The cold night air cut through me like shards of glass as I opened my eyes.
My vision swam for a moment, my mind still trying to make sense of where—no, when—I was. The dim, flickering light of lanterns barely illuminated the path ahead, and in that darkness, the towering gates of the Uchiha district loomed before me like a monument to tragedy.
But they were no longer a symbol of pride or strength.
Tonight, they stood as silent sentinels to a slaughter.
The ground beneath me was slick, stained with crimson that had not yet dried. The metallic tang of blood filled the air, heavy and suffocating, mixing with the bitter scent of burning wood. Somewhere in the distance, a beam of a roof collapsed with a low groan, sending a cloud of ash drifting into the wind.
Beside me stood Izumi.
Her usually warm, gentle eyes were glassy, unseeing, as if she were trying to wake from a nightmare she could not escape. Her small hands trembled, though she tried to hide it by clutching her arms. The moonlight caught the faint trail of tears slipping silently down her cheeks.
No sobs escaped her lips.
No words.
Only the quiet sound of her breathing in the frigid air, the sound catching every now and then as she fought to hold herself together.
I followed her gaze to the bodies—our clan members—strewn carelessly across the streets. Uncles, aunts, cousins, elders… all cut down in the prime of life. Their eyes—eyes that once held the proud Sharingan—now stared blankly into the void.
The massacre had already taken everything.
And we both knew who orchestrated it.
Danzo.
The power-hungry shadow that hid behind Konoha's noble face.
I clenched my fists until my nails bit into my palms, hot anger rising in my chest. My breathing grew heavier, but I forced myself to remain calm. Anger was dangerous now. Anger would get us killed.
The stillness was shattered by a sound.
> [Ding…]
The chime was sharp yet strangely melodic, echoing inside my head rather than my ears.
My heart skipped.
[ Host has activated the Otherworldly Clan System.
Installation complete.
System successfully bonded with Host.]
The words unfolded before my eyes in a translucent blue interface that hovered in the air.
It was like a holographic projection only I could see.
My first instinct was disbelief—no, not disbelief… but recognition. I'd seen this sort of thing before. Not here, not in this life, but in the countless hours I'd spent in front of a screen.
A system.
Something from another world.
And somehow, it was mine.
I closed the interface with a thought and turned to Izumi. She didn't see the screen. She didn't hear the chime. To her, the world was still the same cruel place it had been a moment ago.
I stepped closer, placing a hand on her shoulder. She flinched slightly, then looked up at me. Her eyes, red-rimmed from tears, searched my face for something—hope, answers, maybe even lies to make it all feel less real.
"Izumi," I said quietly, my voice steady despite the chaos inside me. "We can't stay here. There's no one left on our side. Not in this village. Not anymore."
Her lips parted slightly, as if to argue, but no words came out. She glanced around one last time—the silent houses, the fallen clan members, the homes that would never again hold laughter—and then she nodded.
"Where… will we go?" she asked at last, her voice barely more than a whisper.
I took a deep breath. "Somewhere far from here. Somewhere they can't reach us. But first, we take what we can. The clan's treasures, scrolls, weapons… anything we can carry. We'll need them."
For the first time that night, I saw a flicker of something in her eyes—determination.
We moved quickly, slipping through the district's back alleys to avoid any Anbu patrols. The shadows were our allies now, the night our only cover. Every step we took felt heavier, weighed down by the knowledge that with each passing moment, we were moving further from the life we once knew.
Inside one of the less damaged houses, we found an old storage room. Scrolls lay scattered across the floor, some torn, others still intact. A few were sealed with the Uchiha crest—emergency provisions, forbidden techniques, and records of our history. I stuffed them into a storage pouch the system helpfully labeled as Inventory Slot 1 the moment I touched it.
Izumi found a chest of weapons—kunai, shuriken, smoke bombs—and began filling another pouch. The rhythmic clink of metal was almost comforting in its familiarity.
[ [Quest Generated: "Survive the First Night"]
Objective: Leave the Uchiha District alive.
Reward: Clan Bloodline Upgrade + Stat Points.]
I smirked slightly at the interface. Even in this hell, it seemed determined to turn survival into a game.
But unlike the games I'd once played, this one had no reset button.
We gathered what we could and stepped back into the night. The air felt colder now, the silence heavier. I knew that somewhere, perhaps just a street away, Anbu masked in white were moving through the ruins, ensuring there were no survivors.
We had to move faster.
As we reached the gates again, Izumi hesitated. She turned back to look at the district one final time. I didn't need the Sharingan to know what she was feeling—loss, grief, the bitter taste of betrayal.
"Goodbye," she whispered, so softly I almost didn't hear it.
I reached out and took her hand.
"Come on," I said. "From this moment on, we decide our fate. No one else."
And together, we stepped out of the ruins of our clan, into the uncertain darkness beyond.
As we were leaving the clan that is in the outskirt of the konoha village we heard the sound of footsteps but we still leave the village by secret passage .
As we run into the forest of death on the village border we ran into a kunoichi anbu