"Useless!"
"Can't even master the Shadow Clone Technique? You call yourself a ninja?"
"Go back to your orphanage, Ren! Konoha doesn't need losers like you!"
The jeers cut like poisoned needles—sharp, relentless, boring into Ren's skull. He pushed himself up from the dirt, wiping blood from his split lip. His eyes, cold and steady, swept over the circle of sneering faces.
This was the Konoha Ninja Academy's graduation exam. And he—Ren, a soul ripped from the 21st century and dropped into this brutal shinobi world—had just failed it.
No Uchiha blood. No Hyūga eyes. Not even decent chakra control. Just an orphan with nothing but his name and his will.
He hadn't failed because he couldn't perform the jutsu. He'd felt it—the moment his hands snapped into the final seal, a faint, foreign ripple of chakra had brushed against his own, unraveling his technique before it could form. Sabotage. Subtle, precise… and deliberate.
His gaze locked onto the boy at the front of the crowd—Takeuchi Ryosuke. Grandson of a minor advisor to the Hokage, distant nephew of Yamashiro Aoba, and one of Konohamaru's future cronies. A noble brat with too much pride and too little empathy. And someone who'd made it his mission to crush Ren at every turn.
"What? Not convinced?" Ryosuke crossed his arms, chin tilted high, voice dripping with disdain. "Losers should know their place. Get out of the way."
Laughter rose around him like floodwaters, threatening to drown him.
Ren's fingers curled into fists, nails biting into his palms. The pain grounded him. He wasn't that trembling orphan anymore. Something inside him—forged in another life, hardened by this one—refused to break.
He lifted his head. Eyes blazing. "It was you."
Ryosuke's smirk faltered—just for a heartbeat—before twisting into something crueler. "What was me? You can eat dirt, but you can't accuse people without proof! Where's your evidence, trash?"
"Yeah! Shut up unless you've got proof!"
"Too weak to pass, too dumb to stay quiet!"
The crowd jeered, stepping closer, hemming him in.
Evidence? Ren's mind raced. Of course there was none. Ryosuke was clever. And nobles didn't get punished for stepping on strays.
Was this how his shinobi path ended? Before it even began?
No.
He still had one more chance. Academy rules granted two attempts.
He raised his hands—ready to seal again.
But Ryosuke's eyes gleamed with malice. A barely perceptible nod. Two of his lackeys lunged forward under the guise of shoving through the crowd—and slammed into Ren with brutal force.
Crack!
His head struck the training ground. Pain exploded behind his eyes. Darkness rushed in, thick and suffocating. The last thing he heard was Ryosuke's snarl:
"Die, you useless orphan."
Is this it?
After everything… am I really dying like this?
No.
Rage burned through the blackness—white-hot, consuming. He refused to fade. Not like this. Not without power. Not without vengeance.
Then—
"Ding."
A cold, mechanical voice echoed in the void.
[Host's willpower and desire for power meet binding criteria.]
[Infinite Eye Technique System initializing…]
[Binding complete. Host: Ren.]
[Newbie Mission: "Counterattack from the Brink."]
[Copy any nearby bloodline limit within three minutes. Defeat Takeuchi Ryosuke.]
[Reward: Full system activation, bloodline awakening, mystery gift pack.]
[Failure: Soul annihilation.]
Ren's mind snapped into focus.
A system? Now?
Perfect.
His eyes flew open. The pain in his skull faded to background noise. His vision sharpened—unnaturally so. Dust motes hung in the air like stars. Chakra pulsed around him like colored mist: red-orange in Ryosuke, murky gray in his thugs.
Who here has a bloodline?
Hyūga? None present.
Uchiha? The clan was all but extinct—only Sasuke remained, and he wasn't here.
Then his gaze snagged on a figure at the edge of the crowd.
A boy in dark, high-collared robes—similar to Uchiha garb, but the crest was subtly different. His eyes held a single, spinning tomoe.
Not Sasuke… but still an Uchiha offshoot.
Ren remembered rumors: a branch family called the Uchiha Setsuna, spared during the massacre due to their diluted bloodline. Marginalized. Forgotten.
This boy—Uchiha Hikaru—was one of them.
