The world was too bright.
That was Kenshin's first coherent thought in his new life—not the profound philosophical musings of a reincarnated soul, but a simple, desperate plea for the overwhelming sensory assault to stop. Every ray of light that touched his infant eyes fractured into a thousand cascading streams of information: wavelengths, intensities, the subtle dance of particles through air. His newly-formed Six Eyes saw everything, and his infant brain couldn't process even a fraction of it.
He screamed.
"Something's wrong," Akane whispered, her voice tight with worry as she cradled him against her chest. Even through closed eyelids, Kenshin could perceive her—the brilliant crimson warmth of her chakra flowing through channels he shouldn't be able to see, pulsing in time with her racing heartbeat.
Too much. It's all too much.
"His eyes," Takeshi said, leaning closer. The man's presence registered as cooler, denser—chakra that moved like stone beneath water, solid and unyielding. "They're... different. Look at how the light reflects."
Kenshin felt gentle fingers carefully pry open one eyelid. The sudden influx of visual information sent another wave of distress through his tiny body, and he wailed louder, thrashing weakly in his mother's arms.
The world went mercifully dark as Akane pulled him back against her, shielding his face. "Get the shutters," she commanded, her maternal instinct overriding fear. "All of them. Now."
Footsteps retreated. Wood scraped against wood. Gradually, the oppressive brightness dimmed, filtered through thick cloth and closed shutters until only the faintest ambient glow remained.
In the darkness, Kenshin's cries quieted to whimpers.
This is the Six Eyes, he thought, his adult consciousness struggling to assert itself through the fog of infant neurology. Aethren warned me it would be overwhelming at first. I just need to... adjust. Adapt. Learn to filter.
But knowing and doing were separated by the vast gulf of an undeveloped nervous system. He was a grown man's mind trapped in a newborn's body, and the disconnect was its own special torture.
"Better?" Akane murmured, rocking him gently. Her chakra wrapped around him like a warm blanket—instinctive, protective, the natural response of an Uzumaki to a child in distress.
Kenshin made a soft noise that wasn't quite agreement but seemed to satisfy her.
Over the following weeks, his world remained dim. Akane kept the small house they'd rented on the outskirts of Shukuba Town shrouded in permanent twilight, venturing out only for necessities while Takeshi worked. Visitors were turned away with polite excuses. Gradually, Kenshin learned to close the floodgates in his mind, to see without seeing, to let most of the information his eyes gathered wash over him unused.
It was exhausting. More exhausting than any training he'd imagined in his previous life.
I wanted to be a shinobi, he thought bitterly during one particularly difficult night, alone in his crib while Akane slept in the next room. I wanted adventure, power, the chance to change things. I didn't consider that I'd have to spend months as a helpless infant, unable to even control my own body.
The dissonance gnawed at him. His mind raced with strategies, techniques, plans for the future—and his body could barely grasp the wooden rattle hanging above his crib.
Time passed in strange lurches. Days blurred together in the unchanging dimness, but Kenshin's control slowly improved. By three months, he could open his eyes in candlelight without distress. By six months, he could tolerate the muted glow of an overcast afternoon.
And he began to notice things.
Akane sang while she worked—old Uzumaki lullabies in a language that tickled something in his inherited blood. Her chakra flowed constantly, unconsciously, maintaining her body's enhanced healing and vitality even as grief shadowed her eyes. She never spoke of Uzushiogakure's fall, but Kenshin could read the loss in the careful way she preserved the few red-spiral items she'd salvaged: a hair ornament, a tea cup, a small banner carefully folded in the bottom of a trunk.
She's alone, he realized. The last of her people, hiding in obscurity because being Uzumaki makes her a target.
The thought settled heavy in his chest. In his previous life, the Uzumaki had been tragic backstory, worldbuilding flavor. Now, seeing his mother's quiet sorrow, it became real.
Takeshi returned from his caravan work every few weeks, bringing money and news from the wider world. The Third Shinobi World War ground on, distant but ever-present. Villages skirmished. People died. The meat grinder of shinobi conflict continued its inexorable rotation.
