The cold was the first reminder.
It was always the stinging cold of the wooden floor that woke Asahi, long before the sun had the decency to start its shift over Konohagakure No Sato.
It was around 3:33 AM. The devil's hour. A dense, almost unnatural silence blanketed the orphanage. There were no crickets. No wind. It was a held-breath silence, broken only by the occasional creak of old wood settling under the weight of its secrets.
Or, in his case, the paranoid's hour.
'They're sleeping,' Asahi thought, sliding his slender six-year-old feet from the communal futon. The movement was minimal, but the floor's chill clung to his ankles like a promise. The futon's rough fabric brushed his skin.
The air in the room was heavy.
'They sleep as if they live in some pastoral world out of a slice-of-life anime. They sleep as if some masked lunatic with delusions of godhood isn't going to declare war on the world, or as if the resident mad scientist doesn't have plans to become a Metal Gear Solid villain.'
He moved in silence.
To his left, Kenji snored loudly, a wet whistle on every exhale, completely vulnerable. To his right, Miko had stolen half of her neighbor's blanket, curled up as if danger didn't exist in the world. They were children. Orphans, yes, but fundamentally... normal children. Civilians...
'Ignorance,' Asahi decided as he pulled on his only clean shirt. The fabric was cold and smelled faintly of damp, a constant reminder of their communal poverty. 'It's a blessing. A dangerous blessing.' He looked at their relaxed faces and felt no envy, only a profound pity. They were cattle waiting for the slaughter. Future victims of the Pain Invasion, cannon fodder for a filler arc, or worse, future "experiments" if they caught the wrong eye.
He slipped out of the Konoha Orphanage's main room. The hallway was colder, drafts slithering under the doors like ghostly scouts. The building was old but clean. The night-shift caregiver, a kind woman named Emi, was nodding off over a pile of paperwork at the front desk. The light from her lamp cast long, dancing shadows. The faint smell of ink and cheap tea wafted from her desk.
Asahi tiptoed past, holding his breath, feeling every loose floorboard under his bare feet. He paused for a second, watching her. Emi-san was a civilian. Chakra: almost undetectable. Harmless. And that's what made her so terrifying. He wasn't afraid of Emi, but he was mortally afraid of the normality she represented. It was a Kage-level genjutsu, this world of peace and routine, one designed to lull you to sleep before the final blow.
'The shinobi world isn't normal,' he reminded himself. 'It isn't kind to people.' His memories of his previous life were crystal clear. They weren't dreams or fragments. They were data.
He remembered the manga, the anime, the hours spent in forum discussions. He remembered the Fourth Shinobi World War, the sound of the Chidori, the horror of the Infinite Tsukuyomi. He remembered Itachi slaughtering his Clan under a blood-red moon. He remembered Gaara, a child broken by hate; Nagato, an idealist turned into a God of Pain; Obito, the architect of it all.
'And I'm here. An orphan with no clan name, in the same generation as Naruto. I'm trope number one. Cannon fodder waiting for my turn. The kid who dies in someone else's flashback to give them motivation.'
He slipped out the back door into the small training yard. The outside air hit his face, sharp and clean. The relief was immediate. This cold was real, honest. It smelled of damp earth and the distant pines surrounding the village. It was empty, bathed in the pale blue light of pre-dawn. The moon, a pale fingernail, still kept watch.
'I don't have chakra.' He had tried. He'd tried to feel it, to mold it, to stick to walls like he'd read about. Nothing. Zero. 'Or if I do, I don't know how to use it. They haven't thrown me into the Academy's meat grinder yet. But I have this.' He meant his body. Scrawny, underfed, and six years old. Pathetic. His arms were like twigs. But it was his. And it was the only thing he could control.
'Rule number one of the zombie apocalypse... or the ninja apocalypse: cardio.' He paused, looking at his pale hands. 'No. Cardio later. First, the foundation.'
Asahi had a meticulous plan based on the fitness knowledge from his previous life, the only inheritance he kept. 'Monday, Wednesday, Friday: Push and Core. Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday: Pull and Legs. Sunday: Rest and existential dread.'
'I think today is Wednesday.' It didn't matter. He'd start with Push.
He got into position on the cold ground. The earth was tacky with dew, and sharp little pebbles dug painfully into his palms. 'Form is everything,' he recited to himself, like a mantra. 'No point in doing a hundred garbage reps. That just injures the rotator cuff. Slow and controlled.'
He braced his core, imagining trying to pull his navel to his spine, a tip he'd read in a health magazine a lifetime ago. 'The core is the foundation. If my core is weak, my speed will be useless, my balance will fail. I'll be a ninja flan ready to be devoured.'
He began the push-ups. Slow. Controlled. His adult mind demanded perfection, but his child's body betrayed that demand. His arms trembled violently. Lactic acid burned in his triceps in an almost humiliating way.
'One... two... three...' He felt the tremor climb from his wrists to his shoulders. 'Six...' On the seventh rep, his arms gave out completely, and he face-planted into the damp earth. He lay there for a moment, breathing in the metallic, earthy smell. The taste of mud on his lips.
'Seven.' Seven miserable push-ups.
It was pathetic. 'Saitama did a hundred of these,' he thought with bitter irony. 'Of course, he went bald. At least I have this absurdly thick black hair. Maybe that's the equivalent exchange Izumi Curtis was talking about.'
He forced himself up. He tried again. This time, planks.
