"Huh? Where the hell am I? Since when does my apartment have a ceiling like this?"
Adam stared up at rough wooden beams. The grogginess from just waking up vanished in an instant, replaced by confusion that quickly turned to panic.
Before he could process what was happening, pain hit him hard.
His legs felt like someone had ripped them off with their bare hands. The stumps wouldn't stop throbbing. His left arm was the same, just raw burning pain where his arm should be. Only his right hand still worked, fingers curling against coarse bandages wrapped around his torso.
Then his skull felt like it split open.
Memories that weren't his flooded in. He saw streets he'd never walked, training sessions he'd never attended, and faces he'd never met but somehow recognized. A middle-aged couple smiled at him in these visions. Academy classrooms filled with kids throwing kunai. The distinctive architecture of Konoha.
"No way. Did I just... transmigrate?"
The word felt absurd even thinking it. He'd read enough web novels to know the trope, but experiencing it? He wasn't Adam anymore. The memories filling his head were insistent, rewriting his identity with every passing second.
His name was Yamanaka Kenji now. Fourteen years old. Member of the Yamanaka clan. And of course, a ninja.
And he was fucked.
"Damn." He let out a bitter laugh that turned into a wheeze. "I fall asleep in my apartment and wake up in the Naruto world. Could be worse, right? At least I'm not..."
It was worse. So much worse.
Yamanaka Kenji had been born in Konoha Year 23, graduated from the Academy in Year 35, and it was now Year 37. Right in the middle of the Second Great Ninja War. Villages were tearing each other apart, ninjas dying by the dozens every day. Kenji's parents had been killed on a frontline mission a year ago. He had no siblings or close friends, just another orphaned genin in a village full of them.
And then, a few weeks back, his squad had walked straight into an ambush.
The jonin leading them had died first. Quick and clean, throat cut before he could warn anyone. Kenji's teammates went next, caught in a hail of shuriken that left them bleeding out on the ground. Kenji himself had been lucky, if you could call it that. An explosive tag had detonated close enough to shred his left arm and both legs, but not close enough to kill him outright.
Reinforcements had found him hours later, barely alive and missing three limbs.
The medical-nin had stabilized him, stopped the bleeding, sealed the wounds with chakra-infused sutures. But they couldn't grow back what was gone. Medical ninjutsu in this era wasn't that advanced yet. Maybe in another decade or two, when the war was over and people had time to develop better techniques, but not now.
And at this moment? He was a cripple. His ninja career was over before it had even really started.
"Shit..." He forced himself to breathe slowly, fighting down the panic threatening to overwhelm him. "I'm alive. I've got memories from my past life, I've got advantages. I just need to figure out how to use them."
He tried moving his limbs, testing what still worked.
His right arm responded normally. Fingers flexing, elbow bending, shoulder rotating. The stumps where his other limbs used to be throbbed painfully, but at least the wounds were clean. No signs of infection from what he could feel.
In his previous life, he'd been twenty-five years old with no house, car, and girlfriend. Just another loser grinding away at a dead-end job and surviving on instant ramen. Sure, he'd been out of shape from too many late nights gaming and binging anime, and his yearly checkups always showed borderline concerning results. But at least he could walk. Run if he had to. Live independently.
Now? He couldn't even get out of bed without help.
"Everyone else gets isekai'd with cheat abilities or at least a healthy body," he muttered, still glaring at the ceiling. "I get a disabled character in a war zone. What did I do to deserve this?"
He'd read transmigration stories where guys woke up as beautiful women, or magical beasts, or even monsters with incredible power. Those all sounded pretty good right about now.
Waking up as a woman? Sure, why not. Twenty-five years of being a dude, might as well try something new. Of course, that was a joke.
But transmigrating as an animal? Could be interesting. Animals in the Naruto world could train and grow stronger. Find a ninja to contract with, become a powerful summon, live a comfortable life being fed and pampered. That sounded great.
But no. He had to start with one hand and no legs. The absolute bottom-tier opening for any transmigrator. Then again, he should be thankful, it could always be worse
Lying here feeling sorry for himself wouldn't change anything. He was alive. He had his mind intact. And unlike the original Kenji, he knew things. Information was power in the shinobi world... or any world.
He just had to figure out how to leverage it.
A thought struck him suddenly.
