I

Waking up abruptly from darkness to the cries of children, the sound of absolute chaos that is unsupervised children and while thinking upon the last comment I heard before starting my new life was not an enjoyable experience.

Having limited mobility, while enjoyable compared to no mobility at all was not my ideal way of starting a new life either. At least I quickly found out that I had the neck strength to look around, and if I concentrated, I could even exit my crib and while supported move around said crib.

The Konohagakure orphanage sure was not anything to write home about; the wood of the orphanage was in all sorts of different stages of decay, the paint was peeling off, of the wood and the air had the smell of mold. Overall I quickly started doubting whether I should stay inside the orphanage or somehow find a way to live on my own since living at the orphanage could be detrimental to my health.

Thinking further on that thought had me dropping any ideas of leaving the orphanage rather quickly; Primarily I was one year old, only just capable of standing on my own two feet and as I yet further again quickly found out… I was not born with an all-comprehensive guide to the Japanese language; thus leaving me to having to figure out how to understand and communicate with my fellow citizen… bummer.

So doing the only viable thing I could as a toddler, I circled around my crib while listening intently to sounds around me, whenever possible I would observe conversations and attempt to learn the meaning of the spoken words based on hand gestures and body language.

Time quickly passed and the stubby legs that carried me around my crib for the umpteenth time started growing tired and toddler me not having thought through the fact I would have to pull myself up into my crib again, ended up resting underneath said crib instead… on the cold wooden floor. At least the crib was not too tall for me to pull off the bedding, allowing me to rest in relative comfort, looking at the bright side of things and all.

So here, I was chilling in a cozy, moldy and rotten orphanage, recovering my strength to achieve greatness, a small step towards greatness but greatness none the less. What could I possibly do in the body of a one-year-old? Laying around and becoming more and more tired was not what I had in mind. Thinking back on my wishing session, I figured I might as well check my status and see what kind of stats my current toddler self has available.

Thinking 'open status' quickly filled my vision with text and numbers, luckily these were English rather than Japanese, so at least I had one thing going for me here.

Name: Jin | Age: 1 Year | Sex: Male

Bloodline: Human commoner (modified)

Special(s): Quick adaption, Evolution (Humanoid)

Element(s): Lightning, Earth, Fire - Darkness Release

Strength: 0.21 | Agility: 0.33 | Dexterity: 0.15 | Perception: 0.85

Intellect: 1.24 | Chakra: 0.34 | Chakra control: 0.05

… Not like, I was expecting much, but this is just sad… Perfectly average and ready to roll over and die I see. I cannot really compare my stats to anyone else but I really hope these stats are due to my young body; at least my Intellect pulls ahead of the rest…

I probably lucked out with my Darkness Release, easy access to 3 elements and whenever I learn to actually control Darkness as a concept there really won't be anything that can stop me from potentially becoming an SSS+ rank threat, Madara probably won't even have a thing on me by then.

That is all far away, however, this has made it all the more obvious I need to focus early on in my life on figuring out a way to cultivate a bigger chakra pool and oh boy do I need to learn to control it real bad. I were never one for the spiritual in my old life and never really found any reason to meditate other than as a form of relaxation, and that was never for more than couple minutes at a time since my legs always would fall asleep; thus making it uncomfortable…

Then again, I never saw anyone in the Naruto anime actual cultivate anything, nor do any control exercises except for leaf sticking, tree and water running. So I should be golden right? Just do some good ol' fashioned leaf sticking in my spare time.

So all I have to do is circle my crib whenever I have the strength and somehow get my hands on a leaf, and then simply leaf stick the crib out of it. Hah! The puns.

Be real me… I cannot expect everything to work EXACTLY as in the anime, this is real life for me and I need to pull ahead of the curve either way. I need not only adapt to a completely different world, different culture and a completely different way of life. From desk worker to child soldier… what a career change.

I can exchange the leaf for my bedsheet for now, but I also need to go above and beyond! I cannot go the tried and tested route, I need to experiment and I need to take chances. Luckily I have just the right tool in my metaphorical tool-shed, I should have to me a virtual space available where no harm can come from experimenting techniques and hopefully other things.

My biggest problem is that it will not keep me rested and I have no idea how it will look outwards to my caretakers. Not that, that seems to be a problem so far with how inattentive they are to leave a one-year-old toddler, who has been circling his own crib like a hungry shark while intently staring at anyone striking up conversations.

As a caretaker, I am sure I would have thought a kid like that would have special needs… but again this is Naruto, maybe they have already seen and dismissed me as faulty goods, which cannot contribute to the betterment of the Ninja Village. Sure hope not… I still need food and water to survive.

Panic quickly rising… only to fade moments after had me in a weird situation. On the edge of breaking out into a toddler screech to full calculative control. THAT is NOT NORMAL…

Oh… wait just a moment, I am ADAPTIVE as in not just your normal human adaptive, I have QUICK adaption and apparently, that is REAL quick adaption… or I have been secretly been panicking since I woke up or other emotional changes going on.

Either way, this puts me in a situation with yet another tool to my advantage. As a child sol- Ninja I will need to be calm and collected, I will need to analyze any situation and change it to my absolute advantage.

This also puts me a lot closer to being yet another none-emotional psycho… lets put 'desiring real focking hard on having emotions, but just not having them control my actions' as a thing to do every day, just so I never become a true killing machine. I do enjoy being in control of my own self, but I would never want it to the extent where I have no emotional morals.

So with that out of the way… time to set a plan for the future.

***(1) Get that control stat up really really really high, sky high.

***(2) Test out how the virtual world works, whenever I have time alone.

***(3) Find a way to cultivate chakra… safely

***(4) Train dexterity somehow… find a pen?... kunai, anything really and maybe do stretches?

***(5) Train the body; get strength, agility, and perception to 1 for now.

***(6) Figure out how to force adaptive changes to the body.

***(7) Figure out the best routine that works with whatever schedule the orphanage has in store for its habitants, while learning the local language.

As if triggered by my readiness it was at this time one of the caretakers finally realized that one of their patrons had migrated to the floor rather than their designated plot on top of their crib. Speed walking her way to my location a middle-aged woman picked me up in her arms, only to stop midway looking at me strangely as if I was some alien. Looking from me to my crib once, and twice she finally decided to put me down into my crib, after which she took the bedding, brushed it off quickly with her hand and placed it back on top of me.

Looking around observing the room resting her eyes slightly on every kid in the room before looking back down at me "Kimyō" she muttered to herself before again leaving to tend to a crying kid who had just stumbled on his own two feet outside my designated room.

Was I weird looking or something? I would not know and could not know since there were no reflective surfaces in my immediate vicinity. Had the god or whatever that put me in here forced my existence into a room not supposed to have more than a certain amount of kids?

Once more observing the room I was in gave me nothing much, the cribs were evenly spaced out and from the looks of it, there was plenty of space for more cribs if need be. It also made me aware that I was sharing my room with five more tenants. All of which were sleeping… all of them just slumbering about to the chaotic chorus of cries, yells and children galore.

I supposed I was the odd one out in this group of toddlers, so I decided to blend in, get some shuteye. Before doing so though I took a quick peek out the door to see whether any caretakers were observing the room, finding no one as the previous caretaker had moved on to more important business yet again. I decided this was the perfect time to take my chances with my virtual world.

'Enter virtual world' I thought only to get hit by the worst headache ever, like a sledgehammer to the face, before passing out into sweet darkness…