Muzan stumbled through the forest as the moon climbed higher. His hands were still sticky. He'd tried to wipe them on leaves but the blood had dried into the creases of his palms.
"What have I done?"
The words came out hoarse. He'd been saying them for hours now, ever since his mind had cleared enough to understand what his body had done. The taste of copper still coated his tongue. When he swallowed, he could feel meat sliding down his throat.
He pressed his back against a tree and slid down to the ground. His thoughts scattered in too many directions. Part of him wanted to run back to the Land of Iron, to pretend this hadn't happened. Another part knew he could never go back. Not like this.
The memories played through his head in fragments. The woman with red accents falling. The large man's blood spraying across the ground. The feeling of his teeth tearing through flesh.
He'd wanted to survive. Genzo had died so he could live. But this wasn't living. This was something else entirely.
Muzan looked down at his hands. In the moonlight, his skin appeared corpse-pale. He flexed his fingers and watched his nails extend into curved claws that gleamed like polished bone. He touched his jaw and felt his canines lengthen into fangs that pressed against his lower lip.
The transformations happened without conscious thought now. His body responded to some instinct he didn't understand.
He pulled his hand back and the claws retracted. The fangs shortened. But he could still feel them there, waiting beneath the surface.
His stomach twisted with something that wasn't quite hunger. It was deeper than that, more fundamental. His cells were demanding something specific. When he thought about the bodies he'd left behind, about the blood and the meat, his mouth watered. The reaction disgusted him but he couldn't stop it.
Muzan pushed himself to his feet. He couldn't stay here. He needed to move, to think, to figure out what he'd become.
The forest seemed different than it had before. His vision cut through the darkness with perfect clarity. He could see individual leaves rustling in the wind, could track the movement of insects crawling across bark fifty paces away. His hearing picked up the rustle of small animals moving through the underbrush, the distant sound of water running over stones.
He walked without direction. One foot in front of the other. The rhythm helped him think.
When he'd consumed that woman's flesh, he'd felt warmth flood through his body. The sensation had been immediate and overwhelming. His injuries had sealed. His exhaustion had vanished. But there had been something else too, something flowing through the meat and blood that his body had absorbed.
Chakra. That's what the shinobi had called it. The energy that powered their techniques. He'd felt it in their flesh, concentrated and potent, and his body had taken it when he fed.
The realization settled over him like ice water. He wasn't just eating to survive. His body was consuming power itself, drawing strength from the shinobi he killed.
Muzan stopped walking. The implications of that were too much to process right now.
The sky ahead was starting to lighten. He could see the horizon turning from black to deep blue. Dawn was coming.
He held out his hand toward the first rays of sunlight breaking over the distant mountains.
His skin began to smoke.
Pain exploded through his palm. Not the dull ache of a burn but something immediate and vicious, like his flesh was being cooked from the inside. He jerked his hand back and watched the damaged tissue bubble and char before his regeneration kicked in. New skin grew over the wound in seconds.
Muzan stared at his healed palm. The sun was going to kill him. The one thing he'd taken for granted his entire life was now deadly.
He turned and ran. His legs carried him faster than he'd ever moved before. Trees blurred past. The ground crumbled beneath each footfall. Behind him, sunlight was spilling across the forest floor, chasing him deeper into the shadows.
A cave mouth appeared between two moss-covered boulders. Muzan launched himself forward and landed hard inside the entrance. He scrambled backward until the darkness swallowed him completely.
From the safety of the cave, he watched the sun rise. Golden light painted the world outside in colors that looked almost alien now. He'd never paid attention to sunrises before. They'd just been part of the natural rhythm of the day.
Now they represented a boundary he couldn't cross.
Muzan leaned against the cold stone wall. His breathing had steadied but his mind was racing. He couldn't go out during the day. He couldn't eat normal food. He needed human flesh to survive. His body had transformed into something that belonged in darkness.
He closed his eyes and saw his mother's face. Her gentle smile when she'd brought him tea. The way her hands had felt when she'd checked his forehead for fever.
He saw his father. Stern but proud. Always pushing him to be stronger, to overcome his weakness.
He saw Genzo. The old man's weathered features. The sound of his voice teaching sword forms. The moment when he'd pushed Muzan aside and taken the kunai that should have killed them both.
He saw his sensei. The countless hours spent learning to read and write. The patience in his teacher's voice when Muzan struggled with difficult concepts.
They'd all wanted him to live. To survive. To become someone.
Muzan opened his eyes. They reflected the dim light filtering into the cave with a crimson glow.
He couldn't change what had happened. He couldn't undo the transformation. He couldn't bring back the people he'd killed and eaten. Those things were done.
But he could choose what came next.
"I couldn't control my past," he said to the empty cave. "But I have this strength now. I can control my future."
The words felt hollow even as he spoke them. But they were something to hold onto. A direction to move toward when everything else had been stripped away.
He was the heir to the Land of Iron. That hadn't changed. He would find a way back. He would learn to control this power. He would become something more than a monster stumbling through the darkness.
But first he needed to survive. And that meant understanding where he was and how to navigate this new existence.
Muzan settled in to wait for nightfall.
---
The sun had been down for less than an hour when Muzan left the cave. He moved through the forest with purpose now. His enhanced senses picked up traces of human activity to the northeast. Worn paths through the undergrowth. The lingering scent of woodsmoke.
He followed the trails until he found a dirt road. The packed earth showed recent cart tracks and footprints. He turned left and started walking.
The road wound through the trees for several miles before he saw firelight ahead. Not the scattered lights of a village but concentrated sources. Campfires arranged in organized rows.
