Konoha. Night.
The village slept under a veil of silence—shattered without warning by the first explosion. It shook the ground, sent a pillar of ash into the sky, and jolted awake everyone within kilometers. Then came another. And another. Until an immense silhouette rose into the night sky.
The Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.
He tore into the village like a natural disaster, like destruction made flesh. His fury was blind, chaotic. One swing of his tail—and rooftops flew off. Another—and stone walls crumbled. A force so overwhelming, no jutsu or prayer could stand against it.
Flames leapt from one house to the next, choking the streets with thick, acrid smoke. The air reeked of burning wood—and scorched flesh. Screams echoed through the night: some calling for help, others dying in agony. Some were trapped beneath rubble, some wailed over lost loved ones, others just ran—blind, mindless from terror.
It was sudden. The village had only just begun to recover from the Third Great Ninja War. The army was still reeling from its losses. And yet, despite their exhaustion, the shinobi of Konoha were ready.
As soon as the explosions began, alarm signals rang out across the village. Men and women who had been sitting down to dinner or tucking their children into bed tore off their home clothes, slipping into the gear they knew by heart: dark pants, vests lined with pockets, headbands bearing the Leaf symbol. No one wasted a second. They were trained for this—to react fast, calm, and in unison. And they rushed into battle knowing they might not return.
The shinobi split into three units.
The first—evacuation. Nimble, swift, precise. Their mission was to lead children to shelter, to keep panic from overtaking young minds. They moved in silence, with urgency—carrying infants in their arms, pulling teens by the shoulders, dragging away mothers who refused to leave without their sons or daughters.
The second—rescue. They followed the path of destruction, digging through debris to pull out the unlucky ones caught closest to the impact. Blood, screams, crumbling concrete—all beneath the thunder of an enemy's roar and the grind of shattered stone.
And the third—Konoha's shield. The ones who thought neither of fear nor survival. They climbed the village's outer wall, forming the first—and possibly last—barrier between the Nine-Tails and what remained. Their jutsu tore through the air: fireballs, lightning strikes, a storm of shuriken flung with desperate precision.
But Demon was like nature itself—he couldn't be defeated, only delayed.
Fugaku Uchiha stood in the front line.
His breathing was ragged. His uniform torn and dusted with ash. Soot streaked his face, the taste of blood lingered on his lips. But his eyes still burned. First with rage. Then, with resolve. Now—only with exhaustion.
He was burning through his chakra to the last spark, hurling fire dragon after fire dragon at the beast's snarling face. The flames roared, lighting up the darkness—but left no mark on Demon. He barely noticed the attacks, as if pain had no meaning for him. Even the air itself seemed to tremble with his roar.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" Fugaku shouted again, another burst of fire erupting from his mouth into the black.
But it was fading. The flame weakened. His body wavered.
He fumbled a chakra stimulant pill from his pocket and swallowed it, jaw clenched, feeling the burn of its effect drag him back from collapse. Just a little more—one more blast. He gathered what strength he had left, preparing for a final strike, when suddenly—
The crack of wood behind him. Then a dull collapse. And… a child's cry.
He turned.
Behind him, in the ruins of a house, part of the ceiling had caved in. From beneath the cracks came a woman's voice—hoarse, breaking:
"Please! There's a child here! Someone—please!"
Fugaku froze. Time itself seemed to stop.
He could've attacked again—used up the last of his strength on something that likely wouldn't even slow the beast. Or…
Without hesitation, he broke into a sprint, racing toward the collapsed house. Beneath the shattered frame, among smoking beams, he saw a woman clutching a small girl in her arms. The child was crying, pressed tightly to her mother. A heavy wooden beam blocked their way out.
Fugaku rushed over, planted his feet, and gripped the beam with both hands. It groaned under the strain, refusing to move—but he held on, as if life itself hung in the balance. Veins bulged. Muscles burned. And still, he held. Long enough.
"Go!" he rasped. "Now! Get out!"
The woman stumbled to her feet, scooped up her daughter, and fled. Fugaku saw them disappear around a corner—just long enough to exhale in relief.
