The last thing he felt was the violent jolt of the bus and the deafening crunch of steel.
In his first life, he was an orphan—a boy who belonged to no one, navigating the gray, lonely streets of modern Tokyo. As the glass shattered and the world flipped upside down, his final thought wasn't of a family he didn't have, but of the sheer unfairness of dying before he had ever truly lived.
Then came the white void.
He stood before a figure that defied logic—an entity woven from starlight and ancient gravity. A God.
"A second chance," the Being spoke, its voice vibrating in his very marrow. "A world of breath and blood awaits. What gift shall you take into the next life?"
He laughed, a delirious, hollow sound. This has to be a dream, he thought. My dying brain is playing a prank.
"If this is a dream," he smirked, his modern confidence masking a flicker of desperation, "then give me the Sharingan. Like the manga. Let me see everything."
The Entity's expression remained unreadable, but a spark of something—pity or amusement—flickered in its eyes. "A heavy wish. It is granted."
******
Taisho Era, Japan.
He didn't wake up to the beep of a heart monitor. He woke up to the scent of expensive sandalwood and the soft sliding of shoji doors.
He was no longer a nameless orphan. He was Takuma Akutsu, the sole heir to the Akutsu estate—a family whose wealth reached from the silk trade to the massive steel industries of Tokyo. For the first time, he had a mother who brushed his hair with trembling affection and a father who looked at him with fierce, unwavering pride.
Takuma decided right then: he would not waste this. If this was a dream, it was the most beautiful one imaginable.
By the age of twelve, Takuma was a prodigy of terrifying proportions. He mastered everything with a speed that left his tutors breathless. Whether it was complex mathematics, literature, or the swift strikes of Kendo, he moved with a precision that defied his years. He attributed this to his "adult" mind in a child's body. He had no idea a power was sleeping in his DNA, waiting for a key he didn't yet possess.
At his prestigious academy, Takuma was the sun. He was the confident, charismatic leader he had always dreamed of being. He was surrounded by a loyal circle of friends who hung on his every word.
"Takuma! Race you to the gate!" shouted Hiroshi, his closest friend, a boy with a gap-toothed grin and a heart of gold.
Takuma laughed, his heart light and free. "You'll lose, Hiroshi! You always do!"
They ran through the schoolyard, the air smelling of spring cherry blossoms and woodsmoke. Takuma felt invincible. He had wealth, he had a family that adored him, and he had a future that stretched out like a golden road. He truly believed this happiness would stay forever. He had almost forgotten the "Sharingan" wish, dismissing it as a fading hallucination of a dying boy.
As the sun began to set, casting long, warm shadows across the Akutsu estate, Takuma stood by the koi pond. He looked at his reflection in the clear water—the face of a handsome, happy young man with clear, normal black eyes.
There was no red. No spinning tomoe. Nothing.
"Perfect," he whispered to himself, a confident smile returning to his lips. He turned toward the manor where his parents waited for dinner, the laughter of his friends still echoing in his ears.
He walked into the warmth of his home, blissfully unaware that in the dark forests beyond the city, a Man in a Black Fedora was already catching the scent of a soul that didn't belong in this era.
******
The Academy's main hall was a sea of refined silk and polished floorboards. It was the day of the annual Exhibition, a high-stakes PTA meeting where the elite families of Tokyo gathered to witness the fruits of their investments.
Takuma stood at the front of the hall, the embodiment of wealthy confidence. His school uniform was crisp, his posture perfect. As he demonstrated a complex derivation of Western calculus on the chalkboard—a feat unheard of for a boy his age—a murmur of awe rippled through the parents.
"As you can see," Takuma said, turning to the audience with a charismatic, effortless smile, "the integration of these variables allows for a precision in engineering that will define the new era."
His parents sat in the front row, his mother's eyes shimmering with pride, his father nodding solemnly. His friends—Hiroshi and the others—grinned from the sidelines, chest puffed out as if Takuma's brilliance was their own. At that moment, Takuma felt like a god. This was the peak. This was the life he had earned.
I'll never let this go, he thought, his heart swelling. No more orphans. No more accidents. Just this.
Then, the heavy oak doors at the back of the hall didn't just open; they were thrown wide with a violent, splintering crash.
The room went silent.
A man stumbled in—the school's elderly janitor. He wasn't walking so much as dragging himself. His clothes were shredded, soaked in a deep, visceral crimson. He clutched a stump where his left arm should have been, his face a mask of primal, unadulterated terror.
"Run..." the man wheezed, blood bubbling from his lips. "It... it's not a man... it's eating them... upstairs... RUN!"
He collapsed, his life pooling on the polished wood.
The parents froze. Some shrieked. Others stood in paralyzed confusion, thinking it was a macabre play. But Takuma felt a sudden, icy needle prick the back of his brain. His modern-world instincts screamed danger, but something deeper—something dormant in his very DNA—began to stir for the first time.
The lights in the hall flickered and died, plunging the elite assembly into a suffocating darkness.
From the shadows of the rafters above, a pair of pale, slit-pupiled eyes looked down. A cold, cultured voice echoed through the hall, cutting through the rising panic like a razor through silk.
"So much noise," the voice whispered. "And all for such... fragile... little things."
Takuma stepped forward, his heart hammering against his ribs. His protective instinct for his friends and parents flared, hot and desperate. "Who's there?" he demanded, his voice cracking but still holding that core of Akutsu pride.
The shadow moved. It wasn't just a man. It was a calamity in a black fedora.