Chapter 6: Echoes of Recognition
POV: Kole
The ANBU appeared at his door like death given form—painted wolf mask gleaming white in the morning light, presence so absolute that Kole felt his apartment shrink around them both. No words were exchanged. None were needed. The mask tilted slightly toward the door, a gesture that somehow conveyed both invitation and inevitability.
Kole grabbed his jacket and followed.
The walk through Konoha's streets felt like a funeral procession. Civilians stepped aside without conscious thought, some ancient instinct warning them away from the masked figure moving with lethal grace. Kole kept pace a careful three steps behind, mind racing through possibilities and explanations, most of them ending with his imprisonment or worse.
The Hokage Tower loomed ahead like judgment made manifest.
POV: Tsunade
Tsunade had interrogated hundreds of suspects over her career, from terrified genin caught breaking curfew to S-rank missing-nin who killed without remorse. She'd learned to read the tells—the micro-expressions that revealed guilt, the body language that screamed deception, the subtle signs that separated truth from elaborate fiction.
The civilian sitting across from her desk was a puzzle that didn't fit any of her usual categories.
Kole Sato. Twenty-two years old. No family, no significant relationships, no notable achievements beyond recently registering a handyman service. Medical records showing complete absence of chakra development—not low capacity, not poor control, but absolute zero. The kind of condition that should have made him invisible to anyone with real power.
Yet yesterday, he'd neutralized Sasori's masterwork poison using techniques that defied every principle of medical science she knew.
"Tell me about your training," she said, keeping her voice level and professional.
"Self-taught, mostly." His answer came too quickly, too smoothly. Rehearsed. "I've always been good with chemistry, biology. Read a lot of books."
"What books?"
A pause. Microscopic, but telling. "Family collection. Inherited from my parents before they died."
"Your file says you're an orphan. Parents died when you were three. Too young to inherit anything meaningful."
Another pause. "Family friends, then. People who knew my parents."
Lies, Tsunade thought with professional satisfaction. Layer upon layer of them. But interestingly, not malicious lies. He was hiding something, but the underlying emotional signature suggested fear rather than hostile intent.
"These family friends," she continued relentlessly. "Do they have names?"
"They... moved away. Lost touch."
"How convenient."
She leaned back in her chair, studying his face. Fear, definitely. Exhaustion—the man looked like he hadn't slept in weeks. But underneath those surface emotions, something else. Determination? Desperation? The kind of focused intensity she'd seen in medics working a losing battle against death.
"Kole-san," she said, switching to a gentler tone. "I'm not your enemy. Yesterday, you saved a life using methods that shouldn't exist. That makes you either a very dangerous unknown, or a very valuable asset. I'd prefer the latter."
His shoulders relaxed fractionally. Good. Fear was useful for breaking down initial resistance, but cooperation required trust.
"I just want to help," he said quietly. "That's all I've ever wanted."
Truth, her instincts screamed. Finally, actual truth. Whatever else he was hiding, that core motivation was genuine.
"Then prove it," she said, reaching into her desk drawer. "I'm assigning you to a civilian construction crew working on Training Ground 3. You'll work under observation, demonstrate these remarkable skills of yours in a controlled environment. Show me you're an asset, not a threat."
She slid an official work authorization across the desk. His hands shook slightly as he picked it up, relief and gratitude warring in his expression.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama."
"Don't thank me yet. Prove you deserve the chance."
POV: Kole
Training Ground 3 buzzed with activity, civilian workers and low-rank ninja collaborating to repair the damage from countless training sessions. Scaffolding rose like metal bones around partially reconstructed facilities, while earth-release specialists worked to level terrain that had been carved into abstract art by enthusiastic genin.
Kole threw himself into the work with desperate gratitude. After days of helpless watching, physical labor felt like salvation. He could lift, carry, shape, and repair. He could be useful in ways that didn't require explaining impossible knowledge or navigating the curse that tied his tongue.
"Careful with that beam!" the foreman called out. "Weight distribution needs to be—"
The scaffolding groaned.
Time dilated as Kole watched the central support pole buckle, stress fractures spreading like lightning through the metal framework. Above, a worker scrambled for purchase as his platform tilted toward empty air. Thirty feet to fall onto rebar spikes that jutted from the ground like waiting teeth.
No.
The denial exploded from Kole's throat as something deep in his consciousness grabbed hold of reality and squeezed. The world stopped.
Not slowed. Stopped.
Color drained away like water from a broken bowl, leaving everything rendered in stark grayscale. The falling worker hung suspended in midair, face frozen in an expression of terror and acceptance. Dust motes became stationary sculptures. Even the wind died, leaves hanging motionless in air suddenly thick as amber.
Kole had perhaps half a heartbeat to register the impossible stillness before his body moved without conscious command. He sprinted across the frozen construction site, boots splashing through puddles that had become solid glass, and shouldered the worker aside with desperate strength.
Time snapped back like a broken rubber band.
The worker tumbled onto dirt instead of rebar, crying out in pain but alive. The scaffolding crashed down where they'd both been standing moments before, metal shrieking against metal in a symphony of destruction.
Kole collapsed, blood pouring from his nose and ears, skull splitting with agony that felt like his brain was being flayed from the inside. His vision grayed at the edges, consciousness threatening to abandon him entirely.
"What the hell just happened?"
The thought came through waves of pain as concerned voices rose around him. Someone was checking his pulse, calling for medical support. But all Kole could focus on was the impossible memory of a world frozen in time, of reality bending to his desperate will.
