Ishgar, Isvan - 774
The winter cold in Isvan was not merely a climate; it was a sentence. It seeped through heavy wool curtains, froze water in stone basins, and turned every heartbeat into a conscious effort. In the gloom of the great Uchiha manor, Kaelen watched the snow fall through a narrow skylight.
Nine years.
Nine years since he had inhabited this body.
In his former life, he had known the tumult of cities, the hum of crowds, and the certainty of a technological tomorrow. Here, there was only whiteness, silence, and the mystery of a bloodline he did not yet understand. He knew he had been reincarnated, but he held no cards in his hand. He knew nothing of this world, its legends, or its dangers. He was a stranger to his own lineage, bearing a name that, in his vague memories of another life, evoked power and ruin.
He didn't know why he had become an Uchiha, but what he did know was that this was in no way the world of Naruto, and above all that his clan was very weak in its current state.
"Kaelen... come closer, my son."
Sôjirô's voice was a whisper, a rustle of dry leaves. Kaelen left his stool and approached the massive bed. The man lying there was the last pillar of a crumbling clan. But what struck most was the yellowed linen bandage across his face. Beneath the cloth, two dark cavities bore witness to an ancient sacrifice. Sôjirô had torn out his own eyes years ago to withdraw them from a fate he deemed too dark.
Kaelen took his father's hand. It was ice-cold, yet the grip remained firm, as if the man were clinging to life by sheer will.
"I am here, Father," the child murmured.
"You have your mother's face tonight," Sôjirô breathed. A sad smile stretched his chapped lips. "Aina... She always said you would have that calm gaze, the kind that sees beyond the blizzard."
Kaelen felt a pang in his heart. He had never known his mother. She had passed away hours after his birth, exhausted by labor in this pitiless climate. Sôjirô had never blamed him, but Kaelen had often perceived, in his father's silences, the immense void left by this woman he loved more than his own sight.
"I miss her, Father. Even though I never saw her," Kaelen said softly.
"She is within you, Kaelen. It is for her that I held on so long. It is for her that I protected you from the ambition of our own people."
Sôjirô coughed, a rattle that seemed to tear his chest. "But my time is up. The clan... they are frightened. They see only a child in you, but they ignore what you carry. They do not know that I have sealed my legacy."
Sôjirô pulled himself up slightly, searching for his son's face with trembling hands. He brushed Kaelen's cheeks.
"My eyes... The Mangekyou... They are at the Shrine of the Ice Cliff. I tore them out so they would never again be used for war. But if one day, the world comes knocking at your door with the intent to destroy everything... if your own magic is no longer enough to protect those you love... then, and only then, seek them out."
"I don't want that power, Father. I just want you to stay," Kaelen replied, his adult maturity cracking under the weight of emotion.
"We do not choose our burden, Kaelen. We only choose how to carry it." Sôjirô's hand fell back onto the sheet. His breath became erratic. "Go... find your own path. Do not remain a prisoner of this mountain. Do not let our name become your grave."
In a final effort, Sôjirô seemed to listen to the wind outside.
"Aina... I am coming..."
Silence fell over the room, final. The patriarch of the Uchiha clan was no more. Kaelen remained motionless, holding the hand that would never squeeze his again. There were no screams, no spectacular tears. Just the cold that seemed to redouble in intensity, as if to fill the void left by the warmth of life.
The funeral took place two days later. The clan had gathered in the village square, a circle of black stone in the middle of the white immensity. There were only about a dozen of them left, men and women with faces hollowed by hunger and anxiety. Without Sôjirô, they felt naked.
Kaelen stepped forward, torch in hand. As the only son, it was his duty to light the pyre.
"This is the end," whispered Tajima, his father's cousin, who stood beside him.
"Without him, we are nothing. The other villages... the mages of the plains... they will eventually learn he is gone."
"We are still the Uchiha, Tajima," Kaelen replied without looking at him. "The name does not die with one man."
"You are very young to speak of names,"
Tajima retorted with a hint of bitterness. "You don't know what he had to do to keep us safe. You don't know what they say about us in the South."
Kaelen did not answer. He brought the torch to the dry wood. The orange flames quickly devoured the white shroud, casting a harsh light on the terrified faces of the clan. He watched the fire, thinking of the father who had mutilated himself and the mother he had never known. He felt incredibly alone, a castaway of time lost in a cursed lineage.
The funeral chant rose, a monotonous melody that seemed to lose itself in the blizzard. But suddenly, Tajima stopped. He squinted toward the steep path rising from the valley.
"What is that?"
Kaelen turned in his turn. His instinct, sharpened by his nature as a reincarnated soul and that strange intuition his father called "the blood," screamed at him to be wary.
Through the curtain of snow, silhouettes were forming. These were not the disorganized shapes of lost travelers. They were shadows advancing with unsettling precision. A group of men, dressed in dark coats, climbing the slope without a sound, ignoring the wind that should have driven them back.
"Stay behind me," Tajima ordered, drawing his short blade, though his hand trembled visibly.
Kaelen did not step back. He stood there, before his father's pyre, observing the approaching strangers. He did not know who they were or what they wanted. But in the air, the Ethernano had suddenly become charged with electrical tension, as if the outside world had finally shattered the Uchiha clan's bubble of silence.
"They aren't coming to offer their condolences, Tajima," Kaelen said, his child's voice ringing with icy clarity.
The strangers stopped a few meters from the square. At their head, an imposing figure stepped forward, a cane in hand, his gaze masked by the shadow of his hood. A leaden silence fell over the village, broken only by the furious crackling of the funeral fire.
