Chapter 1: The Iron Scent of Failure
The last thing I remembered was the faint smell of sterile coffee and the soft blue glow of my monitor. Then, a crushing pressure—like being squeezed through a narrow pipe—followed by a cold, violent burst of air.
'What the hell?'
I tried to shout, to ask who had turned off the lights or why my body felt like it was being folded in half, but my voice didn't work. Instead, a shrill, high-pitched scream erupted from my throat. It was a sound I didn't recognize—instinctive, raw, and terrifyingly small.
I tried to move my arms, but they felt like leaden sausages. I tried to open my eyes, but the world was a mess of blurry silhouettes.
'I'm... I'm a baby?' The realization hit me harder than the cold. I wasn't in my apartment. I wasn't in a hospital. The air was thick with the smell of woodsmoke, damp stone, and something metallic—like a butcher's shop at the end of a long day.
"He's quiet," a woman's voice whispered. She sounded exhausted, her breath hitching in her chest. "Let me see him."
I felt myself being passed over. The hands that held me were calloused, the skin like sandpaper. I was tucked against a warm chest. Through the haze, I saw a woman with sharp features and dark, tired eyes. My mother.
"He's beautiful," she breathed, her finger tracing my cheek.
'Who are you? Where am I?' I wanted to ask a thousand questions, but my infant brain was struggling. More than the warmth, more than the blurry faces, something was wrong inside me. There was a strange, rhythmic thumping beneath my ribs that didn't match the heartbeat in my chest.
'Wait... what is that?' I felt a heavy, dull pulse—like a second heart pumping thick, warm oil. 'Why do I have two hearts? Is this some kind of mutation?'
"He is a son of the clan, Shiori," a cold, baritone voice interrupted. "Beauty is irrelevant. Only the blood matters."
A shadow loomed over us. A man with a face like carved granite stepped into the light. He didn't look at me with the eyes of a father; he looked at me with a isnpecting eyes. He reached out and pressed two fingers firmly against the center of my chest, right where that strange, second pulse was located.
Suddenly, the organ gave a weak, pathetic tremor. It felt strange, also i could understand it should'not be like this from the look of this old mans eyes.
The man's face soured. He pulled his hand away as if he'd touched something rotten.
"The resonance is barely there," the man spoke. "The Hiyaku is barely vibrating. The boy's Kekkei Genkai is weak. Watery."
'Kekkei Genkai?' My internal panic froze. 'Wait... Kekkei Genkai? Am I in the Naruto world? I wasn't even watching Naruto!'
Now that the word was out, my mind raced. If this was that world, then this second heart wasn't just a mutation—it was a weapon. But the Elder's words were a death sentence.
'Okay, if this is Naruto, then where is it?' I thought frantically, trying to summon something, anything. 'Status? Menu? System? Give me a cheat code!' Nothing. No blue screen. No robotic voice.
"He is a newborn, Elder!" My mother's grip tightened. Her heart was hammering against me, i could feel it. "The blood needs time to settle. My father was a late bloomer, he—"
"Your father died because his blood was too slow to harden," the Elder interrupted, turning his back on us. "This boy... he is a waste of a vessel. He will never be a warrior. He'll be lucky if he can keep his own wounds from leaking. Expect he shows great talent at other things in the future you know what will happen to him. But i doubt it. "
My mother didn't say anything more. She just pulled me closer, her tears hot and silent against my forehead.
As the darkness of sleep began to pull at me again, a cold dread settled in my tiny gut. I had been born into a world of monsters. I didn't recognize this clan, and I didn't know the era, but one thing was clear: I was a "defective" product in a place where only the strong survived to see tomorrow.
'Born weak in the world of Shinobi... honestly, what could possibly be worse than this?'