Chapter 1: Thunder Without a Name
The first thing Raiden felt was the taste of iron in his mouth.
The second was the noise. Kunai clashing, screams cut off mid-breath, and beneath it all, the dry crack of a distant explosion. The sky was the color of wet ash, and the mud under his back was too warm to be just mud.
This isn't a dream.
He tried to get up, and his body answered slowly, as if it belonged to someone else. His hands were smaller. His skin carried scars he had never earned. On his chest, a metal plate bearing the Konoha symbol, cracked in half.
Then the memories arrived, two lives stacking on top of each other. A dark room lit by a screen. Late-night marathons. Every arc, every fight, every death he had cried over without knowing that one day they would be real.
The Third Shinobi World War. The border with Iwagakure.
He had been reborn in the worst possible place.
"Raiden! Duck!"
Pure instinct. He rolled aside, and a blade of hardened earth cut through the air where his head had been. Three Iwa shinobi came out of the dust haze, fast, with the calm of men who had already killed many times that day.
Beside him, a teammate, a brown-haired boy Raiden couldn't name but somehow knew, drew his kunai and charged. He was run through before he completed his third step.
The sound was short. The body fell to its side, eyes open, still turned toward Raiden.
No.
Something snapped inside his skull, like a rope pulled too tight. Pain flared behind his eyes, hot, and the world split into layers. The dust slowed. The enemies' movements traced themselves in the air as pale trails. He could see their shoulders, the weight on their feet, the chakra pulsing in their hands before every seal.
And a cold light flickered on at the edge of his vision.
[SYNC INITIATED]
Sharingan detected: 1 tomoe. Emergency awakening.
Hello, Raiden. I am Q.I.R.A.
Survival probability for the next 10 seconds: 11%.
He almost laughed. Eleven percent. The voice belonged to no one. It was clear, precise, and unhurried, and it sounded inside him, not in his ears.
Are you real?
I am an implant bound to your Sharingan. I have no physical form. I do not yet have enough data about the environment. I recommend that you dodge now.
He dodged. His body moved before his thoughts did, guided by the trails his eyes were already projecting. The blade passed an inch from his neck, and he felt the wind of the strike. The second enemy began forming seals, fast, and Raiden saw each one burn into his retina like a photograph. Ox, Tiger, Dog, Boar. The enemy's hand slammed into the ground, and a wall of earth rose between him and the other two.
[COPIED: Earth Release: Earth Style Wall.]
Seal sequence, chakra flow, and stance recorded.
You CANNOT perform it now. Your body has never made these seals, and your chakra channels do not know this pattern.
Archiving. Full explanation after survival.
Then what's the point of copying?!
For later. Right now, move.
He threw himself backward as the wall burst into pieces. He rolled, slammed his back against a rock, and swallowed a scream. His hands tried the same seals on reflex, and nothing happened. Only trembling fingers and chakra leaking away in useless threads. The enemy in front of him smiled.
Raiden pulled the kunai from his dead teammate and thought of nothing else. When the Iwa shinobi lunged, he already knew, through his eyes, where the man's weight would fall. He turned his body inside the strike and drove the blade into the man's throat.
The blood was warm. The weight of the falling body was worse. His stomach turned, and the world swayed.
[WARNING: Ocular overload at 31%. Heart rate unstable.]
Two targets remaining. Suggestion: do not fight. Run.
Run where?
Then a shadow dropped from above, and a short blade flashed twice in the haze. The two remaining enemies fell without understanding what had struck them.
A man of about thirty landed among the bodies, a scar running across his chin. His jōnin vest was torn at the shoulder. He wiped his blade on his own sleeve with the calm of someone who had done it hundreds of times.
"Kid. You alive?" His voice was hoarse, tired. "Answer me. I don't carry corpses."
Raiden opened his mouth and couldn't speak. His Sharingan still burned, and his vision swam in layers. The man looked straight into his eyes, and his expression changed, just for an instant.
"Red..." he murmured. "You're from the Uchiha clan. Did you just awaken it?"
The interface lit up one last time.
[IDENTIFIED: Konoha jōnin. Name: Kurosawa Daigo.]
[ALERT: No record of this individual in your knowledge of canon.]
[He does not appear in any arc you know. His fate is unknown.]
Raiden felt a chill that had nothing to do with the cold. For the first time since he had opened his eyes in this world, he did not know what would happen next.
Daigo grabbed him by the vest and slung him over his shoulder like a sack.
"Hold on, kid. The Iwa line is about to fall, and I'm not losing an Uchiha on my first day of rotation."
As the world darkened, the voice spoke one last time, quieter.
[Archive updated: 1 technique copied. Status: stored, not mastered.]
When you wake, I will explain how to reproduce it. It will take time.
The world went black.