Player Uchiha - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The First Step Forward

The morning light filtered through the thin curtains of apartment 247-B, painting soft patterns across the bare walls. Yami’s eyes opened slowly, blinking against the brightness, and for a brief, wonderful moment, he thought he was back in his old apartment. Back in his real life, where the biggest concern was whether he’d have time to watch the new anime episode before work.

Then reality crashed in with the weight of a boulder.

The ceiling was wrong. The futon beneath him was too thin, too hard. The sounds filtering through the window weren’t the familiar hum of traffic but the distinctive noises of the Uchiha compound—voices calling morning greetings in Japanese, the rhythmic ‘thwack’ of training weapons from distant practice grounds, the general bustle of a ninja clan starting its day.

His chest tightened with a familiar ache. Three days. It had been three days since he’d fully settled into this new existence, and every single morning had been the same cruel disappointment. That moment of forgetfulness, followed by the crushing remembrance of where—and who—he actually was.

Yami sat up slowly, running small hands through his messy dark hair. The grief wasn’t as sharp as it had been that first night, but it lingered like a persistent shadow, coloring everything with a faint melancholy he couldn’t quite shake.

“Get up,” he muttered to himself, forcing his body into motion. “Lying here won’t change anything.”

The routine he’d established over the past few days helped. Wash face. Use the bathroom. Prepare a simple breakfast of rice and miso soup from the supplies the clan had provided. The mechanical nature of these tasks gave him something to focus on, kept his mind from spiraling into unproductive thoughts about impossibility and unfairness.

He was halfway through his breakfast when a soft knock came at the door.

Yami paused, chopsticks halfway to his mouth. Visitors were still unusual enough to make him wary. Setting his bowl down, he padded to the door and opened it cautiously.

A woman stood in the hallway, perhaps in her early thirties, with kind eyes that couldn’t quite hide the deep exhaustion and grief behind them. She wore simple civilian clothes and held a small wrapped package in her hands. Beside her stood a girl of about eight, with the same dark hair and eyes as her mother, though her gaze was fixed firmly on the floor.

“Good morning, Yami-kun,” the woman said with a gentle smile that seemed to take effort. “I’m Uchiha Hanako. I live next door in 247-A. This is my daughter, Yui.”

The girl—Yui—offered a tiny nod but didn’t look up.

“We wanted to introduce ourselves properly,” Hanako continued. “We moved in a few days ago, after the… after our home was destroyed. I thought perhaps we could look out for each other, being neighbors.”

Yami felt something in his chest loosen slightly. He recognized the forced brightness in Hanako’s voice, the way she was trying so hard to be strong despite whatever pain she was carrying. From his adult perspective, he could see the cracks in her facade—the way her hands trembled slightly, the dark circles under her eyes that makeup couldn’t quite hide.

“Thank you,” he said, remembering his manners. “I’m Uchiha Yami. It’s… nice to meet you both.”

Hanako’s smile became a touch more genuine. “I made some onigiri this morning. Too many, really.” She held out the wrapped package. “I thought you might like some. A five-year-old shouldn’t have to cook all his meals alone.”

The kindness in the gesture made Yami’s throat tight. He accepted the package with both hands, bowing slightly the way the original Yami’s memories suggested was proper. “Thank you very much, Hanako-san.”

“If you need anything—anything at all—just knock, okay?” Hanako said, her hand resting gently on Yui’s shoulder. “We’re neighbors now. Family looks out for family.”

After they left, Yami unwrapped the package to find six perfectly formed rice balls, some filled with pickled plum, others with salmon. The care that had gone into making them was evident in every detail.

He ate one immediately, surprised by how much better it tasted than his own simple cooking. But more than the food, it was the gesture itself that warmed something cold inside him. In this strange, dangerous world, small kindnesses felt like lifelines.

Over the following days, a tentative friendship formed between the three apartments’ occupants. Yami learned that Hanako’s husband had been a chunin who’d fallen during the Kyuubi attack, crushed by falling debris while helping evacuate civilians. She was trying to be brave for Yui, maintaining a front of strength and normalcy.

But Yami heard the crying sometimes, late at night when Hanako thought no one was listening. And he saw the way Yui would disappear into her room for hours, emerging with red-rimmed eyes that she tried to hide behind her hair.

The Academy was closed for a month to allow the village to recover and rebuild. Yui spent most of her time indoors, rarely venturing out to play with the other children in the compound. Yami understood that instinctively—sometimes grief was too heavy to hide, and being around others who were pretending to be okay just made it worse.

He didn’t push. Just offered small nods when they passed in the hallway, accepted the occasional food offerings from Hanako with quiet gratitude, and tried to be a steady, if silent, presence next door.

It was strange, this feeling of community forming around him. