Day 800
The battlefield was already quiet by the time you finished.
Another batch of enemy shinobi lay dead behind you — nothing unusual. Their faces were already fading from memory even as you walked away. Another day, another mission, another set of names that would never matter to you.
When you sensed movement to your left, you turned.
A woman and a small child stood near the road.
Their clothes were torn.
Their faces thin.
They looked homeless, exhausted, the kind of people who existed everywhere during wartime.
Once, long ago, you might've felt pity.
You might've offered food.
Water.
Comfort.
But now?
There were too many like them.
Too many to help.
Too many to save.
So you didn't move.
You just stood there.
You expected the same reaction you always saw:
Fear.
Wide eyes.
Quick steps backward.
Then running away while apologizing for being alive.
But the little boy… was different.
Before his mother could hold him back, he broke free from her weak grasp.
He ran to a fallen log, picked up a wooden stick almost as tall as himself, and charged toward you while shouting something you couldn't hear clearly.
He attacked.
And you kicked him away.
Simple.
Instinctual.
Efficient.
Someone rushing you with killing intent — you reacted automatically.
Just like the other hundred times.
His mother, who had looked empty a moment ago, suddenly moved with desperate strength. She fell to her knees beside him, grabbed his clothes, and tried to pull him back even though he was already gone.
But the child didn't fell instantly.
He forced himself back to his feet, wobbling, holding his stick again.
He swung.
You dodged.
You stepped forward and kicked him down again.
The stick fell.
The boy didn't.
He glared at you with a fury far bigger than his body.
Then he picked up the stick again and attacked once more.
And again.
And again.
It went on for minutes.
His mother, trembling with hunger, weakness, and despair, finally crawled to him, wrapped her arms around him, and bowed her head to the ground as she apologized to you repeatedly.
You watched in complete silence.
No anger.
No sadness.
No guilt.
Just observation.
Then you turned and walked away.
Your footsteps were steady.
Your breathing calm.
Your expression unchanged.
But something inside… shifted.
A pressure.
A crack.
A feeling you couldn't name yet.
You ignored it.
---
Night
The camp was silent.
The kind of silence only war creates—
where even the wind sounds tired,
and the flames of the campfire burn without warmth.
You sat alone on a wooden crate, staring at the darkness.
For a long time, you didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't think.
Then—
your vision twisted.
Your pupils reshaped.
And the Mangekyō Sharingan opened.
Red.
Black.
Sharp.
Cold.
A pattern you had once fantasized about for years.
You had imagined this moment so many times.
What ability will I have?
What new powers will awaken?
Will it feel like fire? Like thunder? Like enlightenment?
Will the world look different?
But now, sitting there with the Mangekyō glowing in your eyes…
You felt nothing.
No power rushing through your body.
No emotion.
No revelation.
Just emptiness—and confusion.
Even the tomoe looked meaningless.
You blinked once, slowly.
"…Is this it?"
You thought awakening Mangekyō would be a peak, a transformation, a moment of purpose.
Instead, it made you feel even more lost.
For the first time in a long time, you felt like Kisame—
that hopeless, wandering feeling where reality and illusion blur so perfectly
that you can't tell which side you're standing on anymore.
Some nights you wondered…
What if this is all a dream?
What if the memories of "transmigration"
were just illusions?
Stories?
A long hallucination that your mind created to make sense of a world that never made sense?
What if you woke up tomorrow in another place, another life, another reality?
But you didn't wake up.
You didn't escape.
You kept living here.
And the confusion only deepened.
Reality or illusion… which one am I in?
You closed your eyes.
Opened them again.
Mangekyō still there.
Still glowing.
Still empty.
---
Earlier during the day, you could have killed that boy easily.
He attacked you with killing intent.
He made a mistake.
He rushed at a shinobi.
By all logic, by all training, by all instinct—
you should have ended him.
It wasn't mercy that stopped you.
It wasn't kindness.
It wasn't weakness.
It was his questions.
Not spoken aloud—but screamed through his eyes.
"Why?"
"What did you do this?"
"Why is this happening to us?"
Maybe you didn't kill his father.
Maybe you didn't destroy his home.
But someone did.
A shinobi.
A nation.
A system that you were part of.
So what were you really doing?
Killing enemies to survive?
Surviving to get stronger?
Getting stronger to kill more enemies?
And after the war ends, what then?
Wait for the next war.
Wait for the next crisis.
Wait for enemies emerging from the sky like in the Ōtsutsuki invasion.
Wait for someone stronger, faster, more monstrous, more alien—
someone who can erase you and can even you use time-altering abilities.
Even Naruto survived only because of plot and luck.
You knew it.
But you don't have plot armor.
You don't have destiny.
You do not have divine protection.
All you had…
was this cycle.
Kill.
Grow.
Kill stronger enemies.
Repeat.
Repeat.
Repeat until your name disappears like smoke on a battlefield.
You stared at the ground.
The dirt didn't reply.
The night didn't comfort you.
The Mangekyō didn't answer a single question.
Reality felt thin.
Illusion felt thick.
And you…
felt stuck between them.
For the first time in 800 days,
you couldn't tell if you were living a life…
or trapped inside a dream you couldn't wake from.
---