Year 50 of Konoha. Inside a bandit den somewhere in the Land of Fire, Uchiha Yorin swung his ninja blade, felled the last enemy, and drew a deep breath.
The Third Great Ninja War had only just ended.
It was eight years before the Night of the Uchiha Massacre.
One year before the Nine-Tails' Rampage and the death of the Fourth Hokage, the Yellow Flash, Namikaze Minato.
And five… four… three… two… one… before Uchiha Yorin's system finished loading.
[The Senju Revival System is at your service.]
Uchiha Yorin: "Wait, what the hell?"
[The Senju Revival System is at your service.]
As if afraid he hadn't understood, the system repeated itself.
Uchiha Yorin: "No, I mean—did you mess up?
Look at my Sharingan. Look at the Uchiha fan on my back. Look at my pure fire-natured chakra.
I'll give you one more shot to phrase that properly—what family revival system did you say you are?"
[Host identified as Senju bloodline. Initiating Senju Clan Revival System!
Please complete Phase One Main Objective: Rise from the ashes and rebuild the Senju clan!]
…Okay, Yorin gave up. This thing was an idiot, no doubt about it. He was an Uchiha, and it was telling him to rebuild the Senju.
These days every last Senju had wiped their names, deleted their accounts, and vanished. The only "active" Senju out in the open was that gambling drunk, Tsunade-sama.
How was he supposed to rebuild anything? Rebuild my ass. Impossible. Find someone else.
Thinking how he'd waited eighteen years for a system only to get this enlightened marvel, Uchiha Yorin almost laughed from sheer anger.
[Phase Rewards: Mangekyō Sharingan, free attribute points, Yang Release chakra]
Yorin: "But then again… the Senju did great things for Konoha. And our Uchiha clan has been on good terms with them for generations (heh). Reviving a fallen line is what the benevolent do."
…
It wasn't that he was drooling over the rewards or anything—it's just that his peers made him look good by comparison.
In a few years, "the Weasel" would butcher his own clan. The Uchiha, holding three Mangekyō Sharingan and a whole hand of elite jōnin—an opening hand straight from the gods—would somehow punt it into a total catastrophe.
Though Uchiha Yorin was a transmigrator, after his parents died the clan had raised him. The elders had carefully taught him ninjutsu, secret arts, taijutsu, genjutsu, even arithmetic… No special treatment, but no mistreatment either. The clan had not been unkind to him; if he could save them, of course he would.
The question was: how?
Right now he was just a run-of-the-mill two-tomoe Sharingan. His Fire Style was barely passable, and with the kenjutsu he'd learned from Kakashi's dad, he could at least count as a jōnin.
To regular folks, he'd "made it." To monsters, this level wasn't much better than cannon fodder.
If he wanted to change that tragic future and bring justice to that most dutiful son, Uchiha Itachi, he needed power.
If he wanted to save more people and rewrite more miserable fates, he needed even more power.
Unmatched power.
"When I get back to the village, I'll go talk to Tsunade-sama," he thought. "Wonder if she minds a younger-guy/older-woman thing."
With a sigh, Yorin noticed a hidden door in the bandit hideout.
He opened it. A dungeon—the kind bandits used to hold their hostages.
A kid lay there in a pool of blood, skin and flesh mangled by torture. Yorin couldn't help feeling a stab of pity.
"Kid, can you move? You're safe now. I wiped out the bandits. Hurry home."
He told him that, and the boy's eyes lit up. "I'm saved? The bandits are all dead? …You—"
Yorin: "No need to thank me, I—"
The brat's face twisted and he screamed at Yorin:
"—Why didn't you come earlier?! If you'd come earlier, my mom and dad wouldn't have—"
The next second, Yorin's kunai punched through his throat.
Damn bandit—disguising himself as a human to trick me! Unforgivable!
In a foul mood, Yorin followed up with a Great Fireball to cremate the corpse, then slid his kunai away and left the den.
A small batch of bandits—just a C-rank job. The bounty was only a few tens of thousands of ryō, barely enough to wet your teeth. Even after looting the place, there wasn't anything worth real money.
The old Yorin could eat alone and not worry about a family. Not anymore. Now he had to work hard for Tsunade and a million other future wives.
"Time to line up some money-making gigs, and track down the scattered clansmen… What a pain. Maybe I should just talk to the clan head about changing our fan crest into some abstract tree branches, and rebrand 'Uchiha of Love' as 'Senju of the Forest.' Round it all up, and boom—revival accomplished, right?
Okay, I'm just thinking out loud. If I actually proposed that, I'd get dog-piled by every last Uchiha—men, women, and kids—long before the massacre night."
Yorin: "So… what should I actually do?"
Yorin's [Wisdom] stat wasn't low. Before he transmigrated, he'd read tons of Naruto fanfics and distilled a few routes for reforming the ninja world.
But after fate yeeted him into the Naruto world, things changed.
From a lofty, detached viewpoint it's easy to point fingers and outline grand plans. When you're in the thick of it, pulled in every direction, reform is easier said than done.
Most crucially: even if you're right, even if your plan and roadmap are perfect—why should anyone listen to you? Why follow you? Why carry out your plan?
Yorin knew he didn't have Naruto's Talk-no-Jutsu or Yahiko's Charismatic Pull.
Which means…
Power.
The key to everything was still power.
If I laugh like a proper Uchiha right now, could I bump my Sharingan to three tomoe?
He thought about it, then figured—probably not.
In terms of effort, he was second to none. He was infamous in the clan as a training fiend. But talent is talent, and his just wasn't it.
The Uchiha's pride—the Sharingan—had capped at two tomoe for him. Their other pride—Fire Style—wasn't great either thanks to his limited chakra.
Thankfully, Yorin knew how to adapt. If ninjutsu and genjutsu weren't his lane, he'd make up for it with taijutsu.
No top-tier taijutsu specialists in the Uchiha right now?
No problem—go learn from someone who is.
The Hyūga won't teach an Uchiha? Fine. Learn from a minor clan, even a civilian.
Will that hurt the Uchiha's pride?
If you're dead, who cares about pride?
And so, the man called Konoha's White Fang, Hatake Sakumo, gained a student from the Uchiha clan. The Uchiha, in turn, produced a kenjutsu ace who would be dubbed Konoha's Flame Claw.
See? Every drop of sweat he shed paid off.
Have you ever seen Konoha at four in the morning?
Uchiha Yorin had—more than once.
After eighteen years of Rock Lee-style suffering, it was time to enjoy the thrill of flipping the switch.
Thinking that, he looked at the "Submittable Quest" panel:
[Phase Quest 1: Increase clan members +1. Reward: Ocular Power Boost]
The "new clan member" was Yorin himself. The dumb system's task logic was… touching. But if it benefited him, then this dumb system was kind of cute.
[Phase Quest 1 complete. Reward delivered.]
He hit submit, and felt his ocular power surge—skyrocket—explode.
As his eye power swelled, his Sharingan gave off a crimson glow, spinning faster and faster. From two tomoe, it leveled up to three.
Basking in the overwhelming might, Uchiha Yorin was in a fantastic mood. The corner of his mouth curled up; he covered one eye with one hand and couldn't help letting out the classic Uchiha laugh:
"Ha… ha… hahahahahaha—kekekekeke…"
Let's Dance!