Rebirth

"The Uchiha Clan can have no future in Konoha, and it'll be no different from now on! Are you willing to keep scraping by like this? Or would you rather follow me and fight for our future one more time?"

"We can leave Konoha and find a place where only our Uchiha Clan holds power!"

In a daze, Qile seemed to hear a familiar voice echoing beside his ear. Full of curiosity, he slowly raised his head and looked toward the person on the platform, speaking so passionately.

The man was tall, with glossy black hair that fell nearly to his waist...

But... huh?

After sucking in a sharp breath, Qile's eyes flew wide. Wasn't that Lord Madara?!

What!? A cosplay convention!?

His mind went completely blank. He felt dizzy and had no idea what was going on.

So he decided to cautiously look around...

But just as he was about to move, a hand suddenly shoved his head down.

At the same time, a clear, slightly childish voice rang out. "Don't move around. We'll get caught!"

"Qile! Have you lost your mind? We snuck in here to eavesdrop on the clan meeting. That's already a huge taboo! Do you want to give us away, too? If we get caught and they cane us, will you take the beating for me?" As the child spoke, one small hand pressed hard on Qile's head while the other clamped over his mouth.

At that moment, Qile, who had been itching to look around, suddenly behaved himself.

It wasn't because the slightly childish voice beside him had warned him. His attention was completely fixed on the platform ahead.

The person standing up there looked almost exactly like Uchiha Madara from the anime!

Even worse, the man seemed to have noticed the commotion and glanced toward their hiding place...

That single glance made Qile feel as if he'd fallen into an icy abyss. His whole body went cold.

He saw a frightening red glint flash in the man's eyes—the dazzling, deeply unsettling Sharingan!

Oh god... How could this be?

Horrified, he finally understood: somehow, he'd transmigrated!

That cold gaze had been unmistakable!

Thinking back to all the scenes in the anime he'd watched, Qile broke out in a cold sweat.

In this bloody, murderous Naruto World, there was no such thing as fairness, justice, or morality.

Only the strong could survive. The weak were just meat on someone else's chopping block, waiting to be slaughtered.

Even innocent people who never hurt anyone often couldn't escape being killed...

Qile's mind raced as countless questions surged through it.

He was utterly bewildered. How could he have fallen asleep and woken up in this strange world?

Did transmigration not cost anything or what!!!!

Why couldn't he have ended up in a romance anime!!!

"Qile?" The same clear, childish voice sounded in his ear again, like a stream of water flowing through his heart.

After calling to him several times and giving him a gentle shake, the child finally pulled him out of his daze and back to reality.

"Qile? Are you okay? Did I push too hard? Please don't be hurt." Looking at the frightened expression on the child's face, Qile felt his thoughts grow even more tangled, as if his mind had been caught in a ball of tangled threads.

"Uh, I'm fine..." Qile knew that the more he said, the more likely he was to make a mistake. Until he had a clearer idea of the situation, it seemed best to stay quiet and avoid making things worse with the wrong words.

Still, he'd learned his name from the child standing in front of him...

Qile...

He stared silently at the child before him, wondering how he should deal with this sudden change.

Life was like a shifting fog, full of endless unknowns and uncertainties. You could never know what maddening, unbelievable thing might happen to you in the very next moment.

Just then, Qile felt as if a sharp awl had plunged into his head. A piercing pain instantly spread through his skull, as though it were about to tear his consciousness apart.

For that moment, the pain felt worse than every torture in the world combined. It was as if time had stopped and the entire world had been reduced to unbearable agony.

Yet even that brief moment of pain was enough to leave a permanent mark on him. He never wanted to experience it a second time.

But astonishingly, as the intense pain faded, Qile also gained the memories of this body.

It was the second year since Konoha's founding. In the first half of this year, all Five Great Nations had signed the momentous non-aggression treaty.

Thinking about that, and recalling the words he'd just heard, Qile realized this had to be the year that legendary Lord Madara left the Uchiha Clan and resolutely set out on his own.

It was also the beginning of the Uchiha Clan's countdown to extinction. There was still plenty of sand in the hourglass, but one day, it would all run out!

Perhaps the Uchiha Clan's fate had already begun to change the moment they abandoned Madara and turned to Konoha.

The older child standing beside him was Kagami Uchiha, his clan brother. They weren't entirely unrelated by blood, after all. They were both Uchiha, and it was unquestionable that they shared similar bloodlines. It was just that they were rather distantly related.

From his memories, Qile could tell that he was more closely related by blood to Lord Madara, who was speaking on the platform.

If they counted back three generations, they shared an ancestor!

And yet, although they came from the same line, Madara's branch had awakened its bloodline far more completely. Their Sharingan had awakened as if it cost nothing! Madara and Izuna had even developed Mangekyo Sharingan.

Compared with them, well... It wouldn't be polite to say more about his own branch!

And that wasn't all. By Qile's generation, he was the only one left. All his immediate family had already died...

"Can none of you really feel it? Beneath the appearance of peace we have now, there is no true tranquility!" From the high platform, Madara slowly surveyed the clan members around him.

A trace of disappointment flickered in his eyes—disappointment in the clan members who had followed him all this time.

Once, every word he spoke had been accepted and carried out without hesitation by his clansmen.

But now, this brief peace had blinded their once-sharp eyes. Little by little, they had begun to turn against his convictions.

If that was the case, why should he keep hoping for their understanding?

Perhaps they were no longer the group who could fight beside him and pursue their dreams together.

"I've said all I need to say. Anyone willing to leave Konoha with me, stand up now!" Madara's deep, powerful voice echoed through the air, striking the hearts of everyone present.

As Madara's words faded, the others kept their heads bowed, trembling with fear as if they'd been frozen in place. None dared lift their heads and meet his sharp, complicated gaze.

But not one of them stood to show they were willing to leave Konoha with him. In the end, they couldn't bear to give up the peace they could see before them!

Madara stood motionless, overcome by an indescribable sense of loss.

He'd thought his words would move them, that some of his clansmen would understand him and choose to leave with him.

At that moment, Madara couldn't help wanting to laugh. It wasn't mockery of his somewhat foolish clansmen, but laughter at himself.

"In that case, we'll each go our separate..." Madara's voice held a hint of helplessness and weariness.

Just then, a clear, childish voice suddenly rang out from one side of the platform, like the brightest star in the night sky, instantly drawing everyone's attention.

"I'll go with you!"