Orphan

Near the lower reaches of the Naka River, in a secluded little grove.

Two young men with the Uchiha Gunbai crest printed on the backs of their clothes pulled their swords from the body of a middle-aged man in his thirties, dressed in a coarse cloth shirt.

The man fell to the ground, clutching his wounds. Blood gushed through the gaps between his fingers. He clearly wasn't going to survive.

Still, he struggled to crawl across the ground, trying to reach the woman and child lying a few steps away.

The pitiful sight did nothing to stir the two young men's compassion. Instead, cruel smiles spread across their faces.

Two pairs of scarlet Sharingan seemed to glow in the night. One of the men glared viciously at the middle-aged man.

"You thought you could leave the Uchiha Clan with those precious Sharingan? This is what happens to you!"

The middle-aged man had been just one step away from reaching his wife and child, but that final step remained beyond him. He closed his eyes forever before he could reach them.

"Hurry up and take that idiot's corpse back. If we wait too long, it'll be harder to remove his eyes."

The Uchiha Clan owed its current position of prestige to the selfless contributions of every clan member.

But there were always some who enjoyed the security the clan provided and accepted the sacrifices of their fellow clan members without a second thought, only to seek an easy escape when it was their own turn to make a sacrifice.

The youngest son of this family of four had been dull-witted since birth, like a puppet, completely unresponsive to any stimulus from the outside world.

Sheltered by his parents, he had muddled through life until the age of eleven without ever learning to speak.

Yet, strangely enough, after word arrived that their eldest son, Qianshu, had fallen in battle, the youngest son, Qiancao, awakened his Sharingan.

Now the Senju Clan and the Uchiha Clan were locked in an ever-escalating struggle to be known as the strongest clan. There was no way these Sharingan could be left to an idiot.

If they were handed over to the clan, at least the Uchiha wouldn't have sheltered an idiot for over a decade for nothing.

The foolish parents had actually refused to let their child offer up his eyes, and had tried to flee with their youngest son.

These troublesome elements who sowed discord had to be eliminated.

Uchiha Ryuji and Uchiha Sawa had done this kind of dirty work before. They relished the thrill of selling their souls to the devil for the sake of the clan.

Just as Sawa was about to use Fire Release to destroy the bodies, Ryuji beside him cried out, "I think that idiot's still alive!"

As Ryuji had hoisted the boy's body onto his back, the boy had suddenly opened his eyes. The red light of the Sharingan had flashed in them, then they had closed again.

Ryuji looked the boy over. The Shuriken that had been lodged in his chest had fallen out, and the wound had stopped bleeding. Miraculously, his heart had started beating faintly again.

Sawa was rather pleased to see the boy was still alive. Removing his eyes while he was alive would make it much easier to preserve the Sharingan.

So the two men hurriedly burned the bodies of the boy's parents, then carefully carried their "prize" all the way back to the Uchiha Clan's Naka Shrine.

Neither of them noticed that, as they left, the boy in their arms opened his eyes again and looked at his parents' bodies. The pattern of his Sharingan trembled strangely, but in the end, he couldn't hold on and passed out once more.

When Qiancao woke again, the first thing he saw was a brazier blazing fiercely.

He could tell he was in a dark, damp cell. The coarse, stiff straw beneath his back dug painfully into his skin.

In the bone-chilling cold, only the brazier before him offered any warmth, making him want to inch closer.

But the moment he tried to move, a stabbing pain shot through his chest. His hands and feet had gone numb, and he couldn't move them at all.

Qiancao quickly thought through his situation.

His surname was Qian, and his given name was Cao. He was a junior at an ordinary university. With the job market so bleak, he had resolved to prepare for graduate school entrance exams and had gone to the library early to study.

He had only just spent two years goofing off, and still wasn't used to settling down to study. Before he knew it, he had fallen asleep with his head on the desk.

That nap had led to trouble. His soul seemed to have entered a small, dark, sealed space. Every day, all he could do was stare blankly at the empty darkness before him, unable to control his body.

He didn't know how much time had passed. At last, when the darkness had nearly driven him mad, the space had shattered, and his soul had regained control of his body.

Before he could figure out what was happening, he saw two red-eyed men carrying him on their backs.

As he watched two bodies being set alight, he couldn't make out their faces, but his eyes ached inexplicably, as if tears were about to spill out.

Then he was utterly exhausted and passed out again.

By the time he woke once more, he was lying here.

A burst of footsteps came from the distance. A man and a woman approached the cell one after the other and looked at Qiancao, lying on the ground.

