Honestly? Beating Hiroto Hyuuga felt good. Really good. Like finally scratching an itch that had been driving you crazy for years. Seeing that smug superiority crack, replaced by raw, sputtering fury? Pure satisfaction. But the consequences? I hadn't expected… well, this.
My room, was currently overrun by an infestation, a familial infestation. Cousins the original Ren had barely saw outside formal gatherings were sprawled on the tatami, laughing and shoveling down Aunt Fumiko's infamous spicy grilled eel. Takeshi was recounting the fight for the third time, embellishing my dodges with near-mythical glaze. Yumi kept interjecting with, "No, he moved like this!" and demonstrating with alarming speed, nearly upending a plate of rice balls. Miyako was the center of attention, perched on Kenji's shoulders, loudly declaring she'd "kick Hyuuga butts too!" The air vibrated with warmth, the sharp scent of soy sauce and pickled ginger mingling with the low thrum of Uchiha voices. It was a mini-party. For me. Because I'd won a schoolyard spar.
The sheer, unexpected normalcy of it – the proud grins, the playful jabs, the way Father watched from the doorway with a faint, uncharacteristic softness around his eyes – it hit me harder than Hiroto's Gentle Fist ever could. This fierce, protective, almost overwhelming celebration… it was the love Father had spoken of. The terrifying, beautiful core that Tobirama had twisted into a threat. And it was directed at me, the mosaic, the ghost in their son's skin. A lump formed in my throat, half gratitude, half a fresh wave of that gnawing guilt. Would they cheer like this if they knew?
"Ren." Father's voice cut through the cheerful din, low but carrying. He stood framed in the doorway leading deeper into the house, away from the noise. "Follow me."
Curiosity warred with a flicker of apprehension. Had he noticed something off? Did the Sharingan's performance hint at the difference within? I extricated myself from a debate between Takeshi and Yumi about whether my final dodge was ' a proper Uchiha one' or 'Desperately Lucky', and followed him.
He led me not to his study, nor to a training ground, but out into the quiet heart of the compound. The night air was cool, carrying the scent of damp earth and night-blooming jasmine. The raucous sounds of the party faded, replaced by the rhythmic chirping of crickets and the gentle lap of water against stone. We stopped by one of the larger ornamental lakes, its surface a perfect, dark mirror reflecting the vast, star-strewn sky. The only light came from the full moon, bathing everything in a soft, silver luminescence. It felt… sacred. Private.
Father stood facing the water, his broad back to me, silhouetted against the moonlit expanse. For a long moment, he was silent, just breathing the night air. Then he spoke, his voice a low rumble, quieter than the lapping water.
"I know you've been chafing," he began, not turning. "The enforced rest. The boredom. The feeling of being… caged." He paused. "It wasn't just about your health, Ren. Not entirely."
He finally turned. His face, usually a mask of stoic control, was serious, but not harsh. His dark eyes, reflecting the moonlight, held mine. "What you did on that cliff… it scared us. Deeply. More than I think you understand. Seeing you fall…" A muscle tightened in his jaw. "The rest was necessary. But holding you back from training… that was also a consequence. A small one. A reminder, perhaps, that actions have weight. That your life holds value far beyond any technique you might master."
He looked out over the moonlit lake. "The plan was always to teach you this later. When you were older. When your chakra coils had settled more. But today…" A ghost of that softness I'd seen earlier touched his eyes. "Today you showed something. Not just the Sharingan's power, but spirit. Resilience. You used a tool barely awakened to defend your clan's standing against one who dismisses us. That deserves recognition."
He turned fully towards me now, his stance shifting subtly, radiating focused intent. "It's time, Ren. Time you learn the Great Fireball Jutsu."
My breath hitched. The jutsu. The Uchiha rite of passage. From what i could remember from the original Ren, it was in some way one of the symbols of our clan, our heritage, one literally forged in flame. The original Ren's memories surged – years of longing, of practicing the hand signs in secret, dreaming of the day he'd breathe fire like his ancestors. The older soul within me felt a different thrill – purr fascination with realizing the justu, magic in any way that counted, one that had been more than iconic in the other world he had come from.
"Usually," Father continued, his voice taking on the cadence of instruction, "Uchiha learn this before unlocking the Sharingan. It builds discipline, chakra control. But the Sharingan…" He gestured towards my eyes. "It is a tool, Ren. A powerful one. Tools are meant to be used. Activate it. Watch. Learn not just the motions, but the flow. The essence."
I didn't hesitate. With a focused thought, the familiar warmth ignited behind my eyes. The world fractured into crystalline clarity. The moonlight became almost painfully bright, the ripples on the water slowed to individual droplets catching the light, the veins in a distant leaf sharp as etched glass. Twin crimson pinwheels, each bearing tomoes, spun lazily within my irises, drinking in every detail of my father.
He took a deep, centering breath. Then his hands moved.
My sharingan drank in his movements, in the way the hand signs, the mudras made his chakra shift.
The first sign was the tiger one. His hands snapped into position, fingers rigid, thumbs hooked inward like claws. To the Sharingan, it wasn't just a gesture. I saw the purpose. Chakra pathways flared in his forearms, a surge of raw energy – Yang, physical power – flooding down his chakra coils from his core. It was like watching the ignition sequence on a rocket engine starting. Ignition key turned.
The second sign was the snake. His fingers flowed like liquid, weaving an intricate pattern. The Sharingan tracked the micro-movements – the precise angle of each knuckle, the tension in his wrists. More than that, it saw the chakra. Blue-indigo energy gathered in his lower abdomen, swirling violently. It almost as if the Snake sign acted like a compressor, forcing that swirling energy into a denser, hotter mass. Fuel pressurized.
It made me wonder, did water justsus use the same signs to pressurize water? To make it more cutting - violent - focused or was this only possible after the tiger sign or maybe just fire transformation. Something to check later.
The Ram was next. His hands formed the ram's horns, pushing outward slightly. The Sharingan perceived the spatial awareness kicking in. Chakra flared from his core, not just gathering, but shaping. It formed an invisible grid, a spherical containment field within his chest and throat. The swirling blue - indigo energy inside this grid began to shift, filaments of it heating, turning orange, then red. It was as if through the hand sign, a Containment field was established and a combustion initiated.
Dragon or Ryū was The final seal. Hands clasped, index fingers pointing forward. The Sharingan saw it as the trigger. The intensely compressed, superheated red-orange chakra – now pure Katon, fire nature – surged upwards from his stomach, through his diaphragm, flooding his lungs and throat. His throat muscles tightened visibly, forming a precise nozzle. His chest expanded to its absolute limit. I saw the Ignition sequence complete, primed for release.
Father took one final, massive inhalation that seemed to draw in the very night air. Then he leaned forward and exhaled.
It wasn't breath. It was creation.
A sphere of pure, incandescent fury roared from his mouth. For a single, breathtaking moment, a new sun was born on the shore of the lake. The light was blinding, even to the Sharingan, washing out the stars, bleaching the moonlit scene into stark white and searing orange. The heat hit me like a physical wall, a furnace blast that sucked the moisture from my lips and made the fabric of my clothes feel instantly too warm. It wasn't directed at me, yet the sheer radiant energy felt like standing too close to a blast furnace door swung wide open.
The fireball, easily the size of a small cart, roared across the lake's surface. It didn't just hit the water. It annihilated it. Where the plasma core touched, water didn't boil; it vanished. A vast, hissing void opened in the dark mirror of the lake, vapor erupting upwards in a colossal plume of superheated steam that blotted out the moon. The shockwave hit seconds later, a palpable thump of displaced air that ruffled my hair and made the reeds at the shore flatten. The fireball itself held together for a terrifying second, a miniature star churning with contained violence, before collapsing inward with a deafening WHOOMF that echoed across the compound, leaving behind a roiling cloud of steam and the acrid smell of ozone and scorched air. The lake water rushed back into the void with a violent slap.
Silence crashed back, thicker than before. The steam plume drifted slowly, ghostly in the moonlight. The air crackled with residual heat and the smell of a lightning strike. Father stood tall, a faint wisp of smoke curling from his lips, his expression unreadable in the aftermath. He turned to me, the moonlight catching the sharp planes of his face.
