I woke to antiseptic, sterile and sharp, stinging my nose like the cold iron scent of blood disguised beneath bleach. The light overhead buzzed with artificial life, flickering faintly in and out of coherence, and for a moment I thought I was back in that last hospital—white walls, loneliness, the rattle of a breath that wasn't quite mine anymore. But then came the pressure. A hand. Warm. Shaking.
"Ren," my mother it had been years since we talked, since she informally disowned me whispered, as though speaking louder would shatter something. A name appeared in my mind as I looked at her. Aya Uchiha, the woman with eyes that laughed before her lips ever caught up. Her hand clutched mine like she could anchor me to a world I wasn't sure I belonged in anymore. Her cheeks were wet. She had been crying.
All around me, faces—familiar, yet unfamiliar. Eight pairs of onyx eyes, every one a dark mirror. My father, Hiroshi, my father's name is not Hiroshi paced like a hawk deprived of wings, his movements sharp, frenetic, clawing at the silence. Aunt Fumiko I had many aunts, none of them named such loomed over me, her voice a whip and a bandage.
"You idiot child! You could've died!"
And yet, her fingers were careful when they touched my throat, when they measured my pulse like she feared it would vanish beneath her touch.
But I wasn't listening. Not really. The pain behind my eyes was like a sun trying to be born. A throb that pulsed in harmony with my heart, chaotic and oppressive. Not pain like a wound or a bruise. Not even the kind of ache that follows trauma or fever.
This was something deeper. A war behind the eyes. It felt as if I was fracturing at the seams.
Two rivers crashing, each literally carrying the weight of a lifetime.
On one side, Ren Uchiha. Ten years old. Skipped two grades Academy prodigy. Son of two shinobis. Brother to a little girl who always left her rice to cool too long because she liked the way the steam curled. A boy who had liked to play with paper shuriken and kunai, who had liked reading training scrolls and hearing the laughter of his family members at dusk. A child who had never once thought of his family name as a curse.
And yet, in that same skull, behind those same eyes, someone older. Someone other. I remembered concrete that never slept, skies strangled by cables and light. A man. Older. From a world without chakra, without ninja, without any of this. A world of skyscrapers that scraped the heavens, of machines that could hold all human knowledge in the palm of a hand. A world where my family had been happy—until we weren't. Until my grandfather died, and the will was read, and suddenly, the people I'd loved turned into vultures, picking at the carcass of his legacy.
I had lived twice. That was the only answer or maybe I was mad which was the most likely answer.
The second me—call him what you will—had lived long enough to die in a hospital where the beeping slowed until silence tasted like morphine. He had read Naruto like scripture, chuckling at absurdities, mourning when he wasn't supposed to, and loving a world he thought only fiction. He had read on manga pages, watched on TV the Uchiha clan fall.
He had read about the end of the Uchiha Clan—my clan—how we were slaughtered like cattle in the night. Where children were cut down in their beds. Where the only survivors were a traumatized boy, a traitor, and a man who'd orchestrated it all.
That they would die.
That I would die.
Not today. Not like this. But one day soon. In a massacre inked into the pages of a manga he—I—had loved so dearly.
I had seen it, how the village—Konoha—would let it happen. Would sanction it even though the only thing wanted had been the end of discrimination.
Konoha would sanction it when the things demanded had been more than simple, should have things been given, that shouldn't have needed to be asked
The Uchiha clan had wanted Uchiha participation in the center of the village, the dismantling of the compound, the freedom to choose where they lived, and Uchiha Fugaku named the fifth Hokage.
Ok, maybe the last one was unreasonable but an uchiha was supposed to be Hokage after Hashirama. Madara should have been the second Hokage, not another Senju especially one that hated us like Tobirama and the others were not because the choice of being able to live where we wanted wasn't something allowed to us, unlike other clans.
Uchihas loved each other in a way that could rightly be called mad but it didn't change that we didn't choose, that we were able to choose our homes like other clans.
The compound at the outskirts of the village the Uchiha clan would be forced to relocate to was not our original compound, the one the Ren part of me had lived in.
The thought of having to leave my home, to be isolated even further for something I was suspected of doing simply because of my blood something not proven sounded maddening, heartbreaking.
The Uchiha clan literally buried its members on the soil of the clan estate and we would have to leave all of that.
The Uchiha clan seemed to have some form of repute, power in the village at the surface. After all, the police force was composed of like 90% of members of our clan.
The little hick was that it was not our choice. Tobirama was the one to thrust this role upon us whether we wanted it or not.
It was not something we could not not do because it was the will of our Kage and the will of a Kage was to be respected no matter what by his shinobis even if it was obvious that he despised our existence.
So, we, Uchihas were forced to be the police force of Konoha which means in a shinobi village where Anbus already existed to do the things that would be deemed too lesser or unflattering for the secret elite force and no matter where, one truth that would never change was that Cops were easily disliked.
Now, realize that the police force is mainly made of us and you see the problem. Worse, by giving us this gift, Tobirama decided to ban the clan from having political sway, power because it would not be fair which meant that we were doing an unwanted job, one that made sure that people on principle didn't like our clan and because we had no voices in the political sphere, there were no chances that it would change.
More than that, as if it was not enough, one needed to remember that the Uchiha clan only applied the laws and rules that were to be followed that were created by the Hokage and his advisors and the clans' council of representatives which of course lacked an Uchiha member.
We may have disagreed with them, hated them as much as the ones we applied them on but in the end, it didn't change that in the eyes of the civilian majority of Konoha, we were those laws, those applications and the like.
Of course, the Uchihas would want to rebel. Anyone in their place would have rebelled after literally being segregated in the village your own family created.
Itachi could eat shit. I would kill him the moment he is born. A hero? The mind of a Hokage?
Please don't make me laugh.
The village had decided that the better way to deal with us was to cleanse us ethnically when the one thing the Uchihas would have planned, highlighted in the Itachi shinden book was to hold the Hokage hostage and we were supposed to be the clan possessed by evil when we weren't the one with a clan's member who literally was a necromancer.
None of this was fair. All I wanted to do was scream but how do you scream when your soul has been split down the middle?
My fingers twitched against the bed sheet. I could still feel the softness of my baby sister's hair—my sister, this life—against my chest when she fell asleep on me during the last festival. I could remember her giggle. I could remember my old-world cousin's jokes about anime tropes, and how she laughed when I said that it would be cool to be reborn in a ninja story.
The pain in my head wasn't just pain anymore. It was a rupture, a dam breaking, a flood of images and emotions and knowledge that didn't belong to me but did, all at once.
I could feel it—the exact moment something in my brain twisted.
A pressure behind my eyes, hot and insistent, like a knife slowly pushing through my skull. My vision swam, the world fracturing into jagged pieces.
The pressure continued to build. Words meant nothing. My relatives spoke—comfort, confusion, scolding, relief—but it was all submerged beneath the roar of memory and contradiction. My heartbeat began to fill my ears. My vision blurred, and it wasn't the tears that stung, but the memories clawing at my skull.
I had died.
I had lived.
I was a child.
I was not.
This world was fiction.
This world was real.
The Uchiha clan would be slaughtered.
The Uchiha clan that had always surrendered me with love.
It was too much.
And then—
Snap.
The world burned.
There is no poetry to it, no elegance. Only pain, raw and bright and alive. As though something behind my eyes had cracked open and bled light. I arched, mouth open but voiceless, not screaming, because screaming could never have contained what I felt.
