The first thing Raizen noticed was the silence.
No noise of traffic and no distant sirens from Chicago's streets.
Instead, a rooster's sharp crow cut through the silence jarring him awake.
His eyes snapped open and he froze staring at a wooden ceiling where its beams are polished but uneven. This wasn't his apartment.
His heart thudded loudly in his ears as he lay on a thin mattress, the coarse blanket tangled around him.
He tried to sit up but his body felt wrong, it was smaller and lighter like it belonged to someone else.
Then panic crept in. He wasn't Daniel Carter. He was… Raizen Uchiha.
The name surfaced like a half-remembered dream bringing flashes of a life that wasn't his: flashes of training with kunai, studying chakra and growing up in a clan of proud, red-eyed shinobi.
But Daniel's memories were there too, he was 28 years old and an office worker falling asleep on his couch with Naruto playing on his laptop.
The anime's plot flooded his mind: the Third Shinobi World War was a year away slaughtering thousands, and the Uchiha clan's massacre years later by a boy named Itachi, who was just a toddler now.
The knowledge was overwhelming, a jigsaw puzzle of two lives jammed together.
Raizen pressed his hands to his face expecting stubble but his skin was smooth and soft. His hands were small, calloused but not weathered.
"This can't be real," he muttered, his voice higher and younger not the gravelly tone he knew.
He squeezed his eyes shut willing himself to wake up in Chicago, but the rooster crowed again and the scent of cedar and earth filled his nose.
His stomach churned. Was he dreaming? Dead? Reincarnated, like those isekai stories he'd read online?
He forced himself to sit up and the mattress creaked.
The room was small, maybe ten feet across with a low wooden desk cluttered with scrolls, a whetstone and and a half-sharpened kunai.
A shelf held books with titles like Basic Ninjutsu Forms and Konoha Military Code, and their spines were worn.
A single candle sat on the desk where wax pooled around its base. The floor was polished wood that felt cool under his bare feet as he stood.
His legs wobbled, not from weakness but from the sheer alienness of moving a body that wasn't his.
He gripped the desk until his knuckles whitened.
"What the hell is happening?" he whispered with his breath shaky.
He caught his reflection in a small warped mirror on the wall and flinched. The boy staring back had pale skin, sharp cheekbones and dark eyes that seemed to bore into him; Uchiha eyes he realized, the kind Sasuke and Itachi had in the anime.
His black hair was tied in a short ponytail with a few strands sticking to his forehead with sweat. He looked twelve maybe, with a lean build that spoke of training.
Raizen touched his face and the mirror boy mimicked him.
"This is me?" His voice cracked and he stepped back, bumping into the desk.
A scroll fell, unrolling to reveal a diagram of hand signs.
Then Raizen's memories flickered. He saw himself in a classroom, practicing those hand signs and weaving chakra for a basic clone jutsu.
He'd been good, not a genius but third in his class, a rank earned through sweat and focus.
Tomorrow was the Ninja Academy graduation ceremony, when he'd get his forehead protector and become a genin.
The memories felt vivid but distant like watching someone else's home movie.
Daniel's life clung to him too: cubicle walls, coffee runs and scrolling Reddit for Naruto theories.
He gripped his head as the clash of identities was dizzying.
A soft knock at the door made him jump.
"Raizen? You awake?" The voice was a woman's, it was gentle but firm and tinged with familiarity that sent a pang through him.
He froze as another memory was surfacing: Hana, his mother, a chunin and medic-nin. Her face flashed in his mind, she had dark hair and kind eyes, her hands steady from years of healing wounds.
The memory wasn't his but the warmth it carried was real. "Y-yeah," he called with his voice unsteady. "I'm up."
"Breakfast's ready," Hana said. "So don't take too long; you've got a big day tomorrow."
Raizen swallowed and his throat was dry. He needed to move, to act normal or he'd raise suspicion.
He scanned the room for clothes, spotting a high-collared blue shirt with a red-and-white fan crest.
Dark pants and shinobi sandals were folded beside it. He dressed slowly, fumbling with the shirt's buttons because his fingers were clumsy in their new size. The fabric was crisp and the crest felt heavy on his back.
He grabbed a pouch from the desk—kunai, shuriken, wire—clipping it to his belt out of instinct he didn't fully understand.