If I could only live through that regret-soaked past one more time, I would have sold my soul to the devil without hesitation.
From the day I lost my little sister, my only family, there was nothing I wouldn't do.
And then the "devil" really did come calling. He didn't ask for my soul. Instead, he offered me a different bargain.
[Be reborn into the world of Naruto, and then die at the hands of Naruto Uzumaki.]
The moment I heard the condition, I let out a scornful laugh.
"What's that? That's way easier than I expected."
I wasn't being told to kill Naruto. I was being told to die by his hand... At the time, I actually thought to myself, what kind of deal is this? That sounds almost too easy.
It didn't take long for me to regret that thought.
"This is such a cheat..."
The boy muttered under his breath, chin propped on one hand as he stared out the window.
It was a painfully familiar view, the sort he had seen hundreds, thousands of times before.
Only one thing was different. On the Hokage Rock, there were only three faces carved into the stone.
"I figured I'd get this over with fast... and it turns out he hasn't even been born yet..."
The boy clenched his childish hand, then slowly let it loosen, before letting out a long sigh.
"Damn it..."
As if suddenly remembering something, he cursed again under his breath.
This point in time was far earlier than the start of the original story. They were probably right in the middle of one of the great shinobi wars.
"At this rate, I might die before Naruto is even born..."
The more he thought about it... the more obvious it became this was a lot harder than he'd first imagined.
---
"Him again?"
"What a bad omen..."
Hearing the whispers drift over from somewhere nearby, Kuroshiro Byakuya scratched irritably at his itching ear.
He had thought he was getting used to it, at least a little, but pretending not to hear this kind of talk still took more nerve than he had.
"Byakuya, you're losing points for the same reason again."
As the ninja academy instructor spoke while marking up the score sheet and walking toward him, Byakuya only nodded absentmindedly.
Compared to what he had actually done, losing a single point was hardly a real problem.
"I keep telling you this, but you need to think seriously about why teams are made up of three people."
"I'm thinking about it."
"Then why did you cast a jutsu with such a wide range that it caught your teammates too?"
The teacher kept writing as he talked, eyes fixed on Byakuya with a look that made it feel like they were discussing his character, not just his grades.
The noisy crowd around them fell silent in an instant, as if everyone was waiting for Byakuya's answer. Even the muttering stopped.
Since that was the mood, and he didn't want them going home with nothing to gossip about, Byakuya decided to give them something worth repeating.
"Wasn't that the idiot standing there's fault? Honestly, I shouldn't be the one losing points. If he's too weak to dodge even a friendly jutsu and gets caught in it, that sounds like his problem."
"..."
Whether the teacher was stunned speechless or simply too exasperated to argue with how shamelessly confident he sounded, he stopped writing and made an expression that looked thoroughly pained.
With an attitude like this, he had no business becoming a ninja.
But Byakuya's skill was among the best in his age group, so there was no real way to keep him from graduating.
If he took the graduation exam with the upperclassmen, he'd probably still finish somewhere in the top three.
"Forget it... Once you reach a real battlefield, you'll understand. Class dismissed."
Watching the teacher turn away after tossing out that loaded remark, like he had just made up his mind about something, Byakuya found himself thinking the man was actually pretty decent.
Enough so that he even felt a little guilty.
When he thought about it, he did feel bad for the kid who had been paired with him today and got hurt because of his jutsu.
But he really, absolutely hadn't done it on purpose.
It's more that... controlling the output is a pain...
Byakuya stared at his callused palm, then clenched and unclenched it again before sighing.
He had only transmigrated into this body a month or two ago, and he still wasn't used to it. He couldn't control the intensity of his chakra properly yet, either.
So every time he relied on the body's muscle memory to cast a jutsu, it turned into something way larger than intended.
He had been practicing, and things were improving bit by bit, but how many times had this happened already?
How many times had he blown the range so wide that even allies got caught in it?
Everyone around him probably thought he was doing it on purpose by now.
"Hey."
Hm?
Byakuya had been standing there in a daze, lost in his thoughts, and looked up at the voice.
To his surprise, it was Sarutobi Asuma from his class.
They were classmates, sure, but they had barely spoken before, and they had never really clashed either. So why was he suddenly coming over now?
Come to think of it, wasn't this guy the righteous type? He's not about to punch me, is he?
Byakuya stiffened, waiting uneasily for him to speak. Instead, Asuma set a solid hand on his shoulder, gave it a light pat, and said only one thing.
"You... don't keep your shoulders wound so tight."
Huh?
That was completely outside anything Byakuya had expected.
Hearing something so weirdly deflating, he couldn't help giving a faint, crooked smile.
But the truth was, from the moment he started walking to school until the moment he got home, his shoulders were always tight. He had never let his guard down for even a second.
Ever since arriving in this world, Byakuya had been living in a state of constant unease.
But he absolutely could not let someone as deeply tied to the original plot as Asuma notice anything strange.
After all, he was supposed to be a villain. A "villain" who, in the end, had to die at Naruto's hands.
"What a pointless thing to say."
"Yeah, fair enough."
This guy really knew how to play dumb.
Byakuya shot Asuma a cold glare, knocked his hand off his shoulder, and quickly turned to leave.
His heart was still hammering from the earlier fear of getting hit, and he could barely tell whether he was even walking straight.
Behind him, Asuma stood there looking a little awkward as he watched Byakuya's retreating back vanish in a hurry, then rubbed his chin.
"This guy really doesn't say what he means..."
More than hurting his teammates, Byakuya had looked panicked.
He had kept staring after the kid being taken off for treatment until the boy was completely out of sight... He was clearly trying to make himself look like a jerk, but his shoulders had been locked tight the whole time.
At first, I just wanted to tell him to show a little restraint, so I put my hand on his shoulder. But when I felt how tense he was, I ended up telling him to relax instead.
Whatever the case, he was the kind of person you couldn't help noticing.
Thinking that, Asuma turned and headed for the classroom for the next lesson.