**Six Months After Academy Enrollment**
"The transformation technique requires *finesse*, not brute force." Shingen stood in the training ground, hands on his hips, watching Naruto's latest attempt flicker and collapse like a popped soap bubble.
"But I'm putting in so much chakra!" Naruto protested, wiping sweat from his forehead. At six years old, he had energy that bordered on supernatural—probably the Nine-Tails leaking power, though Shingen couldn't confirm that without raising suspicions.
"That's the *problem*. You're drowning the technique." Shingen demonstrated, molding a precise amount of chakra and transforming into a perfect copy of Iruka-sensei. "See? Control beats power every time."
"Easy for you to say," Kiba muttered from where he sat with Akamaru. "You're like, weirdly good at this stuff."
"That's because I practice." Shingen dropped the transformation. "Now watch Naruto do it right. Come on, one more time. You can do this."
Naruto's face scrunched with concentration. The transformation held—wobbly, imperfect, but *held*—for a full five seconds before dispersing.
"YES!" Naruto pumped his fist. "Did you see that? I did it!"
"You did." Shingen grinned. "Keep practicing. By next week, we'll have you holding it for a full minute."
As they packed up for the day, Shingen caught himself cataloguing the changes. Six months ago, Naruto had eaten lunch alone, endured constant bullying, wore his isolation like armor. Now he had friends—Kiba's boisterous loyalty, Choji's steady presence, even Shino's quiet acceptance.
The blonde was *happier*. More focused. His grades were still terrible, but his attendance was perfect because he actually *wanted* to come to the Academy.
*All according to plan*, Shingen thought. *A stable Naruto is a controllable Naruto. An isolated, desperate Naruto is a wildcard.*
**[Daily Quest Complete: Successfully Tutor Teammate]**
**[Reward: 50 GP]**
**[Current Total: 3,247 GP]**
Six months of grinding. Still nowhere near enough for anything spectacular, but building steadily.
-----
**Year One, Month Ten**
The first real Academy spar came during a combined class exercise—Class A versus Class B, designed to foster "healthy competition" between the advanced and average students.
Shingen drew a Class B student named Takashi, a civilian kid two years older and forty pounds heavier.
"This'll be quick," Takashi said, cracking his knuckles. "No offense, squirt."
"None taken." Shingen settled into a ready stance, his amber eyes tracking every micro-movement. "Hajime when you're ready."
Takashi charged—straightforward, predictable, exactly what Shingen's Combat Precognition had mapped out in the first three seconds.
*Right hook. He favors his dominant hand. Weight distribution says he's committed fully to the punch.*
Shingen swayed left, the punch missing by inches. Takashi's momentum carried him forward, and Shingen's leg was *right there*, tripping him.
The older boy went down hard.
"Sorry!" Shingen said brightly, offering a hand up. "Guess I got lucky."
Takashi's face flushed red, but he took the hand. Around them, students whispered.
From across the training yard, Sasuke watched with narrowed eyes. The Uchiha had been top of their class since day one—perfect scores, perfect technique, perfect everything. And now this weird civilian kid was making people talk.
*Good*, Shingen thought. *Let him see me as competition. The more focused he is on me, the less attention he pays to what I'm actually doing.*
-----
**Year Two, Month Four**
"You know what's funny?" Shingen said during lunch, surrounded by his usual group—Naruto, Kiba, Choji, Shino, and the perpetually napping Shikamaru. "We're all basically misfits."
"Speak for yourself," Kiba said around a mouthful of beef. "The Inuzuka clan is respected!"
"Sure, but you're the loud one who got held back a year for fighting. Choji's the 'fat kid' even though he's going to be your tank in three years. Shino creeps people out with his bugs. Shikamaru's too lazy to function. Naruto's…" He paused delicately.
"The demon brat," Naruto finished, his usual cheer dimmed. "Yeah. I know what they call me."
"My point," Shingen continued, "is that we're the rejects. The ones who don't fit the mold. And you know what? That makes us *dangerous*. Because we don't play by their rules."
"That's a weird way of looking at it," Shikamaru muttered, one eye cracking open. "Also troublesome."
"Everything's troublesome to you."
"Because everything is."
Naruto perked up slightly. "You really think we're dangerous?"
