Year 57 of Konoha. The Uchiha Clan Compound.
One year had passed since the naming ceremony.
The mat in the main room was now way too small. Uchiha Mali no longer lay on his back staring at the cracks in the ceiling. He stood up. He walked. At an age when most children were still crawling around, he moved through the house with a steady, careful stride that made the older women stop and stare.
One year old. One year and three months. And I can already walk like a normal human.
Not the wobbly walk of a toddler. A real stride. He had spent months watching how adults moved, memorizing how balance worked, how weight shifted, how the hips turned. Then he practiced in secret, late at night when nobody was watching. He pulled himself up on furniture. He fell down. He got back up again.
Now he walked. And now he could actually train.
---
The back garden became his territory.
Every morning, before the compound fully woke up, Mali sat cross-legged under the old maple tree. His back was straight. His hands rested on his knees. His eyes were open, fixed on a single point—a knot in the tree bark, a fallen leaf, the morning star fading in the sky.
Tratak meditation. The candle from before had been replaced by anything that stayed still. His focus was now sharp like a blade. He could hold it for a full hour without blinking.
Then he added sound.
"Lam," he whispered, pulling the syllable from deep in his belly. "Ram. Vam. Yam. Ham. Om. Aum."
The sounds didn't mean anything in this world. But in his old life, a yoga instructor had talked about them—seed syllables, vibrations that were said to connect with the body's energy centers. He didn't know if chakra worked the same way. But sound was physics. Vibration was real. And if he had chakra coils in this body, maybe they would respond.
He chanted the syllables one by one. The garden was quiet. The morning air was completely still.
Then something shifted.
---
It happened during the third week of his combined practice.
Mali sat under the maple tree, eyes closed after the tratak meditation, his voice low with the seed syllables. His breathing was deep and steady. Four counts breathing in. Four counts breathing out. His mind was empty. Not blank—empty in the way a bowl is empty, ready to be filled.
And then he saw it.
Darkness behind his eyelids. But this wasn't the usual darkness. This darkness had texture. Shapes. Lines. A web of something faint, like a charcoal sketch drawn on black paper.
What is this?
He didn't open his eyes. He stayed completely still. The web grew clearer. Not a web—a diagram. A map of something flowing. Thin lines threading through the darkness. Some were bright, some were dim, some were flickering.
Energy. I'm seeing energy.
He focused harder. The lines became sharper. He could now see them outside himself too—not just his own energy, but the energy of others. Through the walls. Through the garden fence. Shapes moving around, each one carrying its own signature of light.
The old gardener who took care of the maple tree: a stable glow, warm and steady.
A servant passing by: dim, flickering, broken bits of light barely holding together.
His mother inside the house: smooth, strong, like a river of light.
His father, training in the yard: a furnace, bright but tightly contained.
Dying beings. Their light is flickering. Dim. Broken into pieces.
Healthy beings. Their light is stable. Smooth.
Mali opened his eyes. The vision disappeared. The garden was just the garden again. But he had seen it. He had seen the currency of life in this world.
Chakra. It's chakra. And if it runs out... you die.
---
The realization settled cold in his stomach.
In his old life, he had died because his body failed him. Cancer. Cells running wild. Nothing he could control. But here, in this world, life was powered by something else. Something you could measure. Something that could run low.
And something that could be built up.
If chakra is a resource, then I need to stockpile it. Like money in a bank. Like muscle on a body.
He thought back to everything he had read in the hospital in his old life. Hours and hours of research. Desperate, hungry reading. Chinese cultivation novels. Indian yogic texts. The meridian system. Bone marrow refining. Visualization techniques where you imagined energy pooling in your lower belly, circulating around, growing thicker and denser.
He remembered the general ideas. He didn't remember the exact step-by-step methods. He had been a hobbyist back then, not a real practitioner. But the skeleton of the knowledge was still there in his mind.
Meridians. Channels that carry energy. If I can see my own channels, maybe I can map them out. Strengthen them.
He closed his eyes again. The inner vision came back, slower this time. His own body was a faint map—dim channels threading through his arms and legs, a small bright core burning in his chest.
Not enough. I can't see clearly enough yet. I need a reference. I need someone who can see inside the body perfectly.
The answer was obvious.
Hyuga. The Byakugan. The all-seeing eye that could map chakra networks with surgical precision.
I need a Hyuga. Not now. But later. When I'm strong enough to make it worth their time. Or when I can just... ask.
He filed the goal away in his mind. A future alliance. A trade. Or something else. He would figure it out when the time came.
For now, he had this inner sense. A new eye. And a path forward.
---
That same night, in a private study on the far side of the compound, Uchiha Takami sat alone.
The grandfather. The clan elder. The man who had named his grandson Mali and declared him the hope of the Uchiha.
His eyes were closed. But these were not meditation eyes. These were different. When they opened, they were red. Three tomoe spun in them, then merged together into a shape like a windmill.
The Mangekyo Sharingan.
Takami had unlocked it decades ago, during a war he never spoke about. He rarely used it now—every time he activated it, it cost him something. But tonight, something had pulled at him. A premonition. A thread of unease that had been growing ever since the naming ceremony.
He had looked at his grandson that day and seen something strange.
Not the Sharingan—the child's eyes were still dark. But something behind them. A stillness. A focus that didn't belong to a baby. And when the name "Mali" was spoken, there had been a flash of something. rage and understanding.
Now, In future , he needed to know what it was.
The Mangekyo spun. Chakra drained out of him. Time bent.
And Takami saw.
---
Bodies. Uchiha bodies. Lying in the streets of the compound. The uchiha fan symbol soaked red with blood.
A figure stood among them. Tall. Far too tall. Shoulders like mountains. A back carved with muscle that shifted into a pattern—a demon's face, grinning through the skin.
What... what is this?
The figure turned around. The face was older. Harder.
But the eyes—the eyes were the same dark eyes that had stared up at him from a baby's mat a year ago.
Uchiha Mali. Grown up. Twisted. A monster wearing his grandson's face.
Takami tried to speak, tried to demand answers, but the vision swept him forward. He saw Mali fighting—no, not fighting. Slaughtering. Uchiha shinobi fell like cut grass. The demon pattern on his back rippled with every movement. The power was inhuman. It wasn't just chakra. It was something else. Something physical. Something built through decades of impossible training.
The vision shattered.
Takami snapped back into his study. His Mangekyo deactivated. His body was drenched in cold sweat. His hands trembled.
"What was that?" he whispered to the empty room. "Was that truly my grandson?"
He sat there for a long time, staring into the darkness.
Then he stood up, slowly, and walked to the window. The compound was quiet. Somewhere on the other side, a one-year-old child was sleeping.
Takami's fingers tightened on the windowsill.
If that vision is true... then the hope of the Uchiha may also be its doom.
Or... its salvation. Depending on what path that boy chooses.
He decided, right there in that moment, to watch. Not to interfere—not yet. But to watch very, very closely.
" My grandson can't kill uchiha, unless somthing may happened in future! "
The next morning, Mali sat under the maple tree as usual.
His inner sense flickered open. He scanned the compound. Servants moving around. Children playing. His father training.
And one new signature, right at the edge of what he could perceive.
Bright. Old. Powerful. And watching him.
Grandfather.
Mali didn't turn around. He didn't open his eyes. But the corner of his mouth twitched slightly.
" Why grandpa is hiding from him and watching him like anbu? May be old age hobby"
He breathed in. Four counts. Held it. Breathed out.
"Lam. Ram. Vam. Yam. Ham. Om. Aum."
---