In the depths of the Undercity, inside a filthy, cluttered house, the air was thick with sweat and the sour stench of liquor. A heavy fist struck the woman's face with bone-crunching force. Her head snapped sideways, and a spray of blood splattered across the cracked walls, dripping down in thin, uneven streaks.
She crumpled to the floor, her body trembling from the impact. A deep gash split her cheek where his copper ring had torn through the flesh as blood poured from her nose, dripping onto her grime-stained clothes.
It was then he drove his boot into her ribs with a sickening thud as the force sent her rolling onto her side. Another kick. Then another, but she didn't scream. Didn't plead. She just let herself get hit, shivering, her body curling in on itself like a dying insect. She had learned long ago that resisting was useless and leaving had never been an option.
The woman had nowhere to go. It was simple as that. She was trapped in a world that had never cared about her. It was a life that only took and never gave.
Of course, things could have been different. She had countless regrets… Why did I marry this man? Why didn't I leave when I had the chance? What if I had chosen someone else?
Yes, she had been foolish, but could you really blame her for choosing him?
At first, the man had been kind, his touch gentle which made her feel a rare sense of happiness in this harsh world they lived in. He spoke of a future of love, of safety, of something better than the filth and struggles of the Undercity.
To anyone born and raised in such a place, words like that were a lifeline. They were sweeter than honey, yet just as sticky, trapping those desperate enough to believe them.
And she had clung to them, to those words, oblivious to the thorns hidden beneath his promises.
As time passed, the first slap came which was followed by a tearful apology. The second, with a pathetic excuse. By the third, there were no more words... only fists, only rage, only the slow, inevitable descent into a life she could never escape.
But regrets changed nothing and the past was already written.
Moreover, she had something to protect other than herself... her sweet boy. The only light left in a world that had long since turned to ash. The only reason she kept breathing.
So she endured. She took every blow, every cruel word, every moment of agony because as long as she suffered, they were safe.
Unfortunately, his son had to witness it all. All of it.
He always did.
Through the corner of her swollen eye, she saw him—small, weak, trembling, clutching the doorframe. She wanted to tell him to close his eyes, to look away. But she couldn't get the words out and it hurt too much to even speak. .
Instead, her lips parted, shaping the word she could no longer speak… Logan. But this was the last thing she ever tried to say.
The next kick from the man landed—harder than all the rest. Something in her chest gave way with a sickening crack as pain erupted like fire through her ribs. A choked gasp slipped from her throat, but it barely made a sound at all.
And then came the cold. It was as if she had been plunged into icy water. It crept into her fingers, her arms, her legs. She tried to lift her head to look at the boy in the doorway one last time, but her body refused to move. She couldn't even manage a twitch of her finger.
This was it. It had finally caught up to her—the beatings, the countless nights spent barely holding on for the sake of her child, hoping each time that she could make it through just one more day.
And this time… she wasn't getting back up.
However there would be no peaceful end, no final breath taken in silence because the man didn't stop. He kept kicking her body over and over, too drunk to notice, too lost in his haze to realize she wasn't even defending herself anymore.
By now, the room had fallen silent—save for the dull, sickening thud of his boot striking flesh. Maybe it was the quiet that finally reached him. Or maybe the thrill had simply worn off. Either way, his movements slowed… then stopped.
Breathing heavily, he staggered back, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. "Tch… tired of this shit," he muttered with a click of his tongue.
Then with an irritated grunt, he stumbled back, grabbing the bottle from the nearby table and taking a swig before staggering toward the door. A moment later, the door creaked open—and then slammed shut behind him, rattling the walls as he finally left.
It was only then did Logan step out from his hiding spot and run to his mother's side.
"Mom?"
He dropped to his knees beside her. His hands hovered over her bruised face, trembling. Then he shook her lightly, his small fingers gripping the torn fabric of her clothes, tugging as if that might somehow wake her.
But she didn't respond. No tired smile, no weak reassurance and no warmth in her eyes. She always got back up, although it was slow and shaky, but she always did.
"Please wake up. Please… Mom, don't leave me like this." His voice broke as he clung to her.
However, his desperate plea was met with silence. No flicker of movement. No sign that she had heard him at all, and her body only grew colder by the second.
Tears welled in his eyes, spilling onto her skin as the realization of his mother's death began to sink in. His stomach twisted into knots, his heart pounding so fast it hurt—like it was trying to break free from his chest. His breath came in short, ragged gasps, panic clawing at his throat. He shook her again, harder this time.
"No… no, please," he whispered, again and again, as if saying it enough times might somehow make it true. "Don't go. Don't leave me please..."
