Card Ninja From Uchiha - Chapter 1

Chapter 1: Awakening in a Broken World

The first sensation was pain.

Not the sharp, immediate kind that makes you jolt awake, but a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to emanate from every corner of his body. It wrapped around his bones like cold iron chains, weighing him down into the thin mattress beneath him. His eyelids felt heavy, as though someone had placed stones on them while he slept.

Where am I?

The thought drifted through his consciousness like a boat on still water, slow and uncertain. He tried to move his fingers, and they responded—barely. The simple action took more effort than it should have, as if he were piloting a body that didn’t quite belong to him.

Gradually, consciousness seeped back into him like water filling a cup. He became aware of sounds: the distant murmur of voices, footsteps echoing on hard floors, the occasional clatter of metal on metal. Somewhere nearby, someone was crying. The sounds were muffled, as though filtered through thick walls or perhaps through the fog that still clouded his mind.

He forced his eyes open.

White ceiling. Cracked plaster. A single light fixture hanging overhead, its glass cover yellowed with age. The sight was mundane, ordinary, yet something about it felt wrong. Out of place. He blinked slowly, trying to clear the blurriness from his vision, and turned his head to the side.

The movement sent a spike of discomfort through his neck, but he persisted. His gaze fell upon a room that could only be described as utilitarian: white walls marked with scuffs and stains, a small window with thin curtains that did little to block the afternoon sun, and several beds lined up against the opposite wall. Most were occupied by still figures wrapped in bandages.

A hospital.

The realization should have brought relief, but instead, it only deepened his confusion. Why was he in a hospital? He tried to remember, to reach back into his memories for some explanation, but his thoughts felt sluggish, uncooperative.

He attempted to sit up, and that’s when the true strangeness of his situation hit him.

His body didn’t respond the way it should. His arms were too short, his legs barely reached halfway down the bed, and when he finally managed to prop himself up on his elbows, he found himself staring down at the small, delicate hands of a child.

No. No, this isn’t right.

Panic fluttered in his chest like a trapped bird. He raised his hands closer to his face, examining them with growing alarm. They were unmistakably a child’s hands—small, with tiny fingers and soft, unmarked skin. He touched his face, feeling the roundness of his cheeks, the small nose, the absence of any stubble on his chin.

His breathing quickened. This couldn’t be real. This had to be some kind of dream, a nightmare brought on by—by what? He couldn’t remember. The harder he tried to grasp at his memories, the more they seemed to slip away like sand through those impossibly small fingers.

Then, without warning, his vision exploded with light.

Images flooded his mind in a torrent that made him gasp aloud. They came fast and chaotic, like shuffling through a deck of cards at high speed. Faces he didn’t recognize but somehow knew. Places that felt familiar despite never having seen them before. Emotions—love, joy, fear, grief—all washing over him in overwhelming waves.

He saw a woman with long, dark hair and gentle eyes, her smile warm as she bent down to ruffle his hair. Mother. The word came unbidden, along with a surge of affection so strong it made his chest ache.

He saw a man with sharp features and proud bearing, lifting him onto his shoulders while he squealed with delight. Father. The love he felt for this man was bone-deep, instinctive.

More memories cascaded through his consciousness: learning to walk, falling and scraping his knee, being comforted by soft hands. The taste of his mother’s cooking, sweet and savory. Playing with wooden toys on a polished floor. The sound of his father’s laughter, rare but treasured.

Most of the early memories were hazy, like looking through frosted glass. Impressions and feelings more than clear images. The first three years of life were always like that, weren’t they? Even for—

Uchiha Yami.

The name surfaced in his mind with absolute certainty. That was his name. This body’s name. He was Uchiha Yami, five years old, son of Uchiha Hiroaki and Uchiha Mieko.

But even as he absorbed this knowledge, another part of him recoiled. Because he wasn’t Uchiha Yami. He was—he was—

The memories kept coming, more recent now and therefore clearer. He was four years old, watching his mother prepare dinner in their small kitchen. The Uchiha compound was busy that day, with many adults rushing about with worried expressions. His mother kept glancing toward the window, her usual smile strained.

His father came home late, still wearing his chunin vest, smelling of smoke and sweat. He picked up young Yami and held him close, perhaps a bit too tightly. “You’re safe,” his father whispered. “We’ll keep you safe.”

The memory shifted, became more fragmented. Darkness falling. Shouting in the streets. His mother grabbing him, wrapping him in a blanket despite his protests that he wasn’t cold. His father’s grim face as he pulled on his gear, checking his kunai holster one last time.