Colors sharpened, edges too crisp, too real. I could see the individual strands of my mother's hair, the minute tremors in her hands. The world was different. Sharpened. Defined. Red. I could track the dust motes drifting in the sunlight, the way my father's breath hitched just before he turned.
The air grew thick. I heard it. The sharp inhale. The shifting of feet. Murmurs. My mother whispering my name again, but now with awe. Aunt Fumiko gasping—not the gasp of fear, but the awe of a storm breaking open the sky.
And I saw.
I saw them—not just my family's faces, but their chakra. Faint, rippling waves of warmth and intent, subtle hues I should never have known how to perceive. My mother's was a steady blue, my father's a simmering red, Aunt Fumiko's a calm, medicinal green. It wasn't just sight. It was knowing. I could feelthe pulse of their chakra.
The room went silent.
Aunt Fumiko's breath caught.
"Ren… your eyes—"
My reflection caught in the steel frame of the hospital IV stand—eyes like blood and ink, pupils like scythes.
The Sharingan.
Activated not through technique, nor training—but grief. Horror. Awakened by the crushing realization that the family I loved was doomed.
"He's awakened it," someone whispered. A cousin. Maybe Shiro or Takeshi—I couldn't place the voice. It was trembling, and not out of fear but awe.
The silence stretched after his words , thick and suffocating.
Then—
My mother moved.
She cupped my face in her hands, her thumbs brushing the skin beneath my eyes. Her own Sharingan spun to life, mirroring mine.
"Ren...," my mother said again, her hand lifted to my cheek, as though the boy she had birthed was now something distant, sacred, changed.
My father stepped forward, his pacing ceased. The lines of worry hadn't left his face, but his eyes searched mine like a man glimpsing fire for the first time. Not warmth. Not danger.
Power.
I turned away. Blinked. The red faded slowly, but the images, the things I saw with so much clarity stayed, burnt into the forefront of my mind, in a way that I knew without a doubt that nothing I would do would be able to change that, to make me forget. I could still feel it humming. Still feel the world breathing through that lens.
"I... I need to rest," I croaked. My throat was raw, as though I had swallowed smoke.
"Of course," Aunt Fumiko murmured, suddenly gentle again. Her earlier scolding vanished beneath a worry that I felt undeserving of. "You've been through a lot, little troublemaker."
They filtered out slowly. My father lingered the longest, standing near the foot of my bed like a statue chiseled from guilt and stone. He didn't speak, but his gaze was heavy with thoughts he wouldn't burden me with.
And when they left—when the door hissed closed and I was alone again—I let the silence settle like a shroud.
There is no word in any language for the feeling of mourning a future that hasn't happened yet. The closest would be grief, I suppose, but this wasn't death.
This was history. A history etched in ink and shadow, where people I had come to love would die not in war, not in battle, but in cold premeditation. For peace. For balance. For a village that never deserved them.
A village they helped build.
I touched my chest. I was alive. My pulse, weak but present. This was not a hallucination. Not a story. Not a manga panel or fanfiction or dream.
And even if it was...
Even if my brain was rotting in some hospice bed in the real world, and all this was just a fever hallucination before the light dimmed for good—
Then let this dream be better than the waking world ever was.
I would not let them die.
I would not let her—my mother, with her warmth, her tears, her lullabies—be erased. I would not let my sister be another statistic. I would not let my clan become footnotes in a tragedy.
They say knowledge is power. That's wrong. Knowledge is weight. Power is what you do with it.
And I... I had seen the fire before it began.
So I swore, right there beneath the buzzing light and the scent of antiseptic—
Whether dream or delusion, truth or trickery...
This world would burn differently.
The massacre would not come.
Not while I could still breathe.
Not while my eyes still burned red.
As if fate itself validated my thoughts, I felt it.
Something inside me moved.
No, not moved-awakened.
It was foreign, yet known. Distant, yet achingly intimate. A sensation older than memory, newer than breath. Like a flickering star breaking free from the thick sludge of night, a mote detached itself from whatever conflagration had been lit within my soul.
I felt it.
I knew it.
It was happening inside me — and yet — it was not truly mine. It was as if a guide had opened a door in the mansion of my mind, and through that threshold, clarity walked in, uninvited yet wholly welcome. Words etched themselves behind my eyelids, not spoken but understood. A whisper across the taut wires of my nerves, singing a truth too large for sound:
The ignition had a name.
The Celestial Grimoire.
Not a book, not a scroll. In essence, it was a "system" fiction device— that had the possibility of giving the wielder points or rolls to acquire powers, items, or companions drawn from countless fictional universes.
In a way, I wasn't even sure I could say fictional because all of this felt more than real and if this was real, why wouldn't it be the case with the universes from which it is pulling powers?
One of the things that made it truly exceptional in my eyes was that in a way, just having it made you an outside context problem.
For example, there exist seals able to stop people from using their chakra. Normally, them being used against you would mean you being absolutely fucked but let's say that you were lucky enough to pull the power of a logia devil fruit from one piece, what should have been game over for you quickly becomes game over for your foes.
More than that, in that same case, with a devil fruit power being from another world and thus following other rules, few things that they could do would be working/threatening well unless one of them is very good at Suiton and them using Suiton on you technically count as being drowning in the sea.
I saw it — not with my eyes, but with something deeper, a sight that reached across the thresholds of understanding — pages that did not turn, yet revealed themselves; letters that shifted and burned without consuming the paper they were written upon.
And within that hallowed book, I was granted a gift.
A boon not asked for — but desperately needed.
Dream Monsters.
A quiet shudder ran down my spine at the realization. As if the world, ever blind and cruel, had blinked — and in that infinitesimal lapse, had granted me a weapon. No — more than a weapon. A kingdom within kingdoms.
The ability to reach into the dreams of others. To infest their sanctuaries, to mold their nightscapes like a potter shapes wet clay. In dreams, the soul is naked, shivering before the specter of its own fears. It is there—precisely there— that my power would reign absolute.
And was it not perfect?
Was it not almost divine?
The Uchiha Clan... our blood had always sung a song of illusions. The Sharingan — eyes that could trap the mind in endless loops of despair, of bliss, of submission. Genjutsu was our art, our sword, our shield. Our pride.
And now, I was given a canvas vaster than any battlefield. Dreams. Where consciousness slept and barriers fell.
Dream Monsters was in every way that mattered more than a simple augmentation of my clan's innate talents—it was a perk that more than harmonized perfectly with the blood roaring in my veins. It was as if the Grimoire had seen my circumstances and me—truly seen me—and answered my unsung prayer.
With this that I knew was just a beginning…with this, I could without any doubt secure survival.
Not just mine.
The Clan's.
No more being leashed like hounds by those who feared our strength. No more dwindling numbers, no more broken futures.
With this power, I would not only ensure the Uchiha survived — I would see them thrive.
It was not ambition that bloomed in my chest.
It was a necessity.
It was akin to a thorn flower, beautiful and terrible, opening petal by petal.
I could change everything in my favour.
And in thriving, I could would rend the current circumstances apart.
Tobirama Senju and his petty cronies had and would spend their lives branding us dangerous, building walls around our existence. They would have caged us like beasts if they could, binding our pride and power behind smiling masks and false promises.
But now... now, I had the means to offer them a gift far crueler than death.
I would make the dream they feared most come true.
I would become the Third Hokage.
