---
Year 56 of Konoha. Uchiha Clan Compound.
The house filled with people before the sun rose.
Uchiha Mali — still Mandy in his own head — lay on a mat in the main room. His neck was too weak to hold steady, but his eyes moved. Tracking faces. Tracking voices. Three months of staring at light through window cracks had sharpened something in his brain.
[Too many people for a baby party.]
Elders filed in first. Old men and women with faces like dried wood. They wore the uchiwa fan on their backs and carried slips of paper in their hands.
Then came the branch families. Younger couples. Children dragged along who clearly didn't want to be there. The room got warm. Rice wine appeared. Conversation buzzed.
Mandy's mother propped him up on a cushion. His father stood near the wall, scarred hands folded, saying nothing. His grandfather sat at the center of the room like a stone in a river, letting the noise flow around him.
[looks like i got some background in uchiha]
---
Uchiha Ishario arrived late.
Mandy knew the name. He'd heard it whispered with the particular tone people used for someone who could ruin their life.
Ishario was ancient. Face full of cracks. Eyes sharp enough to cut cloth. He walked with a cane but didn't lean on it. Behind him trailed a boy, maybe twelve, with dark hair and a face already settling into hard lines.
"Fugaku-sama," someone murmured.
[Fugaku. Future clan head. Itachi and Sasuke's father. He's just a kid.]
Mandy looked at memories of anime, then decided The timeline stretched out in his head. Fugaku was twelve. Unmarried. The massacre was decades away.
[I have time. I have plenty of time.]
Ishario's eyes found the baby on the mat. The old man stared. Mandy stared back. He didn't know why — some instinct — but he didn't blink.
Ishario's fingers tightened on his cane.
"Alert," the old man said. Not a compliment. An observation.
He turned to the room. "Begin."
---
The first elder stood.
Old woman. Face like crumpled paper. She held a slip in both hands and read it like scripture.
"Uchiha Crow."
The room nodded. Someone wrote it down.
[Crow? Like the garbage bird?]
Second elder. Beard down to his belt. "Uchiha Jackal."
Murmurs of approval.
[Jackal. The scavenger animal. Great.]
"Uchiha Star."
Mandy exhaled. [Okay. That one's fine. I can work with Star.]
"Uchiha Donkey."
[I can't work with Donkey.]
"Uchiha Fart," said a man so old he appeared to be sleeping. No one laughed. Multiple people wrote it down seriously.
[THEY WROTE IT DOWN.]
"Uchiha Shoe."
"Uchiha Banana."
"Uchiha Sewage."
Mandy's tiny left hand clenched into a fist. Properly. Fully. The first real fist he'd made in this body.
[I understand now. I understand why Itachi killed everyone. If this is how they name children, they had it coming.]
---
The grandfather rose.
The room went completely silent.
He looked down at Mandy. Dark eyes. Heavy. Then he spoke.
"My grandson's name is Uchiha Mali."
Silence.
Ishario said, "Explain."
The grandfather turned to the room. His voice shifted — no longer a grandfather's voice. A commander's.
"Mali. The uchiha. Among the three uchiha brothers, the most physically fierce. Warrior. Strategist. In uchiha legend's, we have best warrior before madara the ancestor head uchiha mali"
The elders leaned forward. Even the sleeping man opened his eyes.
He looked down at Mandy again.
"This child's first word was 'Uchiha.' He watches everything. He tracks movement. He does not cry. Three months old, and he is the hope for uchiha."
His voice rose slightly.
---
Mandy heard all of it.
The warrior. The god-killer. The legend.
He also heard the other thing.
His grandfather's eyes flickered red for a moment. Sharingan. Spinning. Then gone.
---
The ceremony ended. Food appeared. People talked. Ishario left early, Fugaku trailing behind. The boy glanced back once at Mali with an unreadable expression.
[He's twelve. I have years before things go bad.]
[Grow the body. Train the body. Get strong enough to walk, to run, to fight.]
[Then leave.]
He wasn't going to be a shinobi. He wasn't going to die in some clan massacre for a village that hated them. He was going to do what he died wishing he could do.
Train like the Hanma family. Challenge the strongest people alive. Roam the world and ask one question: Are you stronger than me?
His mother lifted him from the mat. His father put a rough hand on his back.
"Our son," his mother said. "Uchiha Mali."