Then they were running. His mother’s arms around him, his father ahead of them, leading them through the compound’s winding streets. The night air was filled with screams and the acrid smell of destruction. Buildings were damaged, some on fire, casting dancing shadows that made the familiar streets look like a nightmare landscape.

A roar split the night—impossibly loud, filled with rage and something else. Something primal and ancient that made even the memory of it send shivers down his spine.

He caught a glimpse of it through the gap between two buildings: a massive form silhouetted against the moon, all red fur and too many tails. Eyes like crimson suns, glowing with malevolent intelligence. The Nine-Tails Fox.

His child’s mind couldn’t fully comprehend what he was seeing. It was too big, too impossible. Like staring at a natural disaster given form and will.

“This way!” His father’s voice was urgent, desperate in a way Yami had never heard before. They changed direction, ducking into an alley.

But the destruction was spreading faster than they could run. A massive tail swept through the air high above them, but the shockwave of its passage was enough to send debris raining down. A building groaned, its structure compromised, and began to collapse.

His parents saw it before he did. His mother’s arms tightened around him, and then suddenly he was flying through the air. His father had thrown him, putting all his strength into that desperate heave, launching his son clear of the danger zone.

Yami tumbled across the ground, his small body miraculously avoiding serious injury, and when he looked up—

His parents were there, in the space where he had been a heartbeat before. They had positioned themselves to shield him, to take the impact meant for him. The massive chunk of building came down like the fist of an angry god.

His mother’s eyes met his in that final instant. Even facing death, she was smiling. A small, sad smile that tried to convey everything she wanted to say but would never have the chance to.

Then the debris hit.

The sound was deafening—concrete and wood and stone crushing down with terrible finality. Dust billowed out in a choking cloud. When it cleared enough for him to see, there was only rubble where his parents had stood.

Little Yami tried to scream, but his voice wouldn’t work. He tried to move, to run to them, to dig them out with his bare hands, but his body wouldn’t respond. Shock had frozen him in place, his young mind unable to process what had just happened.

The last thing he remembered from that night was the darkness creeping in from the edges of his vision, and a strange warmth in his eyes that felt wrong, painful. Then nothing.

The memory ended, and the young man—no, Yami—found himself back in the hospital bed, tears streaming down his face. His small chest heaved with sobs that he couldn’t control. The grief was overwhelming, made worse by the fact that it belonged to a child’s heart, raw and unfiltered by years of experience or emotional defenses.

But beneath the grief, confusion still churned.

Because he remembered something else. Something that contradicted everything he had just experienced.

He remembered an apartment. Small, a bit messy, with posters on the walls and a computer desk cluttered with instant ramen cups. He remembered lying on a futon, his—his adult body relaxed . after a long day at work. He remembered scrolling through his phone, opening a streaming app, and settling in to watch the latest episode of Boruto.

The memories were distinct, separate from the life of Uchiha Yami. He had been a young man in his twenties, living alone, working an unremarkable office job. His entertainment had been anime and manga, his social life minimal but sufficient. He had no grand ambitions, no particular skills to speak of. Just an ordinary person living an ordinary life.

He remembered watching that episode with growing frustration. The Uchiha clan, once so powerful and feared, had been reduced to virtually nothing in the Boruto era. Sasuke was nerfed constantly for plot convenience, and Sarada, while talented, seemed unlikely to ever reach the heights of her predecessors. The writing felt lazy, disrespectful to the legacy that had been built.

He remembered feeling depressed about it, making a cup of tea to soothe himself, and then returning to bed. He had closed his eyes, expecting to wake up the next morning to another mundane day.

Instead, he had woken up here. In a hospital bed. In a five-year-old body. In what appeared to be the actual Naruto world.

The implications crashed over him like a tsunami. If this was real—and the pain, the memories, the grief all felt far too vivid to be a dream—then he had somehow transmigrated into the world of Naruto. Not only that, but he had taken over the body of a child who had just lost his parents to the Nine-Tails attack.

Which meant this was the night of the Nine-Tails attack. October 10th. The night Naruto Uzumaki was born. The night the Fourth Hokage died sealing the beast away.

A night when countless shinobi and civilians lost their lives.

Including, apparently, Uchiha Hiroaki and Uchiha Mieko.

“No, no, no…” He whispered, the voice coming out high-pitched and childlike, another reminder of his new reality. How was this possible? How could this be happening?

