The transition from the wild borders of the kingdom to the heart of Magnolia was a blur of changing colors. For months, Kaelen's world had been a palette of whites, greys, and deep blues. Now, as he walked through the western gate of the city, he was hit by a sensory overload that made his head throb.
Magnolia was loud. In Isvan, the snow acted as a natural muffler, swallowing every sound. Here, the stone streets amplified everything—the iron-rimmed wheels of merchant carts, the rhythmic shouting of street vendors, and the distant, boisterous laughter of mages coming from a large building near the river.
He kept his head down, the hood of his cloak casting a deep shadow over his face. To the casual observer, he was just another orphan of the recent skirmishes or a runaway from the border towns. But beneath the fabric, his black eyes were darting, scanning every alleyway and every guard.
The magic here is dense, Kaelen thought.
Even without his Sharingan, he could feel the ambient Ethernano. It was thick and humid, clinging to his skin like a heavy mist. Every few blocks, he passed a mage whose signature felt like a burning torch in the dark. He avoided them instinctively. He didn't want to be noticed by the "Legal Guilds." He had seen the banner of a guild called Fairy Tail hanging from several lamp posts—a strange, winged mark. He steered clear of it. A guild meant prying eyes, and right now, he was a walking errant kid.
Kaelen needed money. The emeralds he had "liberated" from a caravan during his trek were high-quality, but raw. He found a narrow street tucked away from the main plaza, filled with tailors and second-hand jewelers. This was the kind of place where people asked about the purity of the stone rather than the name of the seller.
He stepped into a small, cluttered shop. The smell of old copper and dust was overwhelming. Behind a counter made of dark, scarred oak sat a woman with sharp features and grey hair pulled into a tight bun.
"I'm not buying junk today, kid," she said without looking up from a ledger. "Take your scrap metal elsewhere."
Kaelen didn't flinch. He walked to the counter and reached into the air. He didn't use a flourish; he simply allowed his hand to slip into the invisible fold of space he had mastered over the last few months. He pulled out a single, uncut emerald the size of a thumb and set it on the wood.
The woman's pen stopped. She picked up the gem, holding it toward the flickering light of a magic lamp.
"Isvan emerald," she whispered, her voice losing its edge. "Uncut, but the clarity is... exceptional." She looked at Kaelen, her eyes narrowing. "Where did a brat like you get a stone from the North? These haven't been in the market since the winter started."
"It belonged to my family," Kaelen said. It wasn't exactly a lie—everything he had now was his only inheritance. "I need Jewels. And I need a place to stay where no one reports to the guard."
The woman studied him. She saw the dirt on his cloak, the way his hand hovered near his hip, and the absolute lack of fear in his gaze. She had seen "cursed" children before—those who had survived the worst the world had to offer and come out the other side as something else.
"Forty-five thousand Jewels," she said, pulling a heavy leather pouch from under the counter. "It's half what it's worth, but thirty percent of that is for my silence. There's a boarding house three streets over, near the old canal. Ask for 'Mother Martha.' Tell her the bird flew south. She'll give you a room and won't ask for a birth certificate."
Kaelen took the pouch. The weight of it was a small comfort. "Forty-five is fine. Just make sure the stone stays off the display for a week."He felt a little more refreshed now that he had some money; this lady even offered him a place to sleep. That's good.
The walk toward the canal was quieter. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long, jagged shadows across the cobblestones. As Kaelen turned into a narrow passage between two tall warehouses, he felt the familiar prickle at the back of his neck.
Someone was following him. Actually, three someones.
He didn't speed up. He didn't want to lead them to his new lodging. He stopped in the middle of the alley, his back to the entrance.
"You've got a heavy purse for such a small kid," a voice called out.
Three teenagers, probably fourteen or fifteen, stepped out from the shadows. They weren't mages, just street rats who had seen a kid walking into a pawn shop and coming out with a loaded pouch. The one in the middle flicked a rusted switchblade open.
"Give us the bag, kid. We'll let you keep your boots. Fair trade, right?"
Kaelen slowly turned around. He felt a surge of cold energy rushing toward his eyes. He didn't hesitate. He needed to see if he could handle the strain of the two-tomoe in a real conflict, even though he didn't really need to use his eyes for those kids.
The world didn't just slow down; it became a sequence of predictable patterns. Kaelen could see the leader's breathing—the way his chest expanded, indicating a sudden lunge. He could see the tension in the second boy's hand as he prepared to throw a rock. He could even see the slight tremor in their muscles.
"You shouldn't have followed me," Kaelen said.
The leader lunged, swinging the blade in a wide, sloppy arc. To Kaelen, the move was laughable. He didn't even draw his sword. He stepped to the right, the blade passing inches from his chest, and grabbed the boy's wrist.
Friction.
He surged a sharp, blue discharge of lightning through his palm. It wasn't enough to kill, but it was enough to shatter the nerves. The boy shrieked, his entire arm going rigid as the electricity forced his muscles to spasm uncontrollably. He fell to the ground, twitching and gasping for air.
The other two froze. They hadn't seen the spark—they just saw their leader touch the kid and collapse like he'd been hit by a falling anvil.
"What... a mage? A kid like you?" the second one stammered, dropping the rock.
Kaelen walked toward them. The two black marks in his red pupils spun slowly, a hypnotic, predatory rhythm that seemed to drain the courage out of the alley.
"I'm someone you're going to forget you ever saw," Kaelen whispered.
He didn't need to do anything else. The sheer malice radiating from his eyes was enough. The two boys grabbed their unconscious friend and scrambled away, disappearing into the Magnolia night.
Kaelen deactivated his eyes immediately. The Sharingan didn't use as much magic as he thought, but it was strange that in this world the Sharingan was mana-intensive, whereas in Naruto, if he remembered correctly, the Sharingan only consumed a minimal amount of chakra. He simply hoped he could train on that.
