Konoha Year 2, summer.
"Langlang, be careful! Don't fall."
Watching one-year-old Uchiha Yinglang run around the courtyard giggling, Uchiha Ning couldn't help marveling at how lively and cheerful her son was.
Over the past year, Uchiha Ning had not only raised her son healthy and strong, but also given Uchiha Yinglang a nickname-Langlang.
"Mommy," Uchiha Yinglang said in his babyish voice. "The other kids all have daddies... where did my daddy go?"
Uchiha Ning fell silent for a moment, then said, "Your daddy... he went somewhere very, very far away."
Uchiha Yinglang feigned childish innocence. "Did Daddy go all by himself?"
For a moment, Uchiha Ning didn't know how to answer. All she could say was, "If you live out your whole life safe and sound, you'll get to see your daddy."
Beneath Uchiha Yinglang's outward childishness lay a heart that already knew how his father had died.
I know! I'll send Tobirama Senju to keep him company!
Uchiha Yinglang silently swore to himself.
"So when Langlang grows up, Daddy will come back, right?" Uchiha Yinglang tilted up his fair little face, doing his best to imitate an ordinary one-year-old's tone of innocent fantasy about "faraway places."
Uchiha Ning's heart ached. Forcing a smile, she ruffled her son's hair. "Yes. Langlang needs to grow up quickly, eat well, sleep well, and grow up healthy. If Daddy knows that, he'll definitely be very happy."
"Okay! I'll eat properly! I won't be picky at all!" Uchiha Yinglang nodded vigorously, then continued running around the courtyard with still slightly unsteady steps, giggling as he chased a butterfly that occasionally alighted.
Only when his back was turned to his mother did the feigned innocent smile swiftly fade from Uchiha Yinglang's face, replaced by a calm utterly at odds with his age.
His performance had begun long ago.
Uchiha Yinglang knew very well that within the Uchiha compound, in Konoha-a village that spoke of the Will of Fire in name but was unequal and unjust in practice-any unusual child might attract unwanted attention. Mediocrity, or even being a little more "clumsy" than mediocre, was his best camouflage.
In other people's eyes, he had to be an ordinary child who was somewhat lively, somewhat dependent on his mother, and ignorant of the ninja world.
As for his father...
Uchiha Yinglang's gaze swept over a corner of the courtyard. There was a small patch of ground there that Uchiha Ning carefully tended, planted with ordinary flowers and grasses, but the soil seemed darker and looser than the ground beside it. Over the past year, under the pretense of playing, he had used his little hands to "help" loosen that soil bit by bit, while secretly carrying out the most basic "body conditioning."
The "taijutsu genius's training experience" he had obtained encompassed everything, naturally including how to quietly temper his muscles and bones, familiarize himself with the circulation of qi and blood, and train the finest control over his body in seemingly ordinary ways during early childhood.
For example, the route Uchiha Yinglang took while chasing the butterfly wasn't aimless play. Every footfall, his balance, and the rhythm of his breathing were under his deliberate yet imperceptible control, his breathing almost synchronized with his movements; when bending down to pick up pebbles, he would adopt particular postures to discreetly stretch his tender ligaments; even while acting spoiled in his mother's arms, he would try, with an exceedingly faint mental intent that produced absolutely no chakra fluctuations, to sense and guide the barely perceptible "qi" belonging to this infant body itself.
Day after day, these seemingly harmless movements slowly increased Uchiha Yinglang's strength, while also frequently filling his not-yet-developed body with fine aches, swelling soreness, and dull pain. Sometimes, as he slept at night, it felt as though the spaces between his bones were being finely ground, hurting enough to make his brow crease slightly as he tossed and turned. Yet the next day, he would still smile innocently beneath the sunlight, as though nothing had happened.
He had not extracted so much as a trace of chakra.
It wasn't that he couldn't. His all-nature talent allowed him to instinctively sense that energy drifting freely through the air. But he kept his conjectures about the system and his own plans firmly in mind. Until he found a safe method, this body absolutely could not contain power originating from a "chakra seed." What he wanted was the "cleanest" possible foundation.
"Langlang, come have some water." Uchiha Ning's gentle voice reached him as she held a small cup of warm water.
"Thank you, Mommy!" Uchiha Yinglang immediately switched back to an innocent expression, trotted over, and held the cup in both hands, drinking in little sips while peering over its rim to study their home at the edge of the clan compound.
The house was very quiet. Occasionally, distant eaves and moving figures could be seen, but few people went out of their way to approach.
A widowed mother and her fatherless son, and members of a branch family at that-in the Uchiha Clan, which valued bloodline and strength, they were practically invisible.
Uchiha Ning also seemed accustomed to this quiet. Apart from occasionally collecting the supplies distributed by the clan, which were barely enough to cover basic living needs, she spent most of her time at home caring for him.
For Uchiha Yinglang, this "invisibility" was currently an excellent environment in which to develop.
It's Konoha Year 2 now... Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha's "ideals" are still in their honeymoon phase, but the seeds of a rift have probably already been sown.
Madara Uchiha seems to have left Konoha in Year 2.
What's Tobirama Senju, that man so wary of the Uchiha, doing now? In Konoha High Command's records, Father-Retsu Uchiha-and his death are probably nothing more than an inconspicuous name on a "list of accidental casualties before the village's founding." There might not even be a record at all.
The flames of hatred burned calmly in his heart, providing drive without scorching his reason. He was far too weak now, so weak that he couldn't let anyone see even a wisp of smoke from those flames.
But he would not forget his hatred. There was a saying from his previous life that he remembered very clearly.
Even a feud ten generations old can still be avenged!
Everything.
Take it slowly.
"Mommy," Uchiha Yinglang said after finishing his water and handing back the cup. Suddenly blinking his large eyes, he asked, "Are those grown-ups walking around outside, wearing clothes with fans on their backs, ninjas? Was Daddy like that too?"
Uchiha Ning's body stiffened almost imperceptibly. After a moment of silence, she finally nodded gently. "Yes, that's our Uchiha Clan's crest. Your daddy... he was once an excellent ninja." Her voice was very soft, carrying distant longing and deeply buried sorrow.
"Are ninjas really strong? Can they jump really, really high?" Uchiha Yinglang continued playing the curious baby.
"Yes, they're very strong." Uchiha Ning crouched down and looked into her son's eyes, her tone growing serious, with a hint of pleading. "But Langlang, promise Mommy you won't think about becoming a ninja, okay? Let's just live peacefully and safely like this."
Looking at the clear worry and hidden pain in his mother's eyes, Uchiha Yinglang's heart softened, but an even deeper resolve followed. Safety? In this world, safety without strength is like a sandcastle. One big wave, and it's gone. But he couldn't let his mother worry.
He broke into a smile without a trace of gloom and nodded vigorously. "Okay! I just want to be with Mommy! I won't be a ninja!"
Only then did Uchiha Ning breathe a sigh of relief and gather the young Uchiha Yinglang into her arms.
Leaning against his mother's warm embrace, Uchiha Yinglang nevertheless cast his gaze farther away, toward that expanse of sky framed by Konoha's walls and the outlines of the mountains beyond.
Not become a ninja?
Of course I won't become a Konoha ninja!
The path Uchiha Yinglang would take lay outside the old ninja system and belonged to him alone.
With those eyes that had yet to awaken, and that perhaps would not rely on a "chakra seed" to awaken even in the future, he would see the truth of this world clearly, and then...
He gently closed his eyes, sensing the faint yet pure "qi sense" within him, slowly growing under the guidance of his taijutsu experience.
Then, build a new world.
Before you continue