The meteor swelled rapidly in his vision.
Uchiha Setsuna watched as that burning giant rock blotted out the entire sky, while his body remained trapped in post-evasion recovery lag, unable to move even a single finger.
His player-with the game ID "Stubborn Ironhead"-had just executed a Body Flicker Technique, dodging him right into the dead center of the Tengai Shinsei attack radius.
If this were a reverse-operation competition, Setsuna felt that this player could definitely win a world championship.
Uchiha Setsuna, twelve years old, Genin, a C-rank character in the game Naruto.
Sea-urchin hair, sanpaku eyes, pale skin, pointed chin-if this setup were placed in the neighboring Jujutsu Kaisen set, he would at least be treated on par with Megumi Fushiguro.
Yet in Naruto, he was just a mob character, the kind of extra who received a box lunch after appearing for a single panel in the plot.
His player, Stubborn Ironhead, truly lived up to his name, being stubbornly appalling to an outrageous degree.
Forcefully using a C-Rank Ninja in Super Kage matches was no longer something that could be described as stubbornness; that required having an adamantium core embedded inside one's skull.
What was the concept of a Super Kage match? At the very least, it required a Kage of a Ninja Village or an S-rank Missing-nin. Setsuna in his adult form was only a B-rank Ninja; against those monsters, what could a twelve-year-old adolescent C-Rank Ninja rely on to fight?
Even though the game had weakened the abilities of the original work for the sake of so-called "balance," giving C-Rank Ninjas like them "the possibility of a fight."
Yet one only needed to look at the skill comparison to understand-there was simply no balance in this game.
Look at the opponent.
Madara Uchiha (Impure World Reincarnation), the second form of the Susanoo blotted out the sky and earth, chakra so dense it practically overflowed from the screen. Tengai Shinsei, Perfect Form Susanoo-pull out any random one and they were nation-destroying level techniques.
Now look at Setsuna's own skill slots: Shuriken throwing, Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique, Explosive Tag traps, and his ultimate was the Two-Tomoe Sharingan's extremely minor time stop.
Time stop.
Such a nice-sounding name.
In reality, it only stopped time for about 1.2 seconds, unable to even interrupt the startup frames of the opponent's techniques.
The First Traitor of the Uchiha-this was the only thing in Setsuna's character profile that made him stand out. Back then, when Stubborn Ironhead saw this line, he laughed so hard his palatine tonsils were exposed, muttering something about "which Uchiha isn't rebellious," before his hand slipped and he flipped to Setsuna's ending.
The Three-Tomoe stabbed the Second Hokage, failed, and died.
The player laughed even harder at the time: "Sasuke, I've finally found someone even more stubborn than you!"
And so he stubbornly chose Setsuna, a C-Rank Ninja, to play Super Kage ranked matches.
A sixty-three percent win rate.
Stubborn Ironhead proved one thing with his strength: there are no trash characters, only trash players.
Yet similarly, awesome players would also have moments of mistakes.
Take right now.
One evasion pressed in the wrong direction, and Setsuna was sent directly into the dead center of Tengai Shinsei. The Substitution Technique had already been used, the Summoning Technique had already been used, and all life-saving methods had been completely cleared out.
Boom-
The sound effect of the falling meteor shook the top of Setsuna's skull until it trembled.
Setsuna's health bar went straight from half to zero.
The game over screen popped up, Madara Uchiha's face filling the entire screen, backed by his pretentious dialogue:
"It is impressive that you have the guts to challenge me, but... that is all I can praise you for."
In the image, Setsuna's small body lay in the deep crater smashed out by the meteor, charred all over, completely motionless.
Setsuna tremblingly raised his hand, laboriously raising a middle finger, staring at the blood-red "Defeat" characters above his head, ready to vomit his soul.
I would respect you as a nostalgic player even if you used Team 7 to play Super Kage matches, but you use me? Pure, unadulterated masochism.
Yet at the very least, the player had logged off.
The world finally grew quiet.
Setsuna raised his head, looking at that fake sky above the arena. The clouds had been blasted through by Tengai Shinsei into a huge hole, revealing the pure blue sky of the underlying HDR texture.
