After finishing another grueling day of classes and training, Tachikawa Tachibana dragged his exhausted body back home.
It wasn't until he sat in the genkan, staring at the reflection of his eight- or nine-year-old self in the mirror, that the fake smile finally faded from his face.
Tachibana sighed deeply in resignation.
Imitating someone else's life was far more exhausting than he had imagined.
"Blue, go put the ninja tools away. I'll start dinner in a bit."
"(._.) Gua~"
The little frog looked up at Tachibana with concern, reaching out its tiny hand to gently pat the boy's leg.
After a moment's hesitation, it finally picked up the ninja gear pack and hopped off toward the tool room.
Tachibana stared at his reflection, lost in thought.
Some of the sharper students and instructors had already begun to notice his recent changes, but fortunately, most people in Kirigakure were indifferent by nature. Few cared enough to pry into someone else's affairs.
As for the name Tachikawa Tachibana, well, what he was originally called no longer mattered.
The truth was, he wasn't even a native of this world. Just a month ago, he'd been an ordinary nine-to-fiver living a mundane life.
After narrowly avoiding two separate truck accidents, he began to suspect his luck had run out. So, he took a long leave to rest at home.
Then one morning, he woke up to find himself transmigrated into the world of shinobi, as a nine-year-old war orphan in Kirigakure.
Thankfully, he had inherited the original body's full memories after the transfer.
Being a half-otaku, he wasn't a diehard fan of Naruto, but he'd seen the whole series and had a general grasp of the plot.
Naturally, he knew exactly what kind of hellscape the shinobi world really was.
Since the end of the Warring States era and the founding of the shinobi villages, the supposed purpose was peace through mutual restraint.
But in reality, nothing much had changed. A major war broke out every decade or so, and skirmishes or mission-related killings never truly stopped.
Not to mention those absurdly strong but utterly unhinged individuals hell-bent on wiping out clans, razing villages, or ending the world.
Even Konohagakure, home of the original protagonist Uzumaki Naruto, wasn't exactly a safe haven.
They talked about protecting children from the battlefield as the reason for founding the village, yet every war still saw kids, some barely school-age, pushed onto the frontlines.
Kirigakure was even worse.
At least Konoha kept up the appearance of peace and unity. Kirigakure couldn't be bothered with such hypocrisy. The infamous "Bloody Mist" policy had made the entire village a cold, cruel place.
But all of that danger was still abstract for now.
What loomed immediately over Tachibana's head was the upcoming graduation exam at the Ninja Academy.
To become a full-fledged shinobi in Kirigakure, every student had to kill a peer in their class during the graduation exam, a brutal test with a minimum 50% mortality rate.
Tachibana's exam was in just four months.
And as someone who knew the plot, the pressure on him was far greater than on anyone else.
Because the moment he accessed the original host's memories, he realized that one of his classmates was none other than Momochi Zabuza.
Yes, that Zabuza, the one who, according to the original series, killed every single one of his classmates during the graduation exam, forcing Kirigakure to abolish the brutal tradition.
In other words, if Tachibana couldn't defeat Zabuza, his chances of survival were exactly zero.
As someone from a peaceful modern world, all Tachibana really wanted was to live a quiet, stable life.
At the very least, he hoped to survive long enough to see the Boruto era.
By then, the shinobi world would have game consoles and internet, he could finally become a true NEET in peace.
Fortunately, the heavens hadn't completely abandoned him. Like many transmigrators before him, Tachibana came equipped with a cheat-like gift: a system called the [Omni Pokémon Lottery System].
"…I still can't take this system name seriously."
He sighed, palm covering his face.
After over a month of exploring its functions, Tachibana had a basic understanding of the system.
It had three main modules: [Lottery], [Quests], and [Achievements].
Quests and achievements both awarded gold coins, but disappointingly, the coins weren't physical. They could only be used for lotteries. The system didn't even have a store.
Currently, the quest module only offered daily quests. Regardless of completion, four tasks refreshed every day at midnight. Each was worth 10 coins, with a bonus of 20 for completing all four.
