Uchiha Drowning, Magma Awakening

Three months after enrollment.

The bullying grew worse.

Yashiro had discovered a pattern—Yan would not tattle, fight back, or ask anyone for help.

So the harassment escalated from verbal humiliation to physical abuse.

His textbooks were stolen, bugs were placed on his seat, and he was "accidentally" tripped during recess exercises.

Whenever Minato was around, Yashiro did not make a move.

But Minato could not stay by his side twenty-four hours a day.

Yan chose to endure.

Not because he was weak.

But because he knew perfectly well—this body did not have the strength to resist.

If a twelve-year-old used his fists against another twelve-year-old, winning would bring trouble, while losing would only get him bullied worse.

Besides, the entire Uchiha Police Force stood behind Yashiro.

Endure.

Endure for now.

And so, he endured through three months of ninja academy life. That was how ninjas were forged.

Yan excelled in theory classes—the knowledge of the ninja world from his previous life allowed him to recite its history backward and forward. The examiners even suspected he had secretly read the textbooks beforehand.

But he still ranked at the bottom in practical classes.

He barely passed shuriken throwing through arm strength alone. His taijutsu was merely average because of his frail body, and his chakra control was a complete mess.

Meanwhile, Minato displayed crushingly exceptional talent.

His shuriken never missed.

His chakra control was far more precise than that of his peers.

The teachers had begun calling him a "genius."

Yan, on the other hand, was labeled a "problem student."

Their seats were arranged together.

Because Minato had requested it himself.

Every noon, Minato brought two lunchboxes.

"I made too much" was his usual excuse.

Yan never exposed him.

After every meal, he simply washed the empty lunchbox clean and returned it to Minato.

One day during recess, Minato lay sprawled over his desk and suddenly said:

"When I grow up, I want to become Hokage and protect everyone in the village."

Yan froze for a second as he bit into his rice ball.

He knew Minato would become the Fourth Hokage.

He also knew Minato would die on the night of the Nine-Tails attack.

Twenty-one years old. (Born on January 25 of Konoha Year 27; died during the Nine-Tails attack in Konoha Year 48, aged twenty-one. Hokage candidate at twenty, Hokage at twenty-one. What a beast!)

Gone far too young.

To seal the Nine-Tails, he and his wife would die before their own son.

"...You will," Yan said quietly.

Minato turned to him, smiling brilliantly.

"You'll become an amazing ninja too! We'll do it together!"

Yan did not reply.

He simply stuffed the last bite of rice ball into his mouth and chewed it hard.

It was a little bitter.

The seventeenth day of the third month after enrollment.

School was over.

As usual, Yan walked out through the academy gates.

Minato had been kept behind by the examiner for extra training today, so they could not leave together.

Yan headed toward the clan grounds alone.

When he reached the bank of the Nanga River, he stopped.

Five people blocked the road ahead.

Yashiro stood at the front with his arms folded, a malicious grin curling his lips.

The four lackeys behind him spread out in a fan, sealing off every possible escape route.

"We've been waiting for you, trash."

Yan surveyed the terrain.

The Nanga River lay to his left, its waters swift. The clan wall stood to his right, impossible to climb. People blocked both the front and rear.

A standard ambush formation.

These kids had decent tactical awareness.

Too bad they were using it in the wrong place.

"Minato Namikaze isn't here to save you today." Yashiro stepped closer, one step at a time. "You know the rules, right?"

The lackeys snickered as they closed in.

"Kneel." Yashiro looked down at Yan. "Crawl through our legs, and we'll let you go."

Yan looked at him.

At that face that had not even earned a single manga panel in the original story.

His heart was strangely calm.

Not because he was not angry.

But because the rage had built up to its limit and instead turned into a cold clarity.

"I won't kneel," Yan said.

Yashiro raised his brows. "You won't kneel?"

He walked up to Yan, bent down, and whispered in his ear—

"Were your parents this tough when they died on a mission too?"

Yan's pupils constricted sharply.

The next second—

A kick slammed into his back.

He lost his balance instantly.

His body fell backward.

The icy waters of the Nanga River swallowed him whole.

The rushing current dragged his body downstream, tumbling him over and over. Faint laughter rang in his ears while muddy water churned before his eyes.

