three basic jutsu to all students: Clone Technique, Transformation Technique, and Substitution Technique. The original Ryota had only managed to produce a functioning Clone once during the entire year, and it had been so weak and translucent that the instructor had marked it as barely passing. His Transformation attempts had all failed completely, and they hadn't even started on Substitution yet.
Ryota stood again and tried the basic Academy stance one more time, determined to at least get this right. Plant feet shoulder-width apart, knees bent slightly, hands in guard position near his face. Weight on the balls of his feet, ready to move forward or back or to either side. He held it for thirty seconds before his legs started shaking from the sustained tension. A minute before he had to straighten up and rest, his thighs burning.
Completely unacceptable. Six-year-olds at the Academy could hold this stance for five minutes without breaking a sweat. He needed to fix this weakness, and soon, before it got him killed.