Joseph's final awareness was swallowed by the dense, seemingly endless ocean of code on his computer screen.
The eerie glow of RGB lights lingered on his retinas, and in his ears echoed the hysterical death knell from his project manager:
"Joseph! This bug must be fixed today! The client has a demo tomorrow! Overtime! You must work overtime!"
His heart felt as if an invisible hand had suddenly clenched it tight. The searing pain and suffocating sensation from the abrupt halt of blood flow instantly seized all of his senses.
"Damn it… a-another… fucking overtime shift… this damn… 'blessing'…"
That was the last thought that flashed through his mind, filled with the extreme resentment and absurd helplessness of a worker at the moment of death.
Then came boundless darkness, where consciousness completely sank into silence.
It felt as if an entire century had passed.
Or perhaps only the blink of an eye.
His awareness was like a rusted iron ship that had sunk ten thousand meters beneath the sea, struggling bit by bit against immense pressure as it tried to rise toward the surface called "existence."
Cold.
Stiff.
And a… bizarre sense of restraint?
Wait. Something felt wrong.
The sensation in his body was slowly and stubbornly returning, but every feeling was twisted and unfamiliar.
His entire body felt limp, as if all the bones had been removed. Even something as simple as lifting a finger seemed impossibly distant. A profound sense of weakness enveloped him.
His vision was blurry, as if he were looking through a thick sheet of greasy frosted glass. He could only see shifting, distorted patches of dim color.
His ears were filled with buzzing static.
He seemed to hear hushed voices, deliberately lowered conversations with strange syllables, but he couldn't understand any of it.
The rhythm of the speech carried an unfamiliar cadence.
Worst of all, he felt tightly wrapped in some kind of soft yet tough fabric, like an overly delicate cocoon, placed upon a relatively hard surface.
Where am I…?
An ICU ward? Full-body fractures and severe burns, wrapped up like a mummy?
Joseph tried desperately to widen his eyes, attempting to command the completely uncooperative body, but every effort sank like a stone into the sea.
This didn't feel like recovering from a severe injury.
It felt more like a terrifying, absurd thought struck him like lightning, nearly freezing his newly awakened consciousness once again.
He forced himself to focus his scattered mental strength, like someone with severe nearsightedness squinting desperately to see clearly.
His blurred vision resisted his will but finally managed to focus just a little.
The lighting was dim.
It seemed to be an extremely old-style room, so old it might even be called crude.
Rough wooden structures.
Yellowed paper sliding doors.
The air carried a faint scent that was difficult to identify, perhaps sandalwood, perhaps medicinal herbs…
No matter how he looked at it, this place bore absolutely no resemblance to a modern hospital ward filled with the smell of disinfectant.
Everything here carried an ancient atmosphere that was completely unfamiliar to him.
Then he felt himself being lifted by a pair of unusually strong, clearly defined arms.
The motion wasn't gentle, if anything, it carried a stiff, businesslike air and a habitual wariness, but it was extremely steady, without the slightest shake.
Summoning every ounce of willpower, he tried to twist his nearly nonexistent neck and look upward.
A face suddenly filled his blurry field of vision.
A man in his thirties.
Thin features.
Prominent cheekbones.
His sharp lines looked as though they had been carved from stone.
His black hair was combed meticulously.
His right eye was tightly wrapped in white bandages, giving off an aura of mystery and danger.
But the most striking feature was the only visible left eye.
Sharp.
Deep.
Gloomy.
Like a bottomless pool that had never seen sunlight.
It carried an almost cruel scrutiny and unquestionable authority as it stared at him without blinking, observing him with clear interest.
This look…
This gaze…
This unmistakable low-pressure aura…
Joseph's heart suddenly skipped a beat.
If he even had a heart right now.
A chill ran from the top of his head straight down to his tailbone.
Isn't this…
Isn't this the veteran "Uchiha Eye Dealer" from Naruto, the one I stayed up all night binge-watching, the one whose figurines I bought several of, whose plot lines I can recite backward and forward?
Konoha's ultimate war criminal.
The man who devoted himself to carrying all darkness on his shoulders while firmly believing that "everything is for Konoha."
The so-called "Darkness of the Shinobi World"…
Shimura Danzo?
Cosplay?
Hallucination?
A dying man's flashback?
Or had some unscrupulous film crew kidnapped him while he was unconscious to shoot a movie?
Danzo looked at the little baby in his arms.
Unlike ordinary infants who only knew how to cry, this one stared back at him with unusually clear black-and-white eyes, filled with obvious shock and uncertainty, almost as if he had seen a ghost.
A faint trace of surprise flashed through Danzo's single eye, so slight it was nearly impossible to detect.
"Hmph. At least you're not noisy."
A low, hoarse voice rang out, carrying a unique magnetism and pressure.
It was the unmistakable tone burned into everyone's mind.
Danzo's voice.
Joseph "!!!"
Confirmed!
It was Japanese!
But bizarrely, he understood it.
Not through language knowledge, but through some direct comprehension at the level of consciousness.