"Your turn."
What the fuck?! Seriously, what the fuck?! Why would a ninja need to be able to unleash at will literal weapons of mass destruction!
Yeah, it was perfectly accurate to say that the people of this world were mages cosplaying as ninja because seriously, even though I was repeating myself, what was that?! Wasn't this technique supposed to be a basic one?
The Sharingan whirled, replaying every millisecond of his performance: the triggers of each hand sign, the chakra compression, the throat control, the sheer will that shaped annihilation. I walked towards the water's edge, the packed earth still radiating warmth from the proximity of his blast. The lake surface churned angrily where the fireball had struck, steam still rising.
I closed my eyes for a second, centering myself. Not the original Ren's eager nervousness, nor the older soul's detached analysis. Just me. The mosaic. The ghost. The new Ren Uchiha. I drew in a deep breath, feeling my lungs expand, feeling the familiar thrum of chakra within me – the furnace that was Yang, the cool stream of focus that was Yin merging into potent Stamina.
Then I moved. The Sharingan guided my hands, not just mimicking, but understanding.
Tiger. Fingers rigid, thumbs hooked. Ignition. I felt the surge, the fight-or-flight jolt channeled deliberately. Yang energy flooded my coils, a warm rush down my arms.
Snake. Fingers flowed. The Sharingan's internal replay showed the exact angles, the tension points. I focused my will, compressing the swirling pool of Stamina in my gut. It resisted, a turbulent ocean forced into a smaller vessel. Pressure built. Heat flickered deep inside. Compression.
Ram. Hands formed the horns, pushing out. The Sharingan showed me the shape Father's chakra had taken. I envisioned the grid, the spherical field. My chakra surged to comply, weaving an invisible net within my chest. Inside it, the compressed energy began its transformation. White threads sparked, heated, shifted through orange towards a searing red. Containment. Combustion. It felt like holding a live coal in my stomach, intense but… controlled? Just barely. My throat was lining - tingling with a cooling sensation.
Dragon. Hands clasped, fingers pointed. The trigger. The superheated, red-orange Katon chakra – a living, churning inferno – surged upwards. It burned! A searing reflux scorched my esophagus. My throat instinctively tightened, mirroring the perfect nozzle-shape the Sharingan had shown me. My chest felt ready to burst. Primed.
I leaned forward, mirroring Father's stance. I drew in the deepest breath I could manage, feeling the compressed fireball churn within me, held back only by the taut muscles in my throat and the focused power of my will. Then, I unleashed it.
Exhale.
Fire roared from my mouth. Not the miniature sun Father had created, but a respectable, roaring sphere of churning orange and yellow flame, easily half the size of his. The heat bloomed outwards, intense, drying my eyes even through the Sharingan's filter. The sound was a deep, hungry bellow, like a dragon waking. It shot across the lake surface, not as fast as Father's, but with terrifying purpose. Where it touched, the water didn't just vanish instantly; it exploded upwards in a violent burst of superheated steam with a sharp, hissing CRACK-BOOM! The fireball itself held its spherical shape for a crucial moment – the chakra containment sheath working! – before impacting further out with a concussive WHOMPH and a shower of steam and displaced water. The shockwave, smaller but still potent, ruffled my hair and clothes, carrying the sharp, acrid smell of scorched air and lake mud.
I stood, panting, smoke curling from my lips, my throat raw despite my biology's efforts. 2/3 of my chakra reserves were exhausted. I was sure that it probably had been barely a tenth for my father. The steam plume rose, catching the moonlight. The lake churned where my fireball had struck. It was smaller, less intense than Father's. But it was real. It was mine. A fireball that wouldn't just burn; it would vaporize flesh, melt steel. In that other world the older part of me came from, it would have been like a direct hit from a tank shell fused with a flamethrower – absolute, terrifying annihilation.
I turned, the Sharingan still casting the world in crimson, towards my father. A grin, wide and genuine, split my face, fueled by disbelief, exertion, and pure, unadulterated triumph. "Father…" My voice was raspy from the heat. "I did it."
He looked at me. Really looked. Not at the technique, not at the steaming scar on the lake, but at me. His stern features didn't soften into a smile. But his eyes… his dark Uchiha eyes, usually so guarded, held a fierce, blazing warmth that mirrored the fading embers of my fireball. A profound, unshakeable pride.
"Of course you did," he stated, his voice a deep rumble of absolute certainty. It wasn't arrogance. It was bedrock faith. He stepped forward, placing a large, calloused hand firmly on my shoulder. The grip was grounding, affirming. "As if my son would fail." He held my gaze, the intensity in his own eyes a physical weight. "Be proud, Ren. As much, if not more, than the pride I hold for you right now."
The warmth blooming in my chest, the fierce, almost painful joy at finally earning that look in his eyes, was abruptly overtaken. A deeper, more profound vibration resonated within the vault of my mind, a sensation like a tuning fork struck against the bedrock of my existence itself. The Celestial Grimoire.
It hadn't stirred since that first, world-altering gift of Dream Monsters in the antiseptic silence of the hospital room. A week of dormancy, a week of me tentatively exploring the surreal landscapes of sleeping minds. Now, it thrummed. Not the frantic pulse of its initial awakening, but a resonant, deliberate chime, as if acknowledging a milestone reached, a path chosen.
Knowledge, cool and intricate as spun glass, unfolded behind my eyes. Not words, not images, but pure, instinctive understanding. A new constellation of power clicked into place within my consciousness.
It was a power from another world, a world of darkness, one where magic was either used through artefacts, rituals and symbols or through raw will power, sorcery either mythic or psychic. This constellation of power had made me a sorcerer more precisely a psychic one.
It unfolded slowly but surely through my existence. It started with Communication: the ability to forge a fragile bridge. This meant pushing my will, my thoughts, across the chasm separating human consciousness from the raw, instinctual flow of the animal mind. It wasn't about control. Not yet. Just… talking. Opening a two-way channel of pure intent and sensation. Feeling the frantic flutter of a sparrow's fear, the lazy contentment of a sunning lizard, and projecting back simple concepts like Safe, Friend, Look.
Command was the next step: fortifying that bridge. Now, I could impose my will, gently but firmly. Issuing a single, clear directive woven from focused intent and sheer psychic pressure – Fetch, Hide, Watch, Come. These weren't complex maneuvers. Nothing that screamed suicidal danger to the creature's primal hindbrain. Just a nudge. A request backed by the subtle weight of an alien mind pressing against theirs. Resistance remained possible, especially against deep-seated instincts, but the channel was open, the command planted.
Then came Mass Communication: expanding the channel itself. It meant reaching not just one mind, but a chorus. Focusing on a specific type – all sparrows within earshot, all rats in this alley – and casting the net of Communication wide. Their simple thoughts, their basic sensory inputs, became a buzzing, overlapping hum in the background of my own mind. Adding more species? Possible, but mentally taxing, like trying to hold multiple, distinct melodies in perfect harmony without sheet music.
Finally, the deepest connection: Mind Link. This went beyond talking or commanding; it was merging. Threading my consciousness directly into the tapestry of a single animal's mind. Seeing through its eyes – the world rendered in different spectrums, sharp smells overwhelming visual details. Hearing through its ears – frequencies human senses missed. Feeling the ground vibrate beneath its paws, the wind ruffle its feathers from the inside. A total sensory immersion. A persistent tether that could last as long as my focus held. But the cost was real… if the linked creature suffered, a psychic backlash could lash me. Shared pain, shared fear.
Holy shit! This was broken as fuck!
Animal whispering on steroids. Beast Master Ascendant. The sheer, staggering utility unfolded like a tactical map in my mind's eye. More importantly, all of this was without including the hypnotic abilities of the Sharingan that in canon could literally control tailed beasts!
I had become Taylor Hebert on Steroid. I could do everything she ever did as Skitter, weaver and Khepri. More than that, one of the abilities given to me by this perk was sharing my senses with them and vice Versa. Didn't it mean I could from distance use my Sharingan effectively? How fascinating?
I wondered as my vision switched to the one of the ravens present in the compound, my Sharingan supported by my psychic abilities allowing me to go way beyond what the perk should have allowed me how far I could go with this?
Above, following my will, the sky was covered by an unkindness of ravens.
