Ambush

The ninja academy admission notice and the address of his assigned orphan housing arrived at the orphanage three days later.

The director was an elderly woman with graying hair. Taking the paper stamped with Konoha's seal, she ran her fingers over it several times, her eyes reddening.

"Good... Having the talent to become a ninja is a good thing. You'll be able to stand on your own now." Her voice caught as she rubbed Qianyu's hair. "But from now on... be careful. Don't push yourself too hard. If you can't win, run. Understand?"

The other children at the orphanage gathered around him, their eyes filled with envy and reluctance. Qianyu had spent six years here. Though he had always felt out of place, seeing those familiar little faces now still sent a subtle ripple through his heart.

He did not have much luggage—just a few changes of old clothes and the hair tie he had used for years, bleached pale from washing.

The farewell did not last long. His new home was on the outskirts of Konoha.

The house was old, its walls marked by repairs. The little yard before the door was overgrown with weeds, carrying a desolate air of having been hastily abandoned by time and its former owner.

The interior was simple to the point of being shabby: the only furniture was a hard wooden bed, a wobbly table, and a chair.

"Pretty much the same setup as the young master's mansion." Qianyu set down his small bundle and looked around. Surprisingly... it was not bad. At least he had the place to himself, so he would not have to worry about opening his eyes in the middle of the night and seeing a White Zetsu head poking up from the floor—though he knew that if that thing truly wanted to watch him, walls would not stop it.

He used the first installment of Konoha's orphan independence allowance to shop at the market. He bought necessities such as bedding, pots, bowls, and a little food that would keep well. After hesitating over the remaining money, he entered a ninja tool shop and bought an ordinary, unsharpened practice kunai and several shuriken.

The weighty metal in his hand gave him a faint, illusory sense of security.

By the time he finished shopping, dusk had fallen. Rather than immediately return to that cold, empty house, he wandered aimlessly through the streets as lights gradually flickered on, observing this village that was both familiar and strange.

Only after night had deepened and the streets had emptied did he carry his bags into a narrow path leading to his residence. The streetlamps stood far apart, casting dim light. Silent houses and tall trees lined both sides, throwing down heavy shadows.

His footsteps sounded especially clear in the silence. Then he heard two more sets of deliberately softened footsteps that did not belong to him, approaching from ahead and behind.

Qianyu's heart tightened, and he stopped.

At the intersections before and behind him, a masked figure appeared at each end, both dressed in dark bodysuits and blocking his way. They bore no insignia. In the dim light, their eyes were cold and indifferent as they locked onto him.

"You've got to be kidding..." Qianyu's throat went dry as he slowly set down what he was carrying. "I'm just a kid who just moved here. I don't have any money."

Neither of them responded, nor did they even exchange a glance. The masked man in front pushed off the ground, shooting forward like an arrow. The kunai in his hand carved a chilling arc through the faint light as it stabbed straight at Qianyu's face! There was no probing, no warning—the first strike was meant to kill!

Every hair on Qianyu's body stood on end. His instinct to survive overwhelmed all thought. He jerked backward and to the side, snatching up the shopping bag he had just put down to shield himself. "Riiip!" The kunai tore effortlessly through the fabric, its momentum unabated as it grazed the outside of his left arm.

A searing pain struck at once, and warm liquid soaked through his sleeve. Qianyu grunted, threw aside the ruined bag, and instinctively gripped the newly bought practice kunai tucked at the back of his waist with his right hand. But his opponent gave him no chance to catch his breath. The other man had already closed in from behind, a fierce punch hurtling toward the center of his back!

Qianyu threw himself forward in a miserable dive and rolled across the ground, barely avoiding it. He swung the unsharpened kunai to block, and metal clashed with a piercing screech that numbed the web of his hand. Strength, speed, technique—he was outclassed in every respect. The two opponents were like precise killing machines, working seamlessly together, every strike aimed at a vital point.

Despair began to spread. Was he really going to die here for no reason just after earning admission to the academy? Who were they? Root? An ANBU test? Or people from another village?

"Bang!" A heavy kick slammed brutally into his abdomen. Qianyu curled up in pain, his entire body sent flying into a roadside tree trunk. He coughed out a mouthful of saliva tinged with blood. The masked man before him arrived in an instant, the point of his kunai rapidly enlarging in Qianyu's pupils as it stabbed straight for his throat!

I'm going to die!

At that very instant, something deep within his mind broke with a crack.

It was as though a thin veil that had always covered his senses had been violently torn away, or a rusted valve had been blasted apart by surging pressure. The world suddenly became incomparably clear—the minute trajectory of the masked man's movements, the contractions of his muscles, the shriek of the kunai cutting through the air. Every detail flooded into him madly, and even the flow of time seemed to twist.

He saw the angle at which the kunai was coming, and immediately afterward, with difficulty, predicted the opponent's next possible change of move.

His desire to survive merged with this sudden, violent clarity, driving him to use his last bit of strength to fiercely swing the practice kunai upward!

