2: A Void Full Of Choices

Lyra was slightly surprised that it knew her name, though she knew she shouldn't be. She tentatively decided to respond.

"Greetings. So... what happens now?"

"[Now, you and the 99 other reincarnators recieve your gifts before I send you on your way.]"

Three glowing orbs appeared before her. Two small golden ones, and one green one that seemed to be made of... code?

"[These are your three wishes. Everyone receives the same amount. The first two are for anything that you want. The third will be for a tiny fragment of myself: your very own system.]"

"Anything? That seems too powerful." She commented.

"[And it would be. That is why the wishes are toned down. If you wish for infinite chakra for example, you will instead receive greatly increased chakra regeneration, but not infinite. If you wish for a Rinnegan, you will receive a Sharingan. This will not cause accidental scamming; I will tell you if your wish goes over the allowed limit and you can change it if you decide it isn't worth it.]"

"[Now, your first wish?]"

The first golden orb shined brighter and shifted to hover directly in front of her. It was time for her to think about what she would really want when going into a world like this. The first thing she did was immediately start asking questions.

"Are we going to just wake up in our bodies, or will we be born there and have to grow up?"

"[Hah. Good choice asking questions first thing. Anyways, you are reincarnators. That means that you will be reborn in that world, not simply moved there. That would be transmigration. Being reborn means that yes, you will have new parents, and you will have to grow up from scratch. Note that your wishes may affect who your family will be, or if you will even have one at all. Choose wisely.]"

"I see. Will I be aware of my situation while I'm growing up? I can't imagine a baby's brain can process all of that information."

"[And you would be correct. Your soul will handle most of the heavy lifting, but you will mostly just be a simple child for the first few years of your life, with very few of your memories available and your system sealed until they start to awaken. This will generally start to happen at around 5 years old. From there your memories will quickly start to return in full force, fully awakening at around 8 or 9 years old.]"

"Good. I don't want to be conscious of my actions as a baby. That would be an embarrassment I would never forget."

"Now, what year will I be born?"

"[At least 10 years after the First Shinobi War.]"

She frowned, "That's... vague. Can you be more specific?"

"[It is down to luck what time you are born. Obviously, those born closer to the first great war may have an advantage, since they will have a vast head start over all those who come after them. I can say that none of you will be born after Naruto Uzumaki himself, but that leaves a large gap where any of you can be born before then. Each of you will be born roughly 3 or 4 months after the one before you. If you aren't the first to be born, that is.]"

Lyra pondered that information. She would freely admit to anyone who asked that she didn't know absolutely everything about the series. Sure, she had seen the whole show multiple times. Even most of the filler content since she was young and didn't know the difference in quality back then. She'd even browsed the wiki from time to time.

But she knew there would be weirdos in that crowd of others who would know the entire series inside-out and would have all kinds of strategies thought up long ago about how they would survive if they somehow ended up there. And they would have a system by their side, giving them quests or missions or system coins or whatever for free rewards from outside the Naruto universe.

So she decided that the easiest way to beat them at their own game was to not play it at all.

"I wish for luck."

"[Oh? Describe that wish for me. I need more specifics than that.]"

"Very well. Then I wish for my luck to be increased as much as possible specifically at the very start of my life. Or even several years before it if you can. The Shinobi World is a place with plenty of ways to gain strength without needing some system to give you free power from beyond. The first of those is to simply be born with better genetics than everyone else."

"[Interesting. That wish is valid. Confirm?]"

"Confirm."

The first golden orb flickered, and then vanished into thin air. The second golden orb approached.

"[Now, your second wish?]"

"Ok. I wish for increased luck at the start of my life."

"[...]"

"..."

"[That's... that's the same wish...]"

"Correct."

"[...]"

"[Hah... hahahahaha!!!]"

Lyra was perplexed. The so-called God was... laughing at her wish?

"[I knew at least one of you would find a loophole in my little game! I'll have to patch that out for the next time I do this. But for now, yes, that wish is valid. Confirm?]"