Damn it, Madara Uchiha, why is the entire arena just you?
Impure World Reincarnation, Release Impure World, Samsara Reincarnation, Founding of Konoha, Six Paths Madara-various versions of Lord Madara took turns stepping up, turning the arena into a fashion show venue for Madara Uchiha.
The ultimate techniques were practically full-screen AOEs, with Wood Dragons, Susanoo, and Truth-Seeking Orbs flying all over the sky, and he, a C-Rank Ninja, practically had to strain his eyes blind just dodging skills.
The developers called this a balance adjustment?
When on earth was this thing going to get heavily nerfed?
A small, pure-white, sixty-centimeter-tall white figure-a White Zetsu minion-appeared at the edge of the deep crater.
They were the arena cleanup crew in the game.
It extended a small white foot and kicked Setsuna's shoulder.
"The next match is about to start soon, please do not interfere with our work."
Which developer came up with the idea for these sickeningly cute White Zetsu minions?
"So annoying, I know." Setsuna struggled to sit up, tapping the floating exit button suspended in the void.
He was about to return to the character selection interface as well, but before leaving, there was still one thing to do.
Setsuna took a deep breath, and toward the direction where Madara Uchiha had vanished, he shouted that sentence with all the strength in his body:
"Madara Uchiha, I fuck your eighteen generations of ancestors!"
His voice echoed through the ruined arena, and accompanying the pressing of the exit button, he felt his vision blur.
In an instant, the world spun.
When Setsuna opened his eyes again, what he saw was a completely unfamiliar space.
This was a spacious grand hall.
The wooden flooring gleamed with the dark, aged luster of years of polishing, and the walls bore the Uchiha Clan's fan family crest, the huge clan crest casting heavy shadows under the flickering candlelight.
On the lamp stands on both sides, the flame flickered uneasily, stretching the entire space into shifting light and shadow.
The air was permeated with a sense of oppression, and he stood right in the center of the grand hall, surrounded by people sitting on all sides.
All of them wore Uchiha Clan robes, the dark fabric embroidered with red and white fan patterns, and every single person wore the exact same gloomy expression.
Setsuna recognized them-their eyes were all Sharingan.
One-Tomoe, Two-Tomoe, Three-Tomoe, countless pairs of crimson eyes flashed with a cold light amidst the flickering candlelight, all of them staring directly at him.
And at the upper seat at the very end of the grand hall, sitting in the central position, was a man with a head of long black hair draped over his shoulders, his sharply defined face embedded with a pair of deep eyes.
Even if that guy turned to ash, Setsuna would still recognize him; if it wasn't Madara Uchiha, who had just beaten him black and blue in the arena, then who else could it be?
Yet this guy was quite different from the Madara in the arena; he looked a bit younger, appearing even younger than the Madara of the Konoha-founding era, just in his early twenties.
Was this a young Madara Uchiha from the Warring States period?
That guy exuded a suffocating amount of chakra from head to toe, permeating every single corner of the entire grand hall.
Beside Madara sat a young man whose features were extremely similar to his. The same black hair, the same stern silhouette, but his gaze was even sharper, and his hand was already resting on the hilt of the sword at his waist.
At a single glance, Setsuna recognized him-wasn't this the Biting Style Ancestor, Uchiha Izuna?
Wait, so many Uchihas, Madara Uchiha from the Warring States period along with Uchiha Izuna, what did this mean?
A Uchiha Clan Meeting?
As he realized this, Setsuna's brain completely emptied at this moment.
He looked down at his own body, no longer a twelve-year-old youth, but shrunken into a toddler of four or five years old.
He slowly raised his head, meeting Madara Uchiha's playful eyes.
"Ding! The Rebellion Value System has been bound."
A crisp notification sound suddenly exploded in his mind.
"Said to Madara Uchiha: 'Fuck your eighteen generations of ancestors'-Rebellion Points +1."
Setsuna's pupils shrank violently.
He stared fixedly at the man at the upper seat.
Madara Uchiha looked at him, the corners of his mouth slowly hooking into a smile upon seeing a prey's unexpected reaction.
The entire grand hall was silent as death.
He heard it!
That sentence... Madara Uchiha had heard it!
Before you continue