His father was... different from what Kenshin expected. Kaguya clan members were supposed to be battle-hungry, savage, driven by an insatiable need for combat. But Takeshi moved through their small home with careful gentleness, conscious of his strength, always touching Akane with reverence as if afraid she might break. The war-weariness showed in the set of his shoulders, the way he checked windows and doors before sleeping.
"You ran from your clan," Akane said one evening while Kenshin pretended to sleep in his crib. Their voices carried through the thin walls.
"I left," Takeshi corrected quietly. "There's a difference."
"They called you a coward."
"They called me many things." A pause. "None of them matter more than you. Than him."
Kenshin heard his mother's soft exhale, the rustle of cloth as she embraced his father. "When the war ends—"
"If it ends."
"When it ends," Akane insisted, "we'll need to decide. Where to settle. How to raise him. Three bloodlines, Takeshi. He'll need training we can't provide alone."
"One problem at a time." His father's voice carried the weight of someone who'd seen too many plans crumble. "First, we survive. Then we plan."
Practical, Kenshin thought. They're survivors, not heroes. They've already lost everything once. They won't risk it again lightly.
It was a sobering realization. In his previous life, he'd consumed stories where parents were obstacles or motivation, rarely people with their own trauma and limitations. Now he was dependent on two refugees trying to carve out safety in a world that had already taken everything from them once.
The responsibility of it pressed down on him. They're protecting me. The least I can do is not make it harder than it has to be.
At seven months, Kenshin managed his first deliberate chakra manipulation.
It happened during one of Akane's "games"—she'd taken to holding her hand above his crib, letting her chakra flow visibly as entertainment for her unusually attentive son. To Kenshin's Six Eyes, it was mesmerizing: crimson energy that moved like liquid fire, forming simple shapes and patterns.
If I could just...
He focused, drawing on adult discipline trapped in an infant's form. His own chakra—massive by any standard, his Uzumaki heritage already apparent—stirred sluggishly. The pathways were there, underdeveloped but present, like dry riverbeds waiting for rain.
A tiny spark of blue-white energy flickered above his palm.
Akane gasped. "Takeshi! Takeshi, come here!"
His father appeared in the doorway, hand instinctively reaching for a weapon that wasn't there. "What's wrong?"
"Look." She pointed with a trembling hand. "He's... he's molding chakra. At seven months."
Takeshi approached slowly, his pale eyes—so like the ones Kenshin would eventually see in the mirror—widening. "That's not possible."
"Uzumaki mature faster," Akane said, but doubt colored her words. "And the Kaguya bloodline is strong. Maybe—"
"No child molds chakra at seven months, Akane. Not even prodigies." Takeshi knelt beside the crib, studying his son with new intensity. "What are you, little one?"
Your son, Kenshin wanted to say. Just... a very old soul in a very young body. Sorry for the confusion.
Instead, he made a gurgling noise and let the chakra sputter out. Too much advancement too quickly would raise questions he couldn't answer. Better to seem merely talented than impossible.
But Akane had seen. And the hope that bloomed in her eyes was almost painful to witness. "If he's this strong already, maybe he'll be safe. Maybe he won't have to hide what he is."
"Or it makes him a bigger target," Takeshi countered grimly. But he reached down to ruffle Kenshin's hair with surprising tenderness. "Either way, we'll deal with it. One day at a time."
After they left, Kenshin lay awake in the darkness, staring at the ceiling he could barely see with normal vision but perceived perfectly through his Six Eyes—every grain of wood, every imperfection in the plaster, mapped out in crystalline detail.
I need to be more careful, he resolved. Show progress, but not too much. Enough to explain eventual strength, not enough to seem like a reincarnated adult with cheat abilities.
The irony wasn't lost on him. He'd wished for power, and now he had to pretend to be weaker than he was.
Welcome to the shinobi world, he thought wryly. Where even children learn to hide their true selves.
The first year passed. Then the second.
Kenshin's body grew, and with it came freedom. He learned to crawl, then walk, though the process was humiliating—his adult mind raging against the clumsy limits of toddler coordination while his parents cooed encouragement.
