Uchiha Naro 2

Every Mangekyō Sharingan in the Uchiha Clan awakened with a different pattern. Each was a symbol unique to the Uchiha bloodline.

The pattern in his left eye looked like countless concentric circles layered over one another, with a hollow black dot at the very center, like a gateway to another world.

The pattern in his right eye looked like countless strands tangled together. Some were broken, some connected, some knotted together, and some stretched into the endless distance.

Heavenly Amenominakanushi: in some places, this term was regarded as the supreme ruler and foundation of the universe, representing the universe's "core." It was a void, and Naro could create an independent space within it.

This was Zhang Hongchen's expression of his most primal longing for his own world.

Heavenly Eternal Presence: in some places, this term represented the eternal, unchanging nature of heaven and earth, symbolizing the stability and longevity of the cosmic order. This ocular technique gradually severed his causal ties from the "fixed chain of causality" exposed to outside interference, leaving him in a state where no cause or effect could anchor him.

This was Zhang Hongchen's expression of his most primal hope, born from his past life.

There were many memories in Uchiha Naro's mind, and they were all jumbled together...

The memories of three people were intertwined, to the point that even he didn't know whose memories they were.

But he didn't care. Whoever they belonged to, they were all a part of him.

On January 15, Year 40 of Konoha, heavy snow fell over the village. With no medic or midwife to help her, his mother gritted her teeth and gave birth to him all alone.

His father had been sent out on a mission and wasn't home.

His parents were both ordinary Genin of the Uchiha Clan. Neither of them had much strength, and they had only awakened a One-Tomoe Sharingan.

In the Uchiha Clan, where status was determined by one's eyes, they ranked only a little higher than those who couldn't awaken the Sharingan. They had no talent, no connections, and no resources. Their only "wealth" was each other—and now they had one more: the infant Naro.

A week after his soul had fused, Uchiha Naro began cultivating the Supreme Scripture of Causality and Deliverance again.

The first step was sensing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth. In the immortal cultivation world he'd lived in before, this was the most basic skill—even a vegetable seller at the market could do it.

But in the Naruto world, there was no spiritual energy between heaven and earth. Or rather, there was, but so little that it was almost nonexistent. Naro spent an entire night catching a trace of faint energy from the air. It wasn't spiritual energy, but something else: a mixture of chakra and Natural Energy.

Fortunately, he had already considered the possibility that this might happen. His past experiences had once again brought him an immense fortune.

He gave up on absorbing energy from the Naruto world to cultivate. Instead, he circulated one of the Tiangang divine abilities he had once practiced: Nine-Breath Qi Consumption. He breathed in and out for nine breaths, drawing primordial energy from the void and transforming it into magical power for cultivation.

The first wisp of magical power formed in his dantian, like a faint spark flickering in the dark. With this wisp of power, he had officially embarked on the path of cultivation once more and shed his mortal body.

In the days that followed, the infant Naro lay swaddled in his blankets, unable to do anything but cultivate every day.

His parents died when he was a month old. They had treated him as nothing more than an infant and entrusted him to a neighbor, but from their conversation, Uchiha Naro still learned where they had gone: on a border patrol mission for the village.

It wasn't a dangerous mission, just a routine patrol. The round trip should have taken only five days.

But there was no "after." They never came back, and they never would.

The village sent someone with an investigation report. It stated that no bodies had been found, only a hastily written, unfinished mission report. Its final sentence read: "Encountered an Iwagakure squad. The enemy outnumbers us..."

The jōnin who investigated speculated that they might have encountered the enemy near a cliff. They had fallen during the fight, then been swept away by the river.

Naro's parents had no other relatives, so there was no one to adopt him. The clan left him in the care of various elders, and he managed to scrape by until he was four.

When he turned four, the clan returned the small courtyard where his parents had lived to him. It was the Uchiha Clan's longstanding custom: children could inherit everything from their parents, even if they were only four years old. The Uchiha were proud, and they held their bloodline in high regard. They disdained the idea of taking someone else's property.

The courtyard was in a secluded corner of the Uchiha Clan grounds, near the woods at the back of the mountain, just as Uchiha Naro preferred. The house was small, with two rooms and a little yard. Weeds filled the yard, and dust coated the house.

Naro spent a week cleaning the house by himself.

From that day on, he lived alone: a four-year-old child in a secluded corner.

