Uchiha Shin

The night of August 31st, the 25th year of the Konoha era, Land of Fire, Konoha Village, in the backyard of the Uchiha Clan Head's residence.

A five-year-old boy was looking up, lazily gazing at the moon as it emitted a soft glow.

The boy wore his hair in a short-to-medium length, with the hair from the back of his head and the sideburns tied into a short ponytail.

His bangs fell casually across his forehead; with his delicate features and soft facial contours, he looked nothing like the innocent and carefree children of his age, dressed as he was in a black "Uchiha windbreaker."

"The moon is so big tonight..." Feeling something was off, he immediately corrected himself: "No, it's so white... When will the moon turn red?"

The little boy was none other than the youngest son of the current Uchiha Clan Head, Uchiha Shin.

"Shin, how could the moon turn red?" A much taller boy stood behind him, full of energy as he retorted.

The older boy had rugged features and wore an identical, oversized Uchiha windbreaker.

Yet, it was difficult to associate his appearance with the soft-featured Shin.

"Brother Fugaku, not only will the moon turn red in the future, but people actually live on it!" Shin replied to his brother's question in a childish, high-pitched voice.

Uchiha Fugaku currently had a massive headache; ever since they were young, he had been unable to handle his younger brother's various strange ideas.

What set Shin apart from the fantasies of ordinary children was that he could always find a way to justify most of his ideas.

The Uchiha Clan Head's family had, of course, taken him to the Yamanaka clan to have his brain checked.

However, the answer they received was that even those proficient in secret mental arts could not enter his spiritual world, not a single person in the entire clan.

Ninjas, who revered Chakra, were all helpless against such matters.

From then on, Shin was regarded as a genius-like existence who simply possessed many eccentric ideas.

Ten-year-old Fugaku replied according to the words his brother had once said in his memories: "Yes, yes, yes, his name is Armstrong..."

"Then do you know how he got to the moon? He was..."

"Taking a rocket, right? Although I don't know what a rocket is, I really don't understand what you're saying about propulsion or fuel."

With a smug expression, Shin began to supplement Fugaku's knowledge: "That's called a thruster. It uses high-performance fuel as a medium, and only through the thrust generated by complete combustion can a rocket be sent to the moon..."

He then narrowed his eyes: "Brother Fugaku, you just graduated from the Ninja Academy, is your memory really that bad?"

While forcibly supplementing the other's knowledge, he didn't forget to express concern about whether there was something wrong with his memory.

Fugaku retorted with an impatient look: "Where would a ninja ever need to remember things like the Periodic Table or laws of physics?"

He felt his blood pressure rising.

Blood pressure—that was what Shin called vascular pressure or something.

He also felt that if he was saddled with such a brother in this life, it must be because he had destroyed the ninja world with his own hands in his previous life.

Otherwise, why had he never possessed even a shred of authority as an older brother in front of his younger brother?

"I'm concerned about you, my foolish brother. You're so young, you mustn't get 'senile dementia'..." Shin instructed Fugaku in an adult tone.

Following that, words like "Nao Bai Jin" and "Six Walnuts" spilled from his mouth.

Fugaku kept his head low, looking exactly like a child receiving a lecture from his father.

Shin, now feeling triumphant, began to use the tone their father often used.

With a serious expression, he lectured Fugaku incessantly on the techniques he used to memorize the Periodic Table.

Why did I answer that question about the moon? If I had avoided the topic, would I not be in this situation now?

Fugaku appeared to be listening on the surface, but his heart was already on the verge of collapse.

Wait, isn't the Ninja Academy starting tomorrow? I really need to give this 'cute' brother of mine a good talking to...

He suddenly glared straight at the person who was still summarizing his experience.

This caught Shin completely off guard.

Seeing the other boy stunned for once, Fugaku spoke with three parts triumph and seven parts satisfaction, turning the tables with a lecture of his own.

"Shin, you're enrolling tomorrow, right? Do you know the importance of the Ninja Academy to a ninja? Your health has been poor since you were little..."

Facing this move, Shin could only ponder to himself.

On the surface, he maintained a submissive and obedient appearance.

This was his winning tactic, one he had always used to deal with his father, the current Uchiha Clan Head.

From time to time, he would even nod slowly.

The high level of this skill made the corner of Fugaku's eye twitch as he continued his endless chatter.

"..."

Seeing his "cute" younger brother acting as if all his words were just wind blowing past his ears, his heart grew even heavier.

After instructing him to get a good night's rest, he turned and left without a moment's delay.

"Then, Brother Fugaku should also rest early..."

"This time, you must remember the Periodic Table well; I will be checking at random..."