"I think we're going to surprise a lot of people." Shingen's grin was all teeth. "Especially you, Naruto. You're going to be Hokage one day, remember? Can't do that if you let other people's opinions define you."
The blonde's expression transformed—from uncertain to determined in a heartbeat. "You're right! I'm going to prove them all wrong!"
As Naruto bounced off to bother Iruka-sensei about extra training, Shikamaru studied Shingen with uncomfortably sharp eyes.
"You're good at that."
"At what?"
"Managing people. Saying exactly what they need to hear. It's almost like you're playing shogi with humans as pieces."
Shingen met his gaze steadily. "And if I am?"
"Then you're either the smartest person here or the most dangerous." Shikamaru closed his eyes again. "Probably both. Troublesome."
But he didn't move away from the table.
-----
**Year Two, Month Seven**
The village changed overnight.
Shingen woke to the sound of ANBU moving across rooftops—not unusual in itself, but the *number* of them, the urgency in their movements, set his instincts screaming.
He dressed quickly and slipped out to the street, where civilians were already gathering in clusters, whispering.
"—the Uchiha compound—"
"—police force isn't responding—"
"—massacre, they're saying it's a massacre—"
Shingen's blood ran cold.
*No. It's too early. The massacre happened when Sasuke was older, when he was—*
But even as he thought it, he knew: the timeline was flexible. The broad strokes remained, but the details shifted. And he'd changed enough that the universe was compensating, recalibrating.
The Uchiha Massacre was happening *now*.
He pushed through the crowd toward the Academy district, his mind racing. Sasuke would be at the compound. The entire clan would be—
*Dead. They're all going to be dead except Sasuke.*
The implications crashed through him:
The Sharingan. The Uchiha's bloodline limit. In a few hours, it would go from "the Uchiha clan's secret weapon" to "an extinct bloodline that only two people possess."
And Shingen had just hit 10,000 GP last week. Had been *planning* to do a Legendary pull but had held off, waiting for the right moment.
*This is the moment*, his instincts screamed. *This is the opportunity.*
He diverted to a side street, ducking into an alley where no one could see him, and pulled up his system interface with shaking hands.
**[Current GP: 10,147]**
Enough. Barely enough, but *enough*.
"Please," he whispered to whatever cosmic force controlled the Gacha system. "Please give me something that matters."
**[LEGENDARY GACHA PULL INITIATED]**
**[Cost: 10,000 GP]**
**[Remaining: 147 GP]**
The interface *exploded* with color. Not the swirling patterns of Epic pulls, but something more—prismatic light, reality-bending effects that made his eyes hurt even though they were closed. Sound filled his ears like cosmic static.
Then, silence.
Text materialized:
**[CONGRATULATIONS!]**
**[You have received: BLOODLINE LIMIT - "Sharingan (Tomoe 1)" (Legendary)]**
**[A true Sharingan, genetically integrated into your DNA. Grants enhanced perception, limited precognition, ability to copy techniques, and resistance to genjutsu. Can be evolved through emotional trauma and combat experience. Warning: Will be recognized by Uchiha clan members. Use discretion.]**
Shingen felt something *change* in his eyes—a burning sensation, not painful but *present*, like someone had flipped a switch in his brain.
He stumbled against the alley wall, hands clutching his face as the transformation completed. When he opened his eyes, the world had *changed*—colors sharper, movements clearer, every detail crystalline.
He could *see* chakra now, faint networks of blue energy in every living thing around him.
The Sharingan.
He'd pulled the *fucking Sharingan* on the same day the Uchiha clan was being slaughtered.
"Holy shit," he breathed. Then louder: "Holy *shit*."
The universe had a *sense of humor*.
-----
By evening, the news had spread through the village like wildfire:
The Uchiha clan was dead. All of them. Massacred by Uchiha Itachi, the clan's prodigy, who'd gone rogue and murdered his own family before fleeing the village.
Only one survivor: Uchiha Sasuke, age seven, found catatonic in the compound streets.
The Academy was closed for three days of mourning. The police force, staffed almost entirely by Uchiha, had to be restructured. The village went into lockdown while ANBU hunted for Itachi.
Shingen spent those three days in his room, practicing with the Sharingan in secret.