After so many failed rolls, I finally succeeded in making one stick and even then, I had to use all the prerequisite perks that were fortunately not that expensive. Hope y'all like the chapters. Also please, tell me in the comments what you thought of the way Ren thought about Chakra, what y'all find exact or not, probable or not.
PS: I got a p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / Eileen715 with more of my writing. With less than 5$ a month, you can have access to everything I write in a month. Don't hesitate to visit if you want to read more, support me or for any other reason.
Perks rolled this chapter:
Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Communication) [100 - World of Darkness: Sorcery] In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.
[1] Communication - the psychic may create a two-way channel of communication between themselves and one animal of choice. At this level, they cannot forcefully control them, but they can turn whatever fast-talking powers they have upon the bird or beast.
Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Command) [100 - World of Darkness: Sorcery] In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.
[2] Command - the psychic may now command an animal to perform a single act in their name, but not one that endangers the animal. Especially complex commands, or orders that the animal is adverse to follow, are harder to impose.
(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Communication) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)
Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mass Communication) [100 - World of Darkness: Sorcery] In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.
[3] Mass Communication - all animals of a given species within earshot come under the effects of Communication. Additional species can be added, but doing so is more taxing for the psychic.
(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Command) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)
Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mind Link) [100 - World of Darkness: Sorcery] In the World of Darkness, psychic abilities and mythic sorcery are, at first glance, completely different. However, both manipulate the same powers, albeit in very different ways, and are both considered forms of linear magic. While a sorcerer utilizes numerous tools and ceremonies to harness supernatural powers, a psychic makes do with lots, and lots, of willpower. Furthermore, the majority of psychic powers are innate, and can be improved, but not gained, without outside interference, in stark contrast to sorcery.Animal psychics have power over "lower" creatures, commanding, controlling, and communicating with various members of the animal kingdom.
[4] Mind Link - the psychic links their mind to a single animal, allowing them to perceive all the animal does, and utilize any lesser power upon them more easily so long as the link persists, which can be indefinitely if the psychic wishes it. However, should the animal be injured, psychic backlash may also injure the psychic.
(CG Note: Requires Psychic Abilities - Animal Psychic (Mass Communication) - World of Darkness: Sorcery)
200 cp remaining
Sparrows startled from rooftops. Rats froze in shadowed corners. Owls blinked in ancient trees. And above, a swirling vortex of black wings and sharp eyes – the unkindness of ravens I'd purposefully summoned.
Seeing through them.
It was… unbearable. Perfect.
My human senses recoiled, overwhelmed. The sheer volume of input – moonlight seen through a hundred different lenses, the rustle of leaves amplified a thousandfold, the scent of damp earth and pine resin layered with the metallic tang of the lake's disturbed mud, the minute vibrations of insect wings against the night air – threatened to crack my skull like an egg. It was sensory drowning, a tidal wave of raw existence crashing against the fragile shores of my singular consciousness. I swayed, the world tilting, the solid ground beneath my feet feeling suddenly insubstantial.
Then, instinct flared. Warmth ignited behind my eyes, a familiar crimson fire. The Sharingan spun to life, twin pinwheels etching themselves onto my vision.
Order.
The chaotic flood didn't cease, but it… organized. Instantly. Sharply. The overwhelming roar became a symphony I could conduct. The thousand fragmented sights snapped into focus, layered like panes of stained glass within my mind. The cacophony of sounds sorted themselves into distinct channels I could mute or amplify at will. It was less like drowning, more like… floating. Buoyed by the structured clarity the dojutsu imposed on the psychic torrent. I breathed, the air suddenly cooler, the world regaining its edges. Without the Sharingan's analytical might, its ability to parse and categorize information at speeds beyond mortal comprehension, this connection felt as if it would have shattered me. It was the keystone, the control rod inserted into the reactor of this new power. The sheer scope demanded its lens.
Yet, the Sharingan brought its own… inconvenience. As I focused, directing the ravens higher, commanding a sparrow to flit to a specific branch, I saw it. Through the raven's own eyes, reflected in the momentarily still water of a rain barrel: its natural, dark, intelligent eye… replaced. Overlaid. By the cold, spinning crimson of a single-tomoe Sharingan. That was something I was still wondering how to deal with in the most efficient possible way. Every creature actively under my direct command, every creature I shouldn't have been able to interact without cheating with my sharingan, its mind linked and steered by my focused will, bore the sign, the mark of the Dojutsu of my clan. A scarlet brand burning in their sockets.
This was the least I needed especially if I wanted to be subtle. An observant shinobi would know something unnatural was afoot. It screamed 'Uchiha fuckery' louder than any shouted fireball. I would not lie and say it didn't annoy me but at the same time, I guess that this was an inconsequential drawback in return for being able to cosplay the Queen of Escalation herself, Taylor Hebert, the warlord of Brockton Bay, the girl who became Khepri, the biblical plague given human form, the one who would win against a god by making him kill himself.
More than that, wasn't I in a way able to do everything she ever did with her powers but more? Sure, I do not her multitasking abilities. We were not all lucky to have a dimensional crystal computer/symbiote to do that.
The ravens circled, their shared vision painting a vast, intricate map of the compound rooftops, the sleeping streets, the dark treeline beyond the walls. My father's voice, low and steady beside me, pulled me back into my own body. "Ren? Your eyes, you reactivated them. You just used a chakra-intensive Jutsu. You should even after your victory today against the Hyuga and your success in learning the great fireball jutsu try to exhaust yourself as little as possible."
I blinked, the crimson receding from my own vision, though I kept the psychic link humming softly in the background, a comforting, complex static. "You're right Father. It's just… chakra is at the same time so interesting yet a lot, Father. But I'm managing." I met his gaze, seeing the lingering pride now mixed with sharp assessment. He'd seen the Sharingan activate spontaneously. He'd felt my momentary disorientation. Hiroshi Uchiha missed little. The secret of my abilities… it wouldn't hold for long. Not from him. Not from the clan's watchful eyes unless I decided to abstain from ever using it again which would in no case happen. It only meant one thing, that I needed to make things unveil the way I wanted them to be, that I needed to write the narrative before it was written for me.
And that thought, if anything was not something I found worthy of worry. If anything, the only thing I could feel was a wave of unexpected calm. Hide it? The instinct was there, a relic of the older soul's ingrained caution, the fear of the unknown, the different. I both was and was not that soul. This was the Uchiha compound. This was my family.
They'd celebrated a schoolyard victory with grilled seafood and boisterous pride. My father had allowed me to execute the clan's sacred rite of passage on a moonlit lakeshore.
More than that, they were pragmatic. Fiercely so. An ability to command animals, to see through their eyes, to gather intelligence with unparalleled subtlety (glowing eyes aside), to potentially infiltrate, sabotage, or overwhelm? It wasn't the traditional Uchiha path of fire and ocular might, but it was a weapon. A powerful one. They wouldn't see a freak; they'd see an asset. A unique blade to be honed. They'd support the training, dissect the mechanics, help me push its limits. They might even find ways to integrate it with our existing techniques, our Sharingan prowess.
And the excuses… they practically wrote themselves. The clan doctors had noted it, after the hospital: a profound imbalance. My Yin energy, the mental, spiritual force, churned like a dark, deep ocean within me, vastly outweighing the physical Yang. An anomaly, they'd murmured, but not unheard of, especially in Sharingan awakenings. Intense trauma could warp the spirit's balance. The older soul's imprint, the psychic weight of a life lived and lost elsewhere… that was the true source, the anchor for the Grimoire's gifts. But who would ever guess that? In a world of chakra beasts and people capable of walking on water, "unusually potent Yin energy manifesting as psychic projection and animal empathy" sounded almost… mundane. Plausible. Especially for an Uchiha, a clan already steeped in the potent, often terrifying, power of their dojutsu, a yin-aligned bloodline.
The Yamanaka? The Aburame? The Inuzuka? Sure they'll probably wonder what the F, if truly, others in my clan and I had succeeded in cracking their techniques but so what? Let them wonder. Let them theorize. Let them ask. The Uchiha clan would stand between me and any prying questions. We guarded our secrets fiercely. This would simply be another one. A secret weapon. My secret weapon, shared with my blood.
