Looking at the lively Chimchar bouncing around in front of him, Uchiha Hayato's eyes went wide.
[Name: Chimchar]
[Gender: Male]
[Ability: Blaze (When HP is low, Fire-type move power increases)]
[Type: Fire]
[Held Item: None]
[Moves: Scratch, Leer, Double Kick, Fire Punch, Fake Out]
This... this can't be real, can it? It's actually a Pokémon!
Hayato reached up and touched his own forehead. Temperature normal. No fever. The corners of his mouth curled upward all on their own.
To explain the change, we need to go back to his sparring match with Namikaze Minato. On this day, Uchiha Hayato won his one hundredth victory against Namikaze Minato.
"Hah... hah, that's you alright, Hayato. But I'm not giving up."
Namikaze Minato lay flat on the ground, breathing hard, but his face still wore that sunny grin of his.
Uchiha Hayato was on the verge of collapsing himself, but he kept up appearances, leaning against a tree, voice flat. "That so? I'm not letting you pass me. The one who's going to become Hokage is me."
Yes, Uchiha Hayato was a transmigrator. When he found out he'd been born into the Uchiha clan and was in the same class as Namikaze Minato, he nearly lost it. Three Great Ninja Wars lay ahead. Whether he'd even survive that long was anyone's guess.
As an orphan of the Uchiha clan, his one and only goal after entering the Ninja Academy was to graduate without a hitch, become a shinobi, then conveniently "die" on some mission and quietly disappear into a forgotten corner of the ninja world, never sticking his nose into anything dangerous again.
Plot characters, making up for regrets, none of that had anything to do with him.
Are you kidding? He didn't have any special advantage. The Uchiha's prized Sharingan could supposedly awaken through intense emotional turmoil, but in the original story, every single person who unlocked it paid a brutal price for it.
Overuse drained your ocular power. Reach the Mangekyo Sharingan, and you might go blind altogether. Uchiha Itachi was the textbook example. His hereditary illness left him in poor health for most of his life.
That's exactly why people joked that a "Healthy Itachi" would be the most broken thing in the entire series. Stuff like "Healthy Itachi seals the planet with the Totsuka Blade" and all that.
So on the surface, he played the part of a faithful believer in the Will of Fire and lived an unremarkable school life.
In secret, he was busy figuring out where exactly he should hide once he got out.
That said, picking on a Namikaze Minato who hadn't fully grown into his power yet was no problem at all.
The blond boy was a war orphan too, and from day one he'd loudly declared during self-introductions that he was going to be the next Hokage.
Big talk is cheap. Without results to back it up, you just get treated like a weirdo.
"Just wait. Someday you'll all change your minds about him." That's what Uchiha Hayato thought to himself.
And so, Uchiha Hayato and Namikaze Minato became friends. They sparred constantly. Since Hayato had a temporary physical advantage, he won more often than not, but as time went on, Minato's win rate steadily climbed.
"Maybe I should stop accepting Minato's challenges?" Hayato thought. He didn't want to admit it, but the Fourth Hokage's title carried serious weight. Once Minato came into his own, Hayato wouldn't stand a chance.
"Hayato, you're my friend, but I'm definitely not handing over the Hokage seat to you." Minato stood up and dusted himself off, looking at Hayato with that warm expression of his.
"Let's go get ramen. I'm starving. Or are you going to cook again?"
Minato scratched the back of his head, a faint blush on his cheeks. He was a little embarrassed. As a transmigrator, Uchiha Hayato's cooking skills might not have been award-winning, but they were nothing to scoff at either. That's why Minato was always showing up at his place to mooch a meal.
But Hayato, still leaning against the tree, wasn't paying attention to him at all. His eyes were locked on Minato, staring straight at him like he'd just uncovered some kind of secret.
Minato flinched at the intensity of that gaze and waved a hand in front of his face. "Hayato? Hayato?"
Hayato snapped out of it like waking from a dream, his body jolting. He quickly turned to Minato with an apologetic look. "Sorry, Minato, something just came up. Go on ahead without me!"
And with that, he bolted, leaving Minato standing there completely bewildered.
"Even if you don't want me mooching meals, you don't have to run away like that." Minato stared at Hayato's retreating back for a few seconds, shook his head, and wandered off toward the village ramen shop.
What he didn't know was that Uchiha Hayato was drowning in pure, unfiltered joy.
His cheat code had finally arrived! Arceus, you just got promoted!
Right after that hundredth win, a pleasant melody suddenly rang out inside Hayato's mind.
"Da-da... da-da... da!"
He knew that jingle. That was the Pokémon Center healing sound effect.
[Pokémon System activated. Congratulations, you are now a novice Trainer. Set your sights on becoming a Pokémon Master and move forward!]
[Complete missions to earn rewards. Use draws to obtain random items.]
[Show the world how wonderful Pokémon are, expand your influence, and climb your way to the top of the world!]
At the same time, a translucent screen unfolded before Hayato's eyes.
He glanced over the interface. Besides the Pokémon panel and his own stats, there was a mission panel and a gacha panel. Setting aside the currently empty mission queue, he decided to check his own stats first.
[Name: Uchiha Hayato]
[Egg Group: Human-Like, Field]
[Ability: ???]
[Type: Fire, Electric, Water, Dark]
[Moves: Transformation Jutsu, Concealment Jutsu, Escape Jutsu]
[Pokémon: None]
[Bag: Potion x1]
[World Alteration: 0.1%]
He was thrilled, sure, but something about this system seemed a little off. He was a human being, not a Pokémon. Why did he have an Egg Group? Humans don't hatch from eggs.
Soon enough, a strange expression crept across Hayato's face. This cheat code was Arceus's way of making it up to him.
In his previous life, he'd been playing the latest Pokémon game late at night when a blinding flash from the screen seared his eyes. Somewhere in the haze, he sensed a voice, half-real and half-imagined, speaking to him. By the time he regained consciousness, he was a baby in the ninja world.
"Arceus, what the hell? I hadn't even gotten on the bus yet!"
The protagonist of Pokémon Legends: Arceus was a perfect example. Just minding their own business, and then bam, tossed into the Hisui region before it was even called Sinnoh.
He was supposed to get pulled into the Pokémon world too, but something went wrong mid-transit and he got dropped off at the wrong stop, landing in the world of shinobi instead.
Arceus, being the god who created the multiverse, naturally had a different concept of time than ordinary people. So on this particular day, as if suddenly remembering "Oh right, that guy," Arceus just rolled with the mistake and sent him a belated cheat code.
"Well, thanks a lot!" Hayato let out a helpless laugh. The Pokémon world would've been so nice. Sure, it had its dark corners, but most of it was peaceful and calm. Even when a crisis popped up, the game's protagonist would handle it. And in the anime world, even a ten-year-old Pokémon Master could sort things out.
The ninja world, on the other hand? Even though the Fourth Great Ninja War ended in victory, countless shinobi died before that point. The danger level was leagues beyond anything in the Pokémon world.
But with this cheat code, Uchiha Hayato might just be able to change his fate as cannon fodder.
As long as he completed the system's missions and kept reshaping the ninja world, he'd receive powerful Pokémon and items from the Pokémon world, making him stronger and stronger.
The system had a progress bar for world alteration, which lined up perfectly with what Hayato wanted. The ninja world was nothing but endless fighting. Even the strongest shinobi villages answered to feudal lords. The whole system never made sense to him.
Hayato stopped overthinking it. His gaze locked onto the glowing button on the system interface.
[Ten-Pull] Start!