Fortunately, the Uchiha Clan provided a modest living allowance to orphans like him until they graduated from the Academy. The elders who had cared for him also came by from time to time to check on him and bring him food and clothes.

Life was peaceful. Compared to the ever-present Immeasurable Calamity of Annihilation hanging over his head, or the constant torment of illness, these days made him happy.

By observing the stars and anchoring the timing, Uchiha Naro needed to find a day when the time, place, and people were all right, so he could send his parents into the cycle of reincarnation and grant them new lives. It would also repay the kindness they had shown him in this life.

The Supreme Scripture of Causality and Deliverance contained everything under heaven and recorded countless divine abilities and secret arts. After all, the entire world's knowledge had been laid out before him without reservation. No one could resist the temptation to learn as much as possible.

Earthly Fiend Divine Ability: Soul Tracking.

It could track, lock onto, and retrieve the three souls. With a person's birth date and time or something else closely connected to them, one could retrieve their three souls.

Earthly Fiend Divine Ability: Soul Seizing.

It could restrain, control, and seize the seven spirits. With a person's birth date and time or something else closely connected to them, one could seize their seven spirits.

Earthly Fiend Divine Ability: Summoning.

A telekinetic art that brought an object over from somewhere else.

Before the Immeasurable Calamity of Annihilation descended, Zhang Hongchen had been devoted to creating the Supreme Scripture of Causality and Deliverance. Still, he hadn't neglected to learn a few necessary techniques along the way.

After all, even a demonic cultivator like him had plenty of enemies. Now that the world's knowledge had been made public, he'd chosen to flee. How could he be sure others wouldn't choose to drag their enemies into annihilation with them?

That was why he had also practiced many of the divine abilities revealed by the Daoist sects.

After Uchiha Naro sensed that his parents had died in this life while he was still swaddled, he waited until night, when no one was paying attention to him, then used three divine abilities to summon their souls and bodies back to Konoha. He sealed them away in the Heavenly Amenominakanushi space, where he would keep them until his magical power grew stronger.

Uchiha Naro would send his parents into the cycle of reincarnation and grant them new lives.

Based on descriptions of this world in his memories of modern society—

The Pure Land was merely a place controlled by the Sage of Six Paths, who had founded the Ninja Creed and passed down ninjutsu. The souls of everyone who died in the Ninja World went there, where they were bound to remain forever.

With the magical power he had back then, Uchiha Naro couldn't tell whether this world had never had a cycle of reincarnation in the first place, or whether the Sage of Six Paths had done something to disrupt it.

According to the manga, so far, only the souls of the Sage of Six Paths' two sons had continually reincarnated. Everyone else's souls remained in the Pure Land.

On July 15, Year 44 of Konoha, Uchiha Naro unsealed his parents' bodies and cremated them. He placed their ashes in a small urn.

He sealed their souls inside the urn and placed it in the very center of an altar. Then, following the ritual instructions in the Supreme Scripture of Causality and Deliverance, he set out an incense burner, three sacrificial animals, and three kinds of fruit.

He lit incense and burned a prayer tablet, making an offering to the heaven and earth of the Ninja World. To make sure the heaven and earth of the Ninja World could hear him, he kept himself in a state of spiritual perception.

After seven breaths, an indescribable sensation appeared in Uchiha Naro's perception. Then the urn at the center of the altar moved and vanished before his eyes.

The heaven and earth had accepted Uchiha Naro's request and sent his parents into the cycle of reincarnation.

But heaven and earth also made a request of its own—

Bring on the calamity! Cleanse the world!

Since its birth, the Ninja World had already undergone one calamity in secret: the God Tree Calamity brought about by Kaguya Otsutsuki. The shinobi of the Ninja World now focused solely on practicing ninjutsu, destroying nature without giving a thought to replenishing the world. As a result, the energy in the Ninja World kept dwindling. This was also why each generation of shinobi was weaker than the last.

And that wasn't even taking into account the Sage of Six Paths, who had survived to this day. He had established the Pure Land and intercepted the souls of the Ninja World, preventing them from reincarnating. This not only deprived the world of one means of replenishment but also forced it to expend its essence creating souls, so that its newborns wouldn't all be soulless idiots.

In truth, the heaven and earth of the Ninja World had no consciousness of their own. But when Uchiha Naro, whose soul carried the auras of multiple worlds, used an ancient sacrificial rite to make an offering, they gained a sliver of awareness. After expressing their request, they sank back into oblivion, whether Naro agreed to it or not.

