Chapter 2 : Chakra Training
The hangover hit like a kunai to the skull. Rei stumbled out of bed, his mouth tasting like he'd been chewing on leather and regret.
By noon, the pounding in his head had subsided enough for him to venture outside. The Uchiha compound sprawled around him like a monument to arrogance made manifest. Every door, every shop sign, every piece of clothing bore the clan's fan symbol like a brand of ownership. The civilians—the 'non-ninja' civilians—walked with their chins raised and shoulders squared, as if proximity to ninja blood made them warriors themselves.
It was pathetic and dangerous in equal measure.
"Look at them," Rei muttered, watching a shopkeeper haggle with a customer while the Uchiha fan on his apron seemed to do half the negotiating. "Acting like they could take on a chunin when most of them couldn't throw a kunai straight if their lives depended on it."
But that was the Uchiha way, wasn't it? Pride as a substitute for substance. Arrogance as armor against inadequacy. He could feel it in his own chest sometimes—that inherited certainty that being born with the right name made you special, that the Sharingan was proof of divine favor rather than genetic lottery.
Most of them are genin and chunin, he realized as he extended his senses, feeling for chakra signatures. Maybe a dozen jonin in the entire compound. We're not the military powerhouse we pretend to be.
The revelation should have been comforting—less competition, more opportunities for advancement. Instead, it felt like another weight settling on his shoulders. In a world where strength was the only currency that mattered, the Uchiha were living on borrowed prestige and fading reputation.
Konoha itself stretched beyond the compound like a living organism, vast and complex in ways the anime had never captured. Hundreds of thousands of people going about their daily lives, most of them blissfully unaware that children were being trained to kill in their name. The Hokage faces carved into the mountain watched over it all with stone eyes, eternal and judgmental.
If Konoha is this big, Rei thought, then the other villages...
The implications made his stomach turn. This wasn't a small-scale conflict between ninja clans. This was industrial warfare, with villages as factories and children as the primary export. The Third War wasn't going to be a series of dramatic duels and noble sacrifices—it was going to be a meat grinder that would consume everything in its path.
After a lunch that tasted like ash in his mouth, Rei made his way to the training grounds behind the Hokage Monument. The forest here was quiet, secluded—perfect for the kind of training that involved admitting just how pathetically weak he really was.
"That B-rank mission almost killed me," he said aloud, the words hanging in the air like an accusation. "What am I going to do when the real war starts? When 'anything goes' becomes the only rule that matters?"
The memory of waking up in the hospital came flooding back, along with the accidental discovery that had probably saved his life. The bathroom mirror had shown him crimson eyes with two distinct tomoe, spinning lazily like drops of blood in water. The Sharingan—evolved from trauma, strengthened by loss.
Double tomoe. Even in the Uchiha clan, that was respectable. His father had been a special jonin with the same level of development. Three tomoe meant automatic jonin status, instant respect, a voice in clan politics. The Mangekyo was a myth, a legend whispered about in the deepest archives where only the clan elders dared to look.
Taboo knowledge, Rei thought with a shiver. The kind of power that comes with prices too terrible to pay.
But two tomoe was a good start. Two tomoe meant he wasn't completely helpless.
He activated the Sharingan and immediately felt the world sharpen around him. Colors became more vivid, movements more predictable. He could see the individual leaves falling from the trees, track the path of insects through the air. It was intoxicating and terrifying—like seeing the world through the eyes of a predator.
Then the dizziness hit like a physical blow, sending him tumbling from his perch in the tree to crash face-first into the forest floor.
"Son of a—" The curse was cut off by the realization that nobody had attacked him. His chakra was simply... gone. Completely depleted by a few minutes of using his bloodline.
Pathetic. The word echoed in his mind like a death sentence. Absolutely pathetic.
He lay there for a moment, tasting dirt and humiliation in equal measure. This was what passed for an elite bloodline? This was the vaunted power of the Sharingan? He couldn't maintain it for five minutes without collapsing like a academy student on their first day.
"Everything starts somewhere," he muttered, pushing himself upright. "Even legends have to crawl before they can walk."
Chakra extraction had always been second nature to the original Rei, as automatic as breathing. But now, with Zhang Lie's memories and perspective guiding the process, something felt different. Chakra came easier, more abundant. The balance between physical and mental felt more natural, like a musician finally hearing the harmony they'd been struggling to achieve.