"Wait. Don't transmigrators usually get a system or special ability to help them survive?"
He closed his eyes and focused inward, searching for anything unusual.
B.O.B.? he called out mentally. Are you there? Hello?
Nothing.
God? Please respond!
Silence.
He tried different variations. "Lucifer," "Admin," "Game Master," even just "What's up, anyone home?" But he got no response. After a few minutes, he stopped.
No cheat. Just him, his memories, and a body that was three-quarters useless.
"Right. Because that would be too easy."
He opened his eyes and stared at the wooden ceiling again. If he didn't have a system, he'd have to rely on his knowledge of the setting. And in the Naruto world, missing limbs weren't necessarily permanent.
The dead could be brought back to life with the right jutsu. Surely lost body parts could be restored somehow.
"How do people replace lost limbs in this world?"
He dug through his memories, searching for any techniques or methods that might work.
The first option came to mind almost immediately.
There's what happened to Obito. When that boulder crushed the right side of his body, Madara used White Zetsu tissue infused with Hashirama's cells to repair him. Not only did Obito recover completely, but he also gained access to Wood Release and eliminated the drawbacks of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Yeah, but where am I supposed to find White Zetsu? They're all hidden away in Madara's underground lair, and I'm just a random genin. Even if I knew exactly where to look, which I don't, there's no way I could sneak past Madara's defenses. And Hashirama cells? Those are basically mythical at this point. Even Konoha's leadership probably doesn't have easy access to them. This is decades before Orochimaru starts his experiments.
Dead end.
He moved on to the next possibility.
What about Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear technique? That forbidden jutsu from Taki lets him repair his body and steal hearts from other ninjas.
But even as he considered it, he knew it was impossible. Earth Grudge Fear wasn't something you could just learn from a scroll. It was more like a parasitic organism that Kakuzu had somehow integrated into his own body. There might only be one instance of it in the entire world, and Kakuzu was still very much alive and using it.
Another dead end.
Maybe he really was stuck like this, and the best he could hope for was becoming a clerk or intelligence analyst, riding a desk for the rest of his miserable life while other ninjas went out and did things.
Wait.
A third option formed in his mind, so obvious he couldn't believe he'd almost overlooked it.
"Puppet techniques!"
His heart rate picked up. Yes, of course! Chiyo had replaced her arms with puppet prosthetics that looked completely normal. She could even form hand seals with them. And then there was Sasori, who had transformed his entire body into a puppet masterpiece, keeping only a small core of living flesh. He'd been one of the most dangerous ninjas alive despite being mostly artificial.
Compared to Sasori, his situation was minor league.
"If I can learn puppet techniques, I can make prosthetic limbs. Maybe not as good as the originals, but better than having no limbs at all. Good enough to let me move around and actually do something with my life."
The question was: how could he learn puppet jutsu in Konoha?
Puppetry was Suna's specialty. They guarded their advanced techniques jealously, and for good reason. A skilled puppeteer could fight multiple opponents simultaneously, control poison-laced weapons, and remain safely distant from direct combat. It was a powerful and versatile fighting style.
But Konoha and Suna were at war right now. He couldn't exactly enroll in a Suna Academy course.
Unless...
He turned his head toward the other room, where he could just barely see through the open doorway. There was a wooden table against the far wall, and next to it sat an old storage chest.
His parents had used that chest to store things they'd collected during missions.
The original Kenji's parents, he corrected himself mentally. Random equipment, captured documents, seized weapons. Spoils of war, essentially. And both parents had fought primarily against Suna ninjas before they died.
"The chest... There should be stuff from Suna in there. Including..."
The memory surfaced clearly now. Among the various items his parents had collected, there was a scroll. It contained a puppet technique, pieced together from their enemies' memories. The Yamanaka clan specialized in mind techniques, not puppetry, but they could read and copy techniques from an opponent's mind. They'd never bothered to master it themselves, but keeping it could serve as a bargaining chip, or simply out of habit.
That scroll was still in the chest.
The resources he needed were literally in the next room. He wouldn't have to sneak into enemy territory or make some impossible deal with a legendary ninja. The starting point for his recovery was already here.
The more he thought about it, the more confident he became. Puppet techniques weren't as heavily guarded as village-specific secret arts. Sure, Suna's advanced masters like Chiyo kept their innovations classified, but the fundamental principles had spread over the decades of conflict. Ninjas from all villages had encountered puppeteers in battle.
