The Land of Fire's night air hung heavy over Konoha, sharp with killing intent—and the stench of fresh blood.
Outside the Uchiha District, Root and ANBU squads kept their nerves drawn tight, eyes hard and hungry as they watched the clan's compound. They weren't just monitoring the Uchiha anymore; they were guarding against everything around them, as if the darkness itself might lunge.
Before, even when the village suspected the Uchiha might rebel, they'd never been this cautious.
That time, there was something different: a person.
Uchiha Jhin.
A boy who'd always been quiet. A solid-but-unremarkable academy student. An Uchiha in the most textbook sense—until a month ago, when he awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.
…
Late night.
Deep in the Uchiha District stood a three-courtyard residence, sealed up tight. Patrols walked openly, but the real security hid in the trees, in corner shadows, on the rooflines—one watcher after another, all with the Sharingan spinning in their eyes.
Inside the reception room, there were only seven or eight people, but every one of them was a core member of the radical faction.
Creak.
The sliding door pushed open.
An Uchiha in a black haori marked with the clan's flame-fan crest dropped to one knee, his eyes lit with three-tomoe Sharingan.
"Jhin-kun. Elder Setsuna."
"The Seventh Squad has completed its mission. We eliminated three Root squads."
"On the way back, an ANBU jōnin unit tried to stop us. We wiped them out, too. Every enemy was reduced to dust—bones and all. The battlefield's been cleaned. Even the Yamanaka won't find anything."
He spoke with proud defiance, his chin tilted as if the village itself wasn't worth fearing.
Across the room, the report landed like sake poured into a fire.
Laughter burst out—raw, relieved, exhilarated. Faces gleamed with something the Uchiha hadn't been allowed to show in a long time.
"That's what I'm talking about. That's satisfaction!"
One man stood so fast. His whole body trembled with excitement. "This is the Uchiha! Fugaku should've never been allowed to lead us in the first place!"
Others nodded, approval written openly across their faces.
They were sick of Fugaku. Past sick—past patient.
"Fugaku was never worthy. I regret ever tolerating him!"
"Since he became Clan Head, we've done nothing but retreat. On the battlefield, Uchiha are the first to die, and the village pretends not to see it. After the Nine-Tails disaster, we even gave up ancestral ground. And now they monitor us out in the open…"
"Fugaku?" Another voice spat the name like rot. "Hmph."
"Jhin-kun should be Clan Head!"
Voices layered over voices, anger feeding anger, until it was impossible not to hear the truth beneath it:
The village had driven the Uchiha to the edge—and then kept pushing.
Elder Setsuna's face was old, but the killing intent clinging to him hadn't dulled. His eyes looked murky with years of bitterness as he rasped, "Back in Senju Tobirama's era, the Uchiha weren't trusted—but we could still barely protect ourselves. After Fugaku took over, things worsened at a terrifying pace."
"It would be one thing if he only bowed his head to outsiders. But he couldn't even keep us free—until the clan split into compromisers, moderates, and radicals. And then we got those two damn traitors—Shisui, and Itachi…"
He exhaled.
"Luckily, heaven hasn't abandoned the Uchiha. It sent us Jhin-kun."
The old man straightened, voice hoarse but absolute. "This fossil has held the reins long enough. I'm stepping down. From this moment on, Jhin will be the leader of the radical faction."
Cheers slammed into the room. Everyone accepted what has been said.
No one here had any loyalty left for Fugaku.
And yet—
Sitting in a chair in the middle, the boy they were celebrating didn't smile.
Uchiha Jhin.
A clean-featured teenager who looked very calm.
He wasn't even from this world.
He was a reincarnator—someone who'd come from somewhere else to this world. He was born more than a decade ago. No system. No miraculous cheat. So he'd grown the slow way, step by step, leaning on decent bloodline talent—nothing legendary within the Uchiha, but enough to be considered gifted in Konoha.
He'd never tried to vanish into the background. He didn't have the luxury.
In the academy years, the Third Shinobi World War had already broken out. He was guaranteed to see the battlefield, guaranteed to be watched, and there was no hiding a shinobi who had to fight.
And unlike the story he remembered, Konoha's surveillance here was suffocating.
A Barrier Team was watching the village 24 hours a day. Countless ANBU and Root were moving in the dark. The worst part was the people who didn't stay in their lane—Orochimaru and Danzō, forever conducting their private hunts, and Hiruzen Sarutobi shamelessly abusing the Telescope Technique like the whole village belonged to his eyes.
Hiding wasn't caution.
It was suicide.
Over the years, Jhin had made almost no friends. Even though he'd been the same generation as Kakashi and Obito, he'd never tried to get close to Minato—the man who would become the Fourth Hokage. He joined the Uchiha Police Force as expected, survived the war, and kept training in silence.
Until one month ago.
His parents in this life vanished.
The village called it "missing."
Jhin knew better. He knew exactly what "missing" meant when Root was involved.
That night, he'd been training until deep into the early hours. When he returned, he saw it—movement in the shadows, masked men taking his parents away.
And for all his memories of a past life, they were his parents. His family.
He didn't live by vague ideals. He remembered debts. He remembered blood.
So in that dawn-dark moment, something inside him tore open.
His Mangekyō awakened.
Only—
The shock was too much. His mind snapped into darkness, and he collapsed before he could even try to save them.
In that moment of overwhelming shock, he'd wanted to destroy everything. So the technique that awakened in his left eye was Susanoo—a name tied to a god of ruin, a power that could erase without caring what stood in its way, even when that "way" was something as untouchable as time and space.
And because Uchiha Jhin was a reincarnator—he already knew the Mangekyō's fatal flaw—his right eye awakened a different power: Ame-no-Tokotachi.
A space-Time-Ninjutsu.
More than once, Jhin had felt it—an uneasy certainty under the surface—that if he pushed the technique far enough, he might not just rewind himself, but step backward and forward along the river of time.
A strengthened Izanagi.
Of course, reality still had teeth.
This wasn't an Eternal Mangekyō. Even if he could rewind the left eye's expenditure, the right eye still had to pay the price.
Jhin always had an escape plan.
A simple one.
In the gaps between missions, he'd quietly built layers of false identities outside the village. The idea was to take his family and slip away before the night of the massacre ever arrived.
As long as he survived Konoha's first wave of pursuit, everything after that would become easier. Once news of the Uchiha's destruction spread, the other villages would move; of course, they would. In the original history, the Hidden Cloud's attempt to abduct Hinata happened around that time.
Konoha would be forced to shore up its borders.
And while the village stared outward, he would take his family to the Land of Snow—far from the shinobi world's wars, far from Konoha's reach.
But he hadn't expected Root to move first.
Their action shattered his preparations—and it dropped Uchiha Jhin into something hotter than anger.
'Heh. Did they really think a reincarnator has no temper?'
So if he wanted his parents back—if he already knew Fugaku was useless—
Then there was only one way left.
He revealed his Mangekyō.
He joined the radicals.
He planned action after action, blood and pressure and fire, until the radicals finally bowed their heads completely.
Now—
Jhin drew in a slow breath.
He looked around at the Uchiha staring at him with worship in their eyes, with fever in their veins, and he rose to his feet.
"Polite words are just lies dressed up pretty," he said evenly. "Starting today, I am the leader of the radicals."
"I promise I'll lead you to victory. I promise I'll help you take back the dignity we've lost."
"I—"
But he didn't get to finish.
A knock cut through the room, sharp and urgent, and an Uchiha stepped in.
"Jhin-kun. Elder Setsuna."
"The Clan Head asked for an immediate clan meeting!"