After cleaning up the remains of lunch—and the chaos from their little scuffle—Yoru realized it was already afternoon. The sun had begun to slope westward, and the oppressive summer heat had eased considerably.
Under the shade of a tree in his courtyard, he set out a bamboo lounge chair. On the low table beside it sat a watermelon chilled in well water.
He didn't even bother using a knife. With a light pull of both hands, the watermelon split neatly in two—cleaner than any blade could have managed.
A fan in his right hand and a slice of watermelon in his left, Yoru savored the icy sweetness while watching Miwa Masayo bury herself in her own half, chewing away with contented little meows.
He watched as she shoved her entire face into the fruit, soaking her fur.
He watched as she ate until her belly turned round, then flopped onto the bamboo chair, too full to move.
The more he watched, the more he smiled.
The tension that had built up over seven straight days of missions slowly melted away.
This was no time of peace. The Third Great Ninja War had already begun, and the situation beyond the hidden villages was growing worse by the day. Every mission outside the village carried real danger.
What should have been an ordinary B-rank mission had become unexpectedly perilous. Along the way, he had encountered several groups of unidentified shinobi. Even though no direct battle had broken out, Yoru had still needed to stay on full alert, not daring to sleep for seven straight days before finally returning safely.
And that tension didn't come only from the mission itself.
After being dismissed from the Military Police Force, the possibility of being sent to the front lines had become very real.
That alone was enough to leave anyone unsettled.
It's all Setsuna's fault. One day, I'll settle that score.
Only when he was with Miwa Masayo could he truly relax. A quiet, steady calm gradually filled his heart.
There was an old saying: when the mind became completely still, it could perceive things hidden from ordinary sight.
As his breathing slowed and stabilized, countless tiny points of light appeared before his eyes, drifting with his breath and naturally gathering toward him.
This was natural energy—the power that allowed Jiraiya to stand among the Legendary Sannin, and the very foundation of the sage arts Orochimaru had long pursued.
Almost by instinct, Yoru chose only the red particles, drawing them into his body while rejecting the dark yellow, cyan, blue, and pale violet ones.
The red motes flowed into him, entering his chakra pathways and merging with the crimson current already coursing through them.
As that red current grew slightly stronger, the chakra flowing through the same pathways was pushed aside by another fraction. It had already thinned to the width of a thread, as though it might snap completely at any moment.
Yet Yoru showed no concern.
As a shinobi, he remained calm, neither alarmed nor pleased, continuing to absorb the red natural energy bit by bit while steadily weakening his chakra.
He had only begun absorbing natural energy three months ago.
The eighteen years before that had been wasted, all because his mind had never known peace.
Transmigration might sound like the sort of thing that happened in stories, but actually living through it was something else entirely—especially in a world consumed by war.
And to make matters worse, his surname was Uchiha.
A clan marked for destruction.
Who could accept that easily?
But since he was already here, he had no choice but to keep living. It wasn't as though he could simply die and expect to wake up back where he came from.
Besides… what was wrong with being an Uchiha?
The Uchiha possessed frightening potential.
Their bloodline was powerful, their people gifted, and their resources abundant.
If he also happened to have some extraordinary talent—or even some absurd cheat to rely on—wouldn't that make his future limitless?
What was the Uchiha clan's downfall, really? Was it even something worth fearing?
Once he became strong enough, he could crush those Konoha elders like insects, kill Obito, slap Madara a few times, and help Black Zetsu release his mother—
What a perfect ending.
Unfortunately, there was no such cheat.
And as for talent, he was nothing special—just the standard, slightly above-average Uchiha.
He trained like everyone else, entered the Academy without anything remarkable, ranked first for four uneventful years, and graduated at the top of his class without much fanfare.
Then his father died.
Killed in battle just before the end of the Second Great Ninja War.
Out of guilt, his father's captain took him in and allowed the newly graduated Yoru to join his squad. Under the protection of a seasoned elite jonin, he spent two years growing steadily.
After that, he left the squad and joined the Military Police Force, where he worked as a low-level patrol officer.
He did that for six years.
As Miwa Masayo became part of his life, he gradually recovered a sense of normalcy—something that reminded him of his previous life.
A simple, ordinary routine.
Within his patrol district, not only Uchiha clan members but even ordinary Konoha villagers built good relationships with him. Through those bonds, familiarity grew—and with familiarity came peace of mind.
Where the heart could rest, that place became home.
The fear of being alone in a foreign world, the madness born from years of fighting—both gradually faded beneath the comfort of this second home.
Yoru let go of the growing anxiety inside him.
He no longer forced himself to the limit every moment of every day, no longer trained with the desperation of someone preparing for a final stand against certain death.
Back then, his thoughts had been simple:
Kill one, and it's enough. Kill two, and it's a gain.
But three months ago, in that long-awaited peace, he sensed natural energy for the first time.
Like a drowning man clutching at a lifeline, he seized it.
In his mind, this path was the strongest one available.
Without any formal teacher, and armed with only a basic understanding of elemental principles, Yoru classified natural energy into five types based on chakra nature transformations:
Water, fire, earth, wind, and lightning.
The relationships between them, however, were unclear.
According to shinobi understanding, these five chakra natures formed a cycle of mutual restraint: wind suppressed lightning, lightning broke earth, earth blocked water, water extinguished fire, and fire countered wind.
But there was no known concept of mutual generation.
Either shinobi had yet to uncover it—
Or the world itself followed different rules.
Through repeated experimentation, Yoru discovered that he could absorb red, fire-aspected natural energy.
It brought a deeply satisfying sensation and a clear, positive response from his body.
But the other four types were dangerous.
Absorbing even a small amount caused his pathways to twist, his muscles to spasm, and violent phantom pain to flare up.
Absorbing too much led to even worse consequences—calcification, wood-like growths, even twisted scales forming on the body.
One path led to comfort and strength.
The other led to pain and weakness.
So he stuck to absorbing only one type, steadily strengthening the flow of natural energy within his body.
Even so, he sometimes mocked himself.
He was probably the most pitiful practitioner alive.
No teacher. No resources. No companions. No proper environment.
He relied entirely on instinct—on what felt right and what caused pain—to guide his training.
As for where this path would eventually lead…
He had no idea.
There was one more experiment that also caused pain:
Mixing natural energy with chakra to create senjutsu chakra.
The results were astonishing. It could nearly double the power of ninjutsu, triple physical durability, and increase resistance to ninjutsu more than tenfold.
But creating it came at a cost.
Pain.
Yoru could endure that much. Compared to real injury, it was nothing.
But after careful observation, he noticed something deeply troubling.
Every time he formed senjutsu chakra, both his chakra recovery and natural energy absorption slowed down.
Which meant—
It was damaging the foundation of his body.
And from what little he understood, that foundation was the most important thing of all. Once damaged, potential would be lost, and the future would be cut short.
So without hesitation, Yoru abandoned the idea of using senjutsu chakra.
Instead, he continued steadily absorbing natural energy, building his strength the slow, stable way.
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