And then—the earth shook.
One of Fox's tails slammed into the street nearby with a deafening crash. The shockwave rolled through like a hurricane. The beams above Fugaku trembled—then collapsed.
He didn't even have time to react. Just lifted his gaze—and darkness swallowed him.
///
Fugaku came to abruptly—like surfacing from deep water after running out of air.
His eyes flew open. For a few seconds, there was only silence. Around him was the dim calm of a traditional room: thin shōji walls, wooden flooring, tatami mats beneath him, and the subtle scent of rice paper, cedarwood, and fresh air drifting in through an open window. A soft breeze touched his face, carrying the smell of pine and rain-soaked earth. Birds chirped outside—almost mockingly peaceful, so out of place after the hell he'd just endured…
Two days ago?
He looked up at the calendar on the wall. The date spoke for itself: forty-eight hours had passed since the night Fox tore through Konoha.
He lay on a shared futon, the sheet beneath him damp with sweat. His body ached. Beneath his head—bandaged cloth, already stained with dried blood. Blood. A trace of a reality that could've been his last.
But he was alive.
And judging by the fact that he'd awakened at home—on Uchiha Clan grounds—and not in a hospital, the attack had been stopped. Demon was defeated. Who did it, how it ended—it didn't matter now. Others would handle that.
Because Fugaku Uchiha had just realized something far more terrifying.
He wasn't Fugaku Uchiha.
Slowly, he sat up, bracing himself with trembling arms, his chest tightening with a deep, unseen pain. Not physical—but from within. A place in the mind where two worlds had begun to collide.
"I am Thomas Wayne. I am Batman."
The words rang through his head not as an echo, but as truth. Sharp. Absolute. He knew it with the same certainty as he knew his own name. Memories surged through him like a storm—Gotham, Wayne Tower, a dark alley slick with rain, a pistol in a mugger's hand. His wife. Little Bruce. The vow he made at her grave. Every feeling, fear, choice, triumph and defeat—they returned.
And then—this room. Konoha. The Nine-Tails. His wife, Mikoto. His sons—Itachi and Sasuke.
Two worlds. Two men. Inside one mind.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. He had a technique—taught to him long ago by an old monk in the Chinese mountains. Back then, in his previous life, he was still Thomas. A young surgeon, just beginning his path toward becoming the Bat. The monk had called it inner silence—a method for separating thoughts from noise. For focus. For structure.
He shifted into a lotus position, as much as his battered body allowed, and began to regulate his breathing. His thoughts slowed, their chaos condensing into form. Two sets of memories. Two separate streams. He began to compare them, align them, understand them.
First—the geography. Maps, stars, topography, climate—everything was different. Even the night sky was alien. No Orion. No North Star. Different constellations. Different continents. Different people.This wasn't Earth. Not the past. Not the future. It's another world—another universe.
Doctor Fate, who had once passed briefly through Gotham, had spoken of souls with extraordinary willpower—how they could cross the boundaries of reality itself. At the time, Thomas had dismissed it as philosophical nonsense. But now—he recalled those words with chilling clarity.
The mysticism he had always rejected was now staring back at him from the mirror.
Second, this world believed in reincarnation. Believed—and accepted it as fact. People here lit candles in temples and prayed for the rebirth of souls. They expected that someone might return one day in a new body. And there were examples.
A shinobi named Shisui—young, gifted—was rumored to be the reincarnation of his great-grandfather, Uchiha Kagami. The clan whispered about it with reverent fear.
Thomas—or rather, the man now sitting in this room—understood: his case wasn't an anomaly here. It was part of the local mysticism. He was not an exception.
Third—and hardest—who was he now?
Fugaku, born in this world, head of a respected clan, father of two sons, a husband.
Or Thomas—a man from Gotham who lost everything, who forged his grief into armor and turned his vow into a weapon. Two voices, two selves lived in his head. But one of them… was steering.