Hearing the farewell, Fugaku immediately quickened his pace.

He had no desire to walk any slower, lest he be cornered by his troublesome younger brother and dragged into a conversation that would last all night.

If it weren't for the fact that other people's children could shatter bricks with their bare hands by the age of five.

Yet his own brother always appeared so frail and delicate.

Uchiha Fugaku had expressed on more than one occasion that he would have strung the boy up and beaten him if he could.

However, being an elder brother meant taking proper care of one's sibling.

It was just that this particular someone had become increasingly "pushy" because of it.

Faced with someone he couldn't hit and couldn't out-argue, Uchiha Fugaku felt from the bottom of his heart that there was no elder brother in the entire Ninja World who had it harder than him.

"Am I really that annoying? I still had a few things left to say..." Shin felt dejected, much like an abandoned child.

He stood in place for a moment before finally lifting his feet to head toward his room.

Inside Uchiha Shin's room.

Shin sat on his bed, continuing to gaze up at the moon, which emitted a soft, white glow.

At the same time, he imagined what the moon would look like if it turned red and was adorned with black tomoe.

"The Ninja World is very dangerous, and I was born into the Uchiha Clan, of all places..."

He seemed lost regarding his future, and only after pondering alone for a long time did he begin to consider the matter of the Ninja Academy.

"Ninja Academy? After graduation, there will surely be some idiot who wants to become Hokage, and two teammates who bicker constantly yet acknowledge each other..."

Shin quickly deduced the character profiles of his two future teammates.

As for where this assumption came from, he would bet his youth on it.

Yes, Uchiha Shin was not from this world, at least not in soul.

In his past life, he was just a 996 salaryman.

He had been on the phone with his boss, working late into the night, while his phone was charging.

Then, the phone battery exploded.

Just like that, he arrived in this Ninja World.

He figured the charger must have been a knock-off, and he summarized three lessons:

First, don't use knock-off chargers.

Second, don't use your phone while it's charging, especially when taking calls.

Third, 996 is definitely not a blessing; if you don't get blown up by your phone working late, you'll die of overwork anyway.

When Shin opened his eyes, he saw the parents of this world.

And his five-year-old brother, Uchiha Fugaku.

At the time, he felt the name Uchiha Fugaku was incredibly familiar.

It wasn't until he learned that his father was the clan head of the Uchiha that he began frequently coming to the backyard at night to look up at the moon.

He knew that the great villain Kaguya Otsutsuki was sealed inside that moon.

Could this act be considered looking up to pay respects to his own ancestor?

Shin also felt that the expectation in the Ninja World for a five-year-old to shatter bricks with their bare hands was truly asking too much.

Someone who had received a traditional Chinese education in their past life found it very difficult to break through the mental shackles regarding their own physical limits.

Because of this, his family mistakenly believed that his physical constitution was very poor.

That was why they had always cared for him so meticulously.

They would even satisfy his requests, provided they weren't too excessive.

This allowed him, having grown accustomed to the cold, 996-regime of his past life, to feel the warmth of family in his heart.

Shin had once shared some physics and chemistry knowledge from his past life with his family.

Over the course of five years, he had long since come to regard these people who cared for him as his true family.

And his family never questioned the origin of his strange theories.

They simply assumed that "Heaven did not give him a healthy body, but gave him extraordinary wisdom instead."

The maturity he had displayed since childhood only served to prove this point.

In truth, as long as Shin unlocked the shackles in his heart, his body would be able to exert the strength it was meant to have.

But he always insisted that he was unable to do so.

Did you think every transmigrator had nerves of steel? Being afraid of pain is nothing to be ashamed of!

Perhaps it was due to the Uchiha bloodline that all his emotions were expressed in such an amplified manner?

Fortunately, Shin had a cheat code exclusive to his transmigration into the Ninja World: powerful calculation, memory, and dynamic vision.

These three were less like abilities and more like functions.

He felt it was because he had been on the phone when he was blown to bits in his past life.

That was why, at the moment of his transmigration, his brain had miraculously fused with the mobile phone.

The abilities Shin had developed so far were threefold: his computational power corresponded to the phone's processor, his formidable memory to the flash storage, and his dynamic vision to the camera lens.

The Yamanaka clan could not invade his mind, also due to the built-in password protection.

"How will the Uchiha survive? How can I survive the Second Shinobi World War? How can I resist the Otsutsuki clan?"

The confusion deep within his heart was something he could not voice to anyone else.

"I should just sleep. Even if the shinobi world is destroyed, I must protect this home..."

Before Shin lay down on the bed and closed his eyes, he took one last look at the moon in the sky.

His gaze now was clearly a little different from before.