Three months passed. The name "Dan Uchiha" began to circulate through the bingo books of the minor villages. They called him the Kuroi Kirameki—the Black Spark.
Dan was now six years old. To the world, he was a Genin prodigy. To the System, he was a monster in the making.
[Current Stats:]
Age: 6
Rank: Genin (Field Promotion to Chunin pending)
Total Training Hours Equivalent: 45 Years.
Masteries: Fire Release (Master), Lightning Release (Adept), Kenjutsu (Adept).
Dan sat in a small tent at the edge of the Frost Country. His current assignment was a joint task force between Team Minato and his own temporary squad. This meant he was finally working alongside the boy he had been compared to his entire life: Kakashi Hatake.
Kakashi sat across from him, sharpening his White Light Chakra Sabre. The air between them was tense.
"I heard about your mission in the Land of Valleys," Kakashi said without looking up. "You took down four Iwa scouts alone."
"They were sloppy," Dan replied, cleaning his own blade.
"They were Chunin, Dan. You're six," Kakashi countered, his eye snapping to Dan's. "I became a Chunin at six. I thought I was the fastest. But I've seen you move in the last few skirmishes. You aren't using normal Shunshin anymore, are you?"
Dan paused. "It's a variation."
"It's a Raiton-cloak localized to the legs," Kakashi said, his voice dropping. "I've been trying to develop something similar... a piercing strike with lightning. But you've already mastered the movement aspect of it. How?"
"Some people are born with it, Kakashi. Others… just don't sleep."
Before Kakashi could press further, the tent flap opened. Obito Uchiha and Rin Nohara walked in. Obito looked frustrated, his goggles lopsided.
"Man, why do I have to stay on perimeter duty while you two get all the fun scouting jobs?" Obito complained, plopping down next to Dan. "Hey, Dan! Teach me that fireball thing! People are saying it's bigger than the Elders'!"
Dan looked at Obito. In the original timeline, this was the boy who would become Tobi, the man who would start the Fourth War. Right now, he was just a kid who wanted to be noticed.
"It's about chakra compression, Obito," Dan said, surprisingly patient. "You're letting too much energy escape through your breath. Tighten the coil in your gut."
"See! Dan explains it better than you, Bakashi!" Obito stick his tongue out at Kakashi.
"Dan is a freak of nature," Kakashi muttered, though there was no malice in it. "Don't use him as a benchmark or you'll kill yourself trying to keep up."
Suddenly, a high-pitched whistling sound pierced the air.
SCREE—
"Incoming!" Dan yelled, his instincts screaming.
He didn't wait. He grabbed Obito and Rin by their collars and used his Raiton: Shunshin. A bolt of black and blue light flared, and the three of them appeared fifty meters outside the camp just as a barrage of Explosive Tag Arrows turned their tent into a fireball.
"Ambusher!" Kakashi yelled, having leaped out on his own.
From the trees, twenty Shinobi from the Hidden Stone emerged. They weren't scouts. They were the Explosion Corps, led by a man with a wild grin.
"Konoha's little brats," the leader laughed. "The Tsuchikage wants the Uchiha kid's eyes and the Hatake's head. Let's see if you taste as good as they say!"
Dan stood in front of Rin and Obito. His Sharingan—still unawakened in the real world—felt like it was burning behind his eyelids.
System, Dan commanded. Emergency Sync. Overclock the Clone. Give me everything.
[Warning: Overclocking will cause physical strain.]
[Syncing... 100%... 120%...]
Dan's hair began to lift as static electricity crackled around him. "Obito, Rin... get back. Kakashi, take the left flank. I'll take the center."
"There are twenty of them, Dan!" Rin cried out.
"Then it's an even fight," Dan said.
He vanished. Not like a ninja, but like a strike of lightning.
The first Iwa ninja didn't even have time to raise his kunai. Dan appeared in his guard, his chokutō glowing with high-frequency lightning chakra. The blade slid through the Stone ninja's reinforced armor like it was paper.
One.
He spun, kicking a second ninja in the jaw with enough force to shatter the man's neck.
Two.
"Kill him! Use the Earth Style!"
"Earth Release: Mud Wall!"
A massive wall of stone rose to block Dan, but he didn't stop. He ran vertically up the wall, his feet sticking with perfect chakra control. At the top, he took a deep breath.
"Fire Release: Phoenix Sage Fire!"
Instead of one giant ball, dozens of small, hyper-compressed orbs of blue-white flame rained down. Each one was guided by Dan's sheer willpower. The forest floor became a minefield of explosions.
In the midst of the chaos, Dan felt a sharp pain in his eyes.
The world slowed down. He could see the individual grains of soot in the air. He could see the flickering chakra networks of the enemies through the smoke.
[System Notification: Genetic Trigger Met.]
[Sharingan: 2-Tomoe Awakened.]
[Clone Status: Now training 'Predictive Combat' and 'Genjutsu: Sharingan'.]
Dan landed in the center of the remaining Iwa forces. His red eyes glowed through the dust. The leader of the Explosion Corps stepped back, his cocky grin gone.
"Those eyes... you're that Uchiha."
"I'm the last thing you'll see," Dan said.
He moved again. But this time, he wasn't just fast. He was inevitable. Every move the enemies made was already known to him. He danced between their blades, his chokutō singing a song of death.
By the time Minato Namikaze arrived at the scene five minutes later, the battle was over.
Kakashi was standing over two bodies, panting, his arm bleeding. Obito and Rin were unharmed, huddled together.
And in the center of a circle of eighteen dead Iwa Jonin and Chunin, sat Dan Uchiha. He was wiping blood from his sword with a piece of cloth, his 2-tomoe Sharingan spinning slowly.
Minato looked at the carnage, then at his six-year-old student. For the first time, the Yellow Flash felt a genuine shiver of dread.
"Dan," Minato said softly. "Are you okay?"
Dan looked up. The red faded from his eyes, replaced by the dull, tired black of a child who had seen too much. "I'm fine, Sensei. Just... hungry."
That night, as the camp was rebuilt, Dan entered the Mirror Space.
[Battle Analysis Complete.]
[New Technique Unlocked: Chidori (Observed from Kakashi's prototype and optimized by System).]
[Training toward 3-Tomoe: 15% Progress.]
Dan laid back in the silver void of his mind. He was six years old, and he had just killed a squad of veterans. He was becoming the perfect weapon. But as he looked at his spectral clone, which never stopped training, he wondered: When the war ends, what will be left of 'Dan' besides the sword?