The Land of Wind.
Deep in the great desert, within a ruined city.
A young man leaned against a wall, snoring in the shade.
He looked about fifteen years old, with short reddish-brown hair and delicate features. Paired with his black Shinobi attire, he appeared handsome and sharp.
"Ryuji, Ryuji..."
A girl's call echoed from afar. The sleeping young man's brow twitched, but he did not wake.
The voice grew closer.
Soon, a girl wearing light clothing arrived.
Seeing the boy sleeping soundly, she frowned slightly.
"Ryuji!"
She called again. When he still didn't wake up, she fell silent for a moment, then three kunai suddenly appeared in her hand. "Senki Ryuji, if you keep slacking off, I'll use you for target practice with these kunai."
As soon as the threat left her lips, the snoring stopped.
The boy opened his clear eyes, full of resignation. "Pakura, can't you let me rest a bit?"
Pakura raised an eyebrow, looking down at him. "The Third Kazekage has been missing for days now. This concerns the very survival of the village. Everyone is searching desperately for any trace of him, even the border patrols have been stripped of manpower. How can you have the nerve to slack off?"
"I'm searching desperately too!"
"By lying here?"
"Of course." Ryuji flipped himself up, stood, and brushed the sand off his clothes. "I'm a puppeteer. Why would I search in person?"
"?"
Seeing the girl's puzzled expression, Ryuji smiled faintly and pointed into the distance. "Look, my scouts are returning."
The girl followed his gaze.
The endless desert stretched before them, with rolling dust clouds and no sign of any living creature.
"Are you messing with me?"
She whipped her head back, glaring at him.
But Ryuji just gave a light laugh, his gaze dropping to her feet. "No, they're here."
"Them?"
Noticing his plural choice of word, Pakura was momentarily confused. Suddenly, she felt a rustling movement in the sand beneath her feet, as if something was about to emerge.
"Watch out!"
Pakura warned, leaping backward while her hands began forming hand seals, ready to strike the moment whatever was hiding underground revealed itself.
Just then, fist-sized scarab beetles began crawling out.
Ryuji stepped forward, positioning himself between Pakura and the beetles. "Don't be hasty. They're my puppets."
"Puppets?"
Pakura froze.
Ryuji chuckled lightly, raising his right hand and extending it toward the girl. A scarab beetle crawled up from his foot to the back of his hand, obediently crouching there.
Its metallic sheen and mandibles helped the girl identify its true nature... it was indeed not a living creature.
"You could have explained earlier!"
Pakura let out a sigh of relief.
In the Shinobi World, many animals and insects had mutated.
Encountering a swarm of scarab beetles in the desert was troublesome, even for a Shinobi.
"I wanted you to see it for yourself!"
Ryuji said without a blush, his face not reddening at all.
In truth, he was just irritated by the girl's earlier attitude and wanted to scare her a bit with the bugs. It had almost backfired.
Although these scarab beetles were coated with heat-resistant material, facing her Scorch Release, which could instantly evaporate all moisture from a human body, he wasn't sure they'd come out unscathed.
"After all, autonomous puppets are a secret technique I invented exclusively. Explaining it verbally would have taken forever to make you believe."
Hearing this, Pakura nodded in agreement.
Puppeteers had to manipulate their puppets using Chakra Threads from a relatively close distance.
For Ryuji to control puppets without Chakra Threads, letting them act autonomously far from the puppeteer, was indeed a first in history.
If he had tried to explain it verbally, she would have just thought he was making excuses for his laziness.
"As expected of the genius puppeteer hailed alongside Sasori of the Red Sand as the greatest in Sunagakure's history. To develop such a secret technique..." Pakura couldn't help but praise.
She didn't immediately grasp the deeper strategic implications of autonomous puppets.
But for the puppeteer profession... compared to the puppets, which were weapons head-to-toe and highly durable, the puppeteer themselves, who had to split their focus to control the puppets, was a much easier target.
Therefore, in combat, enemies often bypassed the puppets or the puppeteer's teammates, charging straight for the puppeteer themselves, making them the critical weakness.
If one could control puppets in battle remotely, the puppeteer's main body would no longer be a weakness, greatly increasing the profession's margin for error.
"Enough with the praise. My little ones have found a clue. Let's go check it out." Ryuji said with a serious expression.
"Enemies?"
"Yes, and formidable ones."
Ryuji turned, jumped onto a broken wall, and looked into the distance.
In the endless desert, dust clouds rolled, and the air shimmered with heat, distorting the view.
But Ryuji ignored all the obstacles hindering his sight, seeing clearly to the horizon.
At a cliff in a rocky desert some three hundred kilometers away.
Another handsome young man with reddish-brown hair was inside a cave filled with mechanical parts and piled corpses, modifying one of the bodies.
That body's appearance was that of the Third Kazekage.
"Hopefully, we're not too late."
Withdrawing his gaze, Ryuji muttered softly.
He had known from the start that the Third Kazekage was assassinated and taken by the village's own genius… Sasori of the Red Sand.
He also knew that this massive search operation involving almost all Shinobi would leave the village's interior and borders vulnerable, inviting attacks from neighboring nations.
However, he couldn't explain his source of information.
He himself was only a newly promoted Jonin with no authority to stop this search operation.
He could only participate, hoping to find the Third Kazekage before the surrounding nations attacked the village.
Yes, Senki Ryuji was a Reincarnator.
In his previous life, he came from another world's Earth and had watched an anime called Naruto.
After crossing over, he also obtained a slacker's check-in system.
No missions, no penalties.
As long as he signed in with the system daily, he would receive rewards.
Of course, the rewards weren't exactly great.
Usually, it was stuff like 10 points or experience, or possibly materials or knowledge books not from this world.
Points could be used to buy items from the system shop, and experience could be used to level up personal skills.
But…
10 points could only buy a bottle of sake or some precision screws.
And 10 experience points couldn't do anything.
Even for the most basic shuriken throwing... going from beginner to basic mastery required 100 points.
As for those knowledge books, they weren't precious goods either. Not only were the categories all over the place, but there were also many novels or comics and such.
To get a big prize, one had to sign in consecutively for a certain number of days.
In nearly ten years of signing in, Ryuji had only gotten three major prizes. It was quite frustrating.
Because this world was filled with fatalism and bloodline determinism…
Without a decent background, you couldn't even be cannon fodder… you'd only appear in the background of the background.
And without even a name.