The transition from life to death wasn't a tunnel of light. It wasn't a meeting with a deity or a review of my sins. It was a cold, sharp, and instantaneous snap—like a glass filament breaking under the pressure of a high-speed collision. One moment, the screech of tires and the smell of burning rubber; the next, a silence so profound it felt heavy.
Then came the breathing.
It didn't feel like my breath. It was shallow, rasped, and filtered through what felt like miles of dry gauze. I tried to move my fingers, but they were leaden. Every nerve ending in my body was screaming, a dull, throbbing roar that hummed in my bones. It was the kind of pain that didn't just hurt; it defined your entire existence.
I opened my eyes.
The world was a blur of charcoal greys and flickering oranges. I wasn't in a hospital. The ceiling was jagged, carved from dark, volcanic rock. Stalactites hung like frozen teeth from the gloom above. This was a cave, or perhaps a bunker deep within a mountain.
'Where…?'
The thought had barely formed before the floodgates opened. It wasn't a memory; it was a violent intrusion. It felt like someone was pouring molten lead into my skull.
I saw a man with a wide, straw hat and a long beard—Ishikawa, the First Tsuchikage. I saw the formation of a village amidst the stone spires of the Land of Earth. I felt the heat of the desert during the first Kage Summit. And then, the most vivid, terrifying image of all: a man with long, spiky black hair and eyes the color of fresh blood, standing atop a blue, ethereal titan.
Madara Uchiha.
The memory hit me with the force of a physical blow. I felt the searing heat of the Susanoo's blade as it swept through the air, the shockwave shattering the earth beneath my feet. I felt the humiliation. The cold, mocking voice of the Uchiha telling me that the Hidden Stone would bow to the Leaf.
I gasped, my lungs burning. The bandages around my chest tightened, making me feel like I was being strangled by a mummy.
"Master Mu! Master, please! You must remain still!"
The voice was young, frantic, and oddly familiar. I turned my head—a slow, agonizing movement that made my vision swim.
Beside the stone plinth stood a boy. He couldn't have been more than fourteen or fifteen. He wore a simple brown kimono over a mesh armor vest, his hair a dark, messy shock. But it was the nose—bulbous and red even at this age—that gave him away.
Onoki. The future Third Tsuchikage.
The realization hit me harder than the pain. This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a hallucination of a dying mind. I knew this world. I had spent years reading the manga, arguing over power scales on forums, and watching the history of the Shinobi world unfold on a screen.
I was Mu. The Second Tsuchikage. The "Null-Man."
But I was also… me. A man from a world of glass and steel, of internet and electricity. Two lives were currently grinding against each other in my mind like tectonic plates, creating a friction that threatened to set my brain on fire.
"Onoki," I whispered.
The sound was horrifying. It didn't sound like a human voice. It sounded like two pieces of sandpaper being rubbed together in a tomb. My vocal cords had been scorched by the friction of Madara's chakra or perhaps by the very Jinton I was supposed to master.
"I am here, Master!" Onoki cried, his eyes brimming with tears. He reached out to touch my arm but pulled back at the last second, as if afraid I would crumble into dust. "The healers… they said the burns from the Uchiha's attack were deep. They said you might not wake for weeks."
"How long?" I managed to rasp out.
"Four days since the battle," Onoki said, his voice dropping into a shamed whisper. "The village is in an uproar. The elders are demanding we retaliate, but… but after what that man did…"
I closed my eyes. Four days.
In the canon timeline, this was a pivotal moment. The First Shinobi World War hadn't fully erupted yet, but the tensions were at a boiling point. The First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, was still alive, trying to maintain a fragile peace by distributing the Tailed Beasts. But Madara Uchiha was already acting as a rogue element, asserting the Leaf's dominance through sheer terror.
Mu had survived this encounter, but he had carried the scars—both physical and psychological—for the rest of his life.
I took a deep, shaky breath, trying to steady the roiling sea of my mind. I needed to check my status. Not with a blue screen or a "System," but with the senses Mu had spent decades honing.
I focused inward.
At first, there was nothing but the throb of pain. But then, I felt it. A cold, dense coil of energy centered in my gut. It didn't feel like the "mana" from fantasy novels, which could be used to create magic. It felt alive. It felt like a pressurized gas, vibrating at a frequency that made my skin crawl.