"Clang!"

Metal collided, and sparks flew. Qianyu's block barely deflected the fatal strike. The kunai grazed past his neck, leaving behind a thin line of blood. But the overwhelming difference in strength knocked the weapon from his hand completely, sending the practice kunai flying.

Yet both masked men froze at the same time. They did not attack again. Instead, they stared fixedly at Qianyu's face with an extremely strange look in their eyes, especially at his eyes.

After several suffocating seconds of silence, the two exchanged a glance. Without saying anything, one tossed a standard-issue kunai at Qianyu's feet, then blurred and vanished as though melting into the night. The other retreated swiftly as well.

The alley returned to silence. Only Qianyu remained, slumped against the tree and clutching his neck as he gasped violently, every breath carrying pain and bloody foam. The wound on his left arm was deep, blood still flowing from it and staining a large patch of ground red. The spot where he had been kicked in the abdomen also throbbed with twisting pain.

Just then, the ground beside his feet rippled like water. That familiar figure slowly emerged—it was the twisted White Zetsu.

It first swept its beady eyes over Qianyu's bedraggled state, then looked at the kunai the masked man had left behind. Then it spoke in that distinctive voice, carrying a slightly sticky sort of amusement.

"Well, well, little dried fish, you're bleeding. But..." It leaned closer, nearly pressing its face against Qianyu's. "Your talent seems really good. A little faster than old Madara expected, even."

Qianyu was completely drained, barely able to lift a hand. He only watched it warily. He could sense no killing intent from White Zetsu—there was even a strange sort of... satisfaction?

White Zetsu tilted its head, picked up the kunai from the ground, wiped its metal surface with its twisted fingers, and held it out to Qianyu.

"Take a look," it said, its tone as light as if it were sharing a fun game.

Qianyu panted, glancing at it in confusion before looking at the kunai reflecting the dim streetlamp glow. After hesitating, he took it and raised the faintly reflective metal surface toward his face.

In the blurry reflection was a young face smeared with blood and dirt, slightly pale from pain and exhaustion. But what nearly froze his blood were his eyes—

His formerly black pupils had turned a vivid red. And within that blood-red color, a single black tomoe slowly, steadily revolved.

The Sharingan.

The One-Tomoe Sharingan.

Qianyu's breathing stopped completely, his mind blank.

"Hehe." White Zetsu crouched beside him, propping its chin on its hand as it admired his shocked expression. "That startled you, didn't it? Don't panic, don't panic. It's normal. After all..."

With that twisted finger, it lightly tapped Qianyu's still-bleeding left arm.

Qianyu looked down instinctively. At the edges of the deep wound, fresh flesh was writhing and knitting together at a speed visible to the naked eye. The bleeding stopped rapidly, and within a dozen seconds, the wound contracted and scabbed over. It had not fully healed yet, but that recovery speed was absolutely abnormal.

"After all," White Zetsu said, withdrawing its finger and casually dropping a bombshell, "you were meticulously cultivated by Lord Madara. As for me, I was ordered to take care of you... though old Madara is already dead."

Qianyu mechanically turned his eyes toward White Zetsu. A hoarse rasp came from his throat, but he could not ask a single question.

"Simply put," White Zetsu scratched its wild grass-like hair, seeming to organize its thoughts, "Lord Madara is basically your father. Mm, that's the easiest way to understand it."

Fa... father? Madara Uchiha?? Madara Uchiha was my dad?!!

Qianyu's mouth opened and closed. In his extreme shock, an absurd question slipped out. "...Then, who's my mom?"

White Zetsu blinked its beady eyes, seeming to think seriously for several seconds.

"Mm..." It dragged out the sound. "Judging from the source materials, probably Hashirama Senju? Mm-hmm, yes. You were made by fusing Lord Madara's cells with Lord Hashirama's cells, then using the Gedo Statue's Yin-Yang Release... uh, to 'give birth' to you? That was probably how it worked."

It said it so casually, as though it were describing how to make a pancake with leftover rice and eggs.

Qianyu: "..."

He stared straight at White Zetsu, the expression on his face completely frozen. All the pain, shock, and confusion were crushed beneath an even greater absurdity, one powerful enough to shatter all common sense.

I was... a fusion of Madara Uchiha's and Hashirama Senju's... cells... a creation of Yin-Yang Release?

He slowly lowered his head and looked at the wound on his left arm, which had stopped bleeding and scabbed over but still itched faintly. Then he raised his head and looked at the slowly spinning black tomoe in his eye reflected in the kunai.

Finally, he looked at the twisted White Zetsu before him, whose face wore an utterly matter-of-fact expression, even seeming to say, "Hurry up and praise me for explaining that so clearly."

Cangshu Qianyu, six years old, in the sixth year since arriving in this world, on this midnight when he had nearly been killed, finally gained a preliminary understanding of his bizarre origins—one that utterly shattered his worldview.

He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

Only a blank, roaring emptiness remained in his mind—

Fuck.