He knew the Naruto story inside and out. He had read the manga multiple times, watched the anime, even the filler episodes. He had debated power scaling on forums and written comments on fanfiction sites. But knowing about a world from the outside and actually being in it were two entirely different things.

This world was dangerous. Incredibly, horrifyingly dangerous. People died here, often and violently. Wars decimated entire populations. S-rank criminals wandered around with powers that could level mountains. And the threats only escalated as time went on—Akatsuki, the Fourth Shinobi World War, Kaguya, and eventually the Otsutsuki clan in the Boruto era.

How was a five-year-old supposed to survive in such a world?

The door to the hospital room opened, interrupting his spiraling thoughts. A woman in a nurse’s uniform entered, followed by a doctor with tired eyes and a clipboard. The doctor’s gaze swept across the room, landing on Yami with what might have been relief or perhaps just professional assessment.

“Uchiha Yami,” the doctor said, approaching his bed. Her voice was clipped, efficient. “You’re awake. Good.”

She pulled back his eyelid, shining a small light into his eye to check his pupil response. Yami flinched but didn’t resist. The examination was quick, almost perfunctory.

“No signs of serious head trauma,” she muttered, making a note on her clipboard. “Vitals are stable. Bruising is superficial and will heal on its own.”

She stepped back, and for the first time, Yami noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the exhaustion etched into every line of her face. How long had she been working? How many patients had she seen tonight?

“You’re being discharged,” she said flatly. “We need the bed. There are too many critical patients waiting, and you’re well enough to leave.”

Yami blinked, struggling to process her words. Discharged? To where? His parents were dead. Did he have other family? Where was he supposed to go?

“But I—” he started, his voice small and uncertain.

“The Uchiha clan will make arrangements for you,” the doctor interrupted, her tone suggesting she had no patience for questions. “Someone will be here shortly to collect you. Get dressed.”

She gestured to a small pile of clothes folded on a chair next to his bed—a simple outfit, different from what he had been wearing during the attack. Someone must have brought them while he was unconscious.

As the doctor turned to leave, Yami caught something in her expression. A tightness around her mouth, a coldness in her eyes that seemed directed specifically at him. Not at a traumatized five-year-old child, but at something he represented.

The Uchiha.

The realization hit him like a physical blow. The Uchiha clan’s relationship with the rest of Konoha was already strained at this point in the timeline, wasn’t it? The coup wouldn’t happen for several more years, but the seeds of distrust had been planted long ago. And after tonight, after the Nine-Tails attack…

In the original story, many villagers suspected the Uchiha had something to do with the attack. The Nine-Tails’ Sharingan-controlled eyes during the assault would fuel those suspicions, even though the clan had fought and died defending the village.

That doctor’s expression—that was the look of someone who blamed him, blamed his clan, for the devastation that had occurred tonight.

“Get dressed,” the doctor repeated, her voice harder this time. Then she was gone, the door closing behind her with a decisive click.

Yami sat there for a long moment, staring at the clothes. His small hands trembled as he reached for them. Everything felt surreal, like he was moving through a dream—or a nightmare.

As he pulled on the shirt, struggling with the unfamiliar movements of his child’s body, something shifted in his mind. It felt like a lock clicking open, or a dam breaking. Information began to flow into his consciousness—not memories this time, but knowledge. Data downloading directly into his brain.

He gasped, pressing his hands to his head as the sensation intensified. It didn’t hurt exactly, but it was overwhelming, alien. Like someone was writing directly onto his neurons.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, it stopped.

Yami sat there, breathing hard, trying to make sense of what had just happened. The information was still there in his mind, clear and accessible, like it had always been part of him.

His Mangekyō Sharingan.

He didn’t even need to question whether it was real or how he knew. The knowledge was absolute, undeniable. Somehow, impossibly, he—or rather, the soul now inhabiting this body—had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan. Not through trauma, not through killing a loved one, but as a gift. A golden finger from whatever god or cosmic force had sent him to this world.

A tool to help him survive.

The ability was called CARD, and it was unlike any Mangekyō power he had read about in the series.

He could feel the mechanics of it in his mind, understanding it instinctively the way one understands how to breathe or blink. The power had two primary functions, both tied to the concept of cards.

