As he ran, the memories of the body's previous owner grew clearer in Ronin's mind. Little by little, he came to understand something important: before his "revival," this body hadn't mastered Nen at all.
In other words, his Nen had awakened because of a Nen-based attack.
And it was that same Nen attack that sent the previous owner straight to heaven.
Unfortunately, Ronin could tell that what he possessed wasn't post-mortem Nen—the kind that's far stronger than it was in life.
But even if he did have post-mortem Nen, in Ronin's opinion, facing Uvogin would still mean certain death.
Although the current date was April 1, 1995—more than three, almost four years before the main storyline began—Uvogin had already mastered Nen by this point.
On top of that, Uvogin had grown up fighting and later lived by robbery. In terms of experience, strength, and even mentality, the gap between them was completely insurmountable.
So running away was Ronin's only option right now.
But if he kept blindly fleeing through the forest like this, Ronin knew perfectly well that he wouldn't get away.
He didn't know how much time the previous owner's father could buy him. What he needed to do now was find a way to shake off pursuit within that limited window.
Ronin's brain raced, but the more he thought, the more despair crept in.
This really was a hellish start.
The sound of rushing water came from nearby. Ronin stopped beside a small stream just as a thunderous rumble rolled across the sky, followed by a lightning bolt that slithered through the clouds like a dragon.
Lowering his head toward the stream, Ronin finally used that brief flash of light to clearly see his reflection—and his eyes.
Beneath short, light-golden hair was a pale but handsome face. Where his eyes should have been, a deep crimson glow had appeared.
That crimson should have been the Scarlet Eyes—but Ronin sensed something was off. According to what he knew, Scarlet Eyes were supposed to be a bright scarlet, not this darker, blood-red hue.
Was it because he wasn't angry enough, so the Scarlet Eyes he awakened weren't beautiful enough?
With that thought, Ronin leaned closer to the water. At that moment, lightning streaked across the sky again.
Amid the booming thunder, he saw his eyes clearly reflected in the water.
But they weren't the Scarlet Eyes from his memories.
They were a pair of eyes that didn't belong to this world at all.
Because within those crimson pupils, he saw a tomoe.
Ronin was stunned. In the manga he had read, there was a type of crimson eye with tomoe just like this—and its name was the Sharingan!
Even though there was only a single tomoe in each eye right now, Ronin was certain: these were the newly awakened Sharingan, not Scarlet Eyes!
So… was this his cheat ability?
Ronin accepted the idea almost instantly. The change brought by his transmigration was that the original Scarlet Eyes had transformed into the Sharingan.
No wonder he'd been able to clearly see Uvogin's movements from over a hundred meters away earlier—he could even see the flow of "aura" in their bodies.
So that was all thanks to the Sharingan.
He knew it!
In Hunter x Hunter, Kurapika's Scarlet Eyes never displayed any special ocular techniques.
What the Scarlet Eyes gave their owner was, first, an additional Nen system upon activation, and second, a massive boost in strength and defense for members of the Kurta Clan while the eyes were active.
As Ronin was thinking this, he saw the crimson reflection in the water gradually fade, returning to pitch-black.
At the same time, a wave of fatigue rapidly spread through his entire body.
It wasn't enough to completely exhaust him, but he could clearly feel a significant drain on his stamina.
This was the side effect of using the Scarlet Eyes.
But Ronin didn't have the luxury to care about that right now. He stepped across the stream and continued running forward.
In his mind, though, he was thinking about one thing: could he use ninjutsu?
If he could, then he might actually have a way to survive—or even escape.
Meanwhile, as Ronin crossed the stream, Uvogin had already finished his fight.
He held a severed head in his hand. Its eyes had been dug out and placed into a bottle of nutrient solution that Chrollo had specifically given him before they left.
He didn't discard the eyeless head. Instead, he wrapped it in cloth and hung it at his waist together with the bottle containing the Scarlet Eyes.
Glancing down at the torn fabric on his chest and the large bruise beneath it, Uvogin looked up again with a cruel smile on his face.
There was no way he was letting that boy with the Scarlet Eyes escape.
And using this fresh head, he could probably make sure the boy's eyes showed the most beautiful color right before death.
With that thought, Uvogin strode off in the direction Ronin had fled.
Ronin was a seasoned anime fan. Whether it was Hunter x Hunter or Naruto, he'd watched them countless times.
He'd even done cosplay before—after all, Amaterasu was insanely popular.
But if you wanted to stand out among a sea of cosplayers, it wasn't just about being handsome. You also needed skills—like clean, practiced hand signs. And if you had long, slender, fair hands that could double as a hand model, that effect was amplified even more.
Because of that, Ronin had deliberately studied all kinds of hand seals and practiced them over and over again.
He just never imagined that one day, he'd actually be using them in real life.
Ronin clearly remembered that the hand seals for the Clone Technique were [Ram – Snake – Tiger].
While running, he formed the seals from memory. But when he finished, nothing happened.
He frowned slightly, though he wasn't too surprised. After all, using ninjutsu was never supposed to be easy. If it were that simple, there wouldn't be any need for ninja academies in Naruto.
The problem was that he didn't have time to slowly learn ninjutsu right now. He was being hunted. He needed to find a way to use it as quickly as possible.
He already had some ideas. If he couldn't find an answer through trial and error, then the only option left was to use the double-edged sword known as Vows and Limitations to force his way into mastering ninjutsu.
In short, ever since discovering that he had the Sharingan, Ronin had bet everything on ninjutsu.
With that in mind, the first thing he considered was the key to using ninjutsu.
Create chakra, then complete the hand seals—that's how you perform ninjutsu.
He had already done the hand seals. But chakra…
Ronin frowned and looked down at his hands. He could clearly see them wrapped in a layer of energy.
He knew what that energy was.
Nen.
Then, suddenly, he remembered the image of himself he'd seen earlier when he activated the Sharingan.
In that instant, he understood.
Without activating the Sharingan, what he had wasn't chakra—it was Nen.
From Ronin's understanding, Nen was life energy, while chakra was the product of spiritual energy and physical energy mixed evenly.
Then his thoughts returned to his eyes.
If those really were the Sharingan, then the power driving them had to be chakra. Which meant that when he entered the "Scarlet Eyes"—or more accurately, the Sharingan—state, chakra would be generated within his body.
Combining this with Kurapika's situation, Ronin arrived at a conclusion almost instantly.
Perhaps converting Nen into chakra, and transforming Scarlet Eyes into the Sharingan, was the Specialization-type ability of his Scarlet Eyes state!
In other words, only when he switched into this Specialization state did he become a true ninja—
Someone capable of using ninjutsu.