The fear of discovery, the instinctive urge to conceal, began to melt away, replaced by a steely resolve. Hiding in this case was a weakness. Sharing was strength. Clan was strength.
Three days. That's the time it took. Three days of walking a razor's edge between exhilaration and exhaustion. Three days of learning the contours of this new psychic abilities, pushing their boundaries in the solitude of my room, the compound's gardens, the edge of the training grounds. Commanding ants to march in complex patterns. Linking with a hunting hawk soaring high above the village, the world shrinking beneath its wings, the wind a physical rush against my borrowed senses. Feeling the gnawing hunger of a rat in the granary, the sleepy contentment of a dozing cat on a sun-warmed wall. Mass communication with the sparrows – a dizzying chorus of chirps and fleeting images that required the Sharingan's constant, stabilizing hum to prevent mental fracture.
I learned the backlash of a Mind Link broken by sudden pain – a sparrow snatched by a hidden cat sent a phantom stab of talons tearing into my side, leaving me gasping on the floor. I learned the limits of Command – a squirrel, driven by frantic instinct to bury its nut, resisted my simple "Stop" with surprising, chittering fury. I learned the profound intimacy, the unsettling vulnerability, of seeing the world through the multi-faceted, alien eyes of a spider.
And through it all, the certainty solidified: They needed to know because I don't think I would have been able to hide what I was doing. One of the things you learn quickly in a big family, a clan like mine was that you were never truly alone.
So, I stood before them in hiroshi quiet study. Not the formal receiving room, but the space where I knew from the original Ren clan business met family. Tatami mats, a low table holding steaming tea, the scent of polished wood and old paper. Father sat with his customary, immovable stillness, a mountain carved of stern angles and watchful dark eyes. Mother, Aya, beside him, her presence a calming counterpoint, serene as deep water but with a sharpness beneath the surface that missed nothing. And Aunt Fumiko, perched with restless energy on a cushion, her grin already sharp and playful, a kunai disguised as a smile.
The atmosphere was… light. Amused. Curious, yes, but edged with the gentle condescension adults reserve for a child's solemn pronouncements. Aunt Fumiko practically vibrated with the anticipation of harmless mischief. My mother's smile was soft, indulgent. Even my father's usual sternness seemed softened at the edges, a hint of tolerance in the set of his jaw. They were humoring me. Busy people – a Jonin, a Police commandant, his formidable second-in-command – carving out time because their son and nephew asked. The warmth of that, the sheer normalcy of their affectionate indulgence, almost derailed me. It was a different kind of vulnerability.
Now was the time to play better than the Pied Piper.
"Father, Mother, Aunt Fumiko," I began, my voice firmer than I felt. "There's something I need to tell you. It's… important."
My aunt's grin widened, transforming into something positively vulpine. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes sparkling with mock-conspiracy. "Oho? Important talk? Did little Ren finally get a crush? Come to seek the sage advice of his beautiful, intelligent, and utterly sublime aunt?" She winked, radiating exaggerated self-assurance.
….. .....
I froze. Heat flooded my face, utterly unrelated to any fire jutsu. "W-What?!" The syllable escaped like a startled bird.
My mother chuckled, a soft, melodic sound. She patted Miyako's arm gently. "Advice from you, Fumiko? That's the last thing he needs. Especially considering how efficiently you make all the promising young men vanish into thin air." Her tone was mild, her smile serene, but the barb landed with pinpoint accuracy.
Aunt Fumiko's grin vanished, replaced by comical outrage. She whipped her head around, eyes wide. "How dare you, Aya! That's… that's slander! It's not my fault they lack the fortitude to handle such magnificence! They simply realize they're outmatched!" She huffed, crossing her arms, the picture of wounded dignity.
My father chose that moment to take a slow, deliberate sip from his teacup. He lowered it with a soft clink, his gaze resting on my aunt with an expression of profound, stoic judgment. "Girl failure," he stated, his voice flat as a river stone. Utterly matter-of-fact. "When it comes to those things," he continued, turning his dark eyes towards me, his tone shifting not one whit, "your aunt is the last well you should draw from. You did well to want your mother and me present." He delivered this devastating assessment with the same gravity as reporting the weather.
Aunt Fumiko gasped, clutching her chest as if physically struck. "Hiroshi! My own brother! The betrayal!" Her dramatics were met with my mother's quiet smile and her brother's utter impassivity. The scene was so bizarrely domestic, so jarringly normal against the backdrop of the power thrumming beneath my skin, that a hysterical thought bubbled up: Am I dreaming? Did I never wake up from the hospital?
"It's not because of that!" The words burst out of me, louder than intended, edged with panic. My face felt like it was on fire.
If anything, my outburst deepened their amusement. My father's lips might have twitched – a seismic event. Mother's eyes crinkled at the corners. Aunt Fumiko's wounded act dissolved into a snicker.
The realization dawned, washing over me in a wave of embarrassed warmth. "You're… teasing me." It wasn't a question.
My aunt dropped the act instantly, leaning back with a shrug, her expression utterly unrepentant. "Guilty as charged!" she declared cheerfully.
My mother reached across the table, her hand briefly covering mine where it rested on my knee. Her touch was cool and steady. "Forgive us, Ren. You just looked so terribly tense sitting there. Like you were facing the Hokage's tribunal instead of your family." Her smile was kind, reassuring.
Father nodded once, a short, sharp movement. "More than that," he rumbled, his gaze sweeping over his sister before settling back on me, "isn't it the ancient privilege of the weathered to gently unsettle the young? A tradition older than these walls. Besides," he added, the ghost of dryness in his tone, "nothing stated about your aunt's… romantic prowess… was factually inaccurate."
"Hey!" Aunt Fumiko protested, but father ignored her, his focus entirely on me now, the brief levity evaporating like mist under a noon sun. His eyes were sharp, assessing. "So. What burden did you bring us, Ren? If it's a corpse needing discreet disposal, I trust you chose an adequately remote location until we handle it." He said it with the same calm certainty as discussing patrol schedules. Utterly matter-of-fact. Utterly Uchiha.
The shift was jarring, yet grounding. This was the reality. This was the world we lived in. Secrets were currency, power was life, and family handled everything.
I took a breath, the warmth of their teasing fading, replaced by a different kind of heat – the focused energy of psychic ability, gathering, coalescing. Not chakra as they understood it, not flowing along defined pathways, but a psychic potential, a silent hum in the space between thought and action. I met father's gaze, then mother's, then aunt Fumiko's. "Something like that," I said, my voice dropping, losing its youthful edge, gaining a weight that made aunt Fumiko's playful smirk vanish instantly. "But less… permanent. More… alive."
I lifted my hand, palm upturned, empty above the low table. No hand signs. No visible chakra flare. Only a focused intent, a silent command woven from pure will and the vast reservoir of psychic energy within me.
The air above my palm shimmered. Not with heat, but with movement. Tiny, fluttering movements. One, then three, then a dozen. Wings like fragments of painted silk, dusted with iridescent blues, deep purples, vibrant yellows. Butterflies. They coalesced from the still air, summoned not from afar, but called from the gardens outside, drawn through unseen windows, guided by an irresistible psychic pull.
They swirled. Not randomly. Not chaotically. In a perfect, miniature hurricane of colour and delicate motion. A living, breathing vortex of wings, spinning slowly above my open palm, catching the afternoon light filtering through the shoji screens, casting fleeting rainbows on the polished wood of the table. Utterly silent. Utterly controlled.
The shift in the room was instantaneous. Electric. Like the moment before lightning strikes.
The indulgent warmth vanished, replaced by a crackling intensity. Three pairs of eyes, dark a moment before, ignited. Crimson light flooded the study – not the gentle glow of lanterns, but the fierce, predatory luminescence of the Sharingan. Three pairs of tomoe spun, fixated not on me, but on the swirling vortex above my hand. The air itself seemed to thicken, charged with sudden, razor-sharp focus.
My aunt's voice cut through the silence, low and stripped of all playfulness, analytical, directed at my parents without her gaze wavering from the butterflies. "No chakra threads. No visible manipulation. Only Yin… a dense, tangled web of it. Concentrated here." Her Sharingan whirled, dissecting the unseen energies. "It's… anchored to him. Pulsing."