Shukuba Town revealed itself in increments. A trading post straddling minor routes between larger settlements, it thrived on being useful but not important. The residents were mostly civilians—merchants, craftsmen, farmers—with a handful of retired shinobi who'd chosen quiet obscurity over continued service.
One of those shinobi was Master Hideaki.
Kenshin first encountered him at the town's small marketplace when he was two and a half. Akane had brought him along for supplies, keeping him close as she bargained for rice and vegetables. He'd been amusing himself by watching the flow of people with his Six Eyes, observing how even civilians possessed small amounts of chakra, when an entirely different presence crossed his perception.
That's... that's a real shinobi.
The man was perhaps sixty, weathered like driftwood, missing his left arm below the elbow. But his chakra moved with the disciplined control of someone who'd spent decades honing their energy, and the way he carried himself—weight slightly forward, eyes constantly scanning—spoke of ingrained combat instincts that retirement hadn't dulled.
Their eyes met across the marketplace.
Hideaki's expression didn't change, but something flickered in his gaze. Recognition, perhaps. Or curiosity.
He approached with the casual pace of someone trying not to appear threatening. "Akane-san," he greeted with a polite nod. "Haven't seen you in town for a while."
"Master Hideaki." Akane's grip on Kenshin's hand tightened fractionally. "We've been keeping to ourselves. You know how it is."
"I do." His attention dropped to Kenshin. "And this must be your son. Kenshin, wasn't it?"
Kenshin stared up at him, knowing he should act more childlike but unable to completely suppress his analytical nature. The Six Eyes catalogued everything: the precise control of Hideaki's chakra, the old scars on his visible arm, the way he stood to keep his missing limb away from potential threats.
Former ANBU, maybe? Or hunter-nin? Someone used to close combat despite being a water-style user.
"You're a quiet one," Hideaki observed. Then, softer: "And observant. Very observant for two years old."
"He's always been watchful," Akane said carefully.
"Mm." Hideaki crouched down, bringing himself to Kenshin's eye level. This close, the faint scent of salt and steel clung to him—a man who'd lived by the ocean and the blade. "You understand more than you should, don't you, little one? I've seen that look before. In child soldiers during the war. In Academy prodigies." He paused. "In people carrying burdens too heavy for their years."
Kenshin swallowed, caught between maintaining his disguise and responding to someone who clearly knew. Finally, he managed a small nod.
Hideaki's weathered face creased in something between a smile and a grimace. "Thought so." He straightened, addressing Akane. "If you ever need help with his training—when he's older—my door is open. A child with three bloodlines and that kind of awareness will need guidance. Better it comes from someone with experience than trial and error."
"We'll... consider it," Akane said stiffly. "Thank you."
After Hideaki left, she remained tense for the rest of the shopping trip. That evening, she and Takeshi argued in hushed voices while Kenshin pretended to sleep.
"He knows," Akane hissed. "He sees it."
"He's not a threat," Takeshi rumbled. "If he were, we'd already be dead or reported. The man's retired for a reason."
"What if he tells someone?"
"Then we run. Like we've always planned." A pause. "But I don't think he will. Men like Hideaki retire because they're tired of watching children become weapons. He's not going to forge another one unless asked."
Akane's response was too quiet to hear, but eventually, the conversation ended.
Kenshin lay in the darkness, processing. So I'm not as subtle as I thought. Or Hideaki is just that good at reading people.
Either way, the encounter had shaken something loose. He couldn't stay in limbo forever, trapped between child and adult, pretending to be less than he was. Eventually, he'd need to commit: act his mental age and risk exposure, or fully embrace the child's role and waste years of potential development.
But not yet, he decided. I'm still too young, too weak. Just a little longer.
The breakthrough came three months before his third birthday, during one of his mother's chakra control "games."
Akane had advanced from simple displays to actual exercises—having Kenshin try to push a leaf across the table using only chakra control, or maintain a small flame on his fingertip. It was Academy-level material disguised as play, but Kenshin devoured it hungrily.