Imagine it — Ren Uchiha, the proud son of a cursed bloodline, crowned with the title meant to chain us, the title that should have been us but who would never be, using it instead to shatter the chains.
Imagine the festival lights, the cheers, the faces painted in smiles brittle with hidden fear. Imagine the Senju, the Council, the civilians — all forced to bow to a truth they could no longer deny.
The Uchiha were not tools, people they could cow anymore.
And all of it — all of it — beginning with a single ember, drifting inside me.
I could almost laugh.
Almost weep.
Even if for whatever reason, I was never able to access another perk, I could already envision so many ways to use this perk to its full potential, to my advantage. The possibilities twisted and curled in my mind like smoke.
Through dreams, I could reach into the hearts of my enemies. Plant doubts. Foster loyalty. Root out treachery before it could bloom or plant it.
An elder of the Council, convinced in his dreams that supporting me was his lifelong duty.
A rival Clan Head, crippled by nightmares of going against the interest of my clan
leading only to ruin for them.
A generation of civilians nurtured by blissful visions of a village better governed, better to live in under a Uchiha Hokage.
This was the kind of power where to win, no blood needed to be spilled, no blade needed to be drawn.
Control not through fear — but through dreams, hopes and beliefs.
Also, in a way, is that not what true leadership demands? To lead their hearts — not their bodies?
Yeah, I was sure of it.
I will be the Third Hokage.
Not for power alone.
Not for fucking with Tobirama only, though gods knew the temptation burned bright.
But for the future. For a world where the Uchiha clan, where my family could stand unbowed, their heads unbent beneath any sky.
I didn't even need to stop at that. This world was one full of bloody tragedies and war, where so many from the weakest to the God-like beings like Ashura and Indra sought an answer that led to peace but failed.
Why shouldn't I try to succeed where they failed? More than that, I wonder how much more Tobirama would hate someone seen as more influential than his brother, than a hypothetical Uchiha Hokage.
The compound gate loomed, heavy wood banded with iron that gleamed dully in the late afternoon sun. It wasn't forbidding, not exactly. More like… watchful. An eye half-lidded, observing the world beyond its walls. Home. The word felt strange on my tongue, a pebble worn smooth by conflicting currents. Ren Uchiha's home, saturated with ten years of laughter, scraped knees, and the scent of his mother's cooking. And his home, the phantom memory of sterile corridors and the hollow ache of betrayal. Both realities churned within my skull, a dissonant symphony only I could hear. The Sharingan, newly awakened behind my eyelids, felt like a live coal nestled against bone.
Father, Hiroshi, walked beside me, a silent pillar of controlled tension. His earlier pacing in the hospital had condensed into this rigid alertness, every sense tuned to the periphery, his hand hovering near the kunai pouch at his thigh. Mother, Aya, held my other hand, her grip firm yet gentle. Her warmth seeped through my skin, a counterpoint to the icy dread coiling in my gut. She hadn't stopped touching me since I woke – a brush against my shoulder, fingers smoothing my hair, the constant anchor of her hand. Her Sharingan had deactivated, but the worry in her dark eyes was sharper than any blade.
As the guards – cousins Takeshi and Shiro, their usual stoicism replaced by wide-eyed awe – swung the heavy gates inward, the compound unfurled before us.
It wasn't just buildings. It was a breathing thing.
Imagine a village within a village, frozen in a moment of exquisite, melancholic beauty. Traditional structures with sweeping, dark-tiled roofs lined winding paths paved with smooth river stones. Paper lanterns, painted with the distinctive Uchiha fan, were already being lit against the gathering dusk, casting pools of soft, golden light that shimmered on the koi ponds dotting meticulously raked gravel gardens. Wisteria, heavy with late-season purple blooms, cascaded over wooden trellises, scenting the air with a sweetness that felt almost cloying against the undercurrent of anxiety.
And the people. They were everywhere.
Not crowding, but… present. Leaning from polished wood verandas. Pausing in tending miniature bonsai forests. Halting conversations mid-sentence as we passed. A sea of dark hair and darker eyes, all turning towards us. The silence wasn't oppressive, but thick, expectant. A held breath. Then, like the first drops before a storm, the murmurs began.
"Ren-kun…"
"He's back…"
"The eyes… did you hear…?"
"Awakened… so young…"
The weight of their collective gaze pressed against my skin. Pride shimmered in some eyes, raw and fierce. Relief softened others, visible in the slight slump of shoulders previously held rigid. And beneath it all, an undercurrent of something darker, heavier: fear. Not fear of me. Fear for me. It radiated from them, a palpable warmth tinged with the sharp tang of ozone before lightning strikes.
A small figure detached itself from the shadow of a maple tree and launched itself like a tiny, desperate comet.
"Ren-nii!"
Miyako. My little sister. Six years old, a whirlwind of boundless energy usually contained in pigtails and perpetually grass-stained knees. Now, her face was blotchy, tears carving tracks through the dust on her cheeks. She slammed into my legs, thin arms wrapping around my waist with surprising, desperate strength. She buried her face against my stomach, her small body trembling violently.
"You left!" The accusation was muffled against my shirt, thick with snot and terror. "You went away! Like… like Grandmother did! You didn't come back! I called and you didn't come back!"
Her voice cracked, shattering the fragile quiet of the compound path. Her fear was a physical thing, sharp claws raking at the already raw edges of my soul. The phantom memory of another sister, worlds away, flashed – a different face, a different laugh, but the same core terror of abandonment. My throat tightened. I knelt, ignoring the protest in my recently bruised muscles, and pried her gently away, cupping her tear-streaked face. Her dark eyes, so like Mother's, were huge pools of pure, unadulterated panic.
"Miyako," I murmured, my voice rough. "Look at me. I'm here. I came back."
She sniffled, gulping air. "But… but you were gone. They said… they said you fell. That you hit your head. That you might… might…" She couldn't say the word. Her small fists clenched the fabric of my shirt. "Don't go away again! Promise!"
The raw plea, the utter vulnerability in her eyes, was a knife twisting in a wound I hadn't known was so deep. This wasn't just Miyako Uchiha. This was the distilled essence of what I stood to lose. All of them. Every single watching face. The weight of the future massacre crashed over me again, a suffocating wave. The coal behind my eyes pulsed, heat flaring. Not while I breathe.
"I promise, Miyako-chan," I said, forcing conviction into my voice, meeting her terrified gaze. "I'm not going anywhere. Not without you." It was a lie wrapped in a desperate truth. I wouldn't leave them. I couldn't let them be taken.
She searched my face, her trembling slowly subsiding into shaky breaths. Then, with the suddenness only a child possesses, she burrowed back into my chest, her grip tightening like a vice. "Okay," she whispered, the word muffled. "Okay."
Mother's hand settled on Miyako's head, her own eyes suspiciously bright. Father remained a silent sentinel, his gaze sweeping the compound, acknowledging the unspoken questions with a barely perceptible nod. The crowd began to move then, not dispersing, but shifting, flowing around us like water around a stone. Elders with faces like weathered oak approached, their steps measured, their expressions grave but lacking condemnation.
"Ren-kun," murmured Elder Sato, his voice a dry leaf rustle. He held out a small, carefully wrapped bundle. "For the spirit. Ginseng and lotus root. Brew it strong." His gnarled fingers brushed mine as I took it. The touch was brief, cool, but carried the weight of generations.