Yin? I hadn't thought they would have honestly been able to get anything but following the rules of this world and based on what they knew of chakra, I guess it was not wrong that they saw Yin being manipulated. I would not tell them that it was something else of course. Why should I stop them from making my alibi, my justifications more robust?
My mother's voice followed, equally quiet, equally intense, filled with a scholar's fascination. "It's nothing like the Aburame symbiosis. Their control is… external in a way. A partnership. This… this feels like dominion. Absolute." Her head tilted slightly, the crimson light reflecting in her dark eyes. "Fascinating. The precision…"
The butterflies danced, oblivious to the three terrifying predators analyzing their every controlled flutter. I held the vortex steady, feeling the faint psychic strain, the individual pulses of simple insect consciousness flowing through the link, a quiet hum beneath the Sharingan's analytical overlay. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken questions, the weight of the revelation settling upon them.
I lowered my hand slowly. The butterfly vortex dispersed as silently as it formed, the creatures fluttering away to settle on the shoji screens, the edges of shelves, like living decorations. The fierce crimson light in the adults' eyes didn't fade. Their gazes snapped back to me, intense, probing, waiting.
"Since I woke up in the hospital," I began, my voice quiet but steady in the charged silence, "I've felt… different. More than just the Sharingan. Like something… unlocked inside. A forge, deep down, cold most of the time. But sometimes… it clicks. Something ignites. New… pathways bloom. Ways to use this… energy." I met father's piercing gaze, then mother's , then aunt Fumiko's. "The fire was one bloom. This… control… is another." I took a breath, the next part crucial. "And… when I sleep. I can… visit. Dreams. Others' dreams. See them. Shape them. Sometimes… control them." I added quickly, a hint of defensiveness creeping in, wanting to preempt their concern, "I haven't. Not on any Uchiha. Not on any Konoha shinobi. It felt… wrong. An intrusion."
Father's Sharingan whirled slowly. His voice was a low rumble, thoughtful, connecting dots. "Like the Yamanaka. Intrusion into the mindscape. But… different. Self-contained. No physical tether."
My mother's gaze softened slightly, but the intensity remained. She leaned forward, her dark eyes, still glowing crimson, searching mine not with suspicion, but with a deep, unsettling perceptiveness. "Ren Uchiha," she said, my full name carrying weight. "Let me ask you plainly. Did you carry this alone… because you feared our reaction? Did you think we would recoil? That this power… this difference… would make you less our son? Less Uchiha?"
The question hit with the force of a gentle palm strike to the heart. Not accusatory. Pained. Understanding.
"No!" The denial was instant, fierce, ripped from me. I looked down at my hands, clenched in my lap, then forced myself to meet her gaze again, my own Sharingan flaring briefly, involuntarily, mirroring the emotion. Now was time to truly seal the deal and what better way than the truth? "I trusted you. Trust the clan. It's just…" I gestured vaguely, encompassing the butterflies, the psychic hum still resonating faintly within my skull, the vast, terrifying potential. "…it's a lot. To understand. To control. To… be." .
The silence returned, but the quality had changed. The sharp, analytical tension eased. The fierce crimson glow in mother's and aunt Fumiko's eyes faded, their Sharingan receding, leaving their natural, warm dark eyes. Father's lingered a moment longer, a final sweep of assessment, before his too dimmed, though the sharp intelligence remained. The air lost its electric charge, replaced by something warmer, heavier. Profound.
It was him who moved first. Not with words, but with action. He rose from his cushion with that familiar, powerful grace and crossed the short distance to where I sat. He didn't crouch. He stood before me, a pillar of stern authority, then slowly, deliberately, lowered himself to one knee. Bringing himself to my level. His large, calloused hand, the hand that had guided mine through fire jutsu, came to rest firmly on my shoulder. The grip wasn't restraining. It was grounding. An anchor.
"Ren," he said, his voice deeper, rougher than usual, carrying a weight that vibrated in my bones. "Listen." His dark eyes held mine, unblinking, fierce with an emotion beyond pride, beyond duty. "You carried a mountain alone. You shouldered the weight of the unknown, the strange fire within, believing you walked a path none of us could tread beside you." He paused, the silence thick with the unsaid – the fear, the isolation, the burden of secrets. "That ends. Now."
Mother was beside him in an instant, not kneeling, but sitting gracefully beside me, her hand covering both of mine where they lay clenched. Her touch was cool silk against my knuckles, her presence a calming balm. "He is right, my heart," she murmured, her voice soft but carrying the steel of a tanto blade. "The duty of family – parents to child, clan to kin – is not merely shelter. It is nurture. It is the tending of the unique flame, however strange its light. We do not fear the different; we forge it into strength." She squeezed my hands gently. "You came to us. That is the only thing that matters now."
Aunt Fumiko, abandoning her cushion entirely, plopped down cross-legged in front of me, her usual flippancy replaced by a startling seriousness. Her grin was gone, replaced by a fierce, protective light in her eyes. "Damn right, little nephew," she said, her voice lacking its usual playful lilt, gaining a gravelly edge. "Uchiha don't leave their own to wrestle demons in the dark. We grab the damn demons and show them who's the boss!" She punched her open palm for emphasis. "This power? It's yours. But figuring it out? Making it sing? Making it bite? That's a clan project. Consider Auntie Fumiko your personal drill sergeant for weird psychic bug control. We'll make those Aburame green with envy." Her fierce declaration held an underlying promise, a vow of unwavering support.
Father's grip tightened almost imperceptibly on my shoulder. His gaze never wavered. "This changes nothing about who you are. You are Ren Uchiha. Our blood. Our son. Our legacy." The words weren't loud, but they resonated with the finality of a sealing tag. "The power within you? It may be unique. But we," he gestured subtly, encompassing Mother, my aunt, the very walls of the compound, the sleeping clan beyond, "we are supposed to be your bellows. Your anvil. Your quenching pool. Your strength is ours. Your burden is ours. That is the covenant. That is the least an Uchiha owes to family. This is the least we owe to you ."
I low-key always knew that my luck was the kind that fucked over to get milk and never came back but I didn't truly internalise that until I tried rolling dices and only got duds like how are the others doing it? I was also rereading the comments and I think someone said something like the Uchiha existing in an eastern inspired setting would not react badly to Ren telling them about his true nature. The only thing I got to say about that us that in a world where there is a clan of literal mind controllers and body-snatchers, learning that my child was partially body snatched isn't something that would be swallowed like a chill pill. Could be wrong though. Tell me what y'all think in the comments.
PS: I got a p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / Eileen715 with two more chapters of this story and other stories chapters a lot of them free. More than that, with less than 5$, you have access to everything I write in a month. Don't hesitate to visit if you want to read more or simply support me
The chalk dust hung in the air like it owned the place, floating through the afternoon sunlight that came through the academy's high windows. Outside, I could hear Konoha doing its thing, shuriken hitting practice logs, some guy yelling about grilled squid he was selling, the usual village noise. Inside the classroom, though? Dead silent. The kind of silence that makes your skin crawl.
The air smelled like old paper, dried ink, and something metallic I couldn't quite place. Fear, maybe. Or anticipation. Hard to tell the difference sometimes.
Instructor Hayate stood at the blackboard like some kind of skeleton that had learned to walk. Seriously, the guy was all sharp angles and hollow cheeks. His knuckles looked like river stones under his skin as he gripped a piece of chalk like it had personally offended him.
He started drawing lines. Vertical. Horizontal. They crossed each other with the kind of precision that made me think of prison bars.
"Scale," Hayate said, his voice sounding like sandpaper on concrete. He didn't even turn around. His eyes had this weird faraway look, like he was seeing something the rest of us couldn't. "Forget the little fights you practice in the training yards. Forget the clan rivalries from before the Village existed. The First Shinobi World War..." He paused, letting the name sink in like a stone in water. "...was bigger than anything you can imagine."
He spun around fast enough to make his teaching robe swish against the floor. His eyes swept over all thirty of us, kids training to be killers, even if most of us still had baby fat on our faces. I felt the collective intake of breath from my classmates, saw spines straighten all around me.
