Chapter 1: The Eyes That See Too Much
The sky above was cracked with smoke. Ash hung like mist, veiling the ruined trees and scorched soil of the battlefield. Seiji blinked against the sting in his eyes, the overwhelming weight of heat and blood pressing in on him. Bodies lay in broken heaps, some unrecognizable, others still twitching in denial of death.
He sat up slowly, the ringing in his ears deafening. There were screams in the distance, steel meeting steel, jutsu detonating with thunderclaps, but they all felt far away. His vision pulsed—no, not his normal vision. Something else.
Everything shimmered, as if reality itself were layered. With a mere thought, he could peel those layers away.
"W-Where am I?" he muttered, his voice raspy.
His mind reeled.
This isn't Earth.
He had been on his way to work, half-asleep on a morning train, earbuds in, scrolling through his phone. A bright flash. Silence. Darkness. And then… this.
The memory was fragmented, but one truth loomed above all: he wasn't in his world anymore.
Through instinct—or something deeper—he reached up and adjusted the dark shades perched on his face. Somehow, even through them, he could see. Not just see. Analyze. Dissect. Understand.
His vision shifted again, unconsciously. Chakra networks danced like rivers within the corpses nearby. Traces of jutsu energy flickered across burned craters, leaving behind a visible residue of hand seals and intent. It was like looking at reality's blueprint.
And he understood it. Without knowing how.
Footsteps crunched behind him.
Seiji turned.
A pair of shinobi in flak jackets approached warily. One held a kunai at the ready; the other, taller and older, had his hand poised in a half-seal.
"Hey! He's alive!" the younger one barked.
"Don't move!" snapped the other. "Who are you? What unit were you with?"
Seiji stared blankly.
Unit?
He opened his mouth, then paused. Think.
"Got caught in an ambush," he said slowly, deliberately slurring his voice. "Don't remember much."
The older ninja narrowed his eyes. "You're a genin?"
"…Yeah."
The two exchanged looks. The younger one sighed, lowering his kunai.
"Lucky bastard. This whole valley's a massacre. Only a few survivors."
They helped him up. Pain lanced through Seiji's ribs. His body—this new body—was lean, perhaps thirteen or fourteen, with callouses that spoke of training but no significant battle scars. Civilian-born, maybe. Just enough to pass as cannon fodder in this hellish war.
He didn't even know his own name.
"You're with the Leaf, right?"
He hesitated, then nodded. "Yeah."
The tall one grunted. "Good. Let's get you patched up. Hokage's pulling the survivors back to the forward camp."
As they moved through the field, Seiji's eyes flickered behind the dark glass of his shades. Chakra signatures sparked like candles in the fog. Some were fading. Others—strong, blinding—moved like gods across the land.
In the far distance, he saw it: a clash of titans.
A man with silver hair, a masked face, and a blade crackling with lightning. Another figure, cloaked in red and black, weaving hand seals at impossible speeds. The sky tore asunder with each blow.
He memorized every detail.
Not out of fear. Not awe.
Curiosity.
---
The camp was a mess of wounded, tents, and exhausted shinobi. Medical-nin dashed between rows, hands glowing green as they tried to stem the tide of death.
They assigned Seiji a cot near the edge. A grim-faced medic patched up his ribs with gruff indifference.
"You're lucky you didn't lose a leg," she muttered.
Seiji stared up at the tent ceiling, lost in thought.
What now?
He had no background. No documents. But he understood enough about the Naruto world to know he had to play it smart.
He glanced at a pair of genin sharing food nearby. One had wild eyebrows and a stupid grin. The other wore a cold expression and carried a tanto across his back.
Young Guy and Kakashi, he realized.
So he'd landed in the middle of the Third Great Ninja War.
He wasn't strong. Not yet. But he had something else. Something that could change everything.
He closed his eyes, focusing inward.
The Six Eyes.
They were not like the Rinnegan or Sharingan. They didn't grant powers. They granted clarity. With them, he could see chakra flow, jutsu structure, even the micro-movements of muscle and breath during hand signs. With enough time, he could break down any technique to its core. And more importantly—he could replicate it.
Efficiently.
Perfect chakra control. Minimal wastage. Maximum effect.
He tested a theory, forming a basic hand seal: Clone Jutsu.
The result was a sloppy, flickering clone that evaporated in seconds.
He frowned.
Then he watched two genin nearby performing the same jutsu. He studied every micro-second of their seal formation, their chakra kneading, their release timing.
Analyzed.
Tried again.
The clone solidified, crisp and stable.
He grinned to himself. "Gotcha."
A name. He still needed a name.
The shinobi in this world revered legacy. But he had none.
So he chose one for himself.
"Seiji," he murmured. "Yeah… that'll do."
From the ashes of war, a new player had entered the world.
Not a chosen one. Not a prodigy.
Just a civilian boy…
…with eyes that saw everything.
End of chapter 1