"Hikaru!"
"Promise me, you will protect your sister!"
"Stay safe, Hikaru!"
The voices echoed in his mind as tears streamed down the young boy's face. Rain fell steadily on the crowd gathered around the memorial stone, each person paying their respects to the fallen shinobi heroes who died defending the village from the Nine-Tails demon fox.
A six-year-old boy with messy black hair stood near the memorial stone, wearing simple black clothes that were already soaked from the rain. His small body suddenly shook, as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep. He wiped his tears with the back of his hand, looking around with confusion and panic in his dark eyes.
His left hand felt warm. Looking down, he saw slender fingers intertwined with his own. The hand belonged to a teenage girl, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, with short black hair and wearing traditional Japanese mourning clothes.
My sister, he thought automatically, the knowledge appearing in his mind without explanation. Muranaka Ayako.
"How did I get here?" Hikaru whispered, his brow furrowing as he looked at the sea of grieving faces around him. Panic rose in his chest, but he forced himself to stay calm and not scream.
The sight of so many sad faces and quiet crying made him understand what was happening.
"Someone died," he murmured, studying the crowd more carefully.
Their clothes look familiar, Hikaru noticed. As he continued watching the people around him, something else caught his attention that made his eyes widen.
Is that who I think it is?
An elderly man stood in the center of the gathering, giving a speech in front of the memorial stone. Even though Hikaru couldn't understand the words at first, somehow he found himself understanding them naturally, as if the language had always been part of him.
The sight of the old man triggered a memory, but not from his own life. He remembered seeing this person before, but it was from a manga he used to read in his previous life.
The Third Hokage! Sarutobi Hiruzen!
This can't be real.
Did I... transmigrate? Hikaru's mouth fell open slowly. He looked around frantically, recognizing more characters from the story he knew so well. There was the Akimichi clan with their large builds, the Inuzuka clan with their ninja dogs beside them, and the one that made his heart race—Hatake Kakashi in his black clothes and mask, exactly as he remembered from the manga.
Suddenly, a sharp pain shot through Hikaru's head. He stumbled backward, pressing his palms against his temples as the throbbing became almost unbearable.
New memories that weren't his own began flooding his mind like a dam bursting open. Images, feelings, and experiences from the body he now inhabited crashed into his consciousness.
Ayako noticed his distress immediately. She squeezed his hand gently, her eyes filled with worry and tears.
"Hikaru-kun, are you okay?" she asked, her voice shaking with concern.
Several people nearby glanced at him with sympathetic looks, thinking the young boy was struggling to handle his grief.
"The poor child must be taking it hard," someone said with a heavy sigh.
Hikaru took a deep breath, trying to calm himself as the pain slowly faded. He looked up at his sister and replied in the local language that now felt natural to him.
"I'll be okay, Onee-chan. Just give me a moment."
Or maybe ten minutes, he thought as more memories from the night before filled his mind, helping him understand why he was at this memorial service.
His parents—both Tokubetsu Jōnin—had died as heroes, giving their lives to protect innocent civilians from the Nine-Tails demon fox's rampage. His father, Muranaka Sora, had given him one final message: protect your sister. Then both parents had rushed out to save others alongside his mother, Fukushima Yukiko.
They never came back.
Now the Muranaka family had only two people left: Muranaka Hikaru, a six-year-old boy, and his sister, Muranaka Ayako, a sixteen-year-old girl who would now have to raise him alone.
Hikaru was a student at the Ninja Academy, in the same class as the young prodigy Uchiha Itachi. His sister, however, had never shown interest in becoming a shinobi. She preferred cooking and had opened a small barbecue stall to help support their family. Their father, who adored her, had allowed her to follow her own path instead of forcing her into the ninja lifestyle like he had with Hikaru.
Their parents had originally been civilians who chose to become ninja later in life. They weren't from any major clan, just ordinary people who worked hard to protect their village. Fortunately, their small house on the outskirts of Konoha had been far enough from the Nine-Tails' path of destruction to remain safe.
The siblings had been staying home that night, but Hikaru had grown worried about their parents and snuck out to look for them, putting himself in terrible danger. While searching, he had nearly been hurt before someone saved him. His reckless actions had made Ayako cry and worry all night.
When the news of their parents' deaths finally reached them, it felt like their whole world had collapsed. In just one night, they had gone from a happy family to orphans.
At least we still have our house, Hikaru thought, trying to find something positive in the situation. And we won't have to live in an orphanage.
My name is still the same as my previous life too, he realized, which felt like a small comfort in this strange new reality.
He squeezed his sister's hand gently as he looked at her tear-stained face. I have family here. That's still a blessing. She had been crying all night, and the tears still hadn't stopped even now at the memorial service.
To be honest, I don't miss much from my previous life, Hikaru reflected. Before arriving in this world, he had lived for twenty-three years as an orphan. He had just graduated from university and gone to a party with his friend before they went their separate ways. But for some reason he couldn't remember, he had ended up here. He honestly couldn't recall what happened after that party—everything just went black.
