Naruto was already sitting on the bed in his own room, his back against the wall, his breathing finally steady after a night that had felt endless. The entire house had returned to silence, but it was a strange, heavy silence, as if every corner still remembered smoke, blood, and haste. The clones had vanished one by one when they were no longer needed, and that helped restore that almost normal, domestic atmosphere—one that never truly matched what he carried inside.
Izumi was in one of the guest rooms.
It hadn't been easy bringing someone there and then saying everything that needed to be said.
He had handled the practical part quickly. Healing, stabilizing, preventing the pain from turning into unconsciousness, and keeping fear from triggering a bad reaction. He had already done that earlier that night. The difficult part had been everything else—the things that couldn't be fixed with chakra.
Because Izumi hadn't been hurt only in her body. She had been broken on the inside, in the cruelest way possible, by someone who should have been the safest point in her life. Discovering that the person you loved and trusted had been capable of wiping out their own clan, sparing neither women nor children, and still leaving you behind to die alone, was the kind of truth the mind couldn't process all at once. Naruto had seen that on her face when he finished explaining. Shock. Denial. That uncertainty that comes when reality becomes too absurd to be accepted as real.
He hadn't gone into unnecessary details. He hadn't told it for the sake of telling it. He had told it because he had to. Because Izumi had the right to know what had happened to her world, and because hiding it would have been just another form of control. Even so, he felt the weight of every word, as if he were adding stones to the same sack he had been carrying since arriving in that world.
When he finished, he didn't try to comfort her with empty phrases. He didn't promise the impossible. He simply led Izumi to a guest room and left her there, with water nearby, the bed prepared, the door left ajar, as if a simple gesture could somehow reduce the size of the tragedy.
*I'll give her the time she needs to process everything.*
He knew that, at some point, she would truly cry. Or become too quiet. Or explode. The mind always searched for a way to survive when the truth was too big.
*Tomorrow morning, I also need to talk to the old man about her situation.*
Hiruzen. The old man had an entire village to hold together, and that meant he always tried to sweep problems under the rug until the rug couldn't take it anymore. Naruto had no intention of letting Izumi become just another "later." Not after what she had been through.
---
*And if anyone tries to hurt her…*
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to. The red gleam that leaked from his eyes finished it for him—threatening, alive, a reminder that inside that body there was something the entire world feared.
Naruto didn't know exactly why he felt that need to protect Izumi. Maybe it was instinct. Maybe it was irritation at the obvious injustice. Maybe it was just that part of him that, even cynical, still hated seeing someone too good being crushed by a rotten story. In the end, he didn't care about the reason. He did what he wanted. And right now, he wanted her to survive.
But when the house finally grew quiet again, another part of his mind opened up.
The part that always returned to numbers, resources, possibilities.
*Now let's count my profits.*
He had done things that night that he shouldn't have been able to do. He had faced something far too big for his age, pushed his limits, survived. And, as a result, he had earned a prize no one in Konoha could even imagine.
A pile of eyes torn from the fate of another family.
He closed his eyes for a moment and summoned the system with the same natural ease as flexing a muscle.
*System, count all the Sharingan and convert them into points.*
The interface appeared in his mind like a sheet of glass—clean and cold—and the numbers appeared without any emotion.
[Sharingan 1 tomoe: 82] [Sharingan 2 tomoe: 39] [Sharingan 3 tomoe: 18]
Naruto stared at it and felt a dry satisfaction, without any childish joy. It was closer to relief. A kind of certainty that, at least in that regard, he hadn't come out of that night with only scars.
Then the system continued, and the next line hit him like a hammer of reality.
[Item-to-point conversion yields 50% of the item's shop value] [Total points to be acquired: 1,307,500 points] [Confirm conversion?] [Yes] [No]
Naruto's eyes widened.
For a second, he even forgot about the exhaustion. That was a lot. It was an amount of points that changed the pace of the entire game.
Apparently, converting items into points was far more viable than using money.
And that irritated him.
Because the system had kept him ignorant. It had let him waste time. It had let him think the path was different.
*System, why didn't you tell me items had such a high value?*
The answer came the way it always did. Dry, mechanical, and somehow mocking.
[The system exists only to provide assistance to the host when requested or in urgent situations] [Neither of those conditions was met] [Therefore, the system bears no obligation or fault regarding the host's ignorance]
A vein pulsed on Naruto's forehead.
He stood there, feeling the urge to argue. To prove a point. To say this was functional stupidity—that a system meant to "help" should optimize decisions, not wait for the host to ask the obvious.
But arguing with it wouldn't change anything. And wasting time that night was a luxury he couldn't afford. There were still things to deal with. Still people out there who might decide his house was a good place to finish what they'd started.