Cold.

Bone-piercing cold.

Water poured into his nose, throat, and lungs.

His body grew heavier and his consciousness drifted farther away.

His past and present lives flashed before his eyes like a carousel—

The office where he worked overtime.

The workstation where he had died from overwork.

The blinding white light on the ICU ceiling.

The unfamiliar ceiling above his crib after reincarnation.

The deserted funeral hall before his parents' portraits.

Yashiro's mockery.

The cold stares of his clansmen.

The glaring "Fail" on the examiner's score sheet.

Then—

The smiling face of a blond boy.

"Flames are incredibly powerful!"

His consciousness cleared in that instant.

Not the kind of clarity that slowly returned.

The kind that came when a knife was driven into your heart.

Why?

Why do I have to die here?

I lived twenty-six years in my previous life, worked myself to death with overtime, and didn't even leave behind a final word. Then I crossed over, thinking heaven had finally opened its eyes, only to get a body useless at chakra, a bloodline on a countdown to extermination, and a life where people treated me like a dog beneath their feet.

I know when the Nine-Tails will come.

I know how the Uchiha will be wiped out.

I know Pain will destroy Konoha.

I know Kaguya will be revived.

I know everything!

But I can't even swim across the Nanga River?

I can't even beat a bunch of extras who won't survive more than three manga panels?

I won't accept this.

I fucking won't accept this!!

Just as his consciousness was about to go out completely—

A cold mechanical voice rang out in his mind.

[Ding—]

[Host detected in critical condition.]

[Strength of obsession... has exceeded the critical threshold.]

[System activated.]

[Congratulations, host, for obtaining the legendary Devil Fruit—Magma-Magma Fruit!]

[Beginner's gift pack issued: Physique Enhancement: Basic / Observation Haki: Basic]

[Special notice: The Magma-Magma Fruit and Uchiha bloodline have been detected to possess high compatibility—evolution path unlocked.]

Yan's eyes flew open.

In the depths of the icy river.

Within the darkness of imminent death.

He saw the panel.

Simple white text floated in the space of his consciousness, every word branding itself into his mind like a red-hot iron.

The Magma-Magma Fruit.

The power wielded by Red Dog, one of the three admirals of the One Piece world.

The strongest offensive power among Logia types.

The ability to create, control, and transform into—

Magma.

Yan smiled soundlessly underwater.

So that was it.

So my cheat—

Would only arrive after I nearly died again.

The next second.

His body began to heat up, and his right arm began to burn.

It was not chakra.

It was not ninjutsu.

It was a completely different power, one that came from another world.

Dark crimson light seeped from beneath his skin. The muscles and bones in his arm seemed to have been ignited from within.

The temperature soared.

The river water around him began to boil.

Bubbles surged wildly upward.

Then—

BOOM!!!

The surface of the Nanga River exploded.

A blazing red pillar of light shot from the riverbed into the sky, instantly tearing a massive hole through the river's surface.

The boiling water became steam that filled the air. Within a radius of over ten meters, vapor churned so thickly that nothing could be seen.

On the riverbank.

Yashiro and his four lackeys were knocked to the ground by the shockwave.

Scalding vapor rushed into their faces, burning them as they screamed and crawled backward.

"What—what is that!?"

The steam slowly dispersed.

A figure rose from the riverbank.

Uchiha En.

White heat vapor billowed from his entire body.

His clothes had already been scorched into tatters.

His right arm—

His entire right arm was no longer flesh and blood.

Dark-red magma covered every inch from his shoulder to his fingertips, flowing slowly as though it were alive.

Scalding droplets of lava fell from his fingertips onto the pebbles by the river, hissing as they vaporized.

Dark-red veins of magma spread from his right shoulder to his neck, crawling all the way up the right side of his face.

His right eye glimmered faintly dark red.

Like the mouth of a volcano on the verge of erupting.

Some of the pebbles along the riverbank had been melted by the intense heat, then cooled into a layer of black, glass-like solidified rock.

This mark would remain forever on the banks of the Nanga River.

Yashiro collapsed onto the ground in terror.

"Mon... monster!" one of his lackeys shrieked.

"He's not Uchiha! Uchiha don't have powers like this!"

