NOVEL NEXT Chapter 6: CHAPTER 5
After learning how he was born into this world, Ryuga started reflecting on his situation. *"If I hadn't created Wisdom Core, or if I had been born with any other skill or ability, I'd be dead by now. I'd be on my third life, assuming that even exists."* He felt truly grateful for Wisdom Core and for his decision to create such a powerful skill.
Had he wished for a different ability, like a system power, he might still be alive, but that system would likely have gone into a dormant state to focus all its energy on repairing his broken body. In that scenario, he wouldn't have survived long in this world, let alone thrived. Ryuga knew he wasn't some lucky protagonist blessed by the world, with the universe bending over backward to help him succeed. Being normal in such a harsh world was a death sentence. And even being favored by the world could lead to trouble, like being forced to save the world or sacrifice yourself for it.
As these thoughts ran through his mind, his baby body, already exhausted and in constant pain, demanded relief. Feeling hungry, he started crying to get someone's attention, hoping for some food. Before long, a middle-aged woman rushed over to his crib.
"Oh, baby, what happened? Are you hungry already? Just give me a second, and I'll get you some milk." The woman quickly prepared a bottle with a nipple attached and gently picked him up, cradling him in her arms as she fed him.
Ryuga looked up at her as he drank. She had fair skin with a few scars on her face, brown shoulder-length hair, and gentle brown eyes. She was well-proportioned for a regular orphanage caretaker and had large breasts, which made Ryuga wonder if she had been a retired ninja, possibly working at the orphanage to live a quieter life. *"She must've been a kunoichi once, given those scars,"* he thought. As he drank more vigorously, he reached out to touch her chest, but she didn't seem to mind or even notice. Encouraged, he began to play with her breasts while drinking his fill of milk.
After finishing the bottle, Ryuga quickly fell asleep in her arms. The caretaker noticed and carefully placed him back in his crib before turning her attention to the other babies in the room.
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As the days passed, Ryuga settled into a routine. His baby life consisted of playing in his crib, drinking milk while playfully touching the caretaker's chest, pooping, getting cleaned up, and then sleeping most of the day due to the constant exhaustion from the pain in his body.
Despite the discomfort of being covered in poop occasionally, Ryuga never asked Wisdom Core to modify his body to stop it from happening. He knew doing so might draw suspicion. If someone decided to examine him closely, they might discover how his body was continuously healing and repairing itself. That kind of attention could lead to further experiments or unwanted interest from powerful individuals.
So, Ryuga played the role of a normal baby. He cried when hungry, slept through the pain, and continued testing the caretaker, especially by playing with her chest when she fed him. He wasn't doing it out of perversion; he wanted to see if she would get upset, mistreat him, or behave differently. He needed to know if he could trust her for the next few years of his life. After all, he was completely helpless, unable to defend himself or even stay awake for long stretches.
Ryuga also knew that Minato was still alive, meaning the Nine-Tails attack could happen any day now. He had no idea if he would survive that chaos, especially if the orphanage building collapsed during the attack. He needed to know if this caretaker would protect him when the time came.
Sure enough, after about a month, the fateful day arrived. The Nine-Tails incident began with the sound of the beast's terrifying roar in the distance, followed by violent tremors shaking the earth. The cries of the babies filled the room as the caretaker and a few ninjas rushed in, quickly setting up a protective barrier.
Luckily, the orphanage was located far from the main battle, and the building remained intact. But even from this distance, Ryuga could feel the overwhelming pressure of the Nine-Tails' chakra, a power so immense it nearly crushed him despite the barrier. For the first time, Ryuga felt real fear. He had been prepared for the attack, but the aura of the Nine-Tails was far more terrifying than he imagined. Thankfully, once the barrier was in place, the suffocating pressure vanished.
Ryuga wanted to do something—anything—but his body, still weak from the constant pain and the genetic rearrangement taking place within him, couldn't respond. Wisdom Core was also using nearly all its power to keep his body stable, so it wasn't able to help in the moment.
When he asked Wisdom Core why it couldn't fully assist him, it gave a long and complicated explanation. What Ryuga understood was that his soul was strong, but his body was far too weak to handle its power. The merging process between his soul and body had caused massive changes, and until his body fully adapted, Wisdom Core's abilities were limited. For now, it could only accelerate his thoughts by ten times normal speed and allow five parallel thought processes, but nothing beyond that.
After an hour or two, the tremors finally ceased, and the ninjas lifted the barrier. Satisfied that all the babies were unharmed, they rushed outside to assist the village. The caretaker stayed behind, watching over the now-peaceful babies as they fell asleep.
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Following the Nine-Tails incident, life at the orphanage returned to normal, and time passed without major events. Ryuga continued his daily routine, keeping an eye out for a baby with yellow hair. After a month of searching, he gave up, realizing that Naruto likely wasn't in the same orphanage.
By the time Ryuga was four months old, the caretaker—whose name he learned was Mina—began calling him by his name during feeding time. "Ryuga, it's time for milk," she would say, and that's how he discovered his name. He liked it—"Ryuga" meant "dragon" or "noble and elegant," which suited him perfectly.
As he grew older, Ryuga started crawling like the other babies, and by the time he turned two, he was walking and speaking small words like "mom" and "dad." The language barrier wasn't an issue, thanks to Wisdom Core's translation abilities, but Ryuga kept his speech to simple phrases, avoiding full sentences to maintain the appearance of a regular child.
By the time he turned three, Ryuga began playing with the other children at the orphanage, though his activities were limited to one or two hours a day. The rest of the time, he slept due to the pain and exhaustion that still plagued him. Mina, the caretaker, didn't give him any special treatment, as many of the other children from the experiment were similarly sick and tired all the time. One of them had even died when they were two, bleeding from every pore in their body as their chakra system collapsed.
Over these years, Ryuga discovered that he had both the Sharingan in his right eye and the Byakugan in his left. Both had awakened when he was just a day old, likely due to the immense pain he had endured. However, he couldn't use either of them until his body fully healed, as both eyes put too much strain on his still-recovering body.
To pass the time, Ryuga played games with Wisdom Core, including strategy games like chess, shogi, and go. He also revisited anime, manga, and novels from his previous life, replaying them in his mind. Wisdom Core learned quickly, improving its strategic abilities until Ryuga could no longer beat it in any of the games. Together, they even created their own versions of anime and games, allowing Ryuga to enjoy the best of both his past and present lives.
As Ryuga's body neared full recovery, his anticipation grew. Soon, he would be ready to venture out into this world—one he had only seen on TV as a child, but now he would live in it as a real character, embarking on his own journey.
However, despite his excitement, Ryuga felt a deep sadness. He had hoped to heal the other children who had been part of the same experiments as him, but one by one, they all died. As they grew older, their chakra increased and interacted with the environment, but their broken chakra circuits couldn't handle the strain, causing them to die painfully.
In the end, Ryuga was the sole survivor of the experiment.