Chapter 1 — 001: Who Says Youth Cannot Return?

Tokyo, October 1980 — Showa Year 55.

There was not the slightest hint of autumn. The lingering heat of the “autumn tiger” still raged, and the nine-o’clock morning sun was no weaker than noon.

A young nurse, beads of sweat forming on her forehead, hurried to a hospital room. Through the small window in the door, she saw a thin young man inside packing his belongings.

She pushed the door open.

“Naoki-san, already packing? Have you finished the discharge procedures?”

“Yes, everything is completed. Thank you very much for taking care of me.”

The reply came in perfectly fluent Japanese. Turning around, Nagayama Naoki, pale-faced and carrying a small bag, gave the nurse a slight bow.

“There are only a few things left to take home. I’ve finished packing.”

The entire process unfolded naturally, like a program engraved into his body.

“Please take good care of yourself. Don’t give up, Naoki-san,” the nurse reminded him.

“Yes. I’m sorry for causing you trouble.”

Walking out of the hospital, Nagayama Naoki stood still for a moment, staring at the street bathed in brilliant sunlight. Japanese signboards, direction markers, and traditional architecture filled his vision, weaving together the atmosphere of a foreign land.

He had been hospitalized for three days, yet he still could not fully accept the fact that he was now living in Tokyo during the Showa era.

In his previous life, he had been born in the 1990s. Orphaned, he managed to complete a university degree with the help of kind sponsors. After graduation, he became a programmer at a factory and began a brutal “007” work life—working from midnight to midnight, seven days a week—burning his life away with a single goal: earn enough money before being laid off at thirty-five to secure financial freedom for the rest of his life.

After that, he planned to settle beside Erhai Lake in Dali and live a peaceful life of poetry and distant horizons.

Unfortunately, just as he was about to achieve that goal, a sudden episode of heart palpitations struck one early morning. When he opened his eyes again, he had become Nagayama Naoki and arrived in the Showa era.

He walked along the street to the train station. After several unsteady stops, he returned to Nakano Ward. Following the route preserved in his memory, weaving through turns and narrow streets, he arrived at a small alley in an old neighborhood. At the very end stood an aging two-story Western-style house.

This was where Nagayama Naoki lived.

The Makino residence.

The building had two floors. The first floor served as the landlord’s living space and kitchen. The owner was a widowed elderly woman whose children seemed to be studying abroad. To ease financial pressure, she rented out the four rooms on the second floor. For an additional fee, tenants could also use the downstairs kitchen.

When Naoki entered, Mrs. Makino was busy in the kitchen. She looked up.

“Ah, Nagayama-san, you’re back.”

“Yes, Mrs. Makino, I’m home.”

In memory, conversations between the taciturn original Nagayama Naoki and his landlady were always this brief. This time, however, she continued.

“Nagayama-san, are you feeling better now?”

“Yes. The doctor said I’m fine. I just need to eat lightly. Thank you for your concern.”

“Take care of your health. You mustn’t give up on life just because your idol got married. Momoe Yamaguchi certainly wouldn’t want her fans abandoning their lives.”

Her tone carried rare seriousness.

It wasn’t me who tried to die over an idol’s marriage, Naoki complained silently.

“Yes, from now on I’ll live properly. I’m sorry for troubling you.”

He answered sincerely while bowing halfway in apology. The motions flowed effortlessly; bowing had clearly become bodily memory.

After apologizing, he went upstairs, took out his key, and opened the door. A sour smell of stale beer rushed toward him.

The room was small. The entryway was cramped; immediately to the right stood a kitchenette. A frying pan lay tilted in the sink, and a kettle rested on the gas stove beside it. To the left was a tiny bathroom.

After changing his shoes and stepping further inside, he entered a single open space serving as dining room, living room, and bedroom combined. The bed was stored inside a closet, making the room feel slightly less crowded. In one corner sat an old television and an electric fan. Several empty beer cans were scattered around the low table, along with remnants of vomit.

So that was the source of the smell.

Naoki immediately opened the window to air out the room. Sunlight streamed in, stirring faint dust in the air. He tidied up briefly—bagging trash, sweeping and mopping the floor. Despite his body not yet fully recovered, cold sweat soon broke out.

Only then did he realize he had not bathed for three days. An itch spread across his skin. Grabbing clean clothes, he headed straight into the bathroom.

After showering, he looked at the figure in the mirror.

Not a young man—more like a teenager.