He reached the canal and found the boarding house. It was a decrepit, three-story building that smelled of damp wood and cheap tobacco. Mother Martha was a woman of few words; she took five hundred Jewels and handed him a key to a room on the top floor.
The room was small—just a bed, a rickety table, and a window that looked out over the rooftops of Magnolia. Kaelen locked the door and sat on the bed, his back against the wall.
He was in Fiore. He had enough money to last a few months. But as he looked out at the city, he realized his father was right. This power... it wasn't just a tool. It was a hunger. The more he used it, the more he felt the "Curse" whispering that he was alone, that the world was an enemy to be analyzed and conquered.
I need a way to train without burning out, he thought, staring at his reflection in the dark window. And I need to find out why the mages in this country are so obsessed with 'Guilds.'
He closed his eyes, drifting into a restless sleep.
The next morning, the sun hit the small window of the room with a persistence Kaelen wasn't used to. In Isvan, dawn was a struggle; in Magnolia, it was an announcement. He sat up, his joints popping like dry twigs. A dull, rhythmic ache throbbed behind his sockets.
He spent the first hour staring at the ceiling, letting his magic container stabilize. He felt like a cracked vase being filled with a firehose. The Ethernano in Fiore was so dense it was actually making his skin itch.
His magic power had increased after unlocking his second tomoe, but not by much. If he could master his Sharingan, he could probably solve all his problems.
Now he had to find information; he didn't know much about this world. If he could also find information about the bastard who killed his clan, that would be good.
He found the public library near the South Gate early. It was a silent, stone monolith filled with the scent of old parchment and ink. Kaelen didn't have time to waste wandering the aisles like a normal student. He needed data, and he needed it before his eyes burned out.
He found a secluded corner in the Magical History section and piled a dozen thick volumes on the table.
The world bled into crimson. The two black marks in his eyes began to spin with a frantic, blurring speed. He began to flip the pages. To any observer, he looked like a child playing with books, turning pages every second. In reality, his brain was recording every word, every diagram, and every historical map with perfect fidelity.
He scanned The Great War of Mages, Ethernano Structures, and Ancient Lineages of the East.
Nothing.
No mention of the Uchiha. No mention of a "Sharingan." The more he read, the more he realized that his clan was a ghost in this world's history. Either they were so secluded that even the finest scholars of Fiore had never heard of them, or, more likely, someone had systematically scrubbed them from the records of Earthland.
He slammed the last book shut, the sound echoing through the quiet hall. He had absorbed a month's worth of study in less than an hour, but all he had learned was that he was truly, utterly alone. The library offered no shortcuts to his father's past or the man with the cane. But there are the dark guilds; he must probably be connected to them.
He got what he wanted here, now he just had to find a place to train without bothering anyone.
By the afternoon, the stone walls of Magnolia felt like they were closing in. He headed west, crossing the river and disappearing into the dense foliage of the Magnolia forest. He needed space to bleed off the frustration.
He found a small clearing where a fast-moving stream cut through the mossy rocks. He reached into a spatial rift, pulling out his short-sword.
"Friction," he whispered, his eyes turning red once more.
He gripped the hilt, trying to vibrate the Ethernano in his arm to generate a high-frequency discharge. He wanted more than just sparks; he wanted a blade of pure lightning. He pictured the techniques from his memories, sharp, focused, and lethal.
Crackle. Sputter.
The blue sparks danced briefly along the iron before dying out with a pathetic hiss. He tried again, pushing more mana into his hand. His magic container, the internal "battery" of a ten-year-old, began to groan under the pressure. The Ethernano felt like liquid lead in his veins.
Again.
Nothing. Just a faint hum.
"Damn it!"
He threw the sword aside and lunged toward the stream. He didn't use magic. He just slammed his fists into the water, over and over, the cold spray soaking his clothes.
"Why is it so slow?!" he roared at the trees.
He stood there, chest heaving, his small hands red and stinging from hitting the surface of the water. The frustration was a physical weight. In his mind, he was supposed to be an Uchiha, a warrior of a glorious lineage. But in reality, he was just an insect. A kid with a body that couldn't hold even the half of the power his eyes were already capable of seeing.
"I'm too weak," he muttered, watching the ripples he'd made slowly flatten out. "Ur died because we were weak. My clan died because I was small. And if I stay like this... I'm just waiting to be the next one to die."
He sat on a mossy rock, his head in his hands. He realized the problem wasn't his knowledge or his eyes—it was the vessel. In this world, magic was a muscle, and he was trying to lift a mountain with a child's grip.
He stayed there until the sun began to set, the forest shadows stretching out like long, dark fingers. He looked at his reflection in the moving water. The Sharingan was gone, leaving only the tired, black eyes of a boy who had traveled too far.
He picked up his sword, wiping the moisture off the blade before slipping it back into the void. He couldn't just "train" his way out of this. He needed to find a way to expand his magic container faster than natural growth allowed. Way faster.
Fiore was a land of guilds. He had seen the guilds in books, Fairy Tail, Blue Pegasus, Quatro Cerberus. They were institutions of power. If he couldn't find his family's history in books, he would have to find it in the world of the mages.
Selfishness, he thought, recalling Ur's final look. I can't keep her promise by being a 'good kid.' I have to become a monster if I want to kill the one who took everything from me.
He turned back toward the city, the lights of Magnolia flickering in the distance like a field of fallen stars. He wouldn't join a guild yet—he wasn't ready to answer their questions. But he would watch them. He would learn how the strongest of this land built their power.
He needs to find a master capable of training him effectively, but how?
"What are you doing here little kid?" A voice suddenly called out to him from among the trees.