(Dih-sclaimers: i unfortunately don't own the Naruto or Jujutsu Kaisen Franchise. Much love and appreciation to the actual creators)
[A/N: oops, the chapter's length didn't increase?, again! welp, nothing i could do. right guys?]
So I am pretty sure a preborn baby shouldn't be able to see. At least not in my mother's stomach, but I could, somewhat.
This led me to the conclusion that the Six Eyes must've already awakened.
I couldn't see in the traditional sense, but it didn't matter. I was being fed a constant flow of information, and from it I could feel my surroundings. I could feel its flow, its rhythm, the way it pulsed like a living thing.
During the past month, at least I think a month passed, I really don't know. My sense of time has messed up. But that's besides the point. I tried to figure out what I still remembered about Naruto.
Blank.
I didn't remember a single arc.
I knew for a fact that the name was the title of the anime, but I couldn't bring to mind the main character.
That bald fuck!
I focused instead on what I still had. I understood chakra. Concepts came easily. How coils worked, what training did to a body. I knew how the world functioned on a basic level.
So I retained the basic stuff about how the ninja world worked.
But the story?
Blank.
The team placements, which I assume is a big thing to know since it's a ninja anime. I reached for them and got nothing but the vague outline of things that were supposed to be there.
My optimism about this whole situation was at an all time low. Then something weird happened when I reached further back.
Hashirama and Madara duking it out. The founding of the villages. Tobirama's era. The past great ninja wars. Minato standing there alone before a thousand Iwa ninjas and everything. Those memories were crisp.
Anything past the Nine Tails attack?
Fog.
Speaking of which, I was only able to recall up to when the masked man unleashed the tailed beast in the middle of the village, so I didn't know whether or not the fox was defeated.
I tried to exhale. I don't know if I actually did.
This was… a lot, and I mean A LOT.
What the hell am I supposed to do with memories of the past?
After another barrage of curses directed at the one who sent me here, I began to calm down.
Panicking inside a womb felt like overkill anyway.
Then I remembered whose power I'd been handed.
Satoru Gojo's Six Eyes and Infinity.
The strongest man in his world, the walking definition of "problem." Just thinking it grounded me, like the universe had quietly handed me a safety rail. Even without perfect knowledge, I wasn't starting at zero. Not even close. If I worked for it, I could actually reach the top in this world.
That thought felt steady.
Then it bumped into one I didn't like nearly as much.
Potential.
The word had an aftertaste. A bad one.
People always used it as a compliment that secretly meant "not there yet." Always "could be strong someday." Always "maybe." I had made fun of characters like that in my past life, the one who had to endure the most slander being Megumi Fushiguro. I did not cross realities to become a walking maybe.
"No," I thought, and it came out more serious than I expected.
Not potential. Not could've been. No theoreticals.
Real.
Eventually, sure. But real.
For now, there was nothing I could do except wait while biology did its thing. Time passed in a way that didn't feel like time, just drifting in warmth, listening to a heartbeat that had started to feel familiar.
Then control crept in, bit by bit. Fingers. Limbs. The vague ability to move like a badly calibrated puppet. Eventually my eyes finally opened, and light hit hard enough to make everything feel too big.
Right. Birth time.
Instinct took over before I could think about the logistics. I kicked. Hard. Probably more aggressively than necessary. Everything tightened and shifted around me, and it went from calm to chaos in about five seconds.
A strangely soft pressure and movement.
Then air.
Cold, raw air hitting my lungs, and my body forced a cry out before I had the chance to decide if I had feelings about it. That was the moment it actually clicked.
I was here.
Born.
And I could see clearly. Not blurry newborn vision, not vague shapes. Faces. Movements. Shadows layered over glowing chakra networks like threads under skin.
A nurse lifted me with that careful, practiced way people have when breakage is possible. Her chakra was steady, but her expression wasn't. Something soft and sad sat in it, and even without context, it lodged under my skin.
Before I could untangle it, I was carefully cleaned up, then handed off again.
Warmth. Real warmth this time. Gentle hands and a heartbeat I recognized from months of borrowed safety.
My mother.
She looked tired in the way people do when they've given absolutely everything and still somehow have more to give.
My newborn baby eyes widened a bit as I stared at her face. My attention was caught by her eyes.
They were a pale lavender color. If you didn't know about it, you'd probably think she was blind, but I knew.
She's a Hyuga, and by how her forehead had a distinct lack of a certain seal, I was able to deduce that she's from the main branch of the clan.
I've been reborn as a main branch Hyuga with Satoru Gojo's power.
That made sense when I thought back to my questioning of the old deity.
My powers had been adapted to this world's rules. Becoming a Hyuga was the cleanest way to do it.
I was grabbed out of my thoughts when my mother leaned in closer.
She pressed her cheek lightly against mine. Her voice was faint but steady, like she refused to let her exhaustion mess with the moment.
She said something, and I was barely able to hear it as my hearing was still that of a newborn. But I still caught the important part.
"…no matter what happens, remember that Mommy and Daddy love you, Hakari."
Something tightened in my chest.
I didn't know how to react to it. I already had parents, and I still could vividly remember them. This Hyuga woman, whom I didn't even know the name of, was bringing me to tears as I realized that it was probably a goodbye.
At least it sounded like one.
"Gotta love a child's unwavering love for their mom," I thought, trying to shoo away the confusion as to why I felt such sadness and sorrow.
For a few seconds, I let myself stay there, wrapped in that warmth.
I didn't notice what the Six Eyes were already showing me.
Or rather, I did, but I wasn't looking.
The information was there in the background of my perception. The chakra around me wasn't steady. It was thinning.
But I was too lost in my thoughts to acknowledge it.
My mother's chakra, that had been soft and full, was fraying, thinning around the edges. The steady flow inside her coils had become uneven, skipping beats like a song played on a broken speaker. The warm center that had sustained me was dimming faster than I could pretend it wasn't.
The realization landed like a punch I was too small to take.
She didn't have much time. An hour at best. Probably less.
And when I reached outward for another signature that should've been there, a second presence, someone pacing or praying or panicking, there was nothing.
From what she said, I already kind of figured my father was dead, but that confirmed it.
Neither parent making it to my first coherent sentence. Great start to life.
The thought wasn't fair, and I knew it, but grief doesn't really check for fairness before it shows up. I didn't even know her name, but the bond was already there, rooted deep, stubborn and irrational and real.
Her arms trembled like she was trying to memorize the feel of me.
I wanted to say something back. To promise something dumb and dramatic or just tell her I was here, I saw her, I understood. But all I had was a newborn body and a throat designed exclusively for crying.
So I stayed there.
Her smile was small but warm. Like she'd already accepted the ending and only cared about this part, about making sure I heard that one sentence before the light faded.
I'm sorry, I thought, because it was the only thing I had. I see it. I just don't know how to stop it yet.
For that moment. Just that one—I stopped thinking about my situation, powers, plans, all of it.
It was just her and me.
And even if this life had already started by taking instead of giving, even if everything ahead of me was complicated and bloody and unfair, one thing was simple and absolute.
She loved me.
And that mattered.