On this particular afternoon, she'd created a small barrier seal on the table—nothing complex, just a basic containment exercise that required steady chakra flow to maintain.
"Try to keep it stable," she encouraged. "Don't push too hard or too soft. Just... feel the flow, and match it."
Kenshin placed his small hands on the seal, closing his eyes out of habit despite the Six Eyes needing no such accommodation. He felt for his chakra—that vast ocean inherited from the Uzumaki, still largely inaccessible to his young body—and drew out a thin stream.
The seal activated, glowing faint blue.
But something else happened.
With his eyes closed, the Six Eyes turned inward, and for the first time, Kenshin saw chakra as it truly was. Not just as colored energy or flowing rivers, but as the fundamental life force that permeated everything. The air shimmered with it. The wood of the table contained dormant potential. His mother blazed like a star, her Uzumaki heritage making her chakra dense and vibrant.
And within himself—
Oh.
His chakra wasn't just large. It was perfect. Every pathway pristine, every coil balanced, the Six Eyes' influence already optimizing his system beyond human limits. No waste, no inefficiency. When he pushed chakra into the seal, not a single drop escaped unused.
"Kenshin?" Akane's voice seemed distant. "Kenshin, your eyes—"
He opened them and saw his mother through a new lens. The Six Eyes had finally calibrated, finally adapted fully to this world's energy system. Chakra became visible even with his eyes open—not overwhelming, not uncontrolled, but perfectly integrated into his normal perception.
Akane's chakra flowed through her in intricate patterns, maintaining dozens of small effects simultaneously. The residue of old seals marked the walls of their home, invisible to normal sight but clear as day to him. Outside, he could sense the chakra signatures of passing villagers, each unique as a fingerprint.
And there, barely perceptible at the edge of his range—
"Someone's coming," Kenshin said, the words emerging clear and precise despite his young voice. "Shinobi. Moving fast."
Akane's eyes widened. She grabbed him, pulling him away from the table. "How do you—"
The door burst open. Takeshi stumbled through, blood staining his shirt. "Pack. Now. Bandits hit the caravan—former shinobi by their technique. They'll track me here."
Chaos erupted. Akane moved with the efficiency of someone who'd fled before, grabbing pre-packed bags from hidden compartments. Takeshi barred the door, forming hand seals despite his injury.
And Kenshin stood frozen, watching the chakra in his father's body flowing toward his hands, watching the technique take shape, understanding on an instinctive level exactly what was being created.
Water Release: Water Formation Wall.
The knowledge came unbidden, the Six Eyes parsing the technique through perfect analysis. He could see how the chakra converted to water, how it shaped and maintained itself, the precise control required to—
Pain exploded through his body.
Kenshin screamed, doubling over as something tore through his right forearm. Bone—his own bone—erupted from his skin in a jagged spike, breaking through flesh that hadn't been prepared for such violence.
"Kenshin!" Akane abandoned her packing, rushing to him.
But even through the pain, even through the blood, Kenshin felt relief. The bone spike protruding from his arm meant the Shikotsumyaku had manifested. Another piece of his power confirmed, another tool in his arsenal.
He was Kaguya. He was Uzumaki. He was something new.
Takeshi lowered his hands, the water wall dissipating. "It's the tantrum trigger," he said quietly. "Stress, fear, anger—it forces the bloodline to surface. Every Kaguya experiences it." He knelt beside Kenshin, examining the bone spike with clinical detachment despite the blood. "Good. Clean manifestation. No deformities."
"Good?" Akane's voice cracked. "He's three years old and bleeding—"
"And healthy," Takeshi interrupted firmly. "Kenshin, look at me. Does it hurt?"
The pain was already fading, the Uzumaki healing factor knitting flesh around the protruding bone. Kenshin met his father's pale eyes—so similar to the ones he'd inherited—and nodded.
"It will hurt many more times," Takeshi said. "This is the Kaguya curse and gift. Our bones are weapons, but using them means breaking our own body first. You need to learn to endure it. To use it. Do you understand?"