Elder Hana, her back straight despite her years, offered a tiny clay jar. "Honey and ginger paste," she said, her sharp eyes softening as they took me in. "For the throat. And the… shock." Her gaze flickered, just for an instant, towards my eyes, a silent acknowledgment of the seismic shift within me.
Others followed. Not grand gestures, but quiet offerings pressed into my hands or Mother's: a sprig of calming lavender, a small pouch of healing herbs, a beautifully folded origami crane left silently on the path before us. Each gift, each murmured word of well-being, was a stitch in the fabric of the clan, binding me back into its weave. The origami crane, its paper wings crisp and perfect, lay in my palm. A symbol of hope, of recovery. From a child who likely didn't understand the magnitude of what had happened, only that Ren-kun was hurt and needed wishing well. The simplicity of it, the pure, uncomplicated care, was a balm on the raging storm inside my head.
Miyako refused to relinquish her grip. She walked glued to my side, a small, determined barnacle, her presence a constant, warm pressure against my leg as we navigated the familiar yet suddenly alien path towards our home. The whispers followed us, a susurrus of concern and awe: The Sharingan… Ten years old… After a fall… What does it mean?
Our house stood near the compound's heart, slightly larger, overlooking one of the larger koi ponds. The sliding doors were open, revealing Aunt Fumiko bustling inside, the sharp scent of medicinal herbs already warring with the aroma of simmering broth. Her stern face softened minutely as we entered.
"Took you long enough," she grunted, but her hands were already reaching for Miyako, gently prying her off me. "Come, little limpet, let your brother breathe. And wash your face. You look like a drowned field mouse." Her tone was brusque, but the touch was infinitely gentle as she guided Miyako towards the wash basin. Her eyes, however, snapped to mine, sharp and assessing. "Well? Still seeing the world through fire and blood?"
The Sharingan apparently when activated could taint your vision crimson at the beginning if your body was not strong enough to handle it.
The question was blunt, typical Fumiko. No coddling. I met her gaze, feeling the faint, familiar hum of her chakra, that calm medicinal green I now perceived without conscious effort. "It's… settled. For now." The red lenses had receded, leaving only the memory of their clarity, their terrifying insight.
She nodded once, a sharp jerk of her chin. "Good. Sit. Both of you look like death warmed over." She herded Mother and Father towards the low table in the main room. "Food's almost ready. Don't argue, Hiroshi. You need it as much as the boy."
Dinner was a subdued affair, charged with an electric tension that hummed beneath the surface of polite conversation and the clatter of chopsticks. Steaming bowls of miso soup, fragrant rice, grilled fish, and simmered vegetables were laid out, a testament to Aunt Fumiko's efficiency and Mother's quiet direction. Miyako, scrubbed clean but eyes still red-rimmed, sat pressed against my side on the tatami, her small hand finding mine under the table and clinging tightly. She ate little, her gaze constantly flicking to my face, as if verifying I was still there.
Father ate methodically, his movements precise, economical. But his eyes, usually sharp and assessing like a hawk's, held a distance, a shadowed introspection. He watched me, not with the clinical assessment of a shinobi, but with the haunted look of a man who had peered over the precipice and seen his child falling.
Mother tried. She spoke of inconsequential things – the late blooming of the irises by the pond, a funny thing Miyako had said that morning. Her voice was soft, melodic, but it couldn't quite mask the tremor beneath, the way her knuckles whitened when she gripped her chopsticks. The love radiating from her was a tangible force, a warm cloak trying desperately to smother the cold dread in the room.
It was Father who finally shattered the fragile veneer of normalcy. He set his chopsticks down with a quiet, deliberate click. The sound echoed in the sudden silence. He looked at me, then at Mother, then finally at Miyako, who shrank slightly against me.
"Ren," he began, his voice low, gravelly. It wasn't the voice of Uchiha Hiroshi, respected Jonin, Head of the Main Family Branch. It was the voice of a father whose world had almost collapsed. "What you did… scaling the Training Ground Three cliffs alone… without a spotter… without telling anyone…"
He paused, struggling for words, his jaw working. Mother reached across the table, her hand covering his. He didn't pull away, but his gaze remained fixed on me, intense, searching.
"They speak of pride," he continued, the word tasting bitter on his tongue. "Outsiders. They whisper it like a curse. 'The Uchiha and their cursed pride.' They think it defines us. That we seek strength like dragons hoarding gold, for the sheer arrogance of it." He shook his head, a sharp, dismissive movement. "Fools."
His hand tightened under Mother's. "Pride is a shield, Ren. A brittle one. What sits at our core… what drives us… is far simpler. Far more terrifying." He looked at Mother, and the raw emotion that passed between them was a silent language older than the Sharingan. Love. Devastating, all-consuming love.
"It is love," Mother whispered, her voice thick. Her dark eyes held mine, filled with a depth of feeling that stole my breath. "This fire in our blood… it isn't just for battle. It's for them." She gestured subtly, encompassing the room, the house, the entire compound beyond the walls. "For each other. For our children. For the family we choose to protect."
Father nodded, picking up the thread. "A long time ago, our ancestors learned a harsh truth, Ren. Love, without the strength to defend it, is merely a beacon for predators. It makes you vulnerable. It paints a target on everyone you hold dear." His gaze sharpened, piercing. "So we forged ourselves. We honed our eyes, our bodies, our minds. We sought strength… relentlessly… not for glory, not for dominance over others… but for the power to say No. To stand between the darkness and the light we cherished. Strength was the only currency that bought safety for those who mattered."
He leaned forward slightly, the intensity in his eyes almost physical. "But what is the point, Ren? What is the point of that strength? What is the point of blades sharp enough to cut the moon, of eyes that see through lies, of bodies trained to endure hell… if the result is only ashes?" His voice dropped to a harsh whisper, ragged with a pain that transcended the immediate scare. "What use is power if it leaves you standing alone amidst the ruins of everything you fought for? If all it guards are graves?"
The question hung in the air, heavy as lead. It wasn't just about my recklessness on the cliff. It resonated with a deeper, older grief, the unspoken shadow that haunted every Uchiha – the knowledge of their precarious position, the legacy of Madara, the simmering tension with the village. The fear of extinction.
Mother squeezed Father's hand, her own eyes shimmering. "We are not angels, Ren. We are not saints. We love fiercely, protectively. For those within our circle, we would build heavens with our bare hands. Warmth, safety, laughter… we would give it freely, abundantly." Her voice hardened, a sudden, chilling edge entering it. "But cross that line? Threaten what is ours? Then we become something else entirely. We become the fire that consumes worlds. We become the darkness that swallows the sun. There are no lines we wouldn't cross, no depths we wouldn't plumb, to keep our family safe. To keep you safe."
She looked directly at me, her gaze boring into mine, past the child, seeing the fractured soul within. "That recklessness… that gamble with your life… it wasn't strength, Ren. It was the opposite. It was spitting on the very thing we seek strength for. What pride is there in a corpse? What victory in a funeral pyre?" Her voice broke. "We would mourn you, Ren. Not just us. The entire clan. Your absence would be a wound that never healed. A light extinguished that no amount of power could ever reignite. Is that what you want? To leave Miyako alone? To leave us in that kind of darkness?"