And his one-tomoe Sharingan was exactly what Ren needed.
"System! Copy Uchiha Hikaru's Sharingan!"
[Target confirmed: Uchiha Hikaru – Sharingan (1 tomoe).]
[Copying…]
[Success. Temporary acquisition granted: 10-minute duration.]
Heat seared through Ren's eyes. The world snapped into hyper-clarity. He could see intent in the twitch of a muscle, track chakra like glowing threads.
Ryosuke, mistaking his stillness for unconsciousness, sneered. "Look at him—knocked out cold like the dog he is."
But then a sharp-eyed student gasped.
"Look at his eyes!"
Everyone turned toward the sound—and froze.
Ren's eyes, once dull and black, now burned crimson. In each pupil, a single black tomoe rotated slowly, deliberately… like the eye of a storm.
Sharingan?
Gasps rippled through the courtyard. Even Uchiha Hikari, who had watched the entire ordeal with icy detachment, stiffened. His fingers twitched toward his own eyes—an instinctive reaction no Uchiha could suppress.
How? The thought echoed in every mind. He's no Uchiha. Just an orphan. A failure.
Takeuchi Ryosuke's face twisted in disbelief, then fury. "That's not possible!" he spat, voice cracking. "Did you steal those eyes?!"
Ren rose to his feet, dirt clinging to his torn training uniform. His gaze locked onto Ryosuke—cold, unreadable. A faint smile tugged at his lips.
"Steal?" he murmured. "No. But I will take what's yours."
Before the last word left his mouth, he moved.
His body was untrained—clumsy, even—but his eyes… his eyes saw everything.
Ryosuke lunged, seals flying from his fingers. "Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
A roaring sphere of flame, bright as the midday sun, surged toward Ren. For any genin, this was a show of strength—mastery earned through lineage and privilege.
The old Ren would've scrambled away, humiliated.
But not this one.
In his mind, time stretched. The fireball's trajectory, the waver in its chakra core, the micro-shifts in Ryosuke's stance—every detail crystallized under the Sharingan's gaze. And the hand seals… Tiger. Snake. Dog. Dragon. Imprinted, replicated, understood.
He didn't dodge.
At the last moment, he twisted his body—just enough—and the fireball seared past him, scorching the air.
Then his hands moved.
Tiger. Snake. Dog. Dragon.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
Flames erupted from his mouth—smaller, rougher, but unmistakably real. Their collision sent a thunderous boom across the training grounds, heat washing over the stunned crowd.
Silence followed.
No one spoke. No one could.
He'd copied it. On sight. On his first try.
Ryosuke staggered back, face pale. "No… you're nothing. You've never even passed a test!"
"Maybe," Ren said softly. "But now I see everything."
He vanished—not with speed, but with precision. The Sharingan had already mapped Ryosuke's next move before he'd made it.
A sharp punch to the gut. Clean. Efficient.
Ryosuke crumpled, gasping, curled on the dirt like a discarded rag.
Ren flexed his fingers, knuckles throbbing. His body was weak—but his eyes? They remembered every street fight, every survival trick from a life before this one. Against a pampered heir who'd never known real danger, it was more than enough.
A quiet chime rang in his mind—not loud, not flashy:
[Quest Complete: "Cornered Fang."]
[Reward Unlocked: Ocular Awakening Confirmed.]
[New Pathway Detected: "Infinite Eye" – Investigation Recommended.]
The crimson faded from his irises, returning them to their ordinary black. But the crowd didn't see "ordinary" anymore.
They saw danger.
The proctor stood frozen, mouth half-open, torn between protocol and awe. Uchiha Hikari, watching from the edge with his own single-tomoe Sharingan active, narrowed his eyes—not in anger, but calculation.
Ren ignored them all.
Within him, something ancient had stirred. And in the quiet of his mind, a luminous package pulsed in his system space—waiting.
Konoha… he thought, gaze drifting toward the Hokage Monument. You thought I was nothing.
His eyes flicked once more to Ryosuke, writhing in the dust.
Now you'll learn what "nothing" can become.
Without another word, he turned and walked away—each step heavier than the last, as if the weight of a new destiny had already settled on his shoulders.