Preparing that sacrifice was complicated, but carrying it out was quick.

Naro put away the altar. From then on, he lit a stick of incense every year on the anniversary of his parents' deaths. It was the last thing he could do for them as their "son."

When Uchiha Naro was six, the clan arranged for him to attend the Ninja Academy. Uchiha custom dictated that every member of the clan had to become a shinobi, regardless of their talent or whether they wanted to.

Naro didn't mind. The Ninja Academy was just a place where he could disguise his identity.

He didn't need to learn ninjutsu. His Supreme Scripture of Causality and Deliverance was countless times more powerful than ninjutsu.

But he did need to live "normally." A six-year-old child who didn't go to school and stayed home all day would arouse suspicion.

So he went.

At school, Naro acted like an ordinary student. His grades were average, neither high nor low. His taijutsu was average, and his ninjutsu was average. His genjutsu was a little better, since he had the benefit of his clan's natural talent; he couldn't do too poorly. Overall, he excelled at nothing, but he wasn't at the bottom of the class in anything either.

His teachers described him as "a well-behaved child, but not particularly talented."

His classmates thought, "Uchiha Naro? Oh... that orphan. He's quiet and doesn't talk much."

No one paid attention to him.

That was exactly what he wanted.

When he was seven, the Third Shinobi World War broke out. Konoha went to war with Kumogakure, Iwagakure, and the Mist Village all at once.

The fighting quickly spread from the borders inland. Casualty reports arrived in the village every day, and the Ninja Academy was drawn into the war. Older students graduated early and were sent to the battlefield, while teachers were reassigned to support the front lines. The Academy's classes dwindled.

When he was nine, Naro was also forced to graduate early.

He received his Genin Forehead Protector and was assigned to a support unit sent to the battlefield in the Land of Rain, where Konoha and Iwagakure were fighting.

When he arrived at the battlefield, Naro wasn't sent straight to the front lines. The medical unit under Tsunade was short-handed, so he was sent there to run errands, deliver medicine, carry bodies, and clean operating tables...

He did every filthy, exhausting job there was.

That was where he first met Tsunade. She was in her early thirties that year, at the height of her power.

Her golden hair, fair skin, tall figure, and striking presence made her captivating, even in a medical-ninja lab coat.

But Naro noticed not her appearance, but her eyes. They held a deep weariness and sorrow, as if she had lost something precious that she could never get back.

Naro knew that Tsunade really had lost something precious.

Her younger brother, Nawaki, and her lover, Dan Katō.

Both had died on the battlefield.

Both had died in front of her.

After that, Tsunade changed.

Once one of the spirited Konoha Sannin, she became a disillusioned woman who drank and gambled and suffered from hemophobia. She had even begun to fear the sight of blood, despite being a shinobi...

One day, Naro brought Tsunade a meal.

"Put it down." Tsunade didn't look up from the medical records in her hands.

Naro set the lunchbox on the table and turned to leave.

"Wait," Tsunade called after him.

Naro stopped.

Tsunade raised her head and looked at him. "You're an Uchiha?"

"Yes."

"What's your name?"

"Uchiha Naro."

"How old are you?"

"Nine."

Tsunade fell silent for a moment, then said, "Nine is too young to be on the battlefield."

Naro said nothing.

"What about your parents?"

"They passed away."

"When?"

"When I was a month old."

Tsunade's hand paused, then continued writing in the medical records.

"Who takes care of you?"

"I do."

Tsunade looked up at Naro. The nine-year-old stood straight, his expression calm. He didn't sound like he was complaining; he sounded like he was stating a fact.

"Aren't you afraid?" Tsunade asked.

"Afraid of what?"

"Dying."

Naro thought about it, then said, "No. Everyone dies eventually, so why be afraid?"

Tsunade's hand stopped again. She looked at Naro, her expression complicated.

"You've certainly made peace with it."

"I haven't made peace with it. I've understood it," Naro said. "You die sooner or later. What matters is what you do before you die."

"You're only nine. How do you understand all that?"

"You understand after you've been through enough."

Tsunade put down her pen, leaned back in her chair, and looked up at the ceiling.

"What were your parents like?"

"I don't know. I can't remember them," Naro said. "People say they were ordinary Genin. They weren't very strong, but they were good people."

