Land of Fire, Konohagakure.
Gen Takuya sat in Ichiraku Ramen with a pale face, savoring one of the village's most iconic foods while listening to the chatter around him.
Beneath his outwardly indifferent expression, a quiet sense of emotion slowly surfaced.
The conversations in the shop were messy and scattered, but lately there was one topic that drowned out everything else—
Hatake Kakashi.
The youngest jōnin in the village.
Even though Kakashi's promotion wasn't brand-new news anymore, a jōnin that young was still enough to make people talk in awe, over and over again.
But the discussion didn't stop there.
What truly reignited the frenzy was what happened after Kakashi returned from the war against Iwagakure—
He came back with an extra eye.
A Sharingan.
An eye that couldn't be closed.
According to the rumors, Kakashi's left eye had been ruined in battle. Before he died, Uchiha Obito had entrusted him with the power of the Uchiha bloodline itself—
The Sharingan.
It was the symbol of the Uchiha clan's kekkei genkai. Even within the clan, not everyone awakened it. And even those who did usually started with a single tomoe.
Yet Kakashi's was already a two-tomoe Sharingan.
A Sharingan in the hands of Hatake Kakashi—history's most gifted genius—
What kind of reaction would that produce?
That was the question everyone in the village was obsessed with.
Gen Takuya, however, couldn't help letting out a quiet scoff.
At this moment, who could possibly imagine that this Sharingan… wasn't purely a good thing for a prodigy like Kakashi?
It wasn't that the Sharingan was weak.
It was that it didn't fit Kakashi right now.
Because no matter how early he'd become a jōnin, the truth remained—
Hatake Kakashi was only twelve years old.
At that age, his body hadn't fully developed. His chakra reserves were, by comparison, pitifully small.
And he didn't have Uchiha blood.
So his Sharingan stayed active at all times.
With chakra reserves already limited, adding an eye that constantly drained chakra without pause…
It would inevitably cripple his growth.
Of course, the Sharingan was still a terrifying kekkei genkai. It would absolutely boost combat power. That couldn't be denied.
So Kakashi's best choice would've been simple—
Seal the Sharingan for now.
Wait until his chakra reserves matured, then release the seal.
That way, his growth wouldn't be hindered, and he'd still gain the Sharingan's strength later. The only downside would be less familiarity with it—
But with Kakashi's talent, that wouldn't matter.
It wasn't a difficult conclusion to reach.
Yet Kakashi hadn't done it.
He had Uzumaki Kushina as his teacher's wife—a seal master.
And Minato Namikaze, his teacher, had been trained by Kushina himself in barrier and sealing techniques, even beyond the standard level.
If Kakashi wanted the eye sealed, it wasn't as if it couldn't be done.
So the only explanation was—
That eye was Obito's parting gift.
And Kakashi refused to seal it.
"Uchiha Obito's Sharingan…" Gen Takuya muttered, a trace of envy flashing in his eyes.
He wanted it too.
That Sharingan carried the Kamui ability.
But the moment he thought of what stood behind Obito—Uchiha Madara—and what stood behind Kakashi—Minato Namikaze—
He abandoned the idea.
For now, he was still a Tokubetsu Jōnin of Konoha. That identity gave him convenience in countless matters.
He had no intention of throwing it away.
Gen Takuya shook his head. Then a different heat surfaced in his gaze—not because he'd found some new angle to steal Kamui, but because…
"So… it's finally time?"
He stared into the clear broth in his bowl, seeing his own pallid reflection. His eyes drifted, distant and heavy with years.
He had waited too long for today.
Gen Takuya.
Tokubetsu Jōnin.
Twenty-seven years old.
At that age, reaching Tokubetsu Jōnin already meant he'd hit his ceiling. Any further improvement would be minor—picking up a few niche techniques, gaining small, almost negligible boosts.
It wasn't because he hadn't tried.
If anything, his effort rivaled Might Guy's.
Not in taijutsu, of course.
He'd attempted that route too—only to learn that his talent there was equally mediocre. He couldn't train like Might Guy.
If he forced it, he'd only destroy his body.
