Just like the school bullying in his previous life, the Naruto world—was just as brutal when it came to bullying.
If you were eccentric and withdrawn, or if you were handsome and had good grades—so long as you didn't fit in, it was easy to become a target for classmates and upperclassmen.
And the people of Konoha? They didn't care about your status at all.
Commoner or clan kid—it made no difference. They'd bully you either way.
Whether it was Uzumaki Kushina—destined to become the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki, protected by Uzumaki Mito and Tsunade, and under the Third Hokage and Anbu's close watch—or Hyuga Hinata, the main-branch heiress of the Hyuga, a clan that would later become the number-one clan in Konoha and the whole shinobi world after the Uchiha's downfall… both of them had been bullied at school.
And their clans, their backers, and even the school wouldn't step in.
Likewise, when other people got bullied, their families and the school wouldn't get involved either.
They even tacitly allowed it—sometimes outright encouraged it.
In a wartime world where, once manpower ran short, even academy trainees only a few years old could be sent to the battlefield… better to be bullied by your own side until you drop out and go home to live as a normal person than die at an enemy's hands.
If you don't have the guts to fight back now, how are you ever going to face bloodshed and assassination later?
If you're trash, what business do you have being a ninja?
Less than a week after enrolling, Gojo Yoru understood that clearly. So he deliberately built a cold, aloof persona, then picked a fight with an upperclassman—using his adult-level composure and the ninja basics he'd learned early to beat a sixth-year student flat.
That single fight made him famous.
In the eyes of the teachers—and certain other people—Gojo Yoru was already a civilian genius.
With two jōnin parents, and as the child of fallen heroes, his future looked bright.
His only flaw was that he didn't fit in.
They assumed it was the trauma of losing both parents in childhood.
If that knot could be untied, then there was a very high chance he'd become one of the village's pillars in the future.
But to untie Gojo Yoru's knot, you needed a trigger.
So would that trigger be a person… or an event?
…
When Yoru entered the classroom, he sat at the second desk from the back row.
The academy desks were built for three students.
But Yoru sat alone.
Not because he'd chased his desk mates away—rather, after the entrance exam the academy had an observation period.
During that period, if a student still couldn't refine chakra, it meant their physical and spiritual energy might be adequate, but they lacked ninja aptitude, and the school would advise them to withdraw.
Every first-year class had cases like that.
Class 1 had already dismissed three students—including Yoru's two desk mates.
When Yoru walked in, the previously noisy classroom quieted immediately.
At least, the students around him didn't dare speak loudly—only whispering under their breath.
The row in front of him kept their heads down and didn't even dare talk.
Only a few girls who liked Yoru's face and strength kept stealing glances at him—but they still didn't dare approach.
That was a good thing. At least no one came to bother him.
Yoru rested his chin on one hand and spun his pen with the other. On the surface he looked like he was killing time, but in reality he'd already fallen into his usual habit of thinking.
Ever since awakening space–time abilities, Yoru hadn't updated his "game guide," and he rarely went down to the basement anymore.
With power that rivaled a kekkei mōra, he no longer needed to follow the old guide and turn himself into a stitched-together monster.
So most of the "how to get power" strategies had already been thrown out.
But he kept a few parts.
Including the very beginning of the guide—
Steal Uzumaki Kushina.
In canon, Namikaze Minato's rise wasn't just talent. He also had two major benefactors.
One was Jiraiya, who brought him connections and the Flying Thunder God.
The other was Uzumaki Kushina, who brought him Tsunade's support and the Uzumaki clan's sealing arts.
With those two helping him, Minato was essentially endorsed by two of the Sannin and the Hokage. And once Kushina became a perfect jinchūriki, he even had Konoha's strongest as a backer—so airtight that even Shimura Danzō couldn't touch him.
Just like how, in his previous life, some people married the right wife and shot straight to the top.
As long as he could "steal" Kushina first, Gojo Yoru—transmigrator that he was—was confident he could rise just as quickly.
If his talent were lacking, if his background were weak, or if he weren't the same age and in the same class as Minato, Yoru wouldn't dare think like this.
But after realizing he was in Minato's class, Yoru knew: this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance to defy fate.
That was why he abandoned the idea of befriending his peers and becoming close with the clan kids, and instead built the persona of a solitary genius who didn't fit in.
Only bonds could heal his inner knot.
Uzumaki Kushina—whose clan had just been wiped out—was his counterpart. They were each other's antidote.
With this groundwork, Yoru believed Sarutobi Hiruzen and Uzumaki Mito behind him would never stop him from getting close to Kushina—unless Minato was literally Hiruzen's biological son and Kushina had been delivered as some kind of filial gift.
If that were the case, fine—Yoru would accept it.
Otherwise, Kushina was his. No question.
Right now, Yoru's weaknesses were glaring: chakra control and the amount of space–time chakra he had.
As a transmigrator, he'd actually mastered tree-walking and water-walking with his feet a long time ago. His chakra control was already strong—better than freshly graduated genin.
But even that level of control still wasn't enough to use space–time chakra to cast ninjutsu.
The fact that space–time chakra could be manifested outside the body meant it had to be usable for techniques—it was just insanely difficult.
So how could he push his chakra control further?
Yoru had several methods.
First: train the Rasengan. This hand-signless A-rank technique created by Minato was not only top-tier shape transformation, it also demanded extremely advanced chakra control.
It was also the only technique in canon whose complete training method was publicly revealed. Yoru remembered it vividly, and the moment he could move his hands and feet, he wrote the method down.
If his chakra reserves and control were high enough, he would've started long ago.
Second: train medical ninjutsu. If he could master the Chakra Scalpel, his chakra control would leap again—and maybe his hands could even become black blades too.
Third: sealing arts—the highest form of chakra control, and like space–time abilities, a power whose floor and ceiling were both ridiculously high.
Sealing techniques were utterly unreasonable— even the progenitor of chakra had been brought down by seals.
Yoru was intensely curious whether the Strength of a Hundred Seal could solve the "locked cap" on his space–time chakra reserves.
If it could, then Yoru would gain another life-saving trump card.
That thought was the first thing that came to him the moment he realized there was a "bottleneck" inside his body.
And because of that, he became even more determined to steal Uzumaki Kushina first.