Her words were arrows, each finding its mark in the vulnerable space between my ribs. Miyako whimpered softly beside me, pressing closer. The image she painted – the clan shrouded in grief, Miyako orphaned in spirit if not in body, the desolate silence where my presence should have been – was horrifying. It cut through the older soul's cynicism, through the strategic calculations about the Massacre. This was immediate. This was visceral. This was the terrifying, beautiful, unholy reality of Uchiha love laid bare.
It was terrifyingly easy to imagine. The compound draped in white, not celebratory lanterns. The koi ponds still and dark. Aunt Fumiko's sharpness blunted by grief. Father's rigid control shattered. Mother's warmth extinguished, replaced by a chilling emptiness. Miyako… lost. The origami crane, a symbol of hope, replaced by funerary white paper. The sheer, devastating waste of it.
The phantom memory of the other hospital, the slowing beeps, the morphine silence, surged up, merging with this imagined Uchiha grief. Two worlds, one truth: loss was an abyss that swallowed everything.
"No," I choked out, the word scraping my raw throat. Miyako's grip tightened painfully on my hand. I looked at Father, then Mother, meeting their anguished gazes. "No. I… I didn't think. Not like that. I just… wanted to be stronger. Faster." It was a pathetic, childish excuse, and it tasted like ash. The truth – the desperate flailing of a soul drowning in future horrors – was impossible to voice.
Father studied me for a long moment, the intensity in his eyes slowly giving way to a profound weariness. He sighed, a sound like wind through barren branches. "Strength gained through stupidity is no strength at all, Ren. It's luck. And luck," he said, his voice dropping to a near whisper, heavy with the weight of a shinobi's harsh experience, "is a fickle bitch who always collects her debt. With interest."
He pushed himself up from the table. "Eat. Rest. We will speak of training. Proper training. When you are recovered." He paused, his hand resting briefly on my shoulder. The touch was heavy, conveying more than words could: relief, residual fear, a fierce, unyielding protectiveness, and a warning. "Do not make us mourn you, son. Not yet. Not ever, if we can help it."
He walked out onto the engawa, staring out at the lantern-lit compound, his broad back a silhouette against the deepening twilight. A sentinel, guarding against the darkness, both within and without.
Mother managed a small, tremulous smile, reaching across to brush a stray strand of hair from my forehead. Her touch was infinitely gentle. "Your father speaks harshly, Ren, but only because his heart stopped beating when they brought you in. Mine did too." She cupped my cheek. "You are our light. Never forget that. The strength… we will help you find it. The safe way. The smart way. Together."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Silence. Not emptiness, but the thick, velvet quiet of the Uchiha compound holding its breath. It pressed down on me, heavy and resonant. Outside the paper screens, the world was painted in deep indigo and charcoal. The rhythmic shush of a guard's footsteps on gravel drifted in, a sound as familiar as the frantic drumming beneath my own ribs – a drumbeat that hadn't settled since dinner.
I lay flat on my back on the futon, the woven rush matting cool through the thin cotton of my sleep yukata. The air held the faint, clinging scent of Aunt Fumiko's medicinal tea, mixed with the sharper, clean smell of tatami and the distant, comforting ghost of Mother's cooking. They knew. Oh, they absolutely knew. When I'd mumbled about lingering fatigue, about the throb behind my eyes that wasn't entirely a lie, their expressions hadn't held reproach. Just understanding, layered thick over concern. My flight from the aftermath of their words – words heavy with love and the terrifying specter of loss – had been as transparent as the shoji screens themselves. And yet, they'd let me go.
Hugs that threatened to fuse my bones. Mother's lips, impossibly warm and soft, pressed against my temple like a blessing and a desperate plea all in one. Miyako's small arms locked around my waist, a silent, fierce demand: Exist. Stay. Have a good sleep, Ren.
They'd gifted me the escape. Now, cocooned in this fragile sanctuary – Ren's room, with its haphazardly stacked scrolls, the worn wooden practice kunai on the low desk, the lopsided charcoal sketch of the Hokage Mountain pinned to the wall – I committed the terrible, human act of mental sophistry or in more simple terms, I began thinking, thinking about my current circumstances, about either it was a very detailed dream/illusion of a dying man or that I truly was in a world that was supposed to be fictional, that I knew the future of.
One question coiled, cold and serpentine, deep in my gut: Would they still kiss these cheeks if they knew?
Not just about the massacre. That poisoned eclipse was horror enough. But the deeper fracture. That their Ren – the bright-eyed ten-year-old prodigy who loved paper shuriken and his sister's cooling rice – had died. Not on the cliffs of Training Ground Three, but somewhere in the desperate, prideful scramble up them. Died trying to grasp a strength he thought he needed to make them proud, utterly blind to the terrifying, suffocating pride they already held for him simply being. And what lay here now, tracing the phantom patterns of moonlight on the dark ceiling? A chimera. A mosaic pieced together from the shattered vessel of that boy and the bewildered, grieving consciousness of a man who'd read his family's doom in ink and pixels. Ren, but not Ren. Dead, yet palpably alive. The same eyes, the same blood, the same fierce love for Miyako's giggle… yet fundamentally, irrevocably changed by a weight no child should ever carry. Would their love, that fierce, consuming Uchiha fire, bend to encompass this ghost inhabiting their son's skin? Or would it recoil, seeing only an imposter, a crack in their sacred lineage?
Tobirama. The thought sliced through the turmoil, sharp and unbidden, a shard of ice. The Senju bastard was right about one thing, and one thing only. We Uchiha do love more. Not just intensely, but with a terrifying specificity. A depth that becomes our greatest strength and our ultimate, crushing vulnerability. We love our people, our clan, with a ferocity that could scorch the earth and rebuild heavens in the ashes. That love is the bedrock. It's the furnace core that powers the Sharingan's bloody evolution. It fuels the relentless pursuit of strength Father spoke of – strength sought not for dominion, but as the only coin that buys safety for the loved. Tobirama saw that depth, that terrifying potential for devotion, and named it a curse. Twisted it into justification for walls and watchtowers and eventual annihilation. He mistook the symptom for the disease. The disease was fear – Konoha's fear of a love it couldn't control, couldn't cram into its neat boxes of transaction and politics. And fear, I knew with a chilling certainty forged in two lifetimes, is the richest soil for atrocity.
To shove aside the gnawing guilt, the existential dread pressing on my lungs, I turned my focus inwards. Not to the Grimoire, in my mind, but to the tangible miracle thrumming within my own flesh: Chakra.
In the quiet dark, eyes closed, I became a cartographer of my own insides. It was there. A river of potential beneath my skin, a vibrant hum resonating in my very marrow. This was Ren's birthright, utterly alien to the phantom consciousness clinging to my borrowed bones. That other self had known only the sluggish pump of blood, the electrical snap of neurons, the finite stamina of a body bound by mundane, unyielding physics. This… this was life amplified. Alive.
The academy teachings, memorized by rote by the original Ren, unfolded in my mind with sudden, crystalline clarity. Chakra is born from Stamina. Stamina is the crucible where Physical Energy and Spiritual Energy meet.
Simple words. Deceptively so. The reality was a complex, breathtaking process happening right here, right now, inside me.
Physical Energy or Yang was drawn from the trillions of living cells composing this ten-year-old body. I could feel it. A low, resonant thrumming deep in my core, like the idling engine of something vast and powerful. It was the remembered heat in my muscles after training, the phantom ache of healing bruises from my fall, the raw potential coiled tight in my tendons. Finite. Replenished by food, rest, the burn of exertion. Training forged more cells, honed their output – building a larger furnace within. Captain America? An eight-year-old academy student, their nascent chakra system passively reinforcing bone like steel, weaving muscle fiber denser than cable, sharpening neural pathways to lightning speed – even without active molding – could likely shatter the super-soldier's jaw. The chasm wasn't just skill; it was the fundamental rewriting of biological possibility. Chakra leaked. It suffused. It made the impossible the mundane baseline of this world.
