The sky was choked with smoke.
Ash fell like gray snow, blanketing the shattered remains of a village caught between the teeth of war. Screams had long since faded into silence, leaving behind only the whisper of the wind dragging soot across the earth. Corpses were strewn like discarded dolls—children, shinobi, mothers—all equal now in death.
And in the center of it all, a newborn cried.
He lay among the debris of a burned-down home, swaddled in the torn remains of a bloodied cloak, his skin smudged with dust and blood. His cry pierced the air, raw and defiant, as though unwilling to accept the cruelty of this world he'd been thrown into.
But this was no ordinary child.
His eyes, though infantile, held a weight that did not belong to one so new to life. Behind the tears, behind the confusion and pain of a newborn, something ancient stirred. Memories—fragmented, tangled, chaotic—floated behind his eyelids. The taste of metal. The sound of gunfire. A woman's voice screaming his name from another world. The cold hum of technology. The scent of a sterile, clinical death.
That world was gone.
He had died. He remembered it now. A quiet death, perhaps insignificant in the grand scheme of things. And yet here he was, breathing again, heart pounding in a world that smelled of chakra and blood, woodsmoke and earth.
He had been reborn in the world of Naruto.
A surge of emotion threatened to overwhelm him—terror, awe, confusion, disbelief. But under it all… there was acceptance. He had always longed for something greater, a life where he could be powerful, untouchable. And now, fate had answered with cruelty and opportunity both.
His name—what had it been? The memories of his old life slipped like sand through his fingers.
It didn't matter. That name belonged to a dead man.
He was someone new now.
A soft crunch of footsteps echoed nearby. The baby's cries ceased as he turned his tiny head, instinctively aware of danger. Even in infancy, his soul remembered how to fear.
A figure stepped through the smoke—a woman clad in tattered black robes, her long raven-black hair trailing behind her like a shadow. Her eyes, red as blood, shimmered in the fading light of the dying fires. Sharingan.
An Uchiha.
The woman knelt beside him. Her hands trembled as she reached out, hovering over the child like he were some ancient relic.
"…You survived." Her voice was cracked, full of awe and disbelief.
The child stared at her in silence.
"I thought everyone… I thought the flames took everything. But you—" She paused, brushing ash from his face. "You're not ordinary, are you? Even your chakra… it's strange. Deep."
The baby gurgled, watching her. His instinct screamed danger, but her touch was… gentle. Protective.
She scooped him into her arms and cradled him against her chest. His cheek pressed to her collarbone, and for a brief moment, he remembered what it meant to be held. What it meant to be wanted.
"You're mine now," she whispered. "My little ghost. My little miracle."
He didn't understand the words, not with his ears—but his soul understood. Something inside him clicked. A tether was formed.
She would be the one to raise him.
Her name, he would later learn, was Ayame Uchiha. A missing-nin. A woman cast out by her clan for crimes no one dared to speak of. She had survived the razing of the border village by hiding in the shadows, watching as her comrades burned.
She didn't cry. She didn't mourn. Not then.
But now, holding the strange, cursed child in her arms, something inside her broke and healed at the same time.
---
Hours passed. The fires died. Ayame walked through the ruins with the baby clutched tightly to her chest, her steps light, nearly silent. She moved like a ghost—trained, lethal, and unseen.
She found shelter in a cave not far from the scorched earth. There, she fed him, clothed him with scraps, and swaddled him in warmth. Her eyes never left him—not once. She watched him as he slept, as he stirred, as he cried.
And that night, as the stars returned to the sky, Ayame whispered promises into the child's ear:
"I will never leave you. I will protect you from everything—even myself."
The baby stirred, and for a heartbeat, his eyes flashed with unnatural light—a flicker of chakra-born hunger, not yet awakened but lurking deep within.
He would not be like others.
From the moment he was reborn, he had already been gifted—or cursed—with a power unlike anything the world had seen.
A power to devour.
---
Far above them, in realms unseen, ancient forces stirred.
The Devourer had returned.
And nothing would ever be the same.