Konoha Year 63. A summer night.
Cicadas chirped. The moon hung over the treetops.
Land of Fire, Hidden Leaf Village, the Hatake residence.
Kakashi lay sprawled on the bed in a big starfish pose, dignity completely abandoned.
He couldn't even be bothered to take off his mask. Only one half-lidded, dead-fish eye showed, staring blankly at the familiar ceiling.
In his mind, he replayed the scene from earlier that day—him guiding his three new students.
Bell test.
Classic. Nostalgic. The kind of tradition that made you sigh without knowing why.
A rare flicker of emotion surfaced in Kakashi's dead-fish eye.
Sure, the whole thing had been a chaotic mess full of things to complain about… but those three brats eventually understood what "comrades" meant.
"Mm. At least it wasn't for nothing," he muttered.
He set down the half-read copy of Icha Icha Paradise by his pillow and turned off the light.
Fatigue rolled over him like a tide. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, and his consciousness sank into darkness.
…
But right at the instant he was about to fall asleep—
Every alarm bell inside Kakashi's skull detonated.
Something's wrong!
He snapped his eyes open. Pure instinct took over. His hand shot to the ninja tool pouch at his waist like lightning—
Empty?
His pupils contracted sharply.
And what he saw around him made his blood run cold.
This wasn't his bedroom.
It was a cavernous, bizarre dark chamber.
The air was icy. The walls were some smooth, black material that swallowed light.
In front of him stood a giant black screen, like a movie theater curtain. It showed nothing—only a suffocating, heart-squeezing stillness.
Behind him, rows and rows of empty seats stretched in tidy lines into the darkness, like an abandoned auditorium.
Where the hell is this?!
Kakashi's thoughts raced. He immediately tried to circulate chakra.
Smooth.
No seal on his chakra.
He didn't hesitate. His hands flew through seals.
The moment chakra gathered, it dispersed into nothing.
Kakashi's expression changed.
"Body Flicker!"
Still nothing. Not even a twitch.
No jutsu worked at all…
"Release!"
The dispelling hand sign was useless.
Not genjutsu?
Not a normal seal or barrier either?
Space-time ninjutsu? With a range this huge?
He yanked down his forehead protector. Three tomoe spun wildly as his Sharingan activated.
Yet his vision showed no trace of chakra flow anywhere.
What is this place?
Who brought me here?
A sharp sense of danger surged up his spine.
He was Hatake Kakashi—elite jōnin of Konoha, the Copy Ninja, former ANBU, a veteran of countless battles.
And someone had taken him from his own home without him sensing a thing, dragged him into this eerie place, and shut down every jutsu he had?
Right now, he was no different from a civilian who couldn't use ninjutsu at all.
This kind of method… he'd never even heard of it.
Kakashi scanned the darkness warily, mind moving at top speed, searching for any clue—
"Ah! Kakashi-sensei?!"
A familiar female voice filled with fear rang out from somewhere behind him.
Kakashi whirled around.
Three or four rows back, two figures in pajamas stared at him in shock.
Sakura Haruno, with short pink hair, wore cotton sleepwear printed with little rabbits. Her bright green eyes were wide, her mouth slightly open—relief written all over her face at seeing her teacher.
Beside her, Uchiha Sasuke wore simple dark-blue striped pajamas. His arms were crossed, jaw tense, but the look in those black eyes had shifted to cautious ease.
"Sakura? Sasuke?" Kakashi lowered his headband again, expression guarded. "Why are you two here too?!"
"I… I don't know!" Sakura's voice trembled. She rushed to his side. "I was asleep in my room… I closed my eyes and opened them and—boom—I was here!"
She pointed frantically at the empty seats and the huge screen.
"Sasuke-kun and I have been here for a while. We tried everything. We can't get out! There's nothing here—just these chairs and that big screen… W-what is this, sensei? Did some terrifying enemy capture us?"
Sasuke didn't answer, but his face was dark. He'd clearly run into the same helpless wall.
He looked at Kakashi like he wanted an explanation from this experienced jōnin.
Kakashi's expression grew even heavier.
They brought Sasuke and Sakura too?
And both of them were taken while sleeping…
What kind of jutsu was this?
How could it be so wide-ranged, so stealthy, that even he didn't notice?
What did the enemy want?
Why gather Team Seven here…
Wait.
Where's Naruto?
The thought struck Kakashi like a kunai.
Sakura and Sasuke were rookies. Being caught off guard was one thing.
But he was a bona fide jōnin.
To move him from Konoha—right out of his guarded home—without a trace, then lock down all his jutsu…
This wasn't something any ordinary ninja could do.
Whoever was behind this was terrifyingly strong.
At that moment Sasuke, still silent, raised a hand and pointed at the giant black screen with a strange look.
"Kakashi-sensei… that screen lit up once earlier. I think I saw that loser Naruto's face."
"It felt like… the screen is going to show Naruto's dream."
"Naruto's… dream?"
Kakashi blinked and turned back toward the screen instinctively.
Right then—
The pitch-black screen flared to life without warning.
An image appeared.
It was Training Ground Three.
At the center, two boys around twelve were locked in a fierce standoff.
One with spiky blond hair in the unmistakable orange tracksuit—
Uzumaki Naruto.
The other with spiky black hair, a cold expression, and eyes burning with pride—
Uchiha Sasuke.
But something about them was… off.