Muzan slowed his approach. His hearing picked up voices, the sound of metal striking metal, footsteps moving in regular patterns. This was a military camp.
He stayed in the treeline and circled around to get a better view. Dozens of tents were arranged in precise formations. Sentries walked patrol routes between them. He could see people moving inside the camp, all of them wearing similar clothing marked with a red and white fan symbol.
As he watched, two figures emerged from between the tents and walked toward the road. Both had spiky hair and wore the same crest on their backs. But it was their eyes that caught Muzan's attention.
They glowed red in the darkness. Not the uniform crimson of his own eyes but red with distinct black patterns. One had two marks shaped like commas. The other had three. The patterns spun slowly within their pupils.
Muzan felt something shift in his chest. An instinctive recognition. These people had abilities similar to his own. Some kind of ocular power.
He pulled back deeper into the trees, moving carefully to avoid making noise. But as he turned, both men's heads snapped toward his position.
The world went dark.
Muzan's vision cut out completely. One moment he could see the forest, the next there was only blackness. He tried to move but his body wouldn't respond. His limbs felt distant and uncooperative.
Footsteps approached through the darkness. He heard voices but couldn't make out words. Something grabbed his arm.
Light flooded back into his vision. He was on his back looking up at the two men. The one with three marks in his eyes was crouching over him. The other stood a few paces away with his hand on a weapon pouch.
"Toshiro, check him. He could be a scout from one of the enemy clans."
Toshiro nodded and moved closer. His hands searched through the bushes Muzan had been hiding behind, then froze.
"Amanai-san, he doesn't have anything on him. He's completely naked."
Amanai's expression didn't change. He drew a kunai from his pouch and threw it in one smooth motion.
Muzan's body reacted before his mind caught up. He rolled left and the blade passed through the space where his head had been. The darkness that had been clouding his thoughts cleared instantly.
He pushed off the ground and came up in a crouch. His muscles coiled to spring but he forced himself to stay still. These men had done something to his mind. Some kind of technique tied to their eyes.
Toshiro appeared beside Amanai, having covered the distance so quickly Muzan barely tracked the movement.
"How did he break through your genjutsu that easily?" Toshiro asked.
Amanai was staring at Muzan with narrowed eyes. "I don't know. But look at him. No headband, no equipment, no clothes. Either he's the worst spy I've ever seen or something else is happening here."
Muzan tensed as Amanai took a step forward. He could feel the power coiled in his muscles, the transformations waiting beneath his skin. His hands wanted to extend into whips. His mouth wanted to open and reveal his fangs.
But these men had stopped. They weren't attacking. And Muzan needed information more than he needed to fight.
Amanai moved fast. His hand shot out and grabbed Muzan's wrist before he could pull away. His other hand pressed against Muzan's shoulder, using leverage to force him down. Within seconds, Muzan was face-down in the dirt with his arms twisted behind his back.
The hold was professional. Painful enough to discourage resistance without causing injury. Muzan could have broken free. He could feel the strength in his transformed body, the power that had torn through five trained shinobi. But he stayed still.
"Don't move," Amanai said. His knee pressed between Muzan's shoulder blades.
Toshiro approached and crouched down. His red eyes studied Muzan's face carefully. The black comma patterns within them spun faster.
"Are you an Uchiha?"
Muzan stayed silent. The name meant nothing to him but clearly it was important.
"Answer the question," Toshiro said. "Are you an Uchiha or not?"
Muzan turned his head to look at Toshiro. In the moonlight, he could see the distinct patterns in the man's eyes. The way they moved and shifted. His own body responded to the observation without conscious command.
Heat flooded into Muzan's eyes. Not painful but intense, like warmth spreading through cold flesh. His pupils shifted. Black coma like dots appeared.
Toshiro's eyes widened. "Amanai-san. Look at his eyes."
Amanai leaned closer, peering at Muzan's face. "What about them?"
"He has tomoe now. Two of them in each eye." Toshiro's voice carried confusion. "I know he didn't have them before. I checked specifically."
"That's not possible. The Sharingan doesn't just manifest like that."
But it had. Muzan could feel the change in his vision, the way his eyes were processing information differently now. His body had copied what it saw, had transformed itself to match. The same way it had grown claws and fangs. The same way it had created whips from his flesh.
The warmth in his eyes faded as quickly as it had come. Whatever energy his body had drawn on to make the change was already depleted.
"Where are you from?" Amanai demanded. "Which branch of the clan sent you here?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Muzan said.
"Don't lie." Amanai pressed down harder with his knee. "Only Uchiha have the Sharingan. If you have it, you're one of us. Now tell me which branch you belong to."
"I'm not lying. I don't know what an Uchiha is."
Toshiro and Amanai exchanged looks.
"He's either incredibly well-trained or he genuinely doesn't know," Toshiro said.
"How could he not know? Every Uchiha child learns about the clan from the moment they can talk."
"Maybe he was raised outside the clan. Or maybe his parents were exiled."
Amanai grabbed Muzan's arm and hauled him to his feet, keeping his wrist twisted at a painful angle. "We're taking you to the camp. Lord Urashi will figure out what to do with you."
Muzan didn't resist as they marched him forward. His mind was already working through what he'd learned. These Uchiha had special eyes called Sharingan. They thought he was one of them because he'd managed to copy the appearance of their ability. And they had some kind of organized clan structure with leaders and branches.
More importantly, they had a camp. Which meant supplies, maps, and information about where he was in relation to the Land of Iron.
He let them lead him down the road toward the fires. Whatever came next, it would get him closer to understanding his situation. And right now, information was more valuable than freedom.