Konoha probably had multiple copies of basic puppet manuals scattered throughout its archives. The reason nobody bothered learning them was simple. Konoha had its own powerful jutsu traditions. Shadow clones, summoning techniques, the various nature transformations. Why waste time on puppetry when you could learn something more aligned with your village's strengths?
Plus, the Yamanaka clan had their memory-reading jutsu. Inoichi could extract information from dead bodies whose brains were still intact. Any captured Suna puppeteer's memories could be harvested for intelligence. Unless something was specifically protected by mental blocks or encryption seals, the clan could access it.
So yeah, basic puppet techniques were definitely available in Konoha. Learning them wouldn't be that difficult.
Kenji took a deep breath. All he needed to do was get that scroll from the chest and start studying.
He pushed himself upright using his remaining arm, gritting his teeth. The world tilted slightly. Blood pressure drop, probably, from lying down for so long. But he steadied himself.
Just as he was about to try swinging his legs, or what was left of them, off the bed, a knock came from outside the door.
Knock knock knock.
Someone was at the door.
"Probably just dinner," he muttered, using his right hand to brace against the mattress. The transfer from bed to wheelchair hurt like hell. His stumps throbbed with every movement, the phantom sensations of missing limbs making his brain scream that something was wrong.
He wheeled himself toward the door. According to his memories, the Yamanaka clan had been handling his meals ever since he'd gotten discharged from the hospital. At first, when he couldn't move at all, they'd assigned someone to look after him full-time. But once he could navigate the wheelchair on his own, they'd pulled the caretaker and just sent someone by at mealtimes with food.
It made sense from a resource management perspective. The clan had plenty of disabled ninjas. They assigned clan members without ninja talent to care for them, paid them a salary from clan funds. It was actually a pretty decent setup, all things considered.
Could be worse. If he'd been a civilian-born ninja with no family connections, he'd be burning through his pension just to hire someone to bring him food and help him take a piss. At least the clan took care of its own.
The wheelchair reached the door. He grabbed the handle and pulled it open.
Then froze.
"Oh. Wasn't expecting you."
Standing in the doorway wasn't Kazuhiko, the guy who usually brought his meals. It was Masa, the current head of the Yamanaka clan.
Masa's eyes flicked down to the empty space where Kenji's left arm should be. The pause lasted maybe half a second before he looked away and stepped inside without comment, closing the door behind him. He grabbed the wheelchair handles and pushed Kenji toward the small table in the living room.
"How are you holding up?" Masa asked.
"Better." Kenji kept his voice neutral. "At least I can get around now. Beats lying in bed staring at the ceiling all day."
The truth was, he'd been doing pretty well considering everything. No spiral into depression, and screaming fits about the unfairness of it all. Maybe it was because he wasn't really the original Kenji, or maybe he was just too practical to waste energy on despair. Either way, Masa seemed relieved.
The clan leader was quiet for a moment, then got to the point.
"Kenji, you can't serve as a ninja anymore. The village is retiring you on medical grounds. Your file's being sealed." He paused, probably trying to gauge Kenji's reaction. "You understand what that means, right?"
Before Kenji could respond, he added, "Our clan's techniques are support-based. Mind jutsu, sensory abilities, interrogation. We're not frontline fighters. You were a sensor on your team, and the fact that you survived at all is honestly remarkable."
"I know," Kenji said simply. "It's fine. I get it."
And he did. There was no point arguing. With three missing limbs, his ninja career was over. At least officially. If he somehow managed to figure out puppet prosthetics and get back into fighting shape, he could always apply for reinstatement later. But right now, retirement was the only logical option.
Besides, the original Kenji had only survived through dumb luck. He'd been positioned at the back as the team's sensor, and the enemy had baited out his jutsu with a few feints before just lobbing an explosive tag at him. Game over. The original Kenji had been average at best, stronger than a civilian but unremarkable within the clan. And Yamanaka techniques weren't designed for solo combat anyway. They were support skills that required teammates to be effective.
Even Ino had barely managed a draw against Sakura during the Chunin Exams in the original timeline. And Sakura was a civilian-born girl with no special bloodline. That told you everything you needed to know about how Yamanaka ninjas fared in one-on-one fights. Sending a Yamanaka into solo combat was like sending a healer to duel a DPS in the jungle.
