Chapter 2: Gōenji's First Kill
"God, this hurts!"
Gōenji followed at the rear of the Konoha forces, a short sword strapped across his back and a pouch of ninja tools secured at his waist. His eyes constantly swept across the surrounding forest.
Every movement sent fresh waves of pain through his battered body, making him grimace.
It was unbearable.
The combination of his injuries, the burning sensation beneath the bandages, and the friction caused by movement made every step miserable. Yet he couldn't afford to lose focus. Every so often, he activated his Sharingan and carefully scanned the surroundings, watching for signs of a Kumogakure ambush.
He didn't want to die.
So he could only endure the pain and remain vigilant.
"Gōenji, are you all right?"
A figure appeared beside him.
The shinobi wore a Konoha flak jacket bearing the Uchiha clan crest.
Uchiha Tekka.
He was the same age as Gōenji—fourteen years old—and, like him, a chūnin of the Uchiha clan.
"I'm fine," Gōenji replied. "As long as I grit my teeth and endure the pain, I can still fight."
Of course he could fight.
If he couldn't, he would die.
Gōenji recognized Tekka from the memories of his predecessor and, more importantly, from the original Naruto series.
Tekka was one of the three Uchiha who later pressured Uchiha Itachi. He wasn't particularly gifted with words, but he was still considered one of the more talented members of the clan.
At the moment, he possessed only a single tomoe in each eye.
Even so, he was already regarded as an expert among his peers.
Gōenji had only recently begun to experience the true strength of the Uchiha clan himself.
"As long as you're all right, don't disgrace the Uchiha clan," Tekka said with a nod.
"..."
Gōenji stared at him.
Is this guy blind?
He was covered in bandages and could barely walk.
Instead of asking whether he was seriously injured, Tekka was worried about the clan's reputation.
Typical Uchiha pride.
Suddenly—
Gōenji's Three-Tomoe Sharingan widened.
The tomoe spun rapidly as his gaze locked onto something ahead.
A thin steel wire.
It was stretched across the path at an unnatural angle.
Gōenji's pupils contracted.
"There's a trap!"
He was positioned in the middle of the formation, and the presence of that wire immediately told him something important.
The enemy had prepared this trap long ago.
They had been waiting for Konoha to walk right into it.
Gōenji stomped on the ground and launched himself upward, grabbing onto the trunk of a nearby tree that he judged to be safe.
His mind began processing the situation at incredible speed.
The Sharingan gave him extraordinary dynamic vision, while his enhanced analytical ability allowed him to process what he saw almost instantly.
Trap ahead.
The enemy is nearby.
They've probably been waiting for us.
His warning reached the other Konoha shinobi immediately.
Everyone reacted.
Ninjutsu was activated almost simultaneously as the shinobi attempted to protect themselves and escape the trap's killing zone.
Tekka had also noticed the sudden change in Gōenji's eyes.
For a moment, the Three-Tomoe Sharingan startled him.
But years of training as a shinobi quickly took over. He followed Gōenji's warning without hesitation, activating his own Sharingan and searching for a safe route through the trap.
He's already reached the Three-Tomoe stage...
Before anyone could think further—
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions erupted throughout the forest.
BOOM!
The ground shook.
Dozens of dark figures emerged almost simultaneously, launching an assault on the scattered Konoha shinobi.
Gōenji had already moved into the treetops.
His eyes tracked the attackers as they appeared.
So they're finally here.
He bit down on the end of a wire and rapidly formed hand seals.
"Damn it... this hurts like hell."
His fingers completed the final Tiger seal.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique—Modified!"
Chakra surged through the wire.
Flames raced along the steel strands, illuminating the forest.
The Kumogakure shinobi who had set the trap never expected Konoha to react so quickly.
Several of them had already stepped directly into the wire formation.
"What the—?"
Three Cloud shinobi suddenly found themselves surrounded by burning wires.
Gōenji yanked hard.
The wires tightened.
The three men were caught before they could escape.
"AAAGH!"
Their screams tore through the forest.
Within seconds, their bodies were engulfed in flames.
By the time the technique ended, all three had been reduced to charred corpses.
The smell of burning flesh reached Gōenji's nose.
He nearly vomited.
"Who's going to say Fire Release can't kill people now?"
His eyes narrowed.
That technique had been his own creation.
He had taken the Great Fireball Technique and altered its shape transformation, allowing the flames to travel through the wire formation.
It was a crude experiment.
But it had worked.
What surprised Gōenji wasn't the technique.
It was himself.
In his previous life, he had been too afraid to fight.
Let alone kill someone.
Yet now, he had killed three people without hesitation.
There wasn't even much psychological resistance.
Even after inheriting the original Gōenji's memories, that shouldn't have been enough to change him this drastically.
Could something have happened to my brain during transmigration?
He'd already considered the possibility.
His mind really had become far more useful.
And this battle was proving something else.
It wasn't merely that his comprehension had improved.
His execution had become frighteningly efficient.
Normally, neither the transmigrator nor the original Uchiha Gōenji should have been capable of reacting this decisively.
The Sharingan was certainly part of the reason.
But it wasn't the whole explanation.
Superior dynamic vision was useless without a brain capable of rapidly processing what the eyes saw.
His mind had changed.
There was no doubt about that now.
But this wasn't the time to investigate himself.
Gōenji activated his Sharingan and surveyed the battlefield.
If I don't drive them back, I'll die.
He had only just arrived in this world.
He hadn't even met the famous characters from the original story yet—Minato, Orochimaru, Kakashi...
He still wanted to live long enough to meet them.
Clang! Clang!
The battlefield erupted into chaos.
Hundreds of shinobi clashed throughout the forest.
Kunai, shuriken, and ninjutsu tore through the battlefield in a blur of violence.
Bodies fell.
Blood soaked the leaves.
A dead shinobi lay on the ground with his throat cut, blood pouring into the soil beneath him.
Elsewhere, a kunai pierced another man's skull.
The battlefield was nothing like the sanitized battles shown in the anime.
This was war.
"How did they get our information?! Damn it!"
Gōenji drew his short sword just in time to block an incoming attack.
CLANG!
His Sharingan immediately identified the direction of the strike.
But one question kept bothering him.
How had Kumogakure known their route?
"Die, Uchiha brat!"
The Cloud shinobi's eyes widened when he saw Gōenji's Three-Tomoe Sharingan, but his hands never stopped moving.
His blocked sword strike immediately transitioned into another attack.
Whoosh!
Kumogakure's reputation for taijutsu wasn't undeserved.
The shinobi's swordsmanship was fast and decisive, every strike targeting one of Gōenji's weaknesses.
Clang!
Clang! Clang!
To Gōenji, however, the attacks were far too slow.
With his Sharingan activated, the Cloud shinobi's movements appeared almost sluggish.
He could see the man's muscles tense before each attack and predict the trajectory of his blade.
It was a common shinobi tactic.
When you didn't know what information the enemy possessed or what techniques they could use, close-quarters combat was the safest option.
Prevent them from forming hand seals.
Don't give them time to use ninjutsu.
Simple.
Effective.
Gōenji didn't rush to counterattack.
Instead, he watched.
The Sharingan's copying ability allowed him to observe his opponent's movements in minute detail.
His comprehension was already extraordinary.
What he needed now was material.
He needed more knowledge to feed that mind and build a solid foundation for himself.
And the Cloud shinobi's taijutsu...
Was exactly what he needed.