Spiritual Energy or Yin was trickier. The original Ren had been taught that it was not thoughts, not emotions, but the raw consciousness that animated the flesh. The will, the focus, the accumulated weight of experience and self. Meditation cultivated it. Study refined it. Trauma… could warp or amplify it, I suspected, touching the phantom ache behind my eyes where the Sharingan slept like a banked coal. It felt like cool water flowing alongside the Yang's warmth, a current of pure intent. The sculptor's hand to the clay.
These two primal streams – the furnace heat of the body, the cool, shaping stream of the mind – converged. Not directly into chakra, but into a reservoir, a potential state: Stamina. This was the body's raw fuel, the capacity for effort, the wellspring of vitality. Every living being here possessed it, generated it. The civilian farmer sweating in his field drew on Stamina. The blacksmith hammering glowing steel summoned Stamina. It was life's currency.
The critical divide, the chasm separating the ordinary from the world-breakers, lay in the next step. The transformation.
Shinobi. Samurai. Monks. They possessed the knowledge, the innate or hard-won capability, to take that reservoir of Stamina and mold it. To transform raw vitality into Chakra. This wasn't mere amplification; it was transubstantiation. Turning the base lead of potential into the volatile gold of active power. Chakra could be pushed through tenketsu points, shaped by intricate hand seals, imbued into techniques that defied sense. It could knit bone, conjure fire, weave illusions so real they killed, call forth creatures from myth, let you walk on water as if it you were Jesus. It was the key to laughing at gravity, to breathing destruction, to seeing the lies woven into the fabric of the world.
Lee. His name surfaced as the perfect, poignant illustration. Might Gai's hard work prodigy couldn't perform this alchemy. His Stamina – born of Yang honed to an insane, screaming peak and Yin forged of pure, indomitable will – remained just that: Stamina. He couldn't mold it into the chakra needed for Ninjutsu or Genjutsu. Yet, that raw, untransformed Stamina allowed him to achieve feats that bent physics, that shattered every expectation. His speed, his strength – they were the Yang and Yin within him, expressed directly through his body, his movements, screaming past the need for the intermediary step of chakra molding. A weapon powered by sheer, undiluted life-force. In that other world, from where the older part of me came from, Lee would have been a one-man apocalypse. Here, he was exceptional, brilliant, yet bound by the very rules of a reality where chakra was the fundamental language.
I focused, not on molding yet, but on simply perceiving the flow within me. I felt the Yang, that cellular thrum, concentrated like a warm, dense sun in my core. I felt the Yin, cooler, more diffuse, radiating from the space behind my eyes, interweaving with the Yang's heat. Where they mingled, in the pathways the Uchiha clan drills had etched into my awareness since I could barely walk, Stamina pooled – a vibrant, restless lake waiting for direction. And hovering at the edges of that lake, like oil shimmering on water, ready to be drawn and ignited, was the nascent possibility of Chakra itself. It felt… alive. Responsive. A living current within my living flesh. A power that could make me faster, stronger, sharper than any hero from that faded, chakra-less reality could even conceptualize.
What was even more incredible, more interesting in my opinion was the fact that it was the basics. For example, if I remembered well, to be a sage like Naruto or Hashirama, you needed more than a substantial amount of chakra to be able to equilibrate at a ratio of 1:1:1 physical energy, spiritual energy and nature energy.
If the future wasn't a suffocating shroud woven from betrayal and blood. If Konoha wasn't a gilded cage built deliberately over a mass grave. If my only purpose wasn't to wrestle destiny itself by the throat… gods, how I would have reveled in this. To spend this second life, this stolen chance, unraveling the mysteries of this energy. I would have probably been like an Orichimaru with consciousness. Mapping its currents like unexplored continents. Understanding its dance with bloodlines like the fire in my own eyes. To be a scholar of the unseen forces that moved this impossible, terrifying, beautiful world. The sheer, intoxicating potential of it sang in my veins, a siren song almost too sweet to resist.
But the coal behind my eyes pulsed. A low, insistent throb, a banked ember flaring in warning. Focus. Fascination was a luxury I couldn't afford. Not now until the situation felt less precarious.
I closed my eyes and began letting myself fall into the embrace of Sleep. I could understand why Sasuke had been obsessed with avenging the clan if he had felt even half of the care and love the Uchiha clan had shown me.
Truly, was there anything as damning as love?
The drone of the academy's teacher voice washed over me, a slurring wave of facts about the first great Shinobi War crashing against the shores of my profound indifference. Chalk dust hung in the afternoon sunbeams slanting through the high windows, motes dancing like lazy fireflies in the stifling air. History. Geography. Chakra theory distilled into equations drier than the deserts of Wind Country. Calligraphy lessons where the brush strokes felt like dragging my soul through mud. It was a feat, truly. How did they manage to render lessons about a world where people spat fire like dragons, walked on water like myths, moved faster than thought, crushed mountains with a punch, and literally wrestled souls back from the underworld boring? It defied logic. Was it the soul-deep ennui of the original Ren, the minor prodigy who'd probably absorbed this years ago? Or the jaded perspective of the older consciousness grafted onto him, for whom textbooks were a universal language of tedium? Either way, the minutes crawled, each one a grain of sand slipping through an hourglass filled with molasses.
My fingers itched. Not for the brush, not for the scroll. For the cool weight of a kunai. For the burn of chakra channeling through pathways still thrillingly new to the deeper part of me. For the world to sharpen into the cold, crystalline clarity of the Sharingan. The enforced rest of the past week had been a velvet prison; this felt like being buried alive in cotton wool.
Finally, finally, the bell clanged, a sound that felt at that moment sweeter than any celestial chorus. The theoretical paralysis shattered. We spilled out of the classroom like uncorked genies, the collective sigh of relief practically audible. Practical training. Salvation.
The first part was ritual. Kunai and shuriken throwing. Wooden dummies stood sentinel at the far end of the designated yard, their painted-on grimaces seeming almost mocking. For me, it was effortless. Muscle memory, deep as bone, carved by years of Uchiha tutelage starting almost as soon as I could walk. The grip, the stance, the flick of the wrist – it flowed like instinct. Thunk. Thunk. Thwip. Each blade found its mark in the dummy's 'heart' or 'eye socket' with satisfying precision. Takeshi gave a curt nod of approval nearby; Yumi smirked, her own throws a blur of deadly accuracy. Even Kenji, silent as ever, landed his projectiles with economical grace. Clan legacy. Ingrained.
Then came the laps. Around the vast Academy training field, under the watchful eye of a Chunin instructor whose expression suggested he genuinely believed ten-year-olds possessed the stamina of tireless badgers. An hour and a half. Non-stop. A grueling test of endurance that seemed to be meant to weed out the weak, to build the foundation for the chakra-fueled marathons of real shinobi life. My lungs burned, yes. Sweat plastered the dark blue of my Uchiha branded clothes to my skin. But beneath the surface fatigue, a different awareness thrummed. The borrowed chakra system, even passive, was working miracles. The original Ren had been fit, talented, but this? This felt… easy. Like a light jog through the compound gardens, not a lung-bursting ordeal. The cellular furnace burned clean and hot, the spiritual energy lending a focus that pushed the screaming protests of muscles into the background. I finished near the front, breathing hard but steady, a stark contrast to some of my gasping, red-faced classmates. The Chunin instructor's eyebrow twitched slightly as I passed.
