The more information I gathered, the more convinced I became that this world wasn't merely filled with a few minor differences.
Many things I had once believed to be fixed parts of history had undergone fundamental changes.
In this world, Hashirama Senju was a woman. Madara Uchiha was also a woman. Even Tobirama Senju had become a woman, while Mito Uzumaki, on the other hand, was a man.
Hearing that for the first time left me speechless for quite a while. My mind seemed to reject such an absurd reality.
For a moment, I even thought the person telling me this was joking or deliberately messing with me because I was an outsider. It felt impossible to accept changes of that magnitude in just a matter of minutes.
However, that shock was nothing compared to what came next. What truly left me at a loss for words was the fact that the male version of Mito in this world had married the female versions of Hashirama, Madara, and Tobirama all at the same time.
When I first heard that rumor from several people, I repeatedly asked whether they were joking.
I intentionally brought up the same topic with different people in different major villages to verify whether it was actually true.
I even disguised my questions so they wouldn't seem like part of a deliberate investigation, making their responses sound much more natural.
Yet the more people gave me the same answer, the clearer it became that this was simply the reality of this world.
As if all of that weren't shocking enough, Tsunade had also become a man.
Even Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura—two people I remembered as elderly men from the Naruto anime in my original world—were women here.
Such drastic reversals made the memories I had relied on for so long feel as though they had lost their foundation.
That fact threw my thoughts into even greater turmoil. The knowledge I had depended on was gradually losing its value because nearly everything I knew had changed.
What I had once considered my greatest advantage had now become a source of confusion.
This world still followed a similar overall course of history, yet countless important details had changed so drastically that predicting anything had become incredibly difficult.
Those changes hadn't completely erased the flow of history, but they were more than enough to fill every prediction I made with uncertainty.
All of these differences left my head spinning. I honestly didn't know whether I should consider this a blessing or a curse.
If nearly every major figure had undergone a gender swap, wouldn't that mean Naruto and Sasuke—the two people destined to save the world in the future—would also be born as women?
If that were true, then their final enemy would most likely be a male version of Kaguya.
I let out a quiet sigh as I tried to picture the familiar faces I knew transformed into their complete opposites, but the more I imagined it, the stranger the image became.
The battles I had always remembered from my original world had now turned into something entirely different.
The scenes engraved in my memory seemed to replay themselves, except every major character had been replaced by an entirely different identity.
It was difficult to imagine how everything would unfold when the main characters were the exact opposite of how I remembered them.
Even if their strength and destiny remained unchanged, the atmosphere surrounding their journey would undoubtedly feel completely different.
Would female versions of Naruto and Sasuke truly be able to defeat a male version of Kaguya?
That question kept circling endlessly in my mind. Even if their power remained exactly the same, imagining the entire dynamic I had always known turned completely upside down still felt unbelievably unfamiliar.
The relationships between the characters, the way they interacted with one another, and even the countless significant moments I had witnessed in my original world all seemed to have transformed into an entirely new puzzle whose outcome I could no longer predict.
It felt like rereading the same story, except every character had swapped roles.
The overall plot still appeared familiar on the surface, yet every tiny detail had the potential to alter the course of events in ways I could never have anticipated.
Although the uncertainty surrounding this world continued to weigh on my mind, one thing was certain: the cooldown of my Mangekyo Sharingan had fully recovered.
That meant I could once again use its ability to travel to another alternate Naruto world, or even to a completely random world altogether.
The ability had once again become my trump card, something I could rely on whenever I was truly pushed into a corner.
The opportunity to leave this world filled with uncertainty was already wide open before me.
With a single activation of my Mangekyo Sharingan, I could disappear from this world and begin a new life somewhere else—perhaps somewhere far safer.
That new world might offer a more peaceful life, or it could present opportunities far greater than those available here.
However, after giving it careful thought, I ultimately decided to stay.
The reason was simple: I still wasn't strong enough.
I had no intention of making such an important decision out of momentary fear, only to regret it when it was already too late.
I had no idea what kind of world awaited me, who my enemies would be there, or whether I would even survive after arriving.
There was no guarantee that the next world would be any more peaceful. It could very well be far more dangerous than the one I was living in now.
As long as this world wasn't truly on the brink of destruction, it was better to make use of the time I had to continue growing stronger.
At the very least, in this world I still possessed knowledge, a place to stand, and the opportunity to steadily increase my strength little by little.
After all, the chance to travel to another world wouldn't disappear simply because I chose to postpone it. There was no time limit forcing me to use that ability immediately.
The power of my Mangekyo Sharingan would remain in my hands, so there was no reason to rush into a decision I might one day regret.
That was why I had decided to live as a bounty hunter.
I accepted missions to hunt down criminals with bounties on their heads, then delivered proof of their deaths to whoever had posted the rewards.
Most of my targets were long-wanted fugitives pursued by various villages or organizations—people whose existence had left behind nothing but bloodshed and chaos for years.
Although this could hardly be called an honorable profession, it was the choice that best suited my current circumstances. I had no village to protect, nor did I have anyone I could truly rely on.
Being a bounty hunter gave me the freedom to move wherever I wished while allowing me to grow stronger in my own way.
Besides earning money, the job also provided me with real combat experience.
Fighting genuine criminals was far more effective than training alone in the middle of a forest without any pressure or real danger.
Every battle taught me something new—from reading an opponent's movements, maintaining the rhythm of combat, to exploiting even the smallest opening to end the fight as quickly as possible.
No two battles were ever truly the same, which meant every victory left behind valuable experience.
Not every enemy possessed overwhelming strength, but each one fought differently, constantly forcing me to adapt and refine my skills.
[Note: This is my other novel: As a Blacksmith in the World of Jujutsu Kaisen. As the White Spider-Man in Earth-76 with the Spider-Man System]