Chakra.
And not just any chakra. This was the chakra of a Kage-level shinobi, who had honed it his entire life. I let a tiny sliver of it leak out, and the effect was instantaneous.
The air in the room became heavy. The flickering oil lamps dimmed as if the light itself were being sucked into a vacuum. Onoki gasped, stumbling back, his knees hitting the floor.
"M-Master?" he stammered, his teeth chattering.
I pulled the energy back in, horrified by its potency. In my mind, the "experience" of Mu began to guide me. It was like a manual being flipped through at light-speed. I knew how to mold this energy. I knew the hand signs. I knew the feeling of the molecules in the air.
I reached out with my mind, using Mu's legendary sensing ability. Which were stated to be the second best in the world.
The world exploded into a map of vibrations. I could feel the guards outside the heavy stone doors—their heartbeats, the rhythm of their breathing, the slight clatter of their armor. I could feel the people in the levels above us, thousands of souls living within the mountain of Iwagakure.
But most importantly, I felt the ability to embody the void, to become a hollow presence and avoid all forms of detection.
Mu was the "Null-Man" because he could erase his presence. I felt that capacity within me—a literal hole in reality where I should be. It was a terrifying, addictive feeling. I wasn't just a man; I was a ghost.
"Water," I croaked, the effort of the sensing making my head spin.
Onoki scrambled to fetch a cup from outside the 'cave', coming back to the room he reached out, his hands shaking as he held it to my bandaged lips. The cool liquid was like heaven, soothing the fire in my throat.
"Onoki," I said, my voice slightly stronger now. "Bring me… a mirror."
The boy hesitated. "Master, the healers said—"
"A mirror. Now."
I used the "Will of Stone" tone that Mu was famous for—a cold, uncompromising command. Onoki didn't argue further. He hurried to the corner of the room and brought back a polished bronze plate.
I took it from him, my bandaged fingers clumsy.
I looked at the reflection. Or rather, I looked at the monster.
There were no features. Every inch of my head and neck was wrapped in tightly wound, yellowed linen. Only two slits were left for the eyes. And those eyes… they weren't the eyes of the man I used to be. They were a pale, piercing white-grey, devoid of warmth, filled with the weight of a thousand battlefields.
I looked like a nightmare. I looked like the personification of war.
'This is my life now,' I thought, the bronze plate trembling in my hand. 'I am in a world where children are trained to be killers, where gods walk the earth, and where I am destined to die in a mutual assassination with the Second Mizukage.'
No.
The thought was sharp and crystalline.
I knew the plot. I knew the tragedy of the Uchiha. I knew about the betrayal of Zetsu and the resurrection of Kaguya. I knew the mistakes the other Kage would make.
If I had the power of the Second Tsuchikage—the ability to dismantle atoms themselves with Dust Release—and the knowledge of the future, I wasn't going to be a sacrificial lamb for the "Great Ninja War" narrative.
I would make the Stone the center of the world.
"Onoki," I said, setting the mirror aside. The boy looked up, sensing the change in my aura. The fear was still there, but there was something else—a spark of the legendary loyalty the Stone was known for.
"Yes, Master?"
"The Uchiha thinks he has broken us," I said, the rasp in my voice turning into a low growl. "He thinks the Stone is something to be stepped upon. He is wrong. The Stone does not break. It waits. It endures. And eventually… it crushes."
Onoki's eyes widened. "What do we do?"
"We don't retaliate. Not yet," I said, my mind already racing through the political landscape of the First War era. "Tell the Council that the Tsuchikage is recovering. Tell them that until I stand, no Stone shinobi is to cross the borders of the Land of Fire. We are going to build, Onoki. We are going to build until our shadow covers the world."
The boy nodded fervently, the "Will of Stone" igniting in his young heart.
I leaned back against the stone plinth, my body screaming for rest. But my mind was wide awake.
I had work to do. I needed to find a way to heal this broken body. Maybe try to learn Sage mode, I could also try to steal the Sharingan from an Uchiha. And I needed to make sure that when the First Shinobi World War began, Iwagakure wouldn't just be a participant.
It would be the victor.
"Leave and let me regain my strength and tell me when those old men have grown impatient" I said, with a firm tone as i drifted into a slumber.