And now. The best part in my opinion. Sparring.
A low thrum of anticipation vibrated through the gathered students. Matches were being called. My name hung in the air, followed inevitably by his.
"Hiroto Hyuuga."
A ripple went through the crowd. The Rookie of the Year. The prodigy of the main branch. My or more accurately, the original's Ren personal nemesis.
The original Ren's memories surged, a cocktail of resentment, frustration, and cold, hard defeat. Every previous encounter etched in humiliation. Hiroto moved with an infuriating, effortless grace, his pale eyes perpetually holding a look of faint disdain, as if the very air we breathed was beneath him. He embodied everything the Uchiha despised about the Hyuuga: the rigid hierarchy, the poisonous belief in their own divine superiority. The memory flashed – Hiroto, coldly activating the Caged Bird Seal on a branch family classmate during a minor disagreement, the boy crumpling in silent agony while Hiroto looked on, impassive. Who does that? The rage, old and new, curdled in my gut like spoiled milk. Especially to family? What twisted logic justifies that torture? The Sharingan's coal pulsed behind my eyelids almost like a sympathetic echo of the fury. Disgust wasn't strong enough. It was a visceral revulsion.
And then there were the comments. The subtle barbs, delivered with his clan's special brand of haughtiness. "A shame your… accident didn't teach more caution, Uchiha." "One wonders if your clan's famed eyes are truly worth the fragility they seem to bring." Never overt, always deniable, but the intent – the gloating over my near-death, the implication of weakness – was crystal clear. He was a child, yes. So was the Ren who had died. Age offered no absolution for cruelty wrapped in silk or in other words, your age didn't excuse you being an asshole, maybe explained it or justified it but never excused it.
I stepped onto the worn earth of the sparring ring. The familiar scent of damp soil and trampled grass filled my nostrils. Across from me, Hiroto mirrored the movement, his expression serene, already radiating that insufferable certainty. We faced each other, the air seeming, feeling as if it was thickening, as if it had become heavier. The tradition of Konoha demanded it: the Reconciliation Seal. Hands brought together in a formal gesture of peace before and after a combat.
He straightened, and without preamble, the transformation began. Veins bulged grotesquely around his temples, spiderwebbing outwards as his pupils vanished, replaced by the eerie, pupil-less white of the activated Byakugan. The air around him seemed to still, charged with an oppressive awareness. His voice, when it came, was calm, devoid of inflection, carrying perfectly in the sudden hush.
"You should concede, Uchiha. History dictates the outcome. Your limitations remain unchanged." A statement of fact, in his world. "You never could win. You never will."
A soft inhale. The scent of earth, sweat, anticipation. Exhale, pushing out doubt, pushing out the phantom ache of past defeats. I closed my dark eyes. Behind the lids, the coal ignited, flaring into life. When I opened them, the world fractured into hyper-reality. Sharingan. Twin crimson pinwheels, each bearing two tomoe, spun lazily, drinking in the light, the shadows, the minute shift of dust motes, the almost imperceptible tension coiling in Hiroto's shoulders. Every detail screamed its importance. The world wasn't just seen; it was understood, predicted.
A slow smirk spread across my face, sharp and dangerous. It felt alien on Ren's features, a reflection of the older, angrier consciousness now steering the ship. My voice, when it came, was lower, colder than the original Ren's had ever managed.
"Hiroto Hyuuga," I said, the name dropping like a stone. "It seems a fundamental misunderstanding clouds your perception." I took a single, deliberate step forward. The Sharingan tracked the infinitesimal tightening around his Byakugan-veined eyes. "You and your borrowed sight… you are the challengers here."
The silence that followed was absolute. Stunned. Even the chunin, the academy teacher, moving to oversee, paused mid-step. The original Ren had after all never dared to insult so blatantly Hiroto and his clan unlike me.
Hiroto's serene mask cracked, just for a microsecond, a flicker of surprise, then cold fury, flashing across his face before the Hyuuga impassivity slammed back down.
He moved.
The world became a whirlwind of predicted trajectories and lethal intent. Hiroto wasn't fast in the blinding, teleportation sense but the way he moved, the efficiency of it, the speed of it was I had to admit in a sense terrifying. The Hyuga was moving at speeds I was sure would make a sport car seem as slow as a snail.
The part of me that came from another world had once watched a captain America movie and in it, there was one particular scene that in my opinion showed how different, how better than the average person were superhumans like Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes and T Challa. In the scene that was a pursuit one, the three of them had been running faster than cars. I was sure without a doubt that Hiroto who was I had to remind an academy studen not over twelve would have probably been able to run faster than them. Truly, chakra was bullshit.
The Byakugan granted him near-perfect spherical awareness. He flowed across the packed earth like quicksilver, closing the distance with deceptive, gliding steps that covered ground far quicker than his relaxed posture suggested. Advanced agility, honed by relentless Hyuuga drills. His lead hand snapped out, fingers rigid, aiming not for my face or torso, but for the cluster of tenketsu points on my right shoulder – the Gentle Fist's opening gambit, designed to sever chakra flow, cripple the limb before the fight truly began.
Predictable.
The Sharingan saw it unfolding frames before his muscles fully committed. The neural impulse, the micro-shift of weight, the angle of his wrist – a data stream flooding my visual cortex, processed instantly into evasive action. My body reacted before conscious thought could bridge the gap. Not a grand leap, but a subtle, economical twist of the hips, a fractional sway backwards. His fingertips whistled past the fabric of my sleeve, close enough to feel the displaced air kiss my skin. Miss.
He didn't pause. His momentum carried him forward, the missed strike seamlessly transitioning into a low, sweeping kick aimed at my ankles, a move designed to off-balance, to create an opening for precision strikes. The earth exploded upwards where his foot impacted, making dust bloomed.
Pattern recognized.
The Sharingan mapped his flow, the ingrained Hyuuga kata. He favored linear entries, trusting his vision to cover flanks and rear. I didn't retreat. I stepped in, inside the arc of his kick before it reached full extension. My left forearm slammed down, not against his shin, but against his supporting thigh, a brutal block channeling my own building-level strength. Bone met bone with a sickening thud that echoed across the suddenly silent field. Hiroto grunted, his perfect balance faltering for a heartbeat.
Exploit.
My right hand, fingers curled not into a fist but into a rigid spear-hand (Uchiha variant – less finesse, more penetrating force), jabbed towards his exposed solar plexus. Speed amplified by anticipation, by the Sharingan's guidance system.
The Byakugan saved him. He saw it coming, twisting his torso with serpentine grace, my fingertips grazing his uniform instead of finding soft tissue. He used the momentum of his dodge, spinning away, putting precious meters between us. His breathing, for the first time, hitched slightly. The veins around his eyes pulsed.
"Lucky," he hissed, the calm veneer finally fracturing. "A stray breeze."
"Call it foresight," I countered, my voice steady despite the adrenaline singing in my veins. The Sharingan whirled, drinking in his micro-expressions, the slight tension in his neck, the way his weight settled more heavily on his back foot. He's reassessing. Good. Let him.