The man standing at the edge of the village square exuded an aura that seemed to freeze the air more effectively than the blizzard itself. Beneath his hood, one could discern a face marked by age, yet its structure remained imperious. He leaned on a black wooden cane, but his posture was not that of an invalid. He looked like a king come to inspect his ruins.
His companions—a dozen men with faces masked by dark wool scarves—deployed in a semi-circle, cutting off any retreat toward the houses.
"Who are you?" Tajima repeated, his voice cracking under the weight of fear. "We have nothing to offer brigands!"
The stranger let out a short, dry laugh—a sound that made the hair on the back of Kaelen's neck stand up.
"Brigands? What charming vulgarity," the man began. His voice was deep and cultured. "I did not come for your gold, my good man. Gold is a concern for ordinary mortals. I came for knowledge. The knowledge that died with the man you are burning at this very moment."
He took a step forward, entering the circle of light cast by the pyre. His single eye, a metallic gray, fixed upon the empty sockets of Sôjirô's shroud, which the flames were beginning to devour.
"What a waste..." he sighed. "Sôjirô was always tiresomely dramatic. Tearing out his own eyes to hide them from the world... it is an insult to the evolution of magic."
Kaelen felt a shiver run through him. He knows. He knows about the eyes. In his previous life, Kaelen had never been a warrior, but his survival instinct, sharpened by his reincarnation, screamed at him that this man was no mere wandering mage. The density of the Ethernano around him was such that Kaelen felt as though he were swimming in lead.
Damn... In Naruto, those eyes were coveted, but even in this goddamn world, it's the same? The clan's already in a terrible state; there's nothing to be gained from it. Besides, they arrive after my father's death; it's not just a coincidence... Don't tell me they came for my father's eyes?
"My father owed you nothing," Kaelen declared, stepping in front of Tajima.
The stranger looked down at the boy. An eyebrow rose, tinged with an almost scientific curiosity.
"Well now... the fledgling. You have his look, little one. But your eyes are black, void of any power. Tell me, where did Sôjirô hide his precious jewels? Give them to me, and I shall see to it that the rest of your clan survives this night."
"We know nothing!" Tajima screamed, completely losing his composure. "Leave! Now!"
Tajima made a desperate move. He channeled his meager magic into his blade, creating a faint bluish glow, and lunged at the stranger.
It was the last mistake of his life.
The man with the cane did not move. He simply struck the frozen ground with his staff. An invisible shockwave, charged with black electricity, swept across the square. Tajima was thrown backward like a ragdoll, his body slamming against a stone wall with a sickening crack.
"Tajima!" a woman cried out, rushing toward him.
"The time for negotiation is over," the stranger declared, his tone suddenly turning glacial.
"Since no one seems willing to cooperate, we shall proceed by elimination. Search every house. Kill everyone except Sôjirô's son. Trauma is often the best trigger to make those red eyes bloom."
What followed was a nightmare of blood and snow.
Kaelen watched, helpless, as the men in dark coats threw themselves upon the survivors of the clan. It wasn't a fight; it was an execution. The Uchiha, weakened by years of isolation and decline, stood no chance against these trained mages.
A woman was mown down by a blast of dark flames. An old man was skewered by an ice lance. Screams tore through the howling blizzard, mingling with the crackle of the funeral pyre that continued to burn, indifferent to the carnage.
Kaelen felt his heart thumping against his ribs. An unbearable heat began to rise in his skull. It wasn't the heat of the fire, but an internal burn, a pressure that seemed to want to explode his brain.
It's not possible... he thought, his hands shaking violently. I'm supposed to be an adult. I should be able to do something! Why won't my body move?
He saw one of the attackers approach a young girl of the clan, a cousin with whom he had shared bread only days before. She was weeping, prostrate in the snow. The man raised his dagger, a cruel smile on his lips.
"Stop..." Kaelen whispered.
The man did not hear. The blade descended. Blood splashed across the pristine snow—a red so vivid it seemed to sear Kaelen's retinas.
At that moment, the world tilted.
The pain behind his eyes became pure agony. Kaelen fell to his knees, his hands clawing at his face. It felt as if two glowing coals had just been shoved into his sockets. Silence suddenly filled his mind, muffling the screams and the wind.
Hate... loss... suffering.
His father's words echoed in his memory: "The Sharingan feeds on tragedy."
Kaelen raised his head. His eyes were no longer black. A bloody red glow illuminated his pupils, and in each eye, a small black comma—a tomoe—spun with hypnotic slowness.
The world around him had changed. The movements of the attackers, once too fast for his child's eyes, now seemed broken down. He could see the flow of Ethernano circulating through their bodies, anticipating the contraction of their muscles before they even took a step.
The stranger, who had been observing the massacre with royal indifference, stopped abruptly. His gray eye fixed on Kaelen. A wide, almost demented smile stretched across his features.
"Magnificent..." he murmured. "So precocious. The shock worked."
Kaelen rose slowly. He no longer felt the cold. He no longer felt fear. He felt only a cold rage, a will of iron that seemed to saturate every fiber of his being. He picked up a burning brand that had fallen from his father's pyre.
"You..." Kaelen began, his voice no longer sounding like that of a child. "You made a mistake coming here."
The stranger laughed even louder.
"A mistake? No, little Uchiha. It is the beginning of a grand scientific adventure. You are the last specimen of a vanishing species. And I fully intend to study you until your eyes hold no more secrets for me."
He raised his cane, and a sphere of dark magic began to form at its tip.
"But for now... let us see how you fare when the whole world collapses upon your shoulders."