No, wait, that wasn't the point.
The voice.
The tone.
The face.
That overwhelming villain-boss aura!
His mind exploded instantly.
His inner monologue flooded like a hacked computer screen, lines of text flashing wildly across it in bold, sparkling fonts.
'Holy shit! Holy shit holy shit!
It's really Danzo?!
Alive! Breathing! And he's holding me?!
That bandage smell… wait… why does it smell like disinfectant mixed with old books?
No! That's not the point!
Wait a second!
He's holding me...
This perspective…
This body sensation…
Total weakness, blurry vision, wrapped up like a rice dumpling…
Holy crap! Don't tell me…
I've been reborn?!
And reborn as a completely powerless baby?!
Are you kidding me?!
Did I just transmigrate into the Naruto world with a "free father at spawn" feature?
And not just any father, the highest difficulty setting: "Son of the sharingan dealer"?
This is basically spawning directly in front of the final boss!
Help! Is it too late to request a father exchange service?
Where's Namikaze Minato? The future Yellow Flash is full of promise!
If not him, Sarutobi Hiruzen would work too! At least he's a legitimate Hokage!
Even being born a civilian would be better than this guy!
Following him around, I'll probably be dead before episode three, either sent on a suicide mission "for the sake of Konoha," or I'll wake up one day with an arm full of Sharingan grafted onto me!
That visual is too beautiful, I dare not imagine it!
Calm down! Joseph, calm down!
You're a highly educated corporate drone, haven't you seen all kinds of unreasonable demands from clients,
Wait, no! I've never seen anything like THIS!
This is more outrageous than asking code to respond with zero latency on a server!'
Danzo watched the baby in his arms.
The child's expression shifted rapidly, from initial confusion to extreme shock and fear, and finally into a kind of lifeless resignation.
It was almost as if he had accepted his fate.
Danzo's tightly pressed lips twitched almost imperceptibly, and his brows furrowed slightly.
This child…
Were his expressions a little too rich?
His eyes were far too lively.
The emotional changes inside those pupils were astonishingly fast.
It was completely unlike a newborn infant whose brain had barely developed.
Instead, he looked like…
A monster with the soul of an adult.
Danzo extended his other hand.
With a finger bearing the rough calluses of someone who trained and used ninja tools for years, he poked Joseph's soft, chubby baby cheek with slight force.
Warm.
Real.
And springy.
The sensation startled Joseph.
That slight sting made him finally understand the cold, cruel reality.
He....
Joseph....
Former Earth corporate drone.
Currently unknown infant in the Naruto world.
Was being held in the arms of Danzo himself.
And very likely, in both biological and legal terms…
This man with the aura of a warlord….
Was his father.
A tremendous sense of absurd sorrow surged up like icy water, nearly making him cry.
If crying were even possible.
Other people who transmigrated into the Naruto world started as handsome Uchiha with built-in cheat tools like the Sharingan.
Or members of the Hyuga clan with the Byakugan's built-in complete vision.
At worst, they began as civilians who knew the plot and could slowly develop.
But him?
He had parachuted straight into the ultimate dungeon.
His father was the universally acknowledged number one troublemaker of the Naruto world, a schemer, conspirator, and inheritor of the useless legacy.
With an identity like this, walking down the streets of Konoha would probably get people whispering and pointing.
"Look, that's Danzo's son. Stay away from him, or you might get silenced."
Could this start possibly get any worse?
The Night of the Uchiha Massacre.
Pain's invasion.
The Fourth Great Ninja War…
Countless enormous, shiny drones already seemed to be circling overhead, buzzing ominously as they prepared to drop one after another onto his tiny head.
Just as his mind was spiraling in frantic complaints, nearly stunned by this massive "surprise," and he began contemplating the possibility of dying suddenly as a baby…
A pale blue, semi-transparent light screen suddenly appeared in front of him without any warning.
It had a futuristic technological feel.
The screen appeared silently but clearly occupied the center of his vision, completely out of place with the surrounding ancient, dim environment.
[Ding! Host consciousness fully awakened. Cognitive capacity verified… Worldview baseline data recorded…]
[Binding to the sole host… Soul frequency matching… Binding successful!]
[Welcome to the 'Naruto World System,' dear host. May you enjoy your journey, and your adventures, in this world!]
A mechanical, emotionless notification sounded directly in his mind.
At the same time, clear text appeared smoothly across the screen.
Joseph instantly stopped wailing internally.
His eyes widened until they nearly popped out.
A system?
The standard cheat ability for transmigrators, late, but it finally arrived!
Sure enough, God never seals off all exits. Just when the path seemed blocked, another opened.
Thank you, Lord! System gods! Whoever you are!
This is like a ray of sunlight in a hell-mode start!
An oasis in the desert!
The sound of the workday ending bell during overtime!
Joseph felt a surge of ecstatic joy, nearly bursting into tears, though his baby tear ducts still refused to cooperate.
He forced his recently traumatized mind to focus and looked toward the life-saving screen.