Ryuji was delighted to see that Qiancao had woken. He said to the woman beside him, "As expected of Lady Hiri, who knows the Senju's healing arts. This kid was so badly injured, yet he woke up so quickly!"

Qiancao listened to Ryuji ramble for a while, but apart from the word "sama," he couldn't understand a thing.

He only watched anime from time to time and wasn't a hardcore fan. He didn't know the first thing about Japanese.

Besides, his mouth was so dry it felt like it was smoking. He wanted to say something, but couldn't make a sound. All he could do was stare blankly at Uchiha Hiri, trying to figure out what was going on.

Hiri wore a dark blue robe that set off her striking white hair, making her stand out among the black-haired Uchiha.

Her white hair was tied back in a neat ponytail. In the firelight beside her, it shimmered.

That white hair had always made the clan members point and whisper about her. Despite her talent, she had never been given the chance to put it to use.

That changed when the clan established a research team dedicated to studying the Sharingan. Uchiha Naoto, the team leader, recognized her abilities and invited Hiri to join.

Her Three-Tomoe Sharingan gazed quietly at Qiancao, who lay on the ground, dazed and foolish. A trace of sympathy passed through her usually cold, scarlet eyes.

Together with her delicate features, that flicker of sympathy gave her a hint of maternal warmth.

Hearing Ryuji praise her healing skills, Hiri smiled bitterly to herself. Saving him? Am I saving him, or pushing him into a pit of fire?

For some reason, Qiancao had a vague feeling that he could trust the woman before him. He struggled to sit up and spoke to her in Chinese. "I... why..."

Before she could even consider what the strange words meant, Hiri was astonished.

Qiancao had injured his chest. How had his mind suddenly become clear? Could awakening his Sharingan have cured whatever was wrong in his head?

If he had remained as foolish and helpless as before, then in this chaotic age, offering up his eyes and finding release might not have been such a bad thing.

But now he was conscious. Could she really watch him die?

Until now, the subjects of Hiri's research had all been clan traitors or people who had been gravely wounded and, with no hope of recovery, had "volunteered" their Sharingan.

The child before her was an innocent little fool who wanted no trouble with the world, and his parents had already paid the price for betraying the clan. Could she still bring herself to remove his Sharingan?

Shocked by her own weakness, and afraid she might let her feelings show, Hiri composed herself and turned to leave. Ryuji hurried after her, forgetting all about Qiancao on the ground.

As the two turned away, Qiancao caught sight of the clan crests on their backs. He was stunned.

"The Sharingan? The Uchiha Gunbai? Is this Naruto?"

The two left the cell and entered a spacious hall, where many people wearing Uchiha Clan uniforms bustled about.

One wall of the hall was lined with countless labeled jars. Every time Uchiha Hiri saw them, her feelings grew complicated.

Ryuji called over a worker in a white coat, then asked Hiri, "How's that kid's condition? Can we take out his Sharingan yet?"

Hiri fell silent. She was thoroughly sick of her job, but even if she refused, they wouldn't spare the boy. They'd simply find someone else to operate on him.

As she thought about it, a reckless idea suddenly flashed through her mind. She said to Ryuji, "There's no need to rush. I've thought of a brilliant plan. I'll report it to Lord Naoto before we decide what to do."

Ryuji had no reason to doubt her. His only task from the clan had been to deal with the Uchiha traitors and recover Qiancao's eyes to keep the Sharingan from falling into outside hands.

Now that the task was done, he didn't need to worry about anything else.

Back in the cell, Qiancao was still trying to work the numbness out of his limbs. Although he had realized this was the world of Naruto, his knowledge of it was limited to the TV anime. He knew nothing about the various spin-offs.

As far as he remembered, the Uchiha Clan should have been wiped out by the time the manga began. The few surviving members were easy to recognize from their appearances. Why were there suddenly so many Uchiha now?

Was this some parallel world from one of the movies? Or had he arrived too early, before the story of Naruto began?

He struggled to roll over, easing the numbness in half his body.

When he turned, he spotted a pair of small, fair feet in the corner of the cell. Their shape and color were flawless.

He followed them up to their owner, only to see a pair of rough, terrifying shackles around her ankles. The sight stirred his sympathy despite himself.

The rest of her lower legs were wrapped in bandages, and the patches of pale skin that showed were covered in dense black script.

Everything else was hidden in shadow. No wonder Qiancao hadn't noticed there was someone else in the corner.

Though he knew she probably wouldn't understand Chinese, Qiancao struggled to speak anyway. "Hey there. Could you give me a hand?"