Naruto: Starting with Creating a Genius Persona

In the Land of Hot Water, on the outskirts of a certain town, in a cheap and dilapidated rented room.

Light streamed in through the dusty window, dimly illuminating the small space.

The boy stood in the center of the room, looking at the woman in front of him—his mother, Yoko.

Her gaze was fixed blankly on something, and she kept muttering indistinct words under her breath.

The boy felt a heavy weight in his chest—the exhaustion from the long journey and the numbness after countless dashed hopes.

But at this moment, there was more of an almost desperate anxiety. He took half a step forward, his voice dry, as if forcing it out from his throat:

"Mother!"

"Where is my sister?"

His gaze was fixed on Yoko's face.

That face, the features so familiar, I had cooked for him before, and I had seen the worry in his eyes when he was sick as a child...

But at this moment, the expression on that face was so unfamiliar, shrouded in a hazy, isolating cloud, as if the person sitting in front of him was just a strange soul wearing the shell of his mother.

Yoko seemed not to hear him at all; she didn't even lift her eyelids. She simply mumbled a little louder, breaking it into fragmented syllables: "...Holy God's protection... grace... light... end times... purification..."

The boy clenched his fists, which hung at his sides, his knuckles turning slightly white from the force. Only his mother's hollow murmurs and his own increasingly heavy breathing filled the room.

The boy's name is Yamagami Genya. He was born in the land of hot springs to a wealthy family that once ran a hot spring inn.

He was the second son, with an older brother and a younger sister.

If the world had continued on its original trajectory, he might have inherited the family business, tended the ancestral bathhouse, and spent a peaceful life amidst the steaming mist and casual conversations with guests.

However, the flames of the Second Shinobi World War spread throughout the shinobi world, and even the Land of Hot Springs, known for its hot springs and tourism and hailed as a land of health and wellness, was not spared.

With the sharp decline in tourists, the family's income was suddenly halved. His mother, Yoko, a woman with an extremely strong desire for control, began to channel all the pressure and disappointment of life into sharp words, which she poured out on her silent husband day after day.

Ultimately, the father, overwhelmed by the burden, chose the same fate as many others who had nowhere else to turn.

The war finally ended, but the wounds have not healed.

In some parts of the Land of Hot Water, an organization called the Holy Spirit Church has quietly emerged, preaching the salvation of the last days and the grace of the Holy Son.

Yoko, whose mind was already unbalanced, quickly became addicted to it. She sold off her family property—her ancestral land, the bathhouse she relied on for survival—and donated large sums of money to the church in exchange for those illusory protections and blessings.

In the end, even the house that sheltered the family of four from the wind and rain was sold, and the family was completely bankrupt.

To support himself and his family, young Yamagami Gen joined the local security force early on, where he was responsible for maintaining and managing weapons and equipment, living a meager life on his salary.

He originally thought that no matter how bad things got, his family was still there, at least his brother and sister were still there.

Until that day, a piece of news came like a bolt from the blue—his eldest brother, who always silently endured everything, had also followed in his father's footsteps.

He rushed back to his home, which no longer existed, only to be confronted not only with his elder brother's cold body, but also with a fact that shattered his heart.

His sister has disappeared.

Looking at the completely insane woman in front of him, Yamagami Genya turned around, preparing to leave this suffocating place.

At that moment, a hoarse, intermittent voice came from behind him.

"Motoya...where are you going?"

Yamagami Genya paused, not turning around, his voice as hard as stone: "Since you won't tell me where my sister is, then I'll go find her myself!"

After a brief silence, Yoko's ethereal voice rang out again: "Your sister... has already received divine grace and ascended to the afterlife... to enjoy the blessings of the Holy Spirit's immortality in a paradise without pain... This is her blessing..."

boom!

The words struck Yamagami Motoya's mind like the sharpest thunderbolt.

He suddenly turned his head, his body trembling uncontrollably, his teeth clenched and making a grinding sound.

The worst possibility that he had never dared to think about and had desperately tried to avoid was confirmed by his mother in such an absurd and cruel way.

The last glimmer of hope shattered.

After a long while, the scalding liquid finally broke through the dam of his eyes and slid down his young but weathered cheeks.