He took a deep breath, swallowed his irritation, and confirmed.
[Yes]
The mental click felt like a verdict. As if he had said, *Fine, I accept the world as it is—so I'll use the world against itself.*
And the moment the points were added, the next question came inevitably.
*Alright, System, show me the cost of the Mangekyō Sharingan.*
With that many points, it made no sense to hold back. Not now. He had just seen Obito. Had felt the depth of that abyss. He had survived through calculation and luck—and he hated relying on luck.
[Of course]
[Mangekyō Sharingan: 300,000] [Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan: 900,000]
Naruto stared at the screen in disbelief. He had just become rich—and was about to lose almost everything.
The difference between being "rich" and being "strong" was cruel. Money bought comfort. Power bought survival. And in that world, survival was the only investment that never failed.
*System, isn't that price abusive?*
He didn't expect the system to change the price. It was more provocation than a real question.
[Negative] [All power has a cost] [Not even the host can escape this truth]
Naruto fell silent.
Because it was true.
He knew what those eyes could do. He knew what it meant to look at someone and bend reality. He knew how unfair the Naruto world was precisely because people like that existed. And if he wanted to choose his own path, he needed tools worse than everyone else's—or at least equivalent.
Still, before clicking, he tried to rein in his anxiety. Tried to calculate coldly.
*System, which abilities will I awaken?*
If it was random, he needed to be ready for any combination. Good ones. Bad ones. Combinations that, in a world like that, meant the difference between "having power" and "having useful power."
[Abilities are random]
Naruto let out a sigh that felt older than his body.
He could stay there thinking forever, and the world still wouldn't become safer.
So he did what he always did when risk was inevitable.
He clicked on the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and confirmed.
[Congratulations on acquiring the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan] [Fusion initiated]
The burning sensation came immediately.
It wasn't a simple, localized pain. It was as if someone had poured liquid fire behind his eyes, and that fire decided to grow slowly, patiently, just to make sure every second was felt. Naruto clenched the sheets, his fingers digging into the fabric, his jaw locking tight.
The pain intensified with each passing second.
He endured it.
There was no drama. No scream. Naruto knew screaming didn't lessen anything. And he knew that if he couldn't endure that, he wouldn't endure what came after. The pain lasted nearly ten minutes—far too long to be just a "side effect," and far too short to truly pay the price of what he was buying.
When it finally began to fade, he breathed as if he had surfaced from underwater.
And then the information came.
It wasn't like reading a scroll. It was like having an entire set of concepts, names, sensations, and possibilities poured directly into his mind, snapping into place in areas that felt as though they had always been prepared for them.
Naruto felt the "fit" and, for a second, almost allowed himself to smile.
Until he realized exactly what had fit.
Another vein throbbed on his forehead.
*System… I like awakening Tsukuyomi, but why did I awaken Kagutsuchi?* *What am I supposed to do with it if I don't have Amaterasu?*
Anger rose like a fever. Not because Kagutsuchi was bad, but because it was incomplete without its other half. It was like being given the key to a door and discovering you didn't own the house.
Naruto felt like he was boiling with rage.
The system's answer came simply. Too simply.
[The host may purchase Amaterasu in the shop]
That simplicity irritated him more than the pain had.
Because that was it. Always that. The system never apologized. Never explained gently. It just placed reality on the table and let the host decide if they had the stomach for it.
He didn't hesitate. He started searching for Amaterasu in the shop.
[Amaterasu: 220,000]
He didn't even look at the price properly. He just bought it.
This time, there was no fire. Just a light itch—almost insulting compared to before—and then it stopped.
Naruto got out of bed too quickly for someone who had just gone through that and went straight to the bathroom. He needed to see it. Needed to confirm with his own eyes what he had done.
He turned on the light, stepped closer to the mirror, and stared at his reflection.
His Mangekyō was complex and alive, formed by rings and overlapping patterns that seemed to move within the crimson iris. Eye-like shapes connected by thin lines of chakra, like a system in constant analysis. It didn't convey chaos, but adaptation. A gaze that always seemed to have more than one option.
Naruto stared at it for long seconds.
He blinked once, slowly, just to see the design shift in an almost imperceptible way. It wasn't literally "spinning" like a wheel. It was more like a pattern that felt alive because the energy behind it was alive. As if the eyes weren't just power, but a mechanism that evaluated the world and chose the best way to break it.
And with that sight, a certainty emerged—simple and dangerous.
Now he had the means to impose his will.
He didn't think about Itachi in that moment. Didn't think about Obito. Nor the village. He thought about the future as an open line, finally less constrained by limitations.
A smile formed.
At that moment, he didn't care about the cost. The only thing in his mind was pure, electric anticipation for what would come next.
(Early access chapters: see the bio.)