Thomas was the thinker. Faster. Deeper. Sharper. His choices—measured, deliberate, merciless when needed. His pain ran deeper. He remembered the smell of the alley where Bruce died. The taste of blood after fighting the Joker. The cold weight of a batarang in his palm. He was the one who never yielded.
And now, it was clear: Thomas was in control.
Fugaku was no longer the master of this mind. His emotions, memories, knowledge—they remained, like an inheritance. But they no longer guided.
What should he do now? Run? Abandon his wife, his sons, the people who depended on him?
He wasn't a boy chasing scrolls of space-time ninjutsu, desperate to return home and flailing across dimensions.
He was a man. A father. A leader.
He had faced a similar choice once—after Bruce's funeral. Friends, therapists, even Alfred had urged him to leave, to start over, to bury the past. But Thomas had stayed. He turned sorrow into strength. Guilt into purpose.
And now—he would do the same.
He opened his eyes. Steady. Heavy. Certain.
"There is no Thomas Wayne here," he thought. "There is only Uchiha Fugaku. Mikoto's husband. Itachi and Sasuke's father. Leader of the clan. The wall that shields Konoha. And this man does not run."
He would never again speak the name Thomas—not even in thought.
It would be a betrayal. Of his new sons. Of this new life.
No one must know the past. It had died. Just as Bruce once did. And just like then, he would not forget. But he would not break.
He rose slowly, unsteady at first, then caught his balance.
In his eyes now shone the same weight that once struck fear into Gotham's criminals.
Now—it belonged to an Uchiha.
He crossed the room, barefoot on the cool wooden floor. The house was silent. Not a sound. Not a stir. It was unnervingly calm.
Mikoto and Itachi were likely helping with the village's recovery—organizing evacuations, clearing debris, searching for survivors. Sasuke, still a baby, was probably with a neighbor or extended family—there were always women in the clan ready to step in during times of crisis.
He turned toward the washroom, sliding the partition aside with a quiet motion.
There, he stood before the mirror.
For a few long seconds, he simply stared at his reflection—silently, intently.
A thick bandage wrapped his forehead, darkened in places with dried blood.
He picked up a pair of scissors from the shelf and raised his hand—
—and immediately felt the strangeness of it.
The fingers of a shinobi were strong and precise—but they lacked the fine motor skill he was once so used to. The dexterity of a surgeon, trained for exact, delicate work. He cut the bandages clumsily, with uneven motions, wincing each time the dry gauze tugged against his skin.
"I'll need to retrain my hands," he noted. "Even if they belong to a warrior now—nothing says they can't also be a healer's."
He tossed the last of the bandages into the wastebasket and looked at himself in the mirror again. Alone with that face.
Thick black hair. High cheekbones. A straight, well-formed nose. Lips that seemed to have forgotten how to smile. And dark eyes. Cold, calculating—black as a moonless night.
It all reminded him… of himself. Thomas Wayne.
The resemblance was striking. As if the universe had chosen a vessel for his soul not by chance, but with deliberate intent. He wasn't even surprised.
There was nobility in the bones. In the posture. In the presence. The same that ran in the veins of the Waynes. Only now—it bore the name Uchiha.
He stepped into the shower. Hot water poured over his shoulders, washing away the last traces of blood and fatigue. Steam filled the space, softening skin—and thoughts.
He stood beneath the stream, head bowed, remembering.
Too much bound the old life to the new.
The Waynes and the Uchiha—two symbols of their worlds. Two clans rooted into the history of their cities like the roots of old trees. Pillars of strength, prestige, and responsibility.
Respected. Feared. They were the heart of Gotham. The heart of Konoha.
If a soul, even without memory, finds the same path—it means will is stronger than fate.
No wonder he wasn't reborn in the body of some nameless peasant. His place was the summit. His path—leadership.
And if gods—or whoever stood behind this—chose to return him to the world, it could only be like this.
He stepped out of the shower unhurriedly. Drops of water ran down his skin. He dried off with rough cotton cloth and pulled on a pair of loose dark pants. He didn't bother with a shirt.
Energy surged in his chest. He needed to move. To feel the body. To compare.
/////
Author notes:
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