But it didn't. And as the truth sank in, something stirred deep within him—raw, buried anger, and a sorrow too heavy to hold.
His shoulders trembled. His fingers clenched at the fabric of her torn clothes, knuckles white with strain. He wanted to scream, to cry, to force the world to hear his pain—but the sound caught in his throat, strangled by grief. There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could fix. He was useless.
And in that helplessness, something else began to stir—something darker.
It wasn't just grief anymore.
It was hatred.
Hatred for the man who had done this. Hatred for the silence of the world outside. Hatred for himself—for being too weak, too small, too afraid to stop it.
And then—something snapped.
A searing heat ignited in his core, blooming in his abdomen like an uncontrollable blaze. It twisted and curled, racing through his veins with each beat of his heart. Every pulse slammed into his skull like a crashing wave, drowning out thought, drowning out everything but the fire consuming him from the inside out.
Then it reached his eyes—and when it did, the pain was worse than any beating he had ever taken, worse than anything he had ever known.
He clutched at his hair, as if he could tear the pain out by force. His body shook, barely holding together under the pressure. His teeth ground together, breath ragged and shallow, and just when it felt like he couldn't survive another second…
It stopped.
The fire, the pain vanished, leaving him gasping, limp, and hollow.
But there was no peace in its absence.
Instead, a flood of memories surged into his mind. In them, he saw a city full of lights—towering buildings that stretched up to the clouds. He heard the rumble of engines and the distant honking of car horns. Warm sunlight bathed the streets, and the air was so fresh and clean that breathing felt effortless—nothing like the heavy, choking smog of the Undercity.
He was confused by these memories, these glimpses into another life. He saw a reflection, a face that wasn't his yet somehow was. He had been an ordinary person, living an ordinary life. Waking up each day, working, talking, laughing, struggling with things that now felt trivial compared to the hell he had grown up in.
Earth. The word came to him out of nowhere, and he knew it was the name of the place from these memories.
But the blood, the silence, and the lifeless body before him pulled him back to reality's cruel embrace.
His mother was dead. This was still his life now. Whatever the memories were, however they'd found him, nothing was going to change what was right in front of him.
He took a deep, shaky breath, trying to steady himself and that was when he finally noticed it. His vision had sharpened, as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes. Every crack in the walls, every splinter in the wooden floor, every stain of dried blood burned into his sight with supernatural clarity.
Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of something familiar, yet unrecognizable.
Himself.
In the glass of an empty, dust-smeared alcohol bottle lying on its side nearby, he caught a reflection—crimson eyes staring back at him. His once-dull black eyes now burned a vivid, unnatural red. Within each iris, a single black tomoe spun slowly. It didn't feel real, yet there it was, watching him.
"…The Sharingan."
Logan had recognized it from his past-life memories. But before he could make sense of it, or question why he had awakened it, the red in his eyes began to fade. The tomoe disappeared, the color drained away and just like that, his eyes were black again like it had never happened.
But that didn't matter. He couldn't think of anything else, not the power he had just awakened, not the memories flooding in from a past life he had only just remembered.
None of it mattered, not when his mother was dead, and all he had done… was watch.
The guilt was hitting him hard.
He should have done something. Stopped it. Fought back. Anything to draw his attention. But he hadn't. He had just hidden, like a coward, while she suffered and died alone.
And maybe he was only feeling this way because he had just remembered his past life, but could he really use that as an excuse for his cowardice? For standing by and doing nothing
No, he couldn't. No matter what kind of life he had before, no matter how different things once were, it didn't change what had happened.
It didn't erase the fact that he had done nothing. That he had let her die.
His hands curled into fists, nails biting into his palms, but he barely felt it—drowned in pain, in grief, in the crushing guilt festering in his mind. He couldn't change it now… no, death was final. But there was one thing he could still do, one thing that might make it right.
His gaze lifted to the door—the same door his father had disappeared through. The man was still out there. He was still breathing and still alive.
It wasn't fair. It wasn't right but he would make it right.
With that thought, Logan turned away from his mother's body, his movements mechanical, as if his mind had already decided what needed to be done while the rest of him simply followed. His legs carried him to the kitchen on their own, his fingers curled stiffly as he reached out, grasping the first knife he could find,.
The blade was heavier than he expected. He had never held a knife like this before, had never even considered using one the way he was about to, but there was no hesitation. Not anymore.
He didn't waste time and left the house. The place he lived was just one of many forgotten overlooked corners of the Undercity. It was a place where no one lingered where no one came looking, where things could happen and no one would ever know or bother to care enough to investigate if something did.
Which made it the perfect place for what he was about to do.
Logan didn't have to search for long. He knew these alleys well—the narrow turns and hidden paths and the spots his father always wandered through when he had too much to drink.