He came again, not with a single thrust, but with a flurry. Hands became blurs, a storm of jabs, palms, and finger strikes aimed at tenketsu points across my chest, arms, and legs. The Gentle Fist unleashed. Each strike carried the potential to deaden muscle, to block meridians, to turn limbs into useless weights. The air hummed with the speed of his attacks, a deadly melody only the Sharingan could fully parse.
Analysis: High-speed, multi-vector assault. Primary threat: chakra disruption. Secondary: cumulative impact damage.
The world narrowed to the dance of his limbs. My body became a leaf in a hurricane, swaying, twisting, bending. I didn't try to match his intricate precision blow-for-blow. The Sharingan gave me the path through the storm. A head snapped back, millimeters clear of a thumb aimed at my temple. A shoulder rolled, letting a palm-strike whisper past. A knee lifted, deflecting a low kick aimed at my thigh point. I moved with a fluidity that felt alien yet instinctive, a blend of Uchiha agility drills and the Sharingan's predictive grace. My blocks were economical, brutal parries that knocked his strikes offline with jarring force, exploiting the fraction of a second his commitment to an attack created. Each block sent shockwaves up my arms, a reminder of his strength, but the Sharingan ensured they were glancing blows, not direct hits.
Counter.
He overextended on a lunge aimed at my hip point. My left hand shot out, not to block, but to grab his extended wrist. Bone ground against bone. My right fist, powered by coiled legs and twisting hips, rocketed towards his face. A basic straight punch, amplified by anticipation and chakra reinforcement.
He saw it. Of course he saw it. The Byakugan's near-360 vision meant little escaped its notice. His free hand came up in a palm block, intercepting my fist inches from his nose. The impact was thunderous. CRACK! Not bone breaking, but the sound of colliding forces meeting with brutal finality. Shockwaves rippled outwards, kicking up dust devils around our locked forms. We strained, muscles corded, feet digging trenches in the earth. For a suspended moment, brute force met Hyuuga technique.
His eyes, wide and white within their nest of veins, held mine. Pure, unadulterated fury burned there now, mixed with a dawning disbelief. "Impossible! Your speed… your reactions…"
"The Sharingan sees, Hiroto," I goaded him through gritted teeth, pushing against his resisting palm. "It sees everything you are." Including the tiny, almost imperceptible lag – the processing time – between what the Byakugan showed him and his body's reaction.
I disengaged abruptly, not with a push, but by dropping my center of gravity and twisting violently, wrenching my captured wrist free with a surge of strength that surprised even me. He stumbled forward, off-balance. Before he could recover, I was a blur of motion, not attacking him directly, but moving.
The sparring ring wasn't just dirt. Training dummies lined the edges. Buckets of water for cooling off stood near the entrance. Racks held practice weapons – wooden staves, training swords. The Sharingan cataloged it all, not as backdrop, but as potential. There were no consign decrying using our environment.
I feinted left, towards a cluster of dummies. Hiroto pivoted smoothly, Byakugan tracking, expecting a dodge or perhaps a desperate grab for a weapon. Instead, my foot hooked under the base of a heavy wooden dummy as I passed. Channeling chakra instinctively, not for a technique, but for raw kinetic enhancement – a surge of Yang energy into the leg – I heaved.
The dummy, easily twice my weight, tore free from its mounting with a splintering shriek. It became a tumbling projectile, hurtling end-over-end directly towards Hiroto. Not to hit him – he'd easily dodge that – but to occupy the Byakugan's primary focus, to fill its vast field of view with chaotic motion.
He reacted instantly, sidestepping the tumbling mass of wood with contemptuous ease. But that was the point. The Sharingan saw his focus lock onto the dummy, saw the micro-second his awareness shifted from me to the immediate physical threat.
Now.
I wasn't where he expected. The dummy-throw masked my true vector. I'd used its bulk as a screen, darting low and right, towards the water buckets. My hand dipped into the icy water, scooped, and flung. Not a handful, but a chakra-infused sheet, fanned out into a glittering spray. It wouldn't hurt him. But water refracts light. For a fraction of a second, the Byakugan's perfect vision would be filled with a million shimmering, shifting prisms and his vision being so much better should logically be more impacted.
He flinched. Visibly. A split-second loss of perfect clarity. A chink in the Hyuuga armor.
I was already moving, not towards his front, but exploiting the one thing the older memories, the knowledge from beyond, granted me: the dead angle. High on the back of the neck, just below the skull. A tiny cone of blindness inherent in the Byakugan's otherwise godlike view. The Sharingan, with its intense focus on him, pinpointed the exact vector.
Chakra surged through my legs. All the speed I was capable of, but focused into a single, explosive burst. The earth cratered where I pushed off. I became a crimson-and-blue streak, closing the gap behind him before the water droplets even hit the ground. My right hand, fingers rigid once more, aimed not for a nebulous point, but for a precise, powerful chop targeting the vulnerable base of his skull. A knockout blow. It should normally work because no matter how stronger the humans of this world were, they still were human.
He sensed it. The Byakugan, even momentarily dazzled, still perceived the surge of chakra, the displacement of air. His Hyuuga reflexes were extraordinary. He couldn't turn fully, couldn't see the strike coming, but he twisted, throwing himself forward into a desperate dive, trying to roll with the impact.
He was fast. But the Sharingan had predicted the evasion. My strike adjusted mid-flight, millimeters, compensating for his movement.
THWACK!
The edge of my hand connected, not cleanly on the sweet spot, but high on his shoulder, just above the collarbone. Bone crunched. Not broken, but bruised, deeply. The force, amplified by my momentum and chakra-enhanced strength, slammed him down into the dirt face-first. He skidded, plowing a furrow in the earth, coming to a stop near the splintered remains of the dummy I'd thrown.
Silence. Absolute and crushing. Dust settled slowly. The only sounds were Hiroto's ragged, pained gasps as he pushed himself up onto his elbows, his pristine white Hyuuga robes torn and smeared with dirt, his Byakugan still active but wide with shock and agony. Blood trickled from a split lip where his face had hit the ground.
I stood a few paces away, breathing steadily, the Sharingan still casting the world in crimson and black, the twin tomoe spinning slowly. My knuckles throbbed from the impact on his shoulder. The scent of damp earth, sweat, and the faint coppery tang of blood filled my nostrils.
The academy teacher stepped forward, his face a mask of that seemed to want to scream indifference , but his eyes - wide - showed the truth of the matter. "Match!" he called, his voice cutting through the stunned silence. "Ren Uchiha is the victor."
The reaction was delayed, then erupted. Gasps. Murmurs. Disbelief. Takeshi let out a low, satisfied chuckle. Yumi whistled, sharp and approving. Kenji simply nodded, a ghost of a smile touching his lips.
Hiroto pushed himself fully up, wincing as he clutched his injured shoulder. His Byakugan veins receded, leaving his pale eyes bloodshot and filled with a venomous mixture of pain, humiliation, and utter, uncomprehending fury. He looked at me, not with disdain, but with something raw and primal. The invincible facade lay shattered in the dirt beside him.
He didn't speak. He didn't need to. The hatred radiating from him was a physical force.
I met his gaze, the Sharingan drinking in every flicker of emotion, every tremor of pain. "The only reason you were able to win was because no Uchiha with a sharingan was there to show you the truth. Your clan and you are obsessed with fate, with predestination but know one thing, we, Uchihas are the exceptions!"