'Thirty seconds.' Cold sweat was already stinging his forehead, mixing with the dampness from the ground. 'You have to hold for thirty seconds, or you'll end up as another one of Orochimaru's failed experiments, dissolved in a test tube before you can even scream.' His body trembled with a vibration so intense his teeth were chattering. 'Twenty...' Time stretched. 'Twenty-five...' His lower back begged to arch.
'Maintain form, you idiot!'
'Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, thirty.' He collapsed.
As he lay there, gasping, breathing in the metallic taste of exhaustion, the sun began to peek over the orphanage wall. A pale, orange ray of light struck the stone face of the Shodaime Hokage, illuminating the Monument in the distance. The air lost its icy edge, turning softer. Far away, beyond the wall, he could hear the first crow of a rooster, followed by the distant sound of a cart rolling over cobblestones. The village was waking up.
'It looks so... peaceful.' Asahi scowled. That was the problem. The real, screwed-up problem.
He'd been in this world for six years. Six years since he'd opened his eyes as a screaming baby, an adult's mind intact and screaming silently inside. Six years waiting for the facade to crack. Six years waiting for Danzō to show up with his ROOT ANBU to recruit from the orphanage, looking for docile material. Six years waiting to hear rumors of the Uchiha rebellion, the tension, the fear. Six years waiting to see an outcast, hated Naruto, painting monuments.
And... nothing. Absolutely nothing.
The Sandaime Hokage, Hiruzen, visited the orphanage once a month and read them stories. Asahi had hidden under a bed the first time, convinced it was a cover to inspect the 'assets,' looking for the next prodigy or the next Jinchūriki. But the old man just seemed... like a kind grandfather. He smelled of pipe tobacco and old books, and he once argued for ten minutes with Miko about whether the rabbit in the story should share its carrots. Asahi had nearly suffered an aneurysm from the cognitive dissonance.
Danzō Shimura ran the civilian oversight committee. Asahi had seen him once, during a building inspection. He had braced himself for a wave of darkness, of bloodlust, of oppressive chakra. He found a stern bureaucrat, who complained for twenty minutes about the quality of the wood used in the roof repair. He wasn't Konoha's Darth Vader; he was an angry, mid-level administrator.
And Naruto... Naruto was nowhere to be found.
'How can everything be so... wrong?' Asahi thought, sitting up. The damp earth stuck to his pants, chilling his skin. 'Is this just some bad fanfiction, and I'm the only one who knows it's a farce? Or has he not been born yet? Did the Kyuubi never attack?' This was the root of his cynicism. If the world didn't follow the rules he knew, then he was blind. His knowledge wasn't just useless; it was a liability. He was expecting a blow from the left, but this world would probably strike from the right, or maybe it wouldn't strike at all, but offer him cake instead. The fear of the unknown was a thousand times worse than the fear of a tragic but predictable future.
He heard the soft groan of the back door's hinge. It sounded like an air-raid siren in his head.
In a fraction of a second, the exhaustion vanished, replaced by a surge of icy adrenaline. Asahi leaped to his feet, striking the most threatening fighting stance a six-year-old, soaked in sweat and dew, could manage. He looked less like a ninja and more like a very angry, soaking-wet cat. His heart hammered against his ribs.
"Asahi-kun?"
It was Emi-san, the caregiver. She was rubbing her eyes, wrapped in a thick wool robe that looked too big for her. Steam puffed from her mouth with every word, little clouds in the cold air.
'Shit. I'm busted.' His mind raced. 'Here it comes. The punishment. The lecture about why children need to sleep. The psychological manipulation to turn me into a good, obedient citizen who follows the will of fire.' Asahi prepared his verbal defenses.
Emi-san yawned, a huge, unconcerned yawn. "Training again, little owl? You're going to catch a cold."
Asahi didn't answer. He just stared at her, analyzing her posture, her hands. Waiting for the trap.
She sighed, but gave him a tired smile. She approached slowly, like one approaches a skittish animal. Asahi took an instinctive step back. She stopped immediately, respecting his space.
"Look," she said, nodding her head toward the kitchen. Even from the door, Asahi could smell it: the warm, nutty, toasted aroma of rice tea. It was a comforting smell, and he hated it for that. "I'm making some rice tea for myself. And I think I hid some sesame cookies behind the flour. If you come in now and dry off, we can eat them before Kenji and the other demons wake up and devour them."
Asahi blinked. The world stopped. "...Cookies?"
"Only if you put on socks. The floor is freezing." Emi-san turned and went inside, leaving the door open.
Asahi stood alone in the yard. The sun was brighter now. The world was full of warm colors. The air smelled like earth, but the aroma of toasted rice tea was stronger now, a warm invitation that wrapped around his paranoia like a blanket. He ran a hand through his dark, damp hair, completely frustrated.
'This is worse than Ibiki's torture.'
'They're... they're killing me... with kindness.'
He clenched his fists. His body was trembling, but this time it wasn't from the cold or the exertion. It was from confusion.
'It's definitely a genjutsu.'
He decided that, genjutsu or not, he wasn't going to pass up a free sesame cookie.
He walked toward the kitchen, moving from the damp cold of the yard into the dry warmth of the kitchen.
The aroma of sesame now mixed with the tea, a dual sensory assault.
He remained wrapped in an aura of deep suspicion, while his traitorous stomach growled loudly in anticipation.