Is it because my soul traveled here? The thought was both thrilling and terrifying. Does that mean my chkra is stronger? Or am I just more aware of the process now?
Whatever the reason, he could feel the difference. Each extraction yielded more chakra than before, came faster and with less strain. Not enough to call himself a prodigy, but enough to give him hope.
"Genius," he said with a bitter laugh. "That's what they'll call me. Another Uchiha genius, burning bright before burning out."
The training continued through the afternoon—extraction until his cells couldn't hold any more, then shuriken practice until his arms ached, then hand seals until his fingers cramped. The seal work was particularly humiliating. Three seals per second was respectable for a genin, but in a world where legends could weave six seals in the blink of an eye, it felt like moving through molasses.
Itachi Uchiha, he thought with something approaching reverence. Six seals per second when he was barely older than I am now. One-handed casting. Techniques that defied comprehension.
The future held monsters wearing the faces of children, prodigies who made the impossible look routine. If Rei wanted to survive what was coming, he'd need to become something extraordinary.
Or at least extraordinary enough not to die screaming in some nameless forest.
The physical training was a reminder of his limitations in other ways. The Uchiha had good physiques—better than average—but they weren't Senju. They didn't have the raw physical power to match their legendary rivals, the bodies that could contain chakra like living batteries.
Tsunade's Strength of a Hundred seal, he mused, remembering the technique from the anime. Storing chakra over time, releasing it when needed. That could work...
But even as the thought formed, he dismissed it. Why would one of the legendary Sannin take on an Uchiha student? Especially now, with her brother dead and her lover killed by enemy ninja. The woman who would become the greatest medical ninja in history was probably drowning in her own trauma, developing the hemophobia that would drive her from the battlefield.
The irony was bitter enough to choke on. The one person who might have the technique he needed was the one person who had every reason to hate his clan.
Grandfather killed by Madara. Brother killed in the war. Lover killed by Cloud ninja. The litany of loss read like a casualty report. Why would she help the clan that started it all?
The training session ended as the sun began to set, painting the forest in shades of gold and crimson. Rei's muscles ached, his chakra was depleted, and his hands were cramped from endless seal practice. But for the first time since waking up in this body, he felt like he'd accomplished something.
One hour of seal practice every day, he promised himself. Minimum. If I'm going to survive what's coming, I need to be faster, stronger, better.
The walk back to the Uchiha compound was quiet, filled with the kind of bone-deep exhaustion that came from pushing physical limits. But as he approached the main intersection, something caught his eye that made him stop in his tracks.
A boy with goggles was helping an elderly woman cross the street, his movements careful and patient despite the obvious urgency in his posture. The orange jacket was unmistakable, even in the fading light.
Obito Uchiha. The name hit him like a physical blow. The boy who would become a monster. The child who would help orchestrate the Fourth War.
Rei watched as Obito finished helping the woman, accepting her grateful thanks with a bashful smile before hurrying off toward whatever training session or mission briefing awaited him. He looked so... normal. So genuinely kind, with none of the darkness that would eventually consume him.
He doesn't know, Rei thought with a mixture of pity. He has no idea what he's going to become. What he's going to lose.
For a moment, he considered approaching the other boy. They were clan members, after all, and roughly the same age. But what could he say? 'Hello, I'm from the future, and you're going to become one of history's greatest villains'?
Instead, he watched Obito disappear into the crowd, another child playing at being a warrior while the world prepared to devour him whole.
We're all just children playing dress-up, Rei thought, echoing Wada Yu's words from the night before. Pretending we understand what we're part of.
The compound felt different when he returned, charged with an energy he couldn't quite identify. Conversations stopped when he passed, eyes following him with a mixture of curiosity and calculation. Word had gotten out about his Sharingan evolution, apparently. In a clan where bloodline development was everything, a ten-year-old with double tomoe was worthy of notice.
Great, he thought sourly. More attention. Just what I need.
But as he settled into his empty house for another night alone, Rei found himself thinking not about the scrutiny or the politics, but about the boy with the goggles. About the kindness in Obito's eyes and the tragedy that awaited him.
Maybe I can change things, he thought. Maybe I can save him.
The thought was naive, he knew. Optimistic to the point of delusion. But in a world where children were weapons and wars were inevitable, sometimes naive optimism was the only alternative to complete despair.
And if he was going to survive long enough to make a difference, he had a lot of training to do.