CHAPTER 1: Okabe Jinshiro

[WARNING: IF YOU'RE FAMILIAR WITH THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS ALREADY, JUST JUMP TO THE THIRD, OTHERWISE, WELCOME AND HAVE A NICE READING!]

To the north of the continent, in frozen lands where the temperature was always low enough so that you would never be able to walk around without socks, was a city unlike any other when compared to their counterpart to the south.

Over the horizon, countless towers of steel seemed to rise towards the heavens, carriages pulled by Buffalos, animals with powerful legs and a pair of unbreakable horns, would come and go from the city constantly, which one had a unique symbol drawn on the side.

It represented the family clan from where the carriage came from, after all, the Land Of Iron was unlike their neighbors. Here there was no "Gakure", such a thing as a hidden village was just something from the past, ever since the hundred years war fought by the Shodai Shogun, who freed them from the tyranny of the last Daimyo, the land was divided amongst the most powerful clans under the Shogun, and the heads of the clans became the lords of the land.

The people here all wore kimonos, but only combatants used Hakamas since there was a necessity for increased mobility for them, and pretty much all of them carried long and slim curved blades in their sheaths, it was a sword commonly known across the lands as Katana, the heart and soul of a samurai.

But this story starts somewhere else, even further to the north, almost at the uninhabited Glaciar Regions.

In this place forever shrouded by a snow tempest, a small boy sat cross-legged facing the flames of a bonfire within a deep cavern on a forgotten mountain, his body was shaking slightly due to the cold temperature.

The boy had light brown eyes which seemed to shine even in the darkness, his name is Okabe Jinshiro, the last descendant of the Jinshiro clan which was once a powerful force to be reckoned with in the past, unfortunately, years of conspiracy and constant assassinations against its members had completely undermined their power.

Suddenly, behind the bonfire, an old man with grey hair and tired eyes lifted his head, with a yawn he leaned his back on the wall of the cave and looked towards the boy.

"Okabe, how long do you intend to keep training? If we don't leave today, we will have to spend the next month in this frozen mountain..."

Okabe frowned for a moment before sighing and falling with his back towards the ground.

"Danm you, grandpa! How do you expect me to become someone strong in the future if all you do is sleep after telling me to practice chakra rotation!"

"Uhh, I'm teaching you a lesson, it's called independence, you shouldn't depend on me to help you with everything."

Okabe's grandpa, Osaki Jinshiro was always like that, if there was work to do, he would pretend to do it for a few moments and when you stopped looking he would suddenly be lying on the ground sleeping soundlessly, sometimes it even looks like he died...

Sadly for him, it seemed like life would be much harder than he initially thought, after all, being a reincarnated person who had just finished watching the classic Naruto anime, he knew very well of how overpowered some people were in this universe, shinobi clans like the Hyuga and Uchiha had powerful abilities that seemed to have come out of a ring of power crafted by an overly evil wizard in some sort of unreachable volcano forge...

If anything he truly wished he had some way to get such powerful abilities.

Just thinking of his lack of luck made it so that memories of his interdimensional travel resurfaced on his mind.

It was a good day for him, as a fifteen years old boy, he was about to do the thing that any teenager of his age dreamed of, he would confess his feelings to the girl he loved, however, just after telling his feelings, she dismissed him saying that she would never date an ugly guy, especially one that was an otaku.

IT HURT SO MUCH!

He kneeled and with a teary face, asked the universe to free him of this humiliation, he couldn't withstand another blow like that because he lacked a handsome face and liked anime, five times in a row was too much...

And maybe because he was seeking strength by reminding himself of Naruto's powerful will to keep going forward, when the world suddenly turned dark and everything around him exploded in a pillar of light he ended up in the ninja world, but... it was probably an alternate universe, because he couldn't remember samurais appearing in any of the episodes...

"Come, I don't want to spend another day here." Osaki stood up and put his hand on his sword.

Okabe nodded and stood up as well, he approached his grandpa with his hands inside his pockets and gulped when he noticed that he was looking at him,

"W-what is it?"

"You brat, HAVE YOU NOT BEEN PAYING ATTENTION TO WHAT I TELL YOU? HANDS-ON THE HILT ALL THE TIME WHEN WE ARE TRAVELING!" Before Okabe could notice his grandpa hit him in the head making a big bulge rise upwards above his forehead.

"AGGGHHHH! WHY ARE YOU HITTING ME!?" With tears falling from his eyes, Okabe massaged his forehead.

"Humph! I'm doing this because you're my most precious thing in the world! I'm hitting you because I love you! I'm teaching you to be strong, I'm teaching you the pain that this cruel world inflicts on the naive and innocent! And finally, I'm hitting you because you must understand what's going to happen if you're not ready to draw your 'Hikari'! Our family's legacy goes back more than a thousand years and our legendary ancestors had always been masters of the famous 'Batto Ryu'!"

Okabe clenched his fist and cried. "But I don't understand, all you make me do every day is hit those poles you keep throwing at me and forcing me to draw the sword from the scabbard while doing so!"

"You idiot! Do you think a master is born? NO! To become a master of the sword one needs to train every day, even if it's the most simple training, a good foundation makes a good master! One day you'll thank me for training your foundations so hard! Now let's go, you can complain once we arrive on Sanro."

Without saying another word, Osaki and Okabe dashed forward at high speed, quickly disappearing amidst the snow.

Okabe was definitely not some sort of chosen individual, it was true that he had no special bloodline, neither did he had the best talent, nor the best weapons, there was no cheat code to help him in this new life, if he wanted to get anywhere, he would have to do it on his own.

After twelve hours running extremely quickly over the snowfields, Okabe was already panting, the sweat pouring down his face despite the cold temperatures was proof of how tired he was, if it wasn't for the Jinshiro secret family chakra revolving techniques which emphasized on yang attributes, such a thing would be impossible even for a Chunnin.

But of course, where a technique had its good side, there would always be a downside as well, like most chakra techniques of the samurai, this way of using chakra that changed its properties on a fundamental level made it overly hard to control, if Osaki had not forced Okabe to practice his chakra control every day ever since he was a 3 years old baby, basically eight years ago, he would still be using the common ways.

They would have kept going if wasn't for Osaki who reached out his hand to stop Okabe.

Hiding on top of tree branches, Okabe followed his grandpa's actions when he noticed that he covered his face with a mask and a hood.

He still remembered what his grandpa said about a similar situation in the past. If he ever did that, it was because there was someone trying to track them down, and depending on if he also put on the hood, it meant they were about to face hired assassins, the kind who had only one objective, end the Jinshiro family bloodline from the face of the earth.