When Gen Takuya realized his chakra talent was average, his taijutsu talent was average, and he didn't even have the "system" that every reincarnator supposedly got…
He went numb.
The shinobi world wasn't peaceful.
In his twenty-plus years here, he'd lived through the Second Shinobi World War and the Third Shinobi World War.
He survived, yes—
But only barely. Only by luck.
In war, ordinary genin were cannon fodder.
Chūnin were slightly stronger cannon fodder.
And Tokubetsu Jōnin?
That "jōnin" title sounded nicer, but in reality, their combat level was closer to elite chūnin.
And elite chūnin were…
Elite cannon fodder.
Gen Takuya wasn't afraid of death.
He simply didn't want to die pointlessly, without meaning, without even understanding why.
He didn't even know how he'd come to this world.
No truck. No dramatic accident.
He just closed his eyes, opened them again, and became a member of Konoha—with his past-life memories intact.
Sometimes he wondered…
Maybe the truck wasn't just about impact.
Maybe it was also how you got the system.
Gen Takuya shook his head. There was no point chasing that now. If a system hadn't shown up by this point, it probably never would.
At best, he could cling to a thin hope—that it might appear when the "main character" was born, or when the plot truly began.
Was there anything exceptional about him?
There was.
He had chakra control so fine it bordered on obsessive.
But no matter how precise his control was, it couldn't make up for his low chakra reserves.
Even now, at twenty-seven, his chakra volume was only around that of an ordinary chūnin.
That was right.
Twenty-seven years old, and his reserves were merely average chūnin level.
And as he aged, they might even decline.
It was… absurd.
If he didn't happen to have decent talent with ninjutsu, he wouldn't have even scraped into Tokubetsu Jōnin.
The more he thought about it, the more bitter it felt.
No system, fine.
But not even enough talent?
That was just cruel.
Still…
Heaven didn't completely cut off every road.
His memories were his one advantage.
And right now, they had led him to a single technique he'd been fixated on for years—
Chimera Technique.
Gen Takuya had been watching a jōnin named Hiruko for a long time.
He hadn't acted earlier not because he lacked opportunities, but because he wasn't sure whether Hiruko's Chimera Technique had truly succeeded.
But now—
Now was different.
This was the time when Hiruko set his sights on Kakashi's newly acquired Sharingan—when he even dared to make a move against him in secret, using Puppet Technique.
At this point, Hiruko's Chimera Technique was either completed or nearly completed.
Soon after, his experiments would be exposed. The Legendary Sannin would hunt him down, and he would flee Konoha—
Then begin collecting intact corpses from those with kekkei genkai.
That was how Gen Takuya remembered it, at least.
And during this window, Hiruko would still place a puppet curse on Kakashi.
All Gen Takuya had to do was wait—
Wait until Hiruko left his hidden laboratory.
Gen Takuya inhaled slowly. His free hand formed a seal without drawing attention.
"Summoning Technique—Clairvoyance."
In the next instant, his vision seemed to slip beyond Ichiraku's walls, soaring toward a secluded research facility.
On a tree beside it, a crow perched calmly, preening its black feathers with its beak while watching the area below with crimson eyes.
That crow was Gen Takuya's summon.
It had once been an ordinary crow—nothing more.
He had painstakingly nurtured it with chakra over time until it barely awakened intelligence, becoming his contract summon.
"No movement yet?"
Through the crow's eyes, Gen Takuya wasn't surprised.
Not only was it uncertain whether the news had reached Hiruko yet—
Even if it had, broad daylight wasn't ideal for action.
After watching for a while longer, Gen Takuya dispelled the technique.
From here on, he only needed his summon to alert him.
Unfortunately, his crow was born ordinary. It couldn't perform reverse summoning like the summons with proper lineage and inheritance.
Still, using chakra to notify him within a certain range was well within its abilities.
After some thought, Gen Takuya quietly directed the other crows as well, sending them to disperse around the facility. They would keep their distance and observe.
Only then did he lift his bowl and drink the remaining broth, letting out a satisfied sigh.
No wonder the future "main character" could eat this for years without getting sick of it.
It really was that good.
"Boss," he said, setting the bowl down. "Check, please."
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