So he found him soon enough.
Stumbling down the alley, swaying, muttering to himself, a bottle still clutched lazily in one hand. It was half-empty, its contents sloshing against the glass. He was lost in whatever drunken haze he had drowned himself in.
For a long moment, Logan simply watched.
He watched the way the man wiped his mouth with the back of his sleeve, the way his shoulders sagged forward like he was already half-asleep, the way his fingers tightened momentarily around the neck of the bottle before loosening again as if he could barely find the strength to hold onto it.
Seeing him like that, a thought came to him. Why couldn't I remember my past life earlier. I could have done something.
His father looked so defenseless. So pathetic.
And yet, for years, they had lived in fear of him—as if he were something more than this broken shell of a man. All it would have taken to end it was a single moment of courage. Just one, and his mother would have still been alive. She should've been tucking him into bed right now, smiling through the pain, humming that same lullaby under her breath.
It would've taken so little to change everything. Just one step forward. One shout to draw his attention. One act of bravery—anything at all.
But he hadn't moved at all, and now, she was gone.
Logan fiercely glared at the man, his knuckles white around the knife—and as if he could feel the weight of that stare, the man suddenly turned. His bleary, unfocused gaze landed on Logan. It took a second too long to register what he was seeing, then his eyes narrowed in mild annoyance.
"The hell you doin' out here? you little shit"
Logan didn't answer and simply stepped forward.
"What do you think you're gonna—"
Logan lunged, but his father snapped out of his haze just in time. His arm shot up, grabbing Logan by the wrist before the blade could connect. He was still an adult—bigger, stronger, and even drunk, he could easily overpower a child. Especially one as small and malnourished as Logan.
With a grunt, he shoved Logan back—hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs and send him stumbling across the alley.
Logan slammed into the ground, the breath knocked from his lungs as the knife flew from his grip and skittered across the filthy pavement. Pain shot through his ribs—sharp, jarring, and deep enough that he swore something cracked.
But he didn't care.
Teeth clenched, he dragged himself forward, reached out and grabbed the knife again. He pushed himself to his feet as his vision began to shift—his eyes turning red, a single black tomoe swirling to life in each iris.
The Sharingan had activated, and he could see everything now—every twitch, every breath, every subtle shift in his father's stance.
As his father lunged, swinging the bottle like a club, Logan ducked with unnatural ease. He twisted, redirected the blade, and drove it deep into the side of his father's neck.
The blade sank deep.
His father let out a sharp, wet gasp that caught in his throat. His eyes went wide, confusion flickering through the haze of alcohol and rage. His free hand reached up, grasping weakly at the knife, but Logan didn't let go.
They staggered together, then crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and blood.
Logan landed on top, knees scraping the pavement, his fingers still locked around the handle. His father choked, a bubbling sound escaping his lips. The bottle slipped from his hand and shattered beside them.
Blood pooled quickly beneath them, warm and thick. Logan didn't move. Couldn't. He sat there, chest heaving, hands trembling around the knife still buried in his father's neck. Warm blood coated his fingers, but he couldn't feel it.
Not the wetness. Not the cold. Not even the sting of scraped skin
He looked down into the man's face. His father's mouth opened like he wanted to say something, but no words came out—only a shallow, wet breath that gurgled in his throat and died just as quickly.
The man who had haunted every corner of their lives was gone. Just like that.
Logan's grip finally loosened. Slowly. Carefully. As if letting go might wake him up again. He sat back, blood pooling around his knees as he stared at the still body in front of him. He did not know if what he felt was victory, sorrow, or something else.
But then… something inside him snapped as he remembered the years, the beatings, the screams behind thin walls, and this man, thing had taker her mother her away.
His hand tightened around the knife again. And he stabbed him.
The blade sank into flesh, into bone, into a body that no longer pulsed. Each strike came faster, harder, and messier than the last. His arms moved on instinct, and he didn't know if he was crying or screaming. Maybe it was both. Maybe neither.
He just kept going, because there was nothing else left to do. By the time he stopped, his father was left unrecognizable. His eyes returned to normal, his arms ached, and the knife was slick with blood and bits of something he didn't want to think about.
The monster was well and truly gone, and with him, the rage that had once burned so fiercely inside him. It had burned out, leaving only silence in its place.
But there was no relief—only emptiness.
A cold, hollow kind of emptiness that settled deep in his chest, stretching out like a void he couldn't fill. Not with tears. Not with hate. Not even with blood.
He had done what he came to do. But it hadn't made him feel any better and it hadn't brought his mother back.
All it had done was leave him alone.
Alone… and broken.