***
He cried when he was born—but not for the reasons expected of a newborn.
He cried because he remembered.
He remembered cars and cities, the taste of burnt coffee, the hum of air conditioning, and the cold, sterile lights of a hospital room. He remembered taxes and Mondays and choking on the fumes of modern life. And most of all, he remembered dying. Alone. Anticlimactically. A life of wasted potential, rotting behind a desk.
So yes, when he woke up in a screaming, bloody birth in the middle of a wooden hut, in a war-torn era filled with swords and chakra, he cried.
But not for long.
By the time he was two, he was walking, training his tiny hands to hold wooden blades.
By three, he had memorized every kata the elders of the [Ikezawa Clan] knew, mimicking their forms with disturbing precision.
By four, he was beating them.
-----
His clan was small, situated on the edge of the Land of Iron's southern mountain range. Neither fully shinobi nor true samurai, the Ikezawa were survivalists—mercenaries balancing tradition and pragmatism. They raised blades, not flags.
They also noticed early on that Seiji—as they named him—wasn't like other children.
He didn't laugh. He didn't play.
He calculated.
Analyzed.
Watched the world as if from a high tower, never trusting anything without three backup plans and an escape route.
His instructors called him a genius. His peers called him a freak.
He called himself "an old soul trapped in a child's body, surrounded by idiots with sharp objects."
-----
By the time he was nine, he had killed his first enemy.
By ten, he had already created his own breathing style: Ashen Breathing, First Form: Flicker Fang.
It was a move designed for precise decapitation while avoiding detection. The Ikezawa elders were horrified. The clan head? Impressed.
"You're a prodigy," the old man had muttered. "No… a monster pretending to be a boy."
Seiji smiled dryly. "Monsters survive."
But talent alone wasn't enough for him.
He wanted more.
To reach beyond the mortal ceiling. To claw his way into the realm of the gods and beyond.
The catalyst came when he stumbled across a ruined temple deep within an uncharted forest—its architecture predating the modern ninja clans.
The sword inside was ancient, humming with forgotten chakra and symbols of the Rikudo Sennin—the Sage of Six Paths.
It spoke to him.
And for once in his two lives, he listened.
-----
At sixteen, Seiji left his clan behind.
His reputation grew quietly but sharply across the continent. A black-clad swordsman with no allegiance, appearing in warzones and vanishing before sunrise. Mercenaries feared him. Daimyō sought to hire him. He refused all of them.
He sought only strength.
And answers.
The world was vast, chaotic, teetering on the edge of something—he could feel it. And deep down, he knew… if he wanted to transcend it, he'd have to break it first.
Then he met her.
-----
It was supposed to be another uneventful mountain pass. He sensed a chakra signature—dense, precise, like a roaring fire compressed into a spark. Dangerous, but distant.
Then she appeared.
She descended like a storm in human form, clad in red armor and malice, her black hair whipping in the wind. Her eyes burned red, three tomoe spinning in perfect synchronicity.
"You're trespassing on Uchiha territory," she said, her voice low and imperious. "State your name, or be buried without one."
He blinked.
Then sighed.
"Ah. Great. Another self-important teenager with a clan complex."
Her expression darkened.
The first strike came faster than lightning.
The clash lasted twenty minutes. Steel howled. The ground cracked. Her Fire Release seared the heavens. His breathing forms sliced through flame and fury alike.
He was holding back—he always did—but even still, he only barely won.
Barely.
She lay sprawled on the ground, chest rising with exhaustion, blood on her lip but a grin on her face.
"You're strong," she said, breathless, laughing. "Too strong for a nobody."
He stood over her, sweat clinging to his brow, sword pointed downward.
"And you're… my type," he muttered before catching himself and cursing internally.
She blinked.
Then smirked.
"You're insane."
"No," he said. "I'm careful. There's a difference."
-----
They parted without exchanging names. But the fire of their clash lingered in both.
He had met warriors before. He had killed legends and danced on battlefields.
But she?
She was something else.
Madara Uchiha. A name he would come to know. And a presence he would chase.
***