Activation cost chakra—not massive amounts, but enough that he could only maintain it for twenty minutes before exhaustion set in. But those twenty minutes were *glorious*.
He could see his own chakra flow, could identify the precise points where his control wavered. Could watch his reflection perform techniques and *understand* them on a level he'd never achieved before.
The Combat Precognition he'd worked so hard to develop? The Sharingan made it *effortless*. He could read body language, predict movements, see attacks coming before they landed.
And the copying ability—he tested it with the Clone Technique, watching his own hand seals in a mirror while the Sharingan was active. The next attempt was *perfect*, muscle memory downloading directly into his brain.
This was the bloodline that had made the Uchiha legendary.
And now Shingen had it.
*But I can never use it publicly*, he realized. *Not yet. Not until enough time has passed that people won't immediately connect me to the massacre. The Uchiha are dead, their bloodline "extinct" except for Sasuke. If a random civilian kid suddenly manifests their dojutsu…*
Questions he couldn't answer. Suspicions he couldn't deflect.
He needed to wait. Train in secret. Master it completely before revealing it.
And when he did reveal it, he'd need a cover story that couldn't be disproven.
*A mutation*, he thought. *A spontaneous bloodline awakening triggered by trauma. It happens—rare, but documented. If I stage it right, make it look like a stress response during a life-or-death situation…*
Plausible. Barely, but plausible.
He just needed the right moment.
-----
**Year Two, Month Eight**
Sasuke returned to the Academy a week after the massacre.
He'd changed. The arrogance was still there, but it had crystallized into something colder, sharper. His eyes held a darkness that made even the instructors uncomfortable.
During lunch, he sat alone. The girls who'd once fought for his attention now kept their distance, unsure how to approach someone who'd lived through that kind of horror.
Shingen watched from his usual table, calculating. In canon, Sasuke's isolation had been absolute—his trauma pushing everyone away, his quest for revenge consuming everything else.
But things were different now. Naruto had friends. The social dynamics had shifted.
*Should I reach out?* Shingen wondered. *Befriend him, like I did Naruto? Or would that be overplaying my hand?*
Before he could decide, Naruto stood up, grabbed an extra rice ball from his lunch, and walked over to Sasuke's table.
"Hey," Naruto said simply. "Want some company?"
Sasuke looked up, his dark eyes unreadable. For a moment, Shingen thought he'd refuse, drive Naruto away with cold dismissal.
Then: "…Fine."
Naruto sat down, and just like that, another piece of canon shattered.
*The butterfly effect*, Shingen thought. *Naruto's not isolated anymore, so he's confident enough to reach out. And Sasuke's just been through hell, so maybe he's desperate enough to accept.*
Kiba joined them next. Then Choji. Then, surprisingly, Sakura—her crush on Sasuke apparently overriding her uncertainty.
Within ten minutes, Sasuke was surrounded by people who genuinely seemed to care.
And Shingen, watching from his table, felt something unexpected:
Relief.
Because a Sasuke with friends was a Sasuke who might not defect to Orochimaru. Who might not spend years consumed by revenge. Who might not become the antagonist the story needed.
*I've changed too much*, he realized. *The timeline is breaking. Events are still happening—the massacre occurred—but the consequences are different.*
"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered beside him. "You're thinking too hard again. I can actually *hear* the gears turning."
"Just wondering what happens next," Shingen said honestly.
"Whatever it is, it's going to be your fault somehow."
Probably true.
-----
**Year Three, Month Eleven**
Sasuke cornered Shingen after taijutsu practice, his expression intense.
"Spar with me."
Not a request. A demand—but different from before. Less arrogance, more… desperation?
"Sure," Shingen said carefully. "Same rules as always?"
Sasuke's answer was a blur of movement—Uchiha-style taijutsu, refined and deadly, moving with purpose that spoke of countless hours of private training.
*He's been pushing himself*, Shingen's Combat Precognition noted. *Harder than before. Trying to get strong enough to face Itachi.*
The fight was brutal. Sasuke was faster, stronger, more trained. His techniques were textbook perfect, his instincts honed through trauma and determination.
But Shingen had the Sharingan—inactive, hidden, but its passive benefits remained. His prediction capabilities were supernatural now, reading Sasuke's movements like text on a page.