On screen, Naruto stood with his hands on his hips, laughing arrogantly at Sasuke, who lay on the ground defeated.
And around Naruto stood a dense crowd of at least a hundred identical shadow clones—each one smirking down at Sasuke in triumph.
Sasuke, the one on the ground, looked a little battered… yet there was no anger, no frustration.
Instead—
He stared up at Naruto with admiration and utter acceptance.
Kakashi: "…"
Sakura: "…"
Sasuke: "…"
All three spectators froze in disbelief.
What… what is this?
Then the Sasuke in the dream opened his mouth, sincere to the core:
"Hah… as expected of you, Uzumaki Naruto."
"I lost fair and square."
"Naruto… your strength really is above mine. From today on, I, Uchiha Sasuke, acknowledge you as Team Seven's strongest!"
Naruto's grin stretched even wider. His nostrils practically pointed at the sky as he cackled without a shred of restraint.
"Wahahaha! Sasuke, you're not all that! I thought you were some kind of big deal, but I beat you easy! Wahahaha!"
Snap.
In the audience, the real Sasuke's temple twitched violently.
His handsome face flushed red from a mix of humiliation and white-hot rage.
"Th-that idiot!!! How could I ever lose to him—let alone say something like that?!" Sasuke shook with fury, teeth grinding. If looks could kill, dream-Naruto would already be diced into dust.
Sakura covered her face, speechless and disgusted.
"Seriously… Naruto is beyond saving…"
Kakashi stared at the screen with his usual dead-fish eye. His inner voice was calm… but he kind of wanted to laugh.
The tension in the room loosened under the sheer absurdity of the dream.
And while their emotions churned—
far away in an unobservable corner of shadow—
a perfectly ordinary ramen shop worker wore a satisfied smile.
It was Shigure.
In front of him, notifications only he could see kept popping up:
[Ding! Emotional fluctuation from Uzumaki Naruto detected! Emotion Points +300!]
[Ding! Emotional fluctuation from Uchiha Sasuke detected! Emotion Points +200!]
[Ding! Emotional fluctuation from Haruno Sakura detected! Emotion Points +50!]
[Ding! Emotional fluctuation from Hatake Kakashi detected! Emotion Points +50!]
"Hehehe…" Shigure watched the numbers rocket upward, grinning like he was trying to bite down on an AK-47.
"It worked! This Dream-Fulfillment Master System is cracked! Not only can it drag the dreamer in, it can bundle their close connections as an audience too! And I can harvest the audience's emotion points as well! Double the fun—beautiful!"
His eyes glittered.
He was a transmigrator.
Three years ago, he'd been a regular Earth guy scraping by—well, a psychologist who specialized in counseling troubled teens.
Then he woke up and found his soul had landed in the terrifying ninja world.
Even worse, he hadn't become an Uchiha or a Hyūga, not even some clan kid.
He'd transmigrated into a complete war orphan—no bloodline, no backing, and practically zero ninja talent.
The one bit of luck: Teuchi, the owner of Ichiraku Ramen, had taken him in as an adopted son.
So Shigure worked in the shop, kneading dough, boiling noodles, washing dishes, living a busy but humble life.
For three years, he tried everything to change his fate like those legendary transmigrators—secretly learning chakra extraction, training his body…
The results were pathetic. Teuchi had more raw power than he did.
In the end, Shigure had to accept a brutal truth:
He was a talentless nobody.
And now Konoha Year 63 had arrived. Naruto, Sasuke, and their generation had just graduated from the academy.
Meaning—
the story was about to begin.
Orochimaru's "Konoha Crush." The Third Hokage's death. The village devastated.
Then the Akatsuki, the tailed beasts, Pain's invasion, the Fourth Great Ninja War…
Just thinking about it made Shigure's scalp go numb.
At his current strength, any random battle shockwave could turn him into paste.
When he was just about ready to give up and pray he'd survive long enough to reach the Boruto era—
his cheat finally activated last night.
Dream-Fulfillment Master System
[Current Dream-Fulfillment Level: Level 1 (700/100000)]
[Number of Dream Targets: 1]
[Number of Audience Members: 3]
[Can pull a designated target into a specific dream space (target-exclusive dream / or system-built "Dream Theater")]
[Can read, weave, and even modify the target's dream content]
[Emotional fluctuations produced in the dream space by the target and their close connections will be collected as "Emotion Points"]
[Emotion Points can be exchanged in the system shop for abilities, bloodlines, items, ninjutsu, and more across myriad worlds…]
Simple version: he created dreams and "livestreamed" them, harvested the victims' joy, rage, shame, and shock, then used the points to power himself up.
And his first "dream customer" was—
the Nine-Tails host, Uzumaki bloodline, Ashura reincarnation, future Seventh Hokage, Talk-no-Jutsu grandmaster, Konoha's princeling…
Uzumaki Naruto.
The boy was starved for love and recognition, overflowing with dreams and obsessions he couldn't fulfill.
A walking Emotion Points gold mine.
Pulling Kakashi, the "second pillar," and "Empress Sakura" into the theater as audience members was even better.
Naruto alone might not generate enough points.
But if his teacher and teammates watched his dream, their feelings—speechlessness, fury, disgust, sympathy, shock, confusion, even laughter—
would pour in endlessly.
Shigure calculated silently, eyes returning to the big screen.
His carefully crafted dream wasn't over yet.
The real show was only just beginning.
-------
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