"That's amazing, brother is a ninja?"
Renjiro's surprised tone immediately made the Uchiha boy puff with pride. He had only recently graduated from the Ninja Academy, and his vanity was easily stirred.
With a practiced motion, he tugged his collar open, showing the metallic gleam of a Konoha forehead protector.
"Ah! So impressive! That's Konoha's forehead protector! Bro is truly a ninja! I admire you!"
"Ahem! Let's go." The Uchiha boy coughed awkwardly, but his pleased expression betrayed him.
Along the way, Renjiro asked him many questions, and the boy answered one after another—details about the terrain, which areas had wild animals, and which spots were safest for camping.
By the time they reached the destination, the Uchiha boy even helped him set up the tent, his enthusiasm plain to see.
Renjiro, however, only spat on the ground after watching him leave.
He had planned to use flattery to get the boy to teach him Chakra refinement. It wasn't a great secret—any student would learn it at the Academy in days—but instead, he had been swindled for 500 ryō.
"Bah! The son of a profiteer is a profiteer too! A whole half-day of fake respect wasted."
Five hundred ryō. More than what a Genin might get from a D-rank mission share, considering that reward was usually divided among a four-man squad.
Of course, if he hadn't been so impatient, he wouldn't have been fleeced.
Renjiro felt his pouch—three-quarters of his savings already gone in one day. Still, it had bought enough supplies to last him two and a half years.
After neatly packing the knives, forks, traps, and gear, he surveyed the campsite. The location was quiet and seldom visited.
A river ran nearby, the Academy was only twenty minutes away, and behind stretched a forest. Beyond it, barbed fences marked the edge of the Forest of Death—the infamous Chūnin Exam grounds.
Renjiro had chosen this site for three reasons: few people, proximity to the Academy, and easy access to food and hunting.
The river alone promised fish, enough to keep him alive.
He nodded, satisfied.
After settling, he began his first serious attempt at refining Chakra.
"Chakra is created by perfectly blending physical and spiritual energy. First, extract physical energy from every cell of the body… then combine it with spiritual energy accumulated through training and experience."
Renjiro muttered the theory as he recalled it.
"Spiritual energy… mine is vast and powerful. That part is easy. The problem is physical energy."
He concentrated.
Within three minutes, he had already drawn out a flicker of Chakra. But after thirty minutes, the amount was still pitiful. After three hours, it was barely more.
He sighed. He understood the problem.
"As expected, before my body recovers, there's no way to produce much Chakra. If I force too much spiritual power, I might damage my cells—it isn't worth it."
His frail body simply couldn't keep up. Time and care would be the only remedy.
Three hours of effort drained him completely. Hungry, he drank milk straight from the bottle, bit into bread, then carried traps and cages toward the edge of the forest.
Near the Death Forest's fence, he set baited snares—bread soaked in milk, apple cores, carrots, even eggs. The expense was painful, but he needed meat.
Back at camp, after eating, he trained relentlessly—swimming, shuriken practice, Chakra refinement, simple exercises. His life became a cycle of toil.
To grow stronger was hard. To survive was harder.
All he could do was grind, and grind again.
By nightfall, he went to check his traps early. One after another, they were empty—until the last.
A massive python lay caught, its skull crushed.
"Hah! What luck! Snake meat tonight!"
The trap, designed for snakes, had worked perfectly. One egg had lured in twenty kilograms of fresh meat.
It was a windfall. Two or three days of food secured with a single egg.
Grinning, Renjiro reset more traps and dragged the python back to camp.
Over the next days, he noticed a flaw. His spiritual power was too great—when refining Chakra, his cells strained and weakened. Without realizing it, he was overdrawing their energy.
It was both a blessing and a curse.
"Best to reduce Chakra practice until my body is stronger. Everything depends on training my body."
He understood—there would be no shortcuts.
Better to move slow and steady than burn out early.
That night, under the full moon, he sat by his campfire.
"This moon… it isn't my home's. Just a seal technique."
His eyes softened. "Father… Mother… are you doing well?"
In the glow, he saw their faces—both from his previous life and the parents of Uchiha Renjiro—smiling gently at him.
At that moment, he no longer distinguished between them. The two souls had finally fused into one.
The barriers of memory dissolved. His spirit became whole and pure.
The meager Chakra he had drawn today surged suddenly, flooding into his eyes.
A scarlet glow lit up.
Two black tomoe bloomed in each pupil.
The Sharingan had awakened.
End of the chapter.