Uchiha Mo

[Storage space. Deposit your brain here and receive a pair of Nine-Tomoe Rinnegan for free!]

The reek of blood filled Qin Mo's nose.

This was his third month since transmigrating to this world, and his swaddled body trembled as thick smoke choked him.

The clash of metal rang beside his ears. His mother carried him as she sprinted down the corridor, and the fires rising all across the clan grounds lit her pale profile.

"Whoosh!"

The sound of something tearing through the air brushed past his ear, and three shuriken nailed themselves into the wooden pillar behind them.

Qin Mo struggled to turn his neck. Through a gap in the swaddling cloth, he saw three dark figures leap down from the eaves, the clan crest of a double-edged kunai on their forehead protectors gleaming coldly under the moonlight.

The Senju Clan.

"An Uchiha woman?" The ninja in the lead licked the blood from his kunai. "Lucky us, and with such a tiny brat too..."

His mother suddenly shoved him into a hidden compartment in the corridor.

In the instant before the wooden panel closed, Qin Mo saw the woman's trembling fingers as she formed hand seals. The blaze of Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique painted the entire corridor red, and screams rose and fell amid the sizzling of scorched flesh.

[Ding! Host detected on the verge of death. Newbie gift pack issued immediately.]

[Ding! Congratulations, host. You have obtained Three-Tomoe Sharingan (permanent).]

[Ding! Congratulations, host. Your total chakra has been raised to jonin level.]

The instant the mechanical voice exploded in his mind, Qin Mo felt an icy aura surge out of his eyes.

The moonlight seeping through the crack in the hidden compartment suddenly became clear down to the finest detail. He could see the path of the blood droplets spraying out when a kunai pierced his mother's heart, and he could catch every angle of each finger as the Senju ninja formed hand seals.

"This brat...!" The hidden compartment was violently ripped open, and a bloodstained kunai stabbed straight at his face.

Qin Mo instinctively widened his eyes, and three tomoe spun wildly in his blood-red pupils.

The ninja in the lead suddenly froze.

Reflected in his gradually dilating pupils was the uncanny red glow in the infant's eyes.

When Uchiha Tajima arrived with the clansmen, what he saw was his wife lying in a pool of blood, using her body to shield the infant.

Three elite Senju ninjas lay on the ground in twisted postures, their own kunai stuck in their throats, their faces frozen in expressions of extreme terror.

"Miyuki!"

Tajima picked up his wife from the pool of blood. The three tomoe in his eyes slowly transformed into three scarlet fan blades, blooming sharply in a perfectly symmetrical circular array.

Qin Mo could feel Tajima's scrutinizing gaze scrape across his skin like a blade.

He deliberately let the tomoe in his eyes gradually fade, disguising himself as an ordinary baby as he wailed in his mother's arms.

Crows cried in the distance, and flames rose again at the edge of the clan grounds, but no one was paying attention anymore.

All the Uchiha Sharingan flickered in the darkness, like a pack of jackals that had found prey.

Time flew by. Eight years later...

Eight-year-old Qin Mo crouched at the edge of the training ground, watching Madara blast Fire Release: Great Fire Dragon Technique toward the targets.

Izuna copied the hand seals beside him, though the fire dragon he breathed out was somewhat weaker than Madara's.

"Mo, your turn."

Madara shook out his long hair, soaked with sweat, and there were still bloodstains on his cuffs from the morning's mission.

Qin Mo slowly walked to the center of the training ground and deliberately missed two seals while forming them.

The fireball he breathed out barely ignited a straw target five meters away, no different from the level of an ordinary eight-year-old child in the clan.

"Mo, you still need to work twice as hard!" Madara said.

Qin Mo could only pretend to nod seriously.

Uchiha Tajima stood in the distance, watching the chakra flow of the three children in the courtyard.

"Mo, watch closely!" Madara demonstrated the sequence of hand seals for Great Fire Dragon Technique again.

In Qin Mo's Three-Tomoe field of vision, each seal broke down into precise chakra nodes, as clear as deconstructing a mathematical formula in his previous life.

But he only imitated clumsily, making the little fireball slam crookedly into a rock.

Amid the scattering sparks, he saw Uchiha Tajima on the clan grounds' watchtower, observing this place.

Sparks landed on the hem of Qin Mo's clothes, and he pretended to slap at them in panic, while his peripheral vision stayed locked on the figure atop the watchtower.

Uchiha Tajima's chakra was like a bottomless lake, with whirlpools hidden beneath its calm surface.

"Father." Madara suddenly turned toward the watchtower and bowed.

Qin Mo deliberately stumbled, letting the little wooden puppet in his sleeve pouch fall to the ground.

It was the Nine-Tailed Fox he had "failed" thirty-seven times to carve yesterday.

When Tajima appeared in the training ground with the Body Flicker Technique, the puppet had just rolled to his feet.

"Your chakra control is too poor." Tajima picked up the puppet, his thumb rubbing over the crooked carving marks. "But your memory for shapes is very accurate."

Qin Mo lowered his head, letting his bangs cover his suddenly constricted pupils.

Of course he remembered that the model for this puppet was something Tajima had shown using a Sharingan genjutsu at last month's clan meeting.

"Madara, take your younger brothers to the shrine." Tajima suddenly tossed the puppet back. "There will be a clan meeting tonight."

When dusk dyed the clan grounds red, Qin Mo knelt in the last seat in the shrine.

His knees had already gone numb, but compared to that bloody night eight years ago, this bit of pain was nothing.

"The Senju Clan has appeared at the northwestern border of our clan grounds. Their scouting team is equipped with sensory ninjas from the Uzumaki Clan." Tajima unfurled a scroll.

Qin Mo immediately recognized it as encrypted intelligence that required the Sharingan to decipher.

Izuna shifted uneasily.

But Qin Mo was staring at the scorch marks along the edge of the scroll.

"Mo." Tajima's voice suddenly drew near. "What did you see?"

The shrine fell silent in an instant.

Madara's chakra fluctuated, and Izuna quietly grabbed his older brother's sleeve.

"Father, I want to follow my eldest brother onto the battlefield." Though Qin Mo's voice was young, it carried an unquestionable firmness.

Uchiha Tajima's brows furrowed by an almost imperceptible degree.

Under the candlelight, his Mangekyo Sharingan slowly turned, scrutinizing the young son kneeling in the last seat.

The air inside the shrine seemed to solidify, and even Madara and Izuna subconsciously held their breath.

"Reason." Tajima's voice was low and cold.

Qin Mo raised his head, a perfectly measured hint of stubbornness flashing through his black eyes.

He said softly, "When my eldest brother was my age, he was already leading a squad to kill enemies on the battlefield."

"But you haven't even mastered the most basic Fire Release yet. What's the difference between you going to the battlefield now and throwing your life away?" Madara could not help standing up as he spoke.

The candle flames inside the shrine suddenly swayed violently.

Qin Mo did not answer Madara. Instead, he raised his head and looked straight into Uchiha Tajima's eyes.

"Father, may I ask you to... dismiss the others?"

His voice was very light, yet it carried a calm that could not be ignored.

Uchiha Tajima's Mangekyo Sharingan narrowed slightly. After a moment of silence, he raised a hand and waved.

"Madara stays. Everyone else, leave for now."

Izuna opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but under his father's gaze, he could only lower his head in the end and answer, "Yes."

He looked at Qin Mo worriedly, then turned and left the shrine, pulling the door shut.