His third power. Finally revealed in a moment of crisis, when someone's life hung in the balance.
Time manipulation.
"The Entity gave me time itself."
The realization should have been terrifying. Instead, as darkness claimed him, Kole felt only grim satisfaction. Another tool in his arsenal. Another way to save people when everything else failed.
If it didn't kill him first.
POV: Zetsu
"Did you see that? Time went weird!"
White Zetsu's voice bubbled with excitement as they observed the construction site from their hiding place beneath the training ground's roots. The plant-like creature's pale features twisted with childlike fascination, golden eyes wide with wonder.
"Yes," Black Zetsu rumbled from the darker half of their shared consciousness. "I saw."
"No chakra signature, but reality bent anyway! That's not supposed to happen!"
"No. It isn't."
Black Zetsu's ancient mind catalogued the impossibility they'd just witnessed. Time manipulation was theoretically possible—there were legends of such techniques, rumors of bloodline abilities that touched the fundamental forces of existence. But those were myths. Stories told to frighten children.
Yet they'd just watched a civilian stop time itself.
"Should we tell Pain?" White Zetsu chirped.
"Yes. This anomaly warrants investigation."
The civilian—Kole Sato, according to the memories they'd absorbed from local sources—had no recorded bloodline. No family history of unusual abilities. No connection to any known kekkei genkai. By every measure that mattered, he was nobody.
Nobodies didn't stop time.
"Maybe he's from another village? Secret technique?"
"Perhaps. Or something else entirely."
Black Zetsu had lived for millennia, had seen the rise and fall of countless civilizations. In all that time, they'd learned to recognize patterns, to identify threats before they became existential problems. This civilian felt different. Wrong. Like a variable that didn't belong in any equation they knew.
"We watch," Black Zetsu decided. "Learn what he is. Then decide if he's useful or dangerous."
"What if he's both?"
"Then we eliminate the danger and preserve the utility."
They sank deeper into the earth, carrying information that would ripple across the continent like stones thrown into still water. The Akatsuki had noticed Konoha's newest anomaly.
For Kole Sato, that attention would prove to be both blessing and curse.
POV: Kole
Consciousness returned like surfacing from deep water, accompanied by the antiseptic smell of hospital and the steady beeping of monitoring equipment. Kole's head felt like someone had tried to crack it open with a sledgehammer, every pulse of his heartbeat sending fresh waves of agony through his skull.
"About time you woke up."
Shizune's voice carried professional concern wrapped in gentle reproach. She stood beside his bed, clipboard in hand, studying readouts that probably told her more about his condition than he wanted to know.
"What happened?" he croaked.
"Severe chakra exhaustion, according to our tests. Which is interesting, considering your medical records indicate you have no chakra to exhaust."
Kole's mind raced through possible responses. The truth—that he'd somehow stopped time itself—would invite questions he couldn't answer. But lying to a medical professional seemed both dangerous and pointless.
"I... don't understand it either."
Truth, as far as it goes.
"The witnesses say you moved impossibly fast. Crossed thirty feet in the time it took a man to fall ten. Physics doesn't work that way."
"Maybe they were mistaken. Adrenaline can make people see things..."
Shizune's expression suggested she wasn't buying his deflection, but she made a note on her clipboard anyway. "Perhaps. Regardless, you saved a life today. That counts for something."
One life. It felt pathetically small compared to the scope of what was coming. Wars that would consume nations. Battles that would reshape reality itself. But maybe that was the wrong way to think about it. Maybe one life saved was its own victory, regardless of the larger context.
"When can I leave?"
"Tomorrow, if your symptoms don't worsen. But Kole-san?" She fixed him with a stare that could have melted steel. "Whatever is happening to you—these unusual abilities, this impossible knowledge—it's attracting attention. The kind of attention that can be dangerous."
Too late for that, he thought grimly. Between healing Kankuro with impossible alchemy and stopping time in front of witnesses, he'd probably painted a target on his back visible from orbit.
"I'll be careful."
"See that you are. The world has enough martyrs."
She left him alone with his thoughts and the slow, steady rhythm of medical equipment. Outside his window, Konoha continued its daily routine, unaware that one of its newest residents had just discovered he could break the fundamental laws of physics.
"Three powers. Alchemy, time manipulation, and something else still hidden."
The Entity had been thorough in its gifts. Each one perfectly suited to the request he'd made in that space between death and reincarnation. Something to fight with. Something to fix things. Something to escape.
He'd asked for tools to survive a zombie apocalypse. Instead, he'd been given the instruments to change the course of ninja wars.
The question was whether he'd live long enough to learn how to use them properly.
Outside, shadows moved in patterns that suggested more than casual observation. The world had noticed Kole Sato. For better or worse, he was no longer invisible.
"Time to decide what kind of story I'm going to write."
The answer, he suspected, would be written in blood and hope in equal measure.
Author's Note / Promotion:
Your Reviews and Power Stones are the best way to show support. They help me know what you're enjoying and bring in new readers!
Can't wait for the next chapter of [ In Naruto I Have 3 Wishes ]?
You don't have to. Get instant access to more content by supporting me on Patreon. I have three options so you can pick how far ahead you want to be:
🪙 Silver Tier ($6): Read 10 chapters ahead of the public site.
👑 Gold Tier ($9): Get 15-20 chapters ahead of the public site.
💎 Platinum Tier ($15): The ultimate experience. Get new chapters the second I finish them (20+ chapters ahead!). No waiting for weekly drops, just pure, instant access.
Your support helps me write more .
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/fanficwriter1