"...Confirm."

The second orb flickered like the first, and vanished.

The system orb approached.

"Can I just say no? I'd rather not waste time in that world hunting down some obscure quest objective for a gacha roll and would much rather build up a good work ethic and spend time training like a normal person."

"[Hah! Unfortunately, you must pick a system. I will not take "no" for an answer.]"

The code within the orb expanded and revealed a number of example choices to her.

'Harem God System... Magic Shop System... Endless Gacha System... Isekai Hero System... nope, nope, nope. Not interested.' She was very disappointed with those examples. There were a few examples that caught her eye, like the Oracle System that was essentially a super-accurate fortune teller with a Skill System glued to the side of it just so it would have more than one purpose. But again, she didn't want to waste time building up power that wasn't truly her own.

"I want a different kind of system."

"[The ones on display not tempting you?]"

"Hell no. Why is that harem one even there? No-one in their right mind would pick th-"

"[17 of your fellow reincarnators, 10 of which are male and 7 of which are female have already selected a harem-related system. Make that 18 actually, the boy you were speaking to earlier just picked one about 3 seconds ago.]"

"..."

She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose, "God damn it... Anyway, I want something else. I want a system that will force the others to play by the rules of the world if I encounter them. Something that will cancel out their own systems' powers and benefits, or even their wishes if it can."

"[For someone who wants to make people play by the rules you really like breaking all of mine, don't you? *Sigh* Very well. I didn't ever want to drag this boring fragment back out of storage but fine, have it!]"

The glowing code-orb in front of her began to twist and spin faster and faster before a thin beam of matrix-green light was spat out of it directly into her face. She felt a new... something... appear in the back of her mind. She couldn't quite describe what it felt like but the feeling quickly faded into the background and a new voice spoke within her mind.

"[Hello, User. My designated name is Great Firewall. Pleased to meet you.]"

It was... robotic. Very retro sounding. It sounded almost like a long lost brother of HAL-9000.

She had kind of been expecting the usual female secretary-like voice that systems were so often portrayed as having these days. She bet that slime anime had something to do with that.

The Great System spoke again.

"[I hope you're happy with that boring old thing. It doesn't even have a true personality like the other system fragments do. At least it won't banter at you as much as the others will, I suppose.]"

"Cool. What can it do, exactly?"

"[It will tell you when you see it again in five years. Now, the time has come. You've received your wishes and your system. It is time to go.]"

"Not waiting for the others?"

"[You are all being sent down months apart anyways. A few minutes difference now means nothing.]"

"Ah. That makes sense."

After she said those words, Lyra's body started to glow, and then fade before her very eyes. As she could feel sleep trying to claim her once more, the Great System spoke again.

"[Almost forgot to tell you. Your location will also be random. You can be born anywhere, not just the Hidden Leaf Village. Who knows if you'll even survive being born into such a war-torn world? Let's hope that your double luck wishes pull through.]"

"Wait wh-" Her eyes closed.

And with that, the woman known as "Lyra" was no more.

___________________________________________________

Hey, me again! The Author.

So I wasn't expecting to make another author note so soon but, in case you haven't noticed, Webnovel have added italic and bold text to their writing tool, Inkstone.

This, put simply, changes the fucking game. I've always been annoyed at the lack of either of these features, because they're both super useful for adding emphasis to words to make them flow more like proper speech (and also for separating [System Messages] from normal text in fics that have Systems). Our only option before was to CAPITALIZE things to emphasise them, or just not emphasise them at all and hope that the readers pick up on it.

This does however mean that now I'm gonna have to go back through all of my other chapters for every fic I've written and add these features. Which is not gonna be fun, I'll tell you that much. I am so thankful to past me for not uploading any of the now 40 chapters across my two W.I.P novels before today, otherwise I'd probably have to take them all down and re-upload them all, had I released them earlier.

Have a nice day!