Beneath fluffy hair was a pale, youthful face. A broad forehead, defined yet moderate brow ridge, sword-like eyebrows framing unexpectedly gentle peach-blossom eyes, a straight nose bridge, and a well-shaped jawline.

Quite handsome—aside from a slightly timid expression.

About 175 centimeters tall, thin, with little muscle. Wearing a loose shirt, he looked like a clothes hanger. Clearly malnourished and long unaccustomed to exercise.

Yet feeling the vitality inside this young body, Nagayama Naoki could not help but smile.

The lumbar strain of his thirties, bulging sciatic nerve, nearsighted eyes, growing belly, cervical spine problems—everyone, thank you for taking care of me. Goodbye.

Do not waste the daylight; youth does not return.

So this counts as returning to youth.

He laughed.

After washing his clothes, he filled the kettle with water and set it to boil on the gas stove.

Then he sat down, suddenly unsure what he should do next.

Looking around, he saw posters of Momoe Yamaguchi on the wall, her records beside the television, and newspapers on the table reporting her retirement announcement. This had been one of the triggers for the original owner of this body swallowing sleeping pills with beer a few days earlier: on October 5, at a concert held at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Momoe Yamaguchi had announced her marriage and retirement from show business.

The original owner had truly been an extreme fan.

But the current Nagayama Naoki felt little toward her. All of the former owner’s memories were like movies he had once watched—familiar scenes stirred recognition, yet a spectator’s distance always separated his inner self from reality.

The Showa era.

China should now be in the early 1980s—early Reform and Opening-Up, Journey to the West, Hong Kong pop culture, Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Teresa Teng…

What else? Generational gap—someone born in the ’90s didn’t know much.

Could he ever return?

The original owner was a genuine Japanese citizen, apparently with some connection to the yakuza. A poor working-class laborer who had only graduated high school. Even going abroad would be difficult.

What existed in Showa-era Japan?

The coming bubble economy? The dominance of the Yamaguchi-gumi? The legendary Showa-era beauties often seen online—Seiko Matsuda, Akina Nakamori, Shizuka Kudo…

No matter how one summarized it, this era seemed full of opportunity. An age where working a little harder might lead to sudden wealth.

In his previous life, he had worked tirelessly in a 007 schedule, still unable to guarantee buying a home in a major city, planning to retreat to Dali after being laid off.

Given a second life, the decision was clear.

First, become rich.

Then live the life of poetry and distant horizons.

Chapter 1 — Reborn in Konoha, But Named Uzumaki Menma

“Ha ha ha! Fake! It’s all fake!”

“There is no Uchiha Madara in this world! No Sage of Six Paths! And certainly no Ōtsutsuki Kaguya!”

Beneath the crimson blood moon, during the Fourth Great Ninja War, Uzumaki Menma stood atop the head of a black Nine-Tails at the center of the battlefield, laughing wildly while being surrounded by eighty thousand shinobi of the Allied Forces.

The many powerful figures of the ninja world below wore grave expressions. Over the past two years, they had already grown used to this madman who constantly claimed that “this world is fake.”

After his laughter faded, Uzumaki Menma removed the white three-eyed fox mask from his face, sensing the restless throbbing of the transplanted Sharingan and the rejection emanating from the world itself.

It had been fifteen years since he transmigrated into this world.

As a transmigrator, he had originally believed himself to be Uzumaki Naruto. Instead, he was Uzumaki Menma. His parents, Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, were both alive, which allowed Menma to realize that the world he inhabited was nothing more than a false “Inifinite Tsukuyomi” reality.

In order to find a way to leave, he spent more than a decade continuously growing stronger, collecting various kekkei genkai and secret techniques. He had even transplanted a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan into himself and subdued the Black Nine-Tails, becoming a warrior beyond Kage level.

Yet no matter how hard he searched, there were no traces or legends of Uchiha Madara, the Sage of Six Paths, or Ōtsutsuki Kaguya anywhere in this world.

Thus, Uzumaki Menma launched a “Massive Rasengan: Rinne Ring” attack upon all Five Great Ninja Villages, igniting the Fourth Great Ninja War.

The five villages gathered eighty thousand shinobi into a united army, and Menma used the opportunity to expose the truth of this world.

Regardless of how many among them believed him, this false world had already begun rejecting his existence.

Feeling the rejection of the “Inifinite Tsukuyomi world” grow stronger, Menma looked at the faint white glow spreading across his body with delight.

He was about to leave this world.