En lowered his head and looked at his right hand.

Magma flowed slowly in his palm, so hot that even the air was warping.

He clenched his fist.

Lava seeped through his fingers and dripped down.

"Monster?"

En looked up at the trembling children on the riverbank.

He smiled.

There was thirty percent relief in that smile, and seventy percent savagery.

"That's right."

"From now on—"

He raised his magma-transformed right arm.

Killing intent surged up from the depths of his heart.

Yashiro's face. The lackeys' faces. The faces that had mocked him, trampled on him, and treated him like a dog.

One punch could melt each of them.

Leave none alive.

But just as the killing intent was about to break through his reason—

A smiling face flashed through his mind.

Golden hair.

Blue eyes.

"You'll definitely become an amazing ninja someday!"

The killing intent ebbed away like the tide.

If he killed them now, people would definitely find out.

The disappearance of several children would inevitably be traced back to him, the "useless orphan."

En slowly lowered his arm.

The magma cooled.

The dark-red patterns faded from his face.

His right arm returned to its normal skin tone.

He looked at Yashiro.

At the "young master of the Uchiha" who had wet himself and was trembling on the ground.

He said only one word.

"Scram."

Yashiro fled, scrambling and crawling.

His lackeys ran even faster than he did.

Their screams and cries faded into the distance.

Only En remained on the riverbank.

He stood where he was and looked toward Konoha.

The setting sun had set the sky ablaze in orange-red.

Minato was probably still practicing shuriken in the direction of the Ninja Academy.

That idiot was clearly a commoner, yet he worked harder than anyone else.

"Thank you, Minato,"

En said softly.

"If I hadn't remembered your face, I might really have killed them just now. You really are a little sun!"

As soon as he finished speaking—

A strange perception suddenly spread through his mind.

[Observation Haki: Basic]

Perception radius: fifty meters.

Within roughly fifty meters, the presence of every living thing appeared clearly in his consciousness like a faint flame.

And now—

One flame was rapidly approaching.

The speed of running, the anxious presence.

It was a child his age.

The remaining moisture on En's body was instantly evaporated by the heat within him, and his clothes became dry again—though they were still tattered, at least they were no longer soaking wet.

A few seconds later.

A golden-haired boy ran to the riverbank, panting heavily.

"En!!"

Minato bent over, gulping for air, his forehead covered in sweat.

"I heard they took you here—you, are you okay?"

He raised his head and saw En standing safely by the riverbank.

He froze for a moment.

"You... are you all right?"

En looked into those blue eyes filled with concern.

The scorching magma in his chest that had nearly gone out of control just now no longer seemed quite so hot.

"I'm fine," he said. "I just went for a swim."

Minato blinked, his gaze sweeping over En's tattered clothes, the steam still lingering over the river, and several smoking lumps of unidentified black matter on the ground.

He wanted to ask something.

But in the end, he merely grinned.

"That's good! Come on, I'll treat you to ramen!"

"Do you have money?"

"No! But the owner of Ichiraku is really nice. We can eat on credit!"

"...You really are an idiot."

"Hahahaha!"

The two boys' silhouettes disappeared into the sunset.

On the surface of the Nanga River behind them, the last wisp of steam slowly dispersed.

The black layer of solidified magma by the riverbank glimmered faintly dark red beneath the setting sun.

At the same time.

Konoha's Hokage Building.

An ANBU ninja knelt on one knee before the Third Hokage.

"Lord Third, the sensory unit detected an abnormal energy fluctuation in the direction of the Nanga River. The source of the fluctuation... came from near the Uchiha compound."

Hiruzen Sarutobi exhaled a puff of smoke.

"What kind of fluctuation?"

"...Unable to determine. It does not belong to any known chakra nature."

Through the swirling smoke, the Third Hokage narrowed his eyes slightly.

"Send someone to investigate."

"Yes."

The ANBU ninja vanished.

The Third Hokage set down his pipe and picked up a document from his desk.

It was the enrollment evaluation report for this year's Ninja Academy freshmen.

His finger stopped on one name.

Uchiha En.

The remarks column read: Extremely poor chakra talent. Failed the Three Basic Techniques. Requires continued observation.

The Third Hokage stared at that name for a long time.