Duck the high kick. Roll under the punch combination. Throw sand—Sasuke expected that, blocked it. Water Release: Wild Water Wave, low power, aimed at his feet.
Sasuke slipped on the sudden mud, and Shingen was *there*, leg sweep, arm bar, pin.
"Yield?"
Sasuke thrashed, broke the hold through sheer strength, came up breathing hard.
"Again."
They went three more rounds. Sasuke won one through raw speed, Shingen won the others through tactics and prediction.
Finally, both exhausted, they sat in the dirt.
"How do you do it?" Sasuke asked quietly. "You're not from a clan. You don't have a bloodline. You shouldn't be able to keep up with me."
"I'm not trying to keep up with you," Shingen said. "I'm trying to keep up with *me*. Yesterday's me. Last week's me. That's the only competition that matters."
Sasuke's expression flickered—something vulnerable beneath the cold exterior. "Itachi was… he was the best. The strongest. And I couldn't even slow him down. If I can't beat *you*, how am I supposed to beat *him*?"
*There it is*, Shingen thought. *The trauma. The obsession.*
He could use this. Could manipulate Sasuke's desperation, guide it, shape it into something exploitable.
Or…
"Sasuke," he said carefully, "revenge is a shitty motivator. It'll make you strong, sure, but it'll also make you *predictable*. People driven by revenge make stupid choices because they're not thinking about winning—they're thinking about making the other person suffer."
"So what should I be thinking about?"
"Getting strong enough that you have *options*. Revenge can be one of them. But if it's your only option, you've already lost."
Sasuke studied him for a long moment. "You're weird, Yamazaki. But… thanks."
He stood, grabbed his gear, and left.
Shingen sat alone in the training ground, feeling the weight of that conversation.
*I just talked the deuteragonist out of his primary character motivation*, he realized. *The timeline is officially fucked.*
But maybe that was okay.
Maybe a world where Sasuke didn't defect to Orochimaru, where Naruto wasn't isolated, where the story didn't follow its predetermined path…
Maybe that was a world where more people survived.
And survival was always the primary objective.
-----
**Year Five, Month Seven**
"Class rankings are posted!"
Shingen already knew where he'd placed—he'd calculated it down to the decimal point based on his carefully curated performance.
**Class A Rankings - Year Five:**
**1. Uchiha Sasuke - 97.3%**
**2. Yamazaki Shingen - 94.8%**
**3. Hyuuga Neji - 93.1%**
**4. Aburame Shino - 91.4%**
**5. Nara Shikamaru - 89.7% (weighted for attendance)**
Second place. Perfect.
But the dynamics were different now. Sasuke didn't stand alone—he was surrounded by Naruto, Kiba, even Shingen on occasion. The cold, isolated avenger had become… something else. Still driven, still training obsessively, but not *consumed*.
"Heh, not bad for a civilian kid," Kiba said, clapping Shingen on the shoulder. "Though I still say the practical scores are weighted wrong. You should've been first."
"Sasuke earned it," Shingen said honestly. The Uchiha's skills were legitimate—his taijutsu was superior, his ninjutsu expanding, his fire techniques already approaching chunin level.
And in his private training, Shingen had unlocked the second tomoe in his Sharingan—triggered not by trauma but by intensive practice and a near-miss during a particularly brutal spar with a training dummy (he'd convinced himself it was life-or-death, and apparently that was enough).
Two tomoe. Enhanced prediction, better copying ability, deeper understanding of chakra flow.
Still secret. Still hidden.
**[Current GP: 6,482]**
Five years of grinding since the Legendary pull. Back to saving, building reserves, preparing for the next major investment.
-----
**Year Seven, Month Two**
Shingen woke on his eleventh birthday to his mother's voice calling him for breakfast and a system notification:
**[MILESTONE ACHIEVED: Age 11]**
**[BONUS REWARD: 1,000 GP]**
**[Current Total: 9,147 GP]**
Not enough for another Legendary pull, but getting close.
More importantly: graduation was four months away.
Four months until team assignments, until real missions, until the Wave Country arc and everything that followed.
Except… would the Wave Country arc even *happen* now? Tazuna would still need protection, Zabuza would still be a missing-nin for hire, but would Team Seven be the one to take that mission?