He looked at the woman before him, his voice hoarse, a mixture of endless pain and despair:

"Mom...this is the last time I'll call you Mom."

A fire of rage burned in his chest, threatening to consume him. He wanted to roar, to smash everything in front of him, even...

But when he looked at that still familiar face, now just an empty shell, all his violent impulses were suppressed by a deeper sense of powerlessness.

He couldn't bring himself to touch that face, even though his mother was no longer the one living beneath it.

Without pausing, he turned and strode away, slamming the creaking, broken wooden door shut.

The cramped room fell dark again, leaving only Yoko staring blankly at the air, continuing her numb, incomprehensible babbling.

......

Yamagami Genya returned to his more modest single room in the security team's dormitory area.

He didn't turn on the light. Using the faint daylight filtering in from the window, he silently walked to the bedside, bent down, and dragged an old but sturdy wooden box out from under the bed.

Upon opening the box, there weren't many miscellaneous items inside; only two things were carefully arranged.

A scabbard and a musket with a slightly rough construction but a gleaming barrel.

The samurai sword was the standard weapon issued to him as a town security soldier, but the musket was not standard equipment. He collected parts during his duty and free time and painstakingly pieced them together in the abandoned workshop of the security team.

He took out the two items, and the cold metallic touch from his palm strangely suppressed the surging heat in his heart.

Without glancing at the shabby room again, he turned and left without looking back.

The poisonous fire of revenge burned through his internal organs, but the cold reality was like a bucket of cold water poured over his head.

The Holy Church... its tentacles are spread throughout the Land of Hot Springs, and it is by no means something that an ordinary security soldier who cannot use ninjutsu can shake.

His impulsive anger will only drive him into deeper darkness like a moth, disappearing without a trace.

He needs power, a powerful power that can tear through the layers of hypocrisy and protection.

The older brother is gone, the younger sister is gone, and this family is too broken to be pieced back together.

But at the very least, he couldn't let the tragedy that happened to him easily befall others.

This thought, though faint, was tenacious, barely igniting a glimmer of light in the ashes of despair.

To become stronger...where to go?

He can refine chakra; that energy does indeed flow within his body.

Ironically, no matter how he tried, he couldn't release this energy through any form of ninjutsu, as if he was born lacking a crucial conversion component.

The path of the ninja was closed to him.

So, the remaining options seem to point to one place—the Land of Iron, a neighboring country near the Land of Hot Water, a country that coexists with the ninja system and places more emphasis on honing physical skills and weaponry, and a country of samurai.

As he walked away from the town, the morning light was faint, but it couldn't dispel the gloom in his heart.

As he passed an old utility pole, a brand-new advertising poster stood out against the mottled wall, catching his eye.

The poster features a middle-aged man with a refined demeanor and gentle face, dressed in a magnificent official robe, with a perfectly appropriate smile.

Taimasa Abe!

As the head of all officials in the Land of Hot Springs, this powerful minister took control of the government after the aging daimyo gradually withdrew from politics, and was the man who spearheaded the economic recovery of the Land of Hot Springs after the Second Shinobi World War.

Looking at that hypocritical face, the suppressed anger in Yamagami Genya's chest surged up again.

He absolutely refused to believe that the Holy Church was so rampant in the Land of Hot Springs, bewitching people, accumulating wealth and killing people. It was as if the high-ranking rulers were completely unaware or even uninvolved!

"Traitor to the nation!"

He squeezed out those two words through gritted teeth.

He reached out, gripped the glossy poster tightly with his five fingers, and ripped it in half!

Crumple up the scraps of paper and throw them into the muddy ditch by the roadside, as if getting rid of a piece of disgusting filth.

He tightened his pack on his shoulder, gripped the hilt of his sword at his waist and the musket in his arms, and strode off toward the north, toward the land known for its steel, snow, and Bushido—the Land of Iron—resolutely and without looking back.

Those who ascend to the other world will never die.

On the way, the howling wind and snow kept hitting the boy's face, but what made him feel colder than the snow was his mother's last words.

The grace of immortality?

The boy took a deep breath, his eyes becoming resolute.

I am going there to learn from a master, a journey of thousands of miles, with no certainty about what lies ahead.

Upon my return, I will do everything in my power to kill the traitors and sever all ties with the nation!