The next two years that passed were like a storm in the world of shinobi. Yet amidst that chaos, one name shone brighter than the rest.
Armies were ordered to retreat at his mere mention—someone said to have taken on two villages alone. One mistake, one wrong blink, and they said the Yellow Flash had already killed you.
Minato Namikaze was no longer the unknown jōnin he once was. Iwa and Kumo alike trembled at his moniker.
He had become the Leaf's sharpest tactical weapon and the opposition's worst nightmare.
Traditional intelligence gathering meant nothing where he was concerned—one moment, he was in one camp; the next, right behind you.
Yet his greatest feats weren't just his unmatched speed or precision. No—his legend was sealed when he single-handedly cut through a thousand Iwa shinobi.
Scratch that—his true feat was standing toe to toe with the Third Raikage and surviving.
All of Kumo was shaken that day. A young jōnin from Konoha had forced even their top brass to acknowledge him.
The Lightning Armor—the very pride of their village—had failed to graze even a single hair on his head.
His Rasengan, imbued with sage energy, had proven deadly. Even the piercing finger thrust of the Third Raikage could not breach the Yellow Flash's defense.
Unfortunately for Kumo, even their Raikage soon succumbed—not to Minato's blade directly, but to Iwa. They said he held off their army for three days and three nights before finally collapsing—felled by the lingering wound the Yellow Flash had dealt him months ago.
The administration shifted. The Fourth Raikage was appointed. Iwa, too, had suffered losses beyond repair. Suna could no longer bear the cost of war—their Daimyo cutting funds after a chain of humiliating defeats.
Seeing the great nations bleed, Kiri too pulled their forces back.
What followed was the largest negotiation table seen in decades. Scrolls were exchanged. Treaties were drawn. Schemes slithered between words like vipers around throats.
And amid this fragile peace, Minato made his demand—Kyojiro's return from Kumo's prison.
A, of course, demanded further concessions from the Leaf. But for once, Hiruzen, recognizing Minato's contributions, agreed to the compromise.
And just like that, the fires of the Third Great Shinobi War dimmed.The world fell into an uneasy calm—a stillness before the storm.
The nations hadn't forgiven. They were only waiting.
Preparing.
. . .
But for Kyojiro, the story had been entirely different.
After the first few months, he could feel his sanity begin to slip.The voices of his friends—Minato, Jiraiya, and others—echoed endlessly in his mind. Sometimes, he heard crashes along the walls, faint thumps, as if something lived within them.
Even as a shinobi, Kyojiro was afraid.The endless void that had replaced his vision offered no comfort—only torment.
And yet, something within him refused to die.Was it will? Courage? Ego? He didn't know. But whatever it was, it refused to let him become a forgotten name—refused to let him fade into insignificance.
His heart thundered every time despair crept closer, until one day he realized: something had to change.
Even before his capture, Kyojiro had always carried questions—questions about life, about purpose. To him, life had always felt like someone had opened the book from the middle.
He never knew what came before or what was supposed to follow.
Now, blind and broken, trapped in walls that contained nothing but emptiness.
Since there was nothing Outwards...
So Kyojiro only had one place left to look- Inward
So he did.
He looked at his life—the memories of being reborn into this world.
He wouldn't lie. He had expected joy. Adventure. The thrill of being a ninja. He'd imagined laughing with Kakashi, maybe even teaching Itachi someday.
But memory after memory flashed through his mind: the lack of talent, the cold scorn of his grandfather, the death of his parents.Each frame was a tilt of fate—something dying a little more each time.
But that wasn't when he changed.
No, it was that mission.
His genin team—ordinary civilians, untalented like him—had accepted him without judgment. They hadn't mocked his fiery hair, hadn't looked down on him.And though he was an adult inside, far beyond such insecurities, that small kindness had felt like a clean page in a stained book.
Until it ended.
Their screams. Their pleas for help.His helplessness.
That day, something within him shattered.He spoke less. Hoped less. Lived only to train, to fight, to avenge.
Kyojiro flexed his hand in the darkness of his cell. He couldn't see it, but he could feel the bones beneath his skin—the veins like lines on brittle paper. It was as if the life had been drained from him.
Months passed. He kept reliving his life, analyzing each moment, each failure.
New questions arose daily.
Was it my fault?Could I have done something different?Why me?What was the point of reincarnating?Does any of this even matter?
But with every question, something in him deepened. His understanding grew.
The voices in the walls went silent. The ghosts of his friends faded to memories.
And then—somewhere in that suffocating dark—he finally understood the root of his misery.
I was scared.
Scared of losing someone again if I wasn't strong enough. So scared… that I stopped forming connections altogether.
Minato had been a friend of necessity, born out of his knowledge of how the story was supposed to go. Might Duy had been kind, but lived in a different world entirely.And his classmates—well, they'd forgotten him long ago.
So I never truly lived after that day.Consumed by fear and vengeance.
The sleepless nights. The endless training. The slaughtering of bandits to chase an illusion of justice.
All of it finally made sense.
Somewhere in the dark, he smiled for the first time in years.
Because Kyojiro finally understood—who he was.
....
Drum roll guys, Read this chapter like four times because I found it super pretty( Sorry for the self glazing ;), Hehe