Another nod. The adult part of Kenshin's mind supplied context: Kimimaro's pain tolerance, the Dance of the Seedling Fern, the countless times Kaguya shinobi had impaled themselves to create weapons.
This is real, he thought. No anime magic. Just blood and bone and the determination to keep fighting anyway.
"Can you pull it back?" Takeshi asked.
Kenshin focused, feeling for the bone through his newly-heightened senses. The Six Eyes showed him the internal structure, the way his chakra infused the calcium, the muscle tissue straining around the protrusion.
Slowly, with effort that left him trembling, the bone spike retracted. Flesh sealed over it with disturbing speed, leaving only blood-stained skin behind.
"Exceptional," Hideaki's voice said from the doorway.
All three of them spun. The old shinobi stood in the threshold, moving with the silence that only career killers mastered.
Takeshi's hand went to a kunai. "How did you—"
"Heard the commotion. Came to help." Hideaki's gaze swept the scene: the blood, the packed bags, Takeshi's wound. "And it seems I arrived at an interesting moment." His attention settled on Kenshin. "Shikotsumyaku, Uzumaki healing, and those eyes that see far too much. You're building quite the collection, young one."
"We're leaving," Akane said flatly. "Tonight."
"Because of some bandits?" Hideaki shook his head. "I already dealt with them. Three former chunin playing at being criminals. They won't track anyone anymore." He stepped fully inside, closing the door. "Shukuba Town is still safe. But that boy..." He pointed at Kenshin. "He needs training. Real training. And you need someone watching your backs."
"Why would you help us?" Takeshi demanded.
Hideaki's expression turned distant. "Because I spent thirty years creating child soldiers for Kirigakure. Turned promising children into broken weapons. When I retired, I swore I'd never do it again." His focus returned, sharp. "But that boy is going to become a weapon regardless of what I do. His bloodlines will see to that. Someone will use him—hidden villages, criminal organizations, whoever finds him first."
He moved to the table, settling into a chair with the confidence of someone who'd made his decision. "So I'm offering a third option. Let me teach him. Not to be a tool, but to be a shinobi. Someone who understands what they are and chooses their own path."
Silence stretched. Kenshin watched his parents through eyes that saw everything—saw his mother's desperate hope warring with caution, saw his father's calculating assessment of threat versus opportunity.
Finally, Takeshi sighed. "One lesson. We see how it goes, and if we don't like it, we're gone before dawn."
"Fair enough." Hideaki's weathered face creased in a smile. He turned to Kenshin. "Well then, young prodigy. Show me what those eyes of yours can really do."
That night, after Hideaki had left and his parents had finally settled into uneasy sleep, Kenshin stood at the window of his small room. The shutters were open for the first time in three years, and he stared out at Shukuba Town bathed in moonlight.
Through his Six Eyes, the world had transformed. Chakra flowed everywhere—in the earth, in living things, in the very air itself. He could see the signatures of sleeping villagers, the ambient energy of the forest beyond town, the distant pulse of something larger that might have been the ocean or might have been a major settlement's condensed population.
Three years old. Three bloodlines. Three wishes granted.
And now, finally, the training could truly begin.
I wanted a second chance, Kenshin thought, pressing his small hand against the cool glass. I wanted to matter, to be strong enough to change things.
The bone beneath his skin ached faintly, a reminder of the Shikotsumyaku's awakening. His chakra stirred in response, that vast ocean of Uzumaki potential waiting to be tapped. And his eyes saw it all, processed it all, understood it all with crystalline clarity.
This world is beautiful and terrible, he realized. And I'm going to have to fight to survive it.
But for the first time since his reincarnation, he felt ready. Not prepared—he was still far too young, too weak—but ready. Ready to start walking the path he'd chosen. Ready to become what he needed to be.
Outside, the night wind carried distant sounds: a dog barking, leaves rustling, the creak of settling wood. Normal sounds of a normal town, hiding the undercurrent of chakra and violence that defined this world.
Kenshin smiled despite himself. It was a child's smile on the surface, but beneath it lay the determination of someone who'd been given a second chance and refused to waste it.
First breaths, he thought. First steps.
And tomorrow, the real work begins.