Would Team Seven even *form*?
*Too many variables*, Shingen thought. *The timeline is a suggestion at this point, not a prophecy.*
All he could do was prepare for chaos and position himself to exploit whatever opportunities emerged.
He spent his birthday training in secret—Sharingan active, copying techniques from scrolls his uncle had "accidentally" left unsecured, mastering them through shadow clone practice.
Because he'd also pulled the Shadow Clone Technique months ago from a Rare Gacha—Epic-tier jutsu randomly appearing in a Rare pull, one of those statistical miracles that made the Gacha system both frustrating and *glorious*.
Each clone's experience flowed back when dispelled, accelerating his learning exponentially.
By nightfall, he'd mastered three new water techniques, refined his taijutsu kata, and developed a working theory on how to combine his Sharingan's copying ability with his Combat Precognition for devastating effect.
Marcus Chen had died weak and powerless.
Shingen Yamazaki was becoming a *monster*.
-----
**Graduation Day - Four Months Later**
The graduation exam was almost anticlimactic. Shingen performed flawlessly—Academy Three, weapon accuracy, taijutsu kata—all without activating his Sharingan.
Still second place behind Sasuke in the final rankings, exactly as planned.
Iruka handed him the headband with genuine warmth. "You've come a long way, Shingen. I'm proud of you."
"Thank you, Sensei. For everything."
Nearly everyone passed—the standards had been maintained despite the graduation schedule. Naruto made it through with his practical scores compensating for abysmal written exams. Sasuke topped the class. Sakura scored high on everything except physical combat.
The next morning, they gathered for team assignments.
Shingen's heart didn't race—he'd trained himself too well for that—but his mind calculated probabilities with each name called.
"Team Seven," Iruka announced. "Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke, and Haruno Sakura."
*Exactly as canon*, Shingen noted. *The universe course-corrects.*
"Team Eight. Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, and Aburame Shino."
*Still canon.*
"Team Ten. Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, and Akimichi Choji."
*The Ino-Shika-Cho formation, as expected.*
"And Team Eleven. Yamazaki Shingen, Tenten, and Rock Lee."
There it was.
Two figures Shingen barely knew—a girl with dark hair in twin buns and a boy with a bowl cut and eyebrows that could be seen from space.
Tenten, the weapons specialist. Rock Lee, the taijutsu prodigy who couldn't use ninjutsu or genjutsu.
*Which means our instructor is—*
"Your jonin senseis will meet you this afternoon in your designated training grounds," Iruka continued. "Team Seven, Training Ground 3. Team Eight, Training Ground 8. Team Ten, Training Ground 10. And Team Eleven, Training Ground 3—wait, no." He checked his clipboard. "Training Ground Guy. It's… apparently it's actually called that now."
Shikamaru snorted. "Troublesome."
Shingen felt a grin split his face.
Might Guy. The Green Beast of Konoha. The man who'd fought Madara Uchiha and survived. The taijutsu master who'd opened the Eighth Gate.
A teacher who would push them until they broke, then push harder.
*Perfect.*
"This is going to be *fun*," he murmured.
Beside him, Rock Lee turned with eyes blazing with passionate enthusiasm. "A NEW COMRADE! I am Rock Lee, and I PROMISE to be the BEST teammate you have ever had! Together, we shall surpass our limits and prove that HARD WORK can defeat ANY genius!"
Tenten rolled her eyes. "Please ignore him. He's always like this. I'm Tenten. Try not to die during Guy-sensei's training. Most people do."
"Most people *figuratively* die," Lee corrected. "Sensei has never *actually* killed a student!"
"There's a first time for everything," Tenten said darkly.
Shingen's grin widened.
Yeah.
This was going to be *fun*.
**[Significant Action Complete: Graduate from Academy]**
**[Reward: 2,000 GP]**
**[Achievement Unlocked: Team Assignment (Combat-Specialist Team)]**
**[Reward: 750 GP]**
**[Current Total: 11,897 GP]**
The game had changed.
The timeline was broken.
And Shingen Yamazaki—eleven years old, holder of a secret Sharingan, manipulator of social dynamics, and certified *monster*—was exactly where he wanted to be.
"Let's see how far I can go," he whispered.
The answer, he suspected, was further than anyone expected.