Me? I felt that weird detachment I'd been dealing with ever since I woke up in this world with memories that weren't entirely mine. The part of me that remembered another life, one with bombs and napalm and cities burning on TV screens, just watched like I was outside my own body.
"Imagine," Hayate continued, dropping his voice to this creepy whisper that somehow carried to every corner of the room, "not regular soldiers. Not even shinobi like you think of them. Think of forces of nature in human form, wearing flak vests and headbands."
His chalk stabbed at the board, sketching jagged mountain peaks. "Iwagakure. The Rock ninja. Masters of Earth Release techniques. A single jutsu, Earth-Style Wall, but they didn't use it for defense. They used it as a weapon. One Rock-nin could shear off an entire cliffside and send it crashing down on a supply train going through the Kikyō Pass. Hundreds of tons of rock moving faster than any natural landslide. Men, horses, wagons, all crushed into paste before they could even scream. A whole supply line, destroyed with one hand gesture."
The chalk screeched on the board, making half the class wince.
He moved left, drawing swirling, cutting lines. "Sunagakure. Wind ninja. Their Wind Release techniques weren't just strong gusts. They were invisible blades. Picture this: a Konoha patrol moving through the sparse forests near the Wind Country border. A whisper in the air. A blur of movement. Then a Suna jonin's hand slicing down, not holding a sword, but using air itself, sharpened to a molecular edge. Trees as thick as a man's waist, cut clean through. Stone outcroppings, split like firewood. And the men..." He paused. "Cut into pieces. Clean cuts. No blood at first, just... separation. Then the flood."
He let that image sit in our heads for a moment. I could feel my classmates processing it, their horror building.
More chalk against the board, this time in jagged, branching lines that looked like lightning. "Kumogakure. Lightning ninja. Their Lightning Release didn't just shock you. It cooked you from the inside out. They developed techniques specifically designed to boil the blood in your veins, to flash-fry your organs. Or worse, jutsu that didn't kill immediately. They'd overload your nervous system, lock you in permanent, agonizing spasms. Victims left twitching, minds shattered, bodies smoking. And their speed? Like living thunderbolts. A flash of blue-white light, a crack of thunder, and boom, a crater where a fortified position used to be."
He tapped the board where all the lightning lines came together. "You think bandits are dangerous? Armed civilians? Those are playground bullies compared to what a coordinated Kumo squad could do."
Finally, he drew rough outlines of the Five Great Nations, with Konoha as a leaf shape in the center. "Konoha," he stated, and his voice held this note of pride. "We stood against all of that. Against this... elemental destruction. This industrialized shinobi warfare. Hashirama-sama, the First Hokage, was a force of nature himself, yes. Wood Release walls rising like ancient gods to block avalanches. Forests growing in seconds to trap wind blades. But even his strength had limits."
Hayate's voice got harder. "Tobirama-sama, the Second Hokage. Our shield. His genius wasn't raw power, it was strategy. Anticipation. Turning their strengths against them. His Water Release techniques diverted lightning strikes. He created jutsu that let him appear where their lines were weakest, causing chaos, buying precious seconds for retreat or counterattack. He understood the science of shinobi combat. He knew the value of a single second in a battle where fighters moved like living storms."
Then something shifted. I almost missed it. Would have missed it, if the part of me from that other world hadn't been trained from a young age to spot this kind of thing.
"Iwagakure," Hayate practically spat the name. "Honorable? They specialized in tunneling beneath civilian villages. Not for strategy, but for terror. Entire farming communities swallowed whole by the earth opening up beneath them while they slept. Men, women, children, buried alive in the dark."
He didn't mention that Konoha probably did the same thing. Or something similar. There's no such thing as clean hands in war.
"Sunagakure," his lip curled like he'd tasted something rotten. "Their scorched earth policy wasn't just tactical. They poisoned wells with slow-acting toxins. Crops died. Children died screaming weeks after the Suna shinobi had passed through."
I could see what he was doing now. See how he was arranging the facts, shaping them into the story he wanted us to believe.
"Kirigakure," his voice dropped to a growl. "The Bloody Mist earned its name even back then. They didn't just kill prisoners. They dismembered them ritually. Mounted heads on pikes facing Konoha. A message carved in flesh and bone."
Propaganda. The word echoed in my head, cold and clinical, courtesy of my other-world memories. Not clumsy, obvious brainwashing. No, this was surgical. Hayate was using facts like a scalpel, cutting away anything that made Konoha look bad, leaving only the shiny shell of victimhood and righteous defense.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was being too cynical. But we'd seen what Danzo did behind the scenes in the original timeline. I was willing to bet his master, Tobirama himself, had been even worse. You don't create the Edo Tensei, literal necromancy that requires human sacrifice, without having some serious darkness in your heart. And wasn't Tobirama basically happy in canon when he learned that the Village's discrimination against our clan had led to us being slaughtered by one of our own?
The academy teacher amplified every enemy atrocity. Each word dripped with disgust. He made the Rock-nin sound like underground monsters, the Sand-nin like desert demons who loved watching people die slowly, the Mist-nin like psychopaths who bathed in blood.
Konoha's actions? Framed as necessary. Defensive. Noble, even when harsh.
It was hard to believe any of this, knowing everything Konoha did through Danzo and Hiruzen. How Danzo caused Yahiko's death and created the Akatsuki. How my family would be massacred in the very village we helped create, thanks to Tobirama, Danzo, and Hiruzen's policies. I didn't remember everything from the original timeline, but I'd bet my last ryo that Konoha had plenty of skeletons in its closet.
And the worst part? It was working.
I could feel it in the room. The air got thicker, charged with something dangerous. Beside me, Toma, usually bright-eyed and always doodling ugly pictures in her notebook margins, sat rigid. Her knuckles were white where she gripped her desk. Her breathing came quick and shallow. Her eyes, locked on Hayate, burned with protective anger. Anger at enemies she'd never met, conjured from the teacher's words.
Across the aisle, Daiki looked ready to explode. The guy was built like a young bull anyway, but now his jaw was clenched, shoulders hunched forward, radiating heat like a furnace. Pure, unquestioning loyalty, ignited by perceived injustice against his village.
Other faces showed variations of the same thing. Fear hardening into determination. Confusion solidifying into belief. Empathy narrowing into us-versus-them. The whole classroom started vibrating with thirty pounding hearts beating in sync to Hayate's narrative.
The part of me with memories from another world wanted to throw up. That part knew what this smelled like underneath the polish. It knew that war, any war, fought with kunai or missiles, by chakra-powered ninja or regular soldiers, was ultimately just a machine that ground up people and spat out corpses. Victory parades marched over fields fertilized with dead bodies. Heroes came home hollow-eyed, carrying ghosts in their heads that no jutsu could dispel. Widows cried themselves to sleep in empty beds. Kids starved in the ruins of "strategic targets," a mill, a bridge, a hospital that someone mistakenly identified as a command post.
There was no glory. Only survivors, stumbling through ash and rubble, carrying the weight of what they'd seen, what they'd lost, and sometimes what they'd done.
This careful creation of outrage, this meticulous framing of Konoha as the eternal, blameless victim, it reeked of calculated politics from the top of the Hokage Tower. I'd bet anything Tobirama himself was behind it.
The Second Hokage. Brilliant, sure. But pragmatic to the point of ruthless. He wasn't just running a village. He was forging a weapon. He understood what every politician and warlord throughout history figured out: lasting strength demanded more than powerful jutsu or sturdy walls. It demanded unity. The kind of unity forged in the white-hot fires of shared pain, shared sacrifice, and shared fury directed outward.
Paint the past with broad strokes of Konoha's suffering and the savagery of its enemies, and you prime the next generation. You mold young minds into vessels ready to march unquestioningly into the next war when the call comes.
My other-world memories whispered it with cold certainty: a Second War was coming. This peace was just an intermission. Konoha wasn't maintaining its defenses. It was sharpening its collective mind, honing the blade of nationalism.
A bitter taste filled my mouth. Nationalism. The concept wasn't alien to my older memories. It wasn't entirely evil, either. Here in Konoha, I saw its better side. It had forged this village from warring clans, made Senju and Uchiha allies instead of enemies. It gave orphaned kids without clans a family, a purpose beyond just surviving. It fueled quiet courage, the florist's daughter who would hide wounded comrades no matter the personal cost. It was shared identity. The Will of Fire they talked about with such reverence could be a sanctuary. A source of strength. A shield against the world's crushing indifference. A promise of belonging.