"Do you miss them?"

Naro was silent for a few seconds, then said, "Yes."

Something shifted in Tsunade's eyes.

"That's why I have to live even better," Naro continued. "I have to live well for their sake, too."

Tsunade froze. She looked at Naro, this nine-year-old child, and for a moment didn't know what to say. His words were like a key, opening a door in her heart that had been locked for a long time.

Nawaki, Dan...

Shouldn't she live well for their sake, too?

"You certainly know what to say." Tsunade smiled, though it was a little forced.

"I'm not just saying it. It's the truth," Naro said. "Lady Tsunade, can I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Do you think the dead would want the living to spend every day in tears, or to live happily?"

Tsunade didn't answer, because she knew the answer. But... she couldn't do it.

"Never mind. Let's talk about something else." Tsunade changed the subject. "You've been helping out here. Have you ever learned Medical Ninjutsu?"

"No. They didn't teach it at school."

"Do you want to learn?"

Naro thought about it, then said, "Yes."

He didn't particularly care about Medical Ninjutsu, but since Tsunade had asked, he might as well say he wanted to learn...

"Then learn." Tsunade stood up. "I'll teach you."

From then on, Naro studied Medical Ninjutsu with Tsunade whenever he wasn't running errands. Tsunade taught him earnestly, and Naro learned quickly. In less than a month, he had mastered the basics of the Mystical Palm Technique.

"You have excellent chakra control," Tsunade said. "Better than most medical ninjas."

Naro didn't explain. It was because he had magical power. Chakra and magical power were different kinds of energy, but they shared certain properties. With magical power as his foundation, it was easy to learn how to use chakra.

After three months in the medical unit, Naro was reassigned. The war had expanded, and the front lines needed more people. He was placed in a combat squad and sent to the front in the Land of Rain.

Before he left, Tsunade called him to her office.

"Naro, the most important thing on the battlefield is staying alive."

"I know."

"Don't try to be a hero. Don't draw attention to yourself. If you can hide, hide. If you can run, run."

"I know."

Tsunade looked at him, hesitating.

"Lady Tsunade, if you have something to say, just say it."

Tsunade took a deep breath. "I remember what you said."

"What did you say?"

"Live better—for their sake, too."

Naro looked at Tsunade and nodded. "Then you have to do the same."

Tsunade smiled. "You little brat, now you're lecturing me?"

Naro smiled, turned, and left. As he walked out of the medical department, he glanced back. Tsunade stood in the doorway, waving at him.

Naro waved back, then followed the others and disappeared in the direction of the front lines.

Naro fought on the front lines for more than a year. He kept his Sharingan hidden, concealed his magic, and used only basic Taijutsu and ninjutsu. He performed adequately, but never stood out.

He was just an ordinary Uchiha Genin who had killed a few careless enemies. More than half the time, he was just finishing them off—someone else would cripple them, and he'd deliver the final blow.

His teammates had a good impression of him and thought he was reliable, but nothing special.

His squad leader's assessment was, "Naro's a lucky kid."

Lucky?

Naro smiled but didn't explain. It wasn't luck. He knew how to survive: when to charge and when to hide; whom he could afford to provoke and whom he couldn't; when he could afford to draw attention and when he couldn't.

That was his secret to surviving the battlefield.

After the Third Shinobi World War ended, Naro returned to Konoha.

He was assigned to the Uchiha Police Force as an ordinary member. His daily work involved patrolling, keeping order, catching petty thieves, and occasionally handling disputes between shinobi, though those were all minor matters.

He was just as unremarkable in the police force. He didn't compete for credit, didn't try to stand out, and didn't take sides. He did whatever his superiors told him to do.

His coworkers thought of him as "a pretty nice guy, that Naro. Just too quiet—he barely makes an impression."

That was exactly the kind of "barely makes an impression" Naro wanted.

Because only then could he cultivate in peace and build up his strength; quietly take away Uchiha Shisui's corpse and soul after his suicide, merge them without attracting anyone's attention with the Hashirama Cells studied by Root, and forge them into a Nether Bone Banner; secretly manipulate events and take certain people away without arousing suspicion...

Only then could he become a worthy player in the shadows, in a Konoha full of people moving pieces on the board.

"Uchiha Itachi! You've gone too far!!!" A furious roar rang out from the Hyuga Clan, echoing across the skies above Konoha...