A shift in the crowd's attention drew him back to the present moment. The murmur of private conversations was gradually fading, replaced by an expectant silence that rippled outward from the center of the gathering. The Third Hokage was stepping forward, his weathered face set in lines of solemn dignity as he prepared to address the assembled villagers.
Hiruzen moved with the careful grace of advanced age, but his presence commanded absolute attention. Even hunched slightly with the weight of years and responsibility, he radiated the kind of authority that made people instinctively straighten their postures and focus their attention.
"We gather here today," the Hokage proclaimed, his voice cutting through the rain and silence, "not only to mourn our fallen heroes but to celebrate their sacrifice."
The words were simple, but they carried a power that seemed to cut through the gray atmosphere. Hikaru felt the shift in the crowd's energy, the way hundreds of individual griefs began to come together into something larger and more meaningful.
"Each name carved into this stone represents a life given freely for the protection of our village, our way of life, and our future."
Hikaru's eyes moved to the memorial stone, its polished surface reflecting the gray sky like a dark mirror. From his position in the crowd, he could see some of the names etched into its surface—neat rows of characters that represented lives cut short in service to something greater than themselves.
"The demon fox sought to destroy not just our buildings and our walls, but our spirit, our unity, our very will to continue. It failed."
The simple declaration carried tremendous weight. Hikaru felt a shiver run down his spine that had nothing to do with the rain soaking through his clothes.
"In the face of unimaginable terror, our shinobi stood firm. They chose duty over safety, others over themselves, and in doing so, they embodied the very essence of what it means to be a protector of Konoha."
Tears were streaming down Hikaru's face again. These weren't just the borrowed emotions of his inherited memories, but genuine grief for people he had never met yet somehow knew through the stories embedded in his new consciousness.
"We are not merely survivors," the Third Hokage continued, his voice rising to carry across the entire plaza. "We are the living embodiment of their sacrifice, the proof that their deaths were not in vain."
"Konoha is more than a village," the Hokage declared, his voice carrying the weight of absolute conviction. "It is a family, bound not by blood but by choice, by shared values, by the commitment to protect and nurture one another."
The crowd was hanging on every word, drawn into the vision of unity and purpose that the Hokage was painting. Children who had been restless earlier now stood still, sensing the importance of the moment.
"As long as I draw breath," the Third Hokage concluded, his voice carrying across the plaza with the force of a sacred vow, "I will protect this village and all who call it home."
The speech concluded with respectful silence. The rain continued to fall, but it seemed to have lost its oppressive quality. As the crowd began to disperse, moving toward the memorial stone to pay their individual respects, people seemed more united despite their grief.
Ayako turned to her little brother and held out the white flowers she had been carrying. "Let's go pay our respects to Okaa-san and Otou-san before we head home, Hikaru-kun."
Hikaru nodded silently and took the flowers. They looked like white lilies, he realized from his memories. These flowers were often chosen to honor the dead because they symbolized the spirit of loved ones and offered hope to grieving families.
The staff had given the same flowers to everyone, so he could see identical white blooms throughout the crowd. After waiting for others to finish paying their respects, he followed his sister to the memorial stone and carefully placed his flowers at its base.
"Okaa-san," Ayako said softly, her voice breaking as fresh tears fell, "please don't worry. I promise I'll take good care of Hikaru-kun." She paused, struggling to speak through her emotion. "Otou-san... I'm going to miss you so much."
Hearing his sister's grief for their parents, Hikaru felt his own tears beginning to fall. The memories and emotions from the boy whose body he now inhabited felt completely real and natural, as if they had always been his own.
Despite having just taken over this life, nothing felt awkward or foreign. The love for his sister, the pain of losing his parents, the determination to protect his family—it all felt genuine.
"Otou-san," Hikaru whispered quietly, making a promise to both the departed father and the soul of the boy he had replaced, "I swear I'll keep my promise. No matter why I'm here, I'll become a strong ninja and protect my family."
After spending several more minutes in quiet prayer, Ayako decided it was time to leave. "Let's go home, Hikaru-kun."
Hikaru looked up at his sister and nodded. "Yeah, let's go home." As he followed her away from the memorial, he realized he didn't actually know the way back to their house yet, since he was still sorting through all these new memories.
Even though the memories were still somewhat fuzzy, he retained all the knowledge from his previous life. This should be a huge advantage for living in this world. He had read the entire manga series and knew most of the important plot points that would happen in the future.
The next major event should be Orochimaru's defection, which could happen anytime soon, he thought. And then the Uchiha Massacre, which is still years away.
But there's no point in thinking too far ahead right now. I really need to get some sleep and process all of this.
Before leaving the memorial area completely, Hikaru turned around for one last look at the stone marker. The sight of all those names, including his parents', filled him with a mixture of sadness and determination.
"I won't let their sacrifice be meaningless," he whispered to himself, making a silent promise to both his departed parents and his new life.
Looking back at his sister walking ahead of him, Hikaru felt a surge of protective instinct that surprised him with its intensity.
"Onee-chan, please wait for me!" he called out, hurrying to catch up with her.
As they walked home together through the rain-soaked streets of Konoha, neither sibling could have imagined the challenges and adventures that awaited them. But for now, they had each other, and that was enough to face whatever the future might bring.