But shields could become prisons so fast. The hearth's warmth could ignite into wildfire. Us versus Them, the oldest, most seductive, most destructive lie humanity ever told itself. It erased complexity, painted over the truth that people everywhere were basically the same.
Did a mother in Suna love her kid any less than a mother in Konoha? Did a Mist shinobi sharpening his blade under the moon dream any less of peace, of coming home? Did the fear in a Rock genin's eyes on his first mission look different from the terror I sometimes saw in Daiki's face during brutal training spars?
The fundamental human stuff, wanting safety, craving connection, hoping for recognition, flowed just as strongly outside Konoha's walls. But Hayate's lesson, crafted under Tobirama's shadow, worked hard to carve differences in stone. To paint outsiders as alien, monstrous, deserving whatever violence Konoha might need to unleash.
That was the real poison. It justified the unjustifiable. Turned neighbors into cartoon villains. Paved the road to the next massacre with bones from the last one, all while singing hymns about righteousness and waving the banner of the Will of Fire.
It radicalized kids in classrooms, turning their natural empathy into a weapon aimed at enemies built from half-truths and convenient omissions.
Instructor Hayate stepped back from the board. His grid of lines, village symbols, and stark notes about atrocities covered the slate like a grim tapestry. The afternoon sun sat lower now, painting long shadows across the room and catching the dust motes, turning them into tiny galaxies drifting through space.
He placed his hands flat on the teacher's desk. The wood groaned under the pressure. His lean frame straightened, expanded somehow, radiating sudden intensity that pressed against the silence like a physical weight. The room held its breath, thirty young hearts suspended between horror and building enthusiasm.
"They broke themselves against us," he declared. His voice no longer rasped but resonated deep, vibrating in your chest like distant thunder. It filled every corner of the silent hall. "They hurled their mountains, their cutting winds, their killing lightning against the spirit of Konoha. They unleashed savagery the world had rarely seen."
He paused, a perfectly timed beat, letting the image of that assault solidify in our minds.
"And what did they find?"
Another pause, longer this time. The silence became solid, thick with expectation.
Hayate leaned forward slightly. His dark eyes locked onto each of us in turn, pinning us in place. "They found the Will of Fire."
He let the phrase hang there, giving it mythic weight.
"Not just chakra reserves. Not simply powerful jutsu passed down in scrolls. But the unbreakable spirit of those who stand between darkness and home. The unwavering courage of the Senju, roots deep in earth, standing firm against avalanches. The brilliant intellect of the Nara, weaving strategies in shadows, outthinking despair itself. The silent, enduring strength of the Aburame. The cleansing fire of the Uchiha. The fierce loyalty of the Inuzuka, fighting tooth and claw for the pack they call family."
His gaze intensified, almost predatory now.
"They found you."
The word hit like a punch. Toma flinched, then straightened, eyes blazing. Daiki sucked in a sharp breath, fists clenching on his desk.
"The inheritors," Hayate pressed, voice rising now, gaining an almost religious fervor. "The next generation chosen to bear that sacred flame. They found the unshakeable conviction that this village, this fragile dream carved from wilderness and clan blood, this beacon of light in a world always teetering on the edge of shadow, is worth every sacrifice."
He slammed a fist lightly on the desk. The sound echoed like a gavel.
"Worth your sweat on the training fields! Worth your blood on distant battlefields! Worth... your very life!"
He drew himself up to full height, a silhouette against the fading light and the grim board behind him.
"Because Konoha is not just stone and timber! Not just streets and shops! It is the dream Hashirama-sama and Madara Uchiha first glimpsed! It is the future we build, day by day, with every act of courage, every spark of creativity, every bond of loyalty! It is the hearth against the howling dark! Protect it!"
The command wasn't a request. It was a summons, echoing in the ancient hall.
The silence that followed was absolute.
Then it shattered.
Not with applause, but with a raw, animal roar of pure conviction. Toma was first on her feet, tears streaming down her dust-smudged cheeks, small fist punching the air. "FOR KONOHA!" The scream ripped from her throat, ragged and fierce.
Daiki exploded upward, face red, veins bulging in his neck, his bellow deeper and primal: "FOR KONOHA!"
Others followed like dominoes. Desks scraped. Chairs toppled. Fists pumped the air. Voices, young and old, high and low, blended into a single deafening chant that pounded against the walls. "FOR KONOHA!" "FOR KONOHA!" "FOR KONOHA!"
The sound was a physical thing, a wave of pure devotion crashing through the room. Hayate stood motionless in the chaos, grim satisfaction etched deep in the lines around his mouth and eyes. A priest surveying his newly converted flock. An architect watching his structure bear weight.
My lips moved. My jaw tightened, then relaxed. Sound emerged, flat and toneless, lost instantly in the noise around me.
"For Konoha."
Seriously. Screw Tobirama.
***
The academy gates clattered shut behind me, ejecting me into late afternoon sunshine. The taste of chalk dust and manipulated history coated my tongue. The chants of "KONOHA!" echoed like phantom drums in my skull. The world outside felt jarringly normal, birdsong, the distant clang of a blacksmith's hammer, the smell of baking bread from a street vendor. After Hayate's curated nightmare, normalcy felt fake. Like a painted backdrop.
"Hope you had a nice day, sprout. Not too tired?"
The voice, warm and familiar, cut through my mental fog. Aunt Fumiko leaned against the academy wall, looking weirdly cheerful against the somber stone. She wore simple dark robes instead of her usual flak jacket, hair pulled back severely, but that mischievous glint remained in her eyes.
I blinked, the transition too sudden. "Why?" The question slipped out. Less about tiredness, more about her presence, this sudden shift from propaganda class to... whatever this was. I would've expected my cousins to pick me up at best. My parents had responsibilities, and since our last conversation four days ago, they'd seemed busier than ever.
Her hand landed on my shoulder. Not heavy. Not restraining. Just... there. Solid. Real.
Then the world folded.
Not blurred. Not sped up. Folded. Like the universe was a sheet of paper crumpled between one instant and the next. Pressure flared behind my eyes. My stomach lurched, not with nausea, but with the sheer wrongness of space betraying basic physics.
Body Flicker Technique, probably. Unless my aunt could actually teleport, which, given how ridiculous our clan's eyes could get, wouldn't surprise me at all.
One heartbeat: sunlight, academy stone, bread smell.
Next heartbeat: cool, damp air thick with old wood, incense, and stone. Sunlight replaced by dim, flickering oil lamps. The academy's noise vanished, replaced by profound silence and something that felt ancient. Sacred.
We stood on worn stone steps. Before us loomed the Naka Shrine.
My breath caught. Both sets of memories collided, Ren Uchiha's childhood recollections of hushed reverence and important clan gatherings, and my other-world knowledge connecting this place to secret meetings and the Uchiha Stone Tablet. The tablet originally written by Hagoromo and modified by Black Zetsu, which, now that I remembered, was something I needed to deal with as soon as possible.
The original Ren had known this place as the center of clan pride. More than a shrine. A vault. A council chamber. The beating, shadowed heart of the Uchiha clan.
Fumiko's hand left my shoulder. In the dim light filtering through the shrine's heavy wooden door, her face had shed all playfulness. A solemnity I rarely saw etched her features.
Without a word, her eyes ignited. Twin crimson pinwheels spun lazily to life in the darkness of her pupils, casting faint ruby highlights on the weathered door.
The Sharingan.
My response was instinct, a reflex honed since waking up in that hospital. Warmth flared behind my eyes. The world fractured, sharpened, gained crystalline edges painted in shades of crimson and black. My Sharingan whirled, twin mirrors reflecting the ancient door and Fumiko's blood-red gaze.
A silent understanding passed between us.
She pushed the heavy door. It swung open silently, revealing not darkness but deeper, warmer gloom.
I followed, stepping over the threshold. The air inside was still, thick, almost liquid. Tatami mats, old and smelling faintly of straw and time, covered the floor. Minimal furniture: a simple altar at the far end shrouded in shadow, a few low tables against the walls. The only light came from dozens of oil lamps in recessed alcoves, flames casting long, dancing shadows on the walls like restless spirits. Sandalwood incense hung heavy in the air, sweet against the age in the wood.