First: Transform. By touching any non-living object and channeling his chakra through the Mangekyō Sharingan, he could convert that object into a card and store it in a pocket dimension created by his dojutsu. A personal inventory space, essentially. The limitation was his chakra—he needed enough to completely “cover” the object with his energy to facilitate the transformation. A kunai might be easy. A bed, harder. A house, currently impossible. A planet, something that would require Ten-Tails level reserves.

But the potential was extraordinary. He could carry supplies, weapons, even shelter with him wherever he went, all stored in an invisible space only he could access.

The second ability was even more remarkable: Extract.

When he looked at another person with his Mangekyō Sharingan active, he would be able to see cards floating above their head. Each card represented a skill, technique, or ability that person possessed. Their jutsu, their kekkei genkai, their specialized knowledge—all visible to him as cards.

And if he stayed within ten meters of that person for a certain amount of time, he could extract those cards, pulling them from the person and into his own card space. Once extracted and stored, the knowledge and ability contained within the card would become his own. He would instantly learn that jutsu, or gain that kekkei genkai, as if he had possessed it from birth.

The implications were staggering. He could potentially collect abilities from every powerful ninja he encountered. The Sharingan was already known as the “Copy Wheel Eye” for its ability to memorize and replicate jutsu. His Mangekyō version took that concept to a terrifying extreme.

If he saw Kakashi, he could extract his Chidori, his ninja hound contract, his various elemental techniques. If he somehow encountered Jiraiya, he could take his summoning jutsu, his Rasengan, his sealing techniques. If he lived long enough to meet Naruto, he could extract his Shadow Clone jutsu, his Rasengan variations, even his Uzumaki bloodline.

The possibilities seemed endless.

But there was a critical limitation, one that tempered his excitement with realism: he could not extract raw power. He couldn’t copy someone’s chakra levels, their physical strength, or their stamina. He could take Hashirama Senju’s Wood Release, his Sage Mode technique, even his Senju bloodline—but he couldn’t take the massive chakra reserves that made Hashirama capable of creating forests with a thought.

With his current chakra levels as a five-year-old child, even if he obtained Wood Release, he might be able to grow a few flowers or a small sapling. Nothing more.

Raw power—chakra capacity, physical conditioning, speed, strength—all of that had to be developed the old-fashioned way. Through training, through effort, through time.

The CARD ability gave him access to techniques and talents, but it couldn’t make him powerful on its own. It was a tool, albeit an incredible one. What he did with it would determine his fate in this world.

Yami finished dressing, his mind churning with this new information. He looked down at his small hands again, no longer with horror but with calculation.

He was Uchiha Yami now. Five years old, orphaned, bearing a Mangekyō Sharingan that no one must ever discover. In a village that would grow to distrust and eventually plan to massacre his clan. In a world where god-like beings waged war and the fate of nations hung on the actions of powerful individuals.

But he had knowledge. He knew what was coming. He knew the threats, the timeline, the key players. And now he had an ability that could potentially let him collect the tools he needed to survive—and perhaps even change the future.

The door opened again. An Uchiha clan member stood there, a man in his thirties with the traditional clan features and a police force uniform. His expression was somber, his eyes carrying the weight of someone who had seen too much death tonight.

“Uchiha Yami?” the man asked, his voice gentle despite his stern appearance. “Come with me. We’re taking all the orphaned children back to the compound. You’ll be taken care of.”

Orphaned children. Plural. He wasn’t the only one who had lost parents tonight.

Yami—because he was Yami now, had to be Yami, both for survival and to honor the child whose body he now inhabited—nodded slowly. He climbed down from the bed, his movements careful as he tested his small legs.

As he followed the clan member out of the hospital room, passing other beds filled with injured people, Yami made himself a promise.

He would survive this world. He would grow strong enough to protect himself and maybe, if possible, prevent some of the tragedies he knew were coming. The Uchiha massacre, the various wars, the manipulations of Obito and Madara.

He had been given a second chance at life and an incredible power to help him navigate it.

He wouldn’t waste either.

The hospital corridors were chaos—doctors and nurses rushing between rooms, the wounded crying out in pain, families searching desperately for loved ones. The devastation of the Nine-Tails attack was evident in every direction he looked.

As they stepped out into the night air, Yami caught sight of Konoha for the first time with his own eyes rather than through memories or a screen. The village was wounded, burning in places, with rescue operations ongoing throughout. But it was still standing. Still alive.

And somewhere in this village, a newborn baby named Naruto Uzumaki was taking his first breaths, carrying within him the Nine-Tails Fox that had killed Yami’s parents.