Over the past month, Tachibana had discovered the daily tasks were usually things like [Throw 200 kunai], [Answer a classroom question], or [Help the widow next door buy soy sauce], simple enough.
That's why his classmates often saw him practicing alone after school. It wasn't just his fear of the future; sometimes he was simply grinding out the daily quests.
As for the other quest types, he hadn't unlocked them yet. He figured they'd become available once he became an official ninja.
The Achievements module had its own benefits.
While the daily quests were stable, Tachibana had triggered all kinds of achievements over the past month, probably because he was new to the world.
Only the starter one, [Newcomer to the Shinobi World], gave a decent 300-coin reward.
Others, like today's [Beat Up a Child], only gave a measly 5 to 10 coins. But the sheer variety made up for it.
There were achievements for [Tasting 10 types of food], [Talking to 100 people], and even one from being late to school for the first time, called [Sorry, I Got Lost on the Road of Life], whatever that meant.
Since achievement conditions were a mystery, he'd initially tried everything to trigger them, but soon realized it was inefficient. Now he just let them happen naturally.
The most important module, of course, was the Lottery.
Clicking the [?] icon on the screen revealed the rules:
160 coins for a single draw
Every 10-draw set guarantees at least one purple-tier item
After 90 pulls in the same pool, a gold-tier item is guaranteed
After drawing a gold-tier item, the counter resets
The contents of each draw depended on the current UP pool.
Despite the name "Omni Pokémon Lottery," there were only three available pools for now.
One was a mysterious [?? Pool] he hadn't unlocked yet.
Another was the Standard Attribute UP Pool, containing all sorts of bizarre items, from suicidal moves like Explosion to nonsense like Meowth's Head Coin.
The last was a Newbie Limited UP Pool, capped at 20 draws.
Thanks to a 20% discount for a 10-pull in the newbie pool, Tachibana had saved up 1280 coins and done his first big draw two weeks ago.
Among the rewards, the flashiest was a gold-tier item:
*[Summoning Jutsu Unique]
(Gold Tier - Unique): Master the Summoning Technique and receive a randomly assigned Pokémon as your summon. The Pokémon will have growth potential and max starting affinity.
Which sounded amazing, until the summon turned out to be a level 1 Froakie.
The rest of the rewards were mediocre at best.
Some blue-tier items like [Potion] and [PP Booster] were at least slightly useful.
Though oddly, after being extracted, the Potion turned into an ointment, and the PP Booster became a special ration pill, perhaps a result of world adaptation.
Tachibana tested a few, better than the village pharmacy's wares, but not by much.
The white-tier items were completely useless: [Pidgeot Feather], [Yellow Apricorn], [Grilled Berry], [Orange Mail], [Tiny Mushroom], [Scrap Iron], [Marble], no explanations, no effects.
Still, at least he had Froakie, a being from outside this world whom he could fully trust. Even though its current combat ability was lacking, it brought him real comfort.
Tachibana named it Tachikawa Blue, hoping that even after it evolved into a Greninja, the name would still suit it, his true companion, not just a summon or Pokémon.
Of course, out of mild embarrassment, he usually just called it "Blue."
After today's efforts, and thanks to the Child Beater achievement and daily quest rewards, Tachibana had once again saved up 1305 coins.
He glanced at the system panel, then at Blue, who had finished organizing the tools and was watching him with worried eyes.
"…Let's eat first. We've waited all day anyway, no rush now."
Since arriving in this perilous world, Tachibana had trained himself to remain calm and deliberate in all things.
Reckless, impulsive people didn't survive long in the shinobi world.
The draw could wait, today wasn't over yet.
He forced himself to relax.
Change into indoor slippers, cook, eat with Blue, just like always, one step at a time.
At 10:00 p.m., hands and face washed, mood steady, Tachibana opened the system interface again.
"Blue, come pray with me!"
Sure, a real ninja should face everything rationally, but hey, if transmigrating was real, a little divine blessing couldn't hurt.
"May the gods of heaven and earth, Laozi, the Buddha, and Arceus bless us, "
"(⊙▽⊙?) Gua~"