Then I saw the eyes.
Not dozens. Scores of them. Like a constellation of fallen stars, crimson pinwheels ignited one after another in the dimness. They hung in the shadows, disembodied at first, then resolving into faces as my Sharingan adjusted.
Uchihas. Everywhere.
Seated in perfect traditional posture on the tatami, rows upon rows facing forward. Others leaned against wooden pillars that supported the high ceiling, postures relaxed yet radiating coiled readiness. Still more stood near the walls, silhouetted against flickering lamplight.
Older cousins I'd shared spicy food with days ago. Uncles who'd ruffled the original Ren's hair at festivals. Aunts who'd scolded him for playing in mud. Jonin I recognized from Police Force patrols, their usual stern expressions replaced by focused intensity. Elders whose faces were maps of wrinkles and old battles.
The sheer number staggered me. The entire clan leadership, the core strength, gathered here.
For me.
A wave of primal awe washed over me, laced with a flicker of fear. This sight, this sea of activated Sharingan in sacred gloom, would send shivers down anyone's spine. Even Tobirama's. Actually, this was probably the stuff of our enemies' nightmares.
But then the fear dissolved. Transformed. Because I knew these eyes. Behind that terrifying crimson glow, I saw Uncle Takeshi's familiar crooked grin. I saw Aunt Yumi give me the faintest reassuring nod. I saw Kenji leaning on his father's shoulders, looking wide-eyed but fiercely proud.
These weren't predators circling prey. This was family.
The fierce, protective, overwhelming love my father spoke of, made manifest in a hundred pairs of burning eyes. The certainty crystallized: nowhere in this world, or any other, was safer for me than right here. They were Uchiha. They were mine. They'd carve out their own hearts before letting harm touch me within these sacred walls.
The crimson light wasn't a threat. It was a shield. A collective gaze of absolute guardianship.
Fumiko guided me forward with gentle pressure on my back. We walked the central aisle between silent, watching clan members. The air hummed, not with sound, but with focused chakra, with the weight of collective attention. My footsteps on the tatami were unnaturally loud in the stillness.
At the front, before the shadowed altar, sat three figures on slightly raised platforms. Elders. Time had bent their frames but couldn't extinguish the fierce intelligence burning in their Sharingan-lit eyes. One woman with white hair like spun moonlight, her face a delicate painting of wrinkles that somehow enhanced her sharp gaze. Two men, one lean and hawk-faced, the other broader, bearing years like worn armor.
And standing slightly before them, radiating contained power that seemed to bend lamplight around him, was Arashi Uchiha.
Clan Chief. My father's cousin... technically. But genetics in the Uchiha were complicated. Centuries of marrying within the clan to concentrate the Sage's son's potent blood had woven everyone tightly together. Arashi and my father shared the same sharp jawline, the same black hair, the same way of holding stillness that felt like a coiled spring. With the intensity of their bond, the shared history in every glance, they looked less like cousins and more like brothers forged in the same fire.
How are we not all walking genetic disasters? The irreverent thought flickered through my mind. Oh right. Space alien gods. Otsutsuki DNA. That explains the eyebrows, the drama, and the frankly ridiculous power levels.
Fumiko stopped me before them. She leaned down, voice a whisper only I, and likely the elders with their enhanced senses, could catch. "I'm right behind you," she murmured, breath warm against my ear. "With your dad and your mother." Her hand gave my shoulder a final reassuring squeeze. Then, with a flash of her usual self, she added with a ghost of a smirk, "At the slightest worry, sprout, just say something. We're family, after all."
She stepped back, melting into the ranks against a nearby pillar. I caught a glimpse of my parents further back, Mother's serene face watchful, Father's stoic expression radiating unwavering support.
Arashi Uchiha stepped forward. He wasn't tall, but he possessed a presence that filled the space anyway. His dark eyes, already holding the faintest crimson gleam even before full activation, fixed on me. A slow, deliberate smile spread across his face.
It wasn't warm. It wasn't gentle. It was the smile of a predator who'd spotted interesting prey. A warrior acknowledging a fascinating new weapon. Sharp, savage, and utterly, terrifyingly confident.
"Hey, little Ren," he said, voice a low rumble that carried effortlessly in the silent hall. No false warmth. No condescension. Just straightforward address, laced with keen assessment. "Your dad told me interesting things about you. Things... almost impossible to believe." His gaze intensified. "Things I wouldn't have believed..." He paused, letting potential disbelief hang in the air. "...had they not come from the mouth of Family."
The word resonated, imbued with the sacred weight this place held.
"This," he gestured around at the sea of crimson eyes, his arm sweeping to encompass the entire clan gathered in silent witness, "is why everyone here has the Sharingan active."
As he spoke, his own eyes ignited. Not a lazy spin but a swift, decisive flare. Not three tomoe. More. Twin evolved Sharingan patterns, intricate, interlocking geometric designs far more complex than my simple tomoe, blazed into existence within his irises.
Mangekyō Sharingan.
The air around him seemed to crackle with invisible power.
"We're going to analyze it completely," he stated, voice gaining a sharper edge, the rumble turning into grinding stone. "To see how it works. How you use it. If it can be reproduced." His Mangekyō whirled slowly, dissecting me with inhuman precision. "If it's hurting you." The last point carried a distinct protective growl. "And everything else."
The savage smile returned, fiercer now under the glow of his unique eyes. It should have been frightening. It was frightening, in an abstract, awe-inspiring way. But looking at that fierce grin, feeling the collective gaze of my clan, protective, curious, fiercely proud, pressing against me like physical force, I felt no fear.
Only a strange, exhilarating sense of anticipation. Challenge.
This wasn't an interrogation. It was an unveiling. A clan examining a new facet of its own power, ready to understand, to nurture, to wield.
Arashi Uchiha, Clan Chief, bearer of the Mangekyō, took a final step closer. His shadow fell over me, not oppressive, but encompassing. His voice, when he spoke again, was a command wrapped in absolute certainty, echoing slightly in the ancient hall:
"Show and tell us everything, little nephew."
I was rereading the manga on the internet and low-key, Konoha are like the villains because directly or indirectly, they are either the cause or involved in the worst things in the verse like Obito and Yagura, Orochimaru being Orochimaru, Fucking Danzo, Tobirama the racist albino necromancer, Madara being yandere about Hashirama, The Akatsuki etc. When you think about it, it was less Konoha or Konoha ninjas against enemies and more them against the fuck ups of the village. I like, love Naruto. I literally grew watching this but in retrospective, a lot of things like the will of fire doesn't feel the same with me having growing up and rereading the manga with a more critical eye.
Anyways, hope y'all like the chapter. I got a p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / Eileen715 with Two more chapters that together are around 10K words. With less than 5$, you have access to everything I write in a month. Don't hesitate to visit if you want to read more or simply support.
Also, here is proof that I am and thus my self insert too really not lucky. Failed rolls:
* Battle with a True Hero [600 - Undertale] Being a Royal Guard means you serve a higher purpose. You protect the lives of innocent people. You protect their hopes and dreams. In the end, you're not just a fighter- You're a Protector. A Hero. And when you're on the verge of defeat, and everything's on the line... Even if you're a monster, you're just as Determined to win. Once per jump, you can activate a super-mode powered by Determination, but there are two conditions- You must already be on the edge of defeat, and there has to be more than the lives of you and your companions on the line if you fail - The lives of a small nation of innocent people are the bare minimum stakes. However, the super mode itself is extremely powerful- Upon activating it, not only do you instantly heal all of your wounds, but you become much stronger, move much faster, and can take more punishment than ever before. Your magical attacks become much more potent, and you can take hits to your face with a grin. After the fight, though, you'll be crippled- at the very least, you won't fight again for the rest of the jump. But isn't that a fair price to pay for innocent lives
* Magical Boomerang [400 - The Legend of Zelda] This enchanted Boomerang will always return to you wherever you throw it, and what's more it can retrieve items when you do so. It's strong enough to kill weak enemies such as Octoroks and stun larger ones, when they are hit by it.