He just did not know at what point in the true Naruto world he would awaken—or whether it would already be during the late stage of the Fourth Great Ninja War under the Infinite Tsukuyomi.

“This is my farewell gift to this world.”

A small sphere of dark-purple energy condensed in Menma’s right hand. At its core lay extremely dense dark-attribute chakra, while a ring of Wind Release chakra formed a stellar halo revolving around it.

When the Massive Rasengan struck the ground, a pillar of white light shot into the sky. A colossal explosion swallowed more than half the battlefield along with tens of thousands of shinobi.

Uzumaki Menma disappeared within the white light.

October 10th, Year 51 of Konoha — Night

Inside a secret delivery room protected by numerous barriers in the forest outside Konohagakure, Uzumaki Menma slowly opened his eyes.

“As expected of the Yellow Flash.”

“But what will you do next?”

A voice sounded very close by.

Menma widened his eyes and saw a man wearing a tiger-striped mask holding him in one arm.

Turning his head slightly, he saw Namikaze Minato holding a blond infant in his arms.

“Minato!” Uzumaki Kushina cried weakly from a bed not far away.

The Night of the Nine-Tails?

Wait… Minato is holding Naruto. Then who am I?

Before he could think further, explosive tags left behind by the masked man detonated, blasting Minato out of the room.

At the instant of the explosion, Uchiha Obito transported Menma and Kushina into the Kamui dimension.

“Menma!” Inside the Kamui space, Kushina struggled to rise, but her body was powerless after childbirth.

Uchiha Obito, still wearing the tiger-striped mask, threw two chain-linked kunai that bound Kushina in place.

He then lowered his head and looked at the infant in his arms.

“Not crying or making a fuss…”

Suddenly, Obito felt that killing the baby outright would be rather boring.

He wanted Minato-sensei to experience the pain of losing someone dear.

What if he raised this child into a villain and had him destroy Konoha?

That sounded like an interesting game.

Imagining the Fourth Hokage’s two sons killing each other years later, the corners of Obito’s mouth curled upward beneath the mask.

Still, keeping him by my side for over a decade would be too slow.

Obito had no intention of playing house with a child.

After glancing once more at Kushina, his body began to be swallowed by Kamui.

When he reappeared, he stood outside Konoha at an orphanage on the village outskirts.

“Menma, was it?”

Obito looked at the baby staring at him with large azure eyes, recalling the name Kushina had shouted earlier.

After leaving a Kamui spatial marker on Menma and writing his name on a piece of paper, Obito placed the swaddled infant at the orphanage entrance.

He was confident that Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina would not survive the night.

“I’ll come find you in ten years.”

With that, Uchiha Obito vanished into the Kamui dimension.

At least knock on the door before leaving! Menma nearly broke down as Obito disappeared, abandoning him outside the orphanage in the cold wind.

The freezing night air struck his face, yet he was only a newborn infant—unable to move, with not a trace of chakra in his body. He could only open his mouth and cry loudly.

Boom!

In the distant Konoha village, the enormous Nine-Tailed Fox was summoned and began wreaking massive destruction.

The entire village was thrown into chaos. Civilians awakened from sleep fled desperately toward underground shelters, while shinobi rushed to the front lines in an attempt to stop the Nine-Tails.

“Director, why is it so noisy outside? Did something happen in the village?” a childish voice asked at the orphanage entrance.

Creak—

The door opened. Yakushi Nono, dressed in a black-and-white nun’s habit, stepped outside with a gray-haired child.

“Huh?!” Seeing the crying baby on the ground, Nono hurried forward and picked him up.

“An abandoned baby?” Kabuto walked up from behind, glancing at the infant now quiet in the director’s arms while looking around cautiously.

Nono checked the swaddling cloth and found a crookedly written note.

“Menma… is that his name?” she murmured softly.

In the direction of Konoha, a massive shadow flickered in the darkness. Even from afar, an overwhelming pressure could be felt.

Seeing the nine tails, Yakushi Nono—who had participated in many wars and conducted intelligence operations across various villages—immediately realized that a jinchūriki had likely lost control.

She quickly told Yakushi Kabuto to wake the children of the orphanage and prepared to escort them to the nearest emergency shelter.

The next day, after settling the children safely, Nono entered the village to gather supplies. What she saw was a severely devastated Konoha and villagers grieving in pain after losing loved ones.

After asking around repeatedly, she finally learned about the Nine-Tails’ rampage the previous night—and the deaths of the Fourth Hokage and his wife.