Suicide.
Masa seemed to relax when Kenji didn't argue or get emotional.
"Good. I'm glad you understand." He let out a breath. "Being alive is better than the alternative, even if it's not the life you planned."
Then his expression shifted slightly, and he continued, "There's more. The village's decided to promote you and your teammates to chunin posthumously. Well, posthumously for them. For you, it's just a regular promotion. The death benefits for your teammates' families, and your retirement pension, will all be calculated at chunin rank."
Kenji felt his throat tighten.
"That's... good. Really good. Their families deserve that."
The promotion made sense when he thought about it. This was the Second Great Ninja War. The villages were bleeding ninjas faster than they could replace them, and promotions came easier during wartime. His team had been up for chunin consideration before the mission. They'd even talked about it. This was supposed to be their last mission as genin. They'd made plans to celebrate together after they got promoted.
Classic death flag. They'd practically painted targets on their own backs.
Now the whole team was "reunited" in a sense. Two dead for real, and the original Kenji dead and replaced by a transmigrator. A complete set.
He wondered briefly if the original soul was somewhere in the afterlife. If someone tried to use Edo Tensei on the original body, would it even work? Or would they just summon him, the transmigrator, instead?
Weird thought. He pushed it aside.
"I appreciate you coming to tell me in person," he said, lifting his right hand in a gesture that was probably supposed to be respectful but just looked awkward. "I know you're busy. If you need me to sign anything for the retirement paperwork, just let me know."
"I'll handle it," Masa said. He lifted a cloth-wrapped bundle Kenji hadn't noticed before. "Kazuhiko will bring the documents when he delivers your meals. Speaking of which, I brought your dinner. Figured I'd save him a trip."
He set the bundle on the table. The smell of warm food wafted up, making Kenji's stomach growl.
"Eat while it's hot. I need to get going." He headed for the door, then paused and looked back. "If you need anything, tell Kazuhiko. He'll make sure you're taken care of."
"Will do. Thanks."
Masa left, closing the door behind him. Kenji sat there for a moment, staring at the meal bundle. Then he wheeled himself closer to the table, unwrapped the cloth, and opened the container.
Rice, grilled fish, pickled vegetables, miso soup. Simple, but fresh and still warm. He picked up the chopsticks and started eating.
Huh.
There were no complications using them, muscle memory from the original Kenji, it seemed. A small but welcome surprise.
After dinner, he'd find that puppet scroll. Start studying it properly. And more importantly, he needed to get familiar with chakra. His previous life's knowledge of the Naruto world was valuable, but it wouldn't mean shit if he couldn't actually use the power system.
He took a bite of rice, felt the warmth slide down his throat. It grounded him, and made everything feel more real.
This was his life now. Crippled body, war-torn world, no system to bail him out. Just his knowledge, and whatever he could scrape together from the resources around him.
Could be worse.
He finished the meal quickly. The moment he set down his chopsticks, he wheeled himself over to the storage chest in the corner. His remaining hand fumbled with the latch before finally getting it open.
Inside was a mess of random items. Kunai with worn grips, a few smoke bombs, some clothing that had seen better days, and beneath it all, several scrolls of varying sizes. He dug through them carefully, pulling out each one to check.
Most were mission reports or basic technique primers, nothing useful. Then his fingers brushed against a thicker scroll near the bottom. He pulled it out, feeling the weight of it.
This was it. The puppet technique scroll.
He set it on the floor and carefully unrolled it, spreading it out in front of his wheelchair. The handwriting that greeted him was immediately familiar. His father's handwriting. The original Kenji's father, he corrected himself mentally.
"Must have gotten this from a Suna prisoner."
His father had been meticulous, almost obsessive about documentation. Every time he performed an interrogation using the Yamanaka mind-reading techniques, he'd record whatever jutsu or techniques he pulled from the target's memories. Not because he planned to learn them all, but just because he figured the information might be useful someday.
Over the years, he'd compiled dozens of these records. The storage chest had more scrolls like this, random techniques and information extracted from enemy ninjas' minds. Basically a personal library of stolen knowledge.
"Not a bad habit."
He made a mental note. In a world this dangerous, hoarding information could mean the difference between life and death. He should do the same if he ever got the chance.