The moment I was born, everything hit at once.
Cold—sharp enough to sting.
Air forced its way into my lungs, raw and invasive, and before I could even process that, light followed.
Blinding.
Not bright—violent. It tore through my vision, overwhelming, suffocating.
Then came sound.
Voices. Metal. Movement. All of it loud—too loud—layered in a way that didn't make sense. It didn't arrive in sequence. It crashed in all at once, overlapping until none of it could be separated.
My body reacted before I could think—lungs that forced out a cry, limbs twitching weakly and completely out of sync with anything my mind was trying to do.
I couldn't control it.
That was the first thing that felt wrong.
Not the pain. Not the noise.
The lack of control.
I tried to move—failed. Tried to focus—failed. Tried to shut it all out—
Still failed.
What the hell is happening?
I knew the answer.
I just hadn't expected it to feel like this.
Reincarnation. New life. Fresh start. That's what I had agreed to.
Not this overwhelming, suffocating mess where even existence felt like too much.
For a moment, I thought something had gone wrong.
Then I realized—
It wasn't wrong.
It was too much.
I wasn't just seeing light or vague shapes. I was seeing detail—depth, movement, the smallest shifts in expression and shadow—all layered together with unnatural clarity.
Nothing blurred. Nothing softened. Every movement, every shift in light came through with a precision that felt wrong—too sharp, too complete, like my eyes were taking in more than they were meant to.
It wasn't just sight. It was something else. Something deeper.
A memory surfaced then, cutting through the noise—clearer than everything else.
Samsara Eye. The eyes of a god.
The Rinnegan.
The thought came late, lagging behind everything else.
And it didn't help.
Because knowing what it was didn't make it easier to handle—
it just meant this overwhelming flood of detail wasn't going to stop.
My mind could process it.
My body couldn't.
It felt like trying to sprint on legs that didn't belong to me.
I forced myself to focus—to slow things down, even slightly.
Bit by bit, the chaos dulled. Not gone, but manageable. Enough to think. Enough to choose where to look.
So, I looked.
And I saw her.
My mother.
For a moment, everything else faded—not because it disappeared, but because my attention finally settled on something it could hold onto.
Her face was pale. Tired.
But that wasn't what stood out.
It was her expression.
She wasn't smiling. There was no relief, no joy—only a quiet weight that didn't belong in this moment.
And that was when it hit me.
I had known this wouldn't be easy. I had accepted that much.
But that acceptance had been distant, almost theoretical—something I could reason through, not something I had to feel.
This was different.
This was looking into the eyes of the person who had just given birth to me and realizing I was already being let go.
Something in my chest tightened—not physically, but in a way I couldn't ignore. The calm I had carried with me until now didn't break, but it shifted, losing some of its certainty.
So, this is how it actually begins.
She noticed me staring.
Our eyes met.
For a brief moment, something flickered there—hesitation, maybe even doubt.
Then it was gone, replaced by quiet resignation.
"…I'm sorry."
Her voice was soft. Unsteady.
Her fingers tightened around me for just a moment.
"I can't… keep you."
The words didn't shock me.
But they still landed heavier than I expected.
"I don't expect you to understand. Or forgive me."
She kept looking at me, like she was trying to fix the moment in her memory.
"…just live well, okay?"
Live well.
That was what I had said I would do.
Back there. Before all of this.
For a second, something almost like a laugh rose up—then faded just as quickly.
Not anger. Not even sadness.
Just a quiet, uncomfortable understanding.
This wasn't something I could observe from a distance.
She wasn't a character.
And whatever came next wouldn't care what I had prepared myself for.
Her hands lingered for a moment longer.
Then I was taken.
The cold returned. The noise dulled, as if it had been pushed further away. Movement followed—unsteady, shifting.
My thoughts began to slip, harder to hold onto with each passing second. Even with the Rinnegan, even with everything I had been given, my body was reaching its limit.
The world didn't go dark all at once. It simply became harder to keep up with.
Before everything finally gave way, one thought surfaced—clearer than the rest.
…This is going to be harder than I thought.
Then—
Darkness.
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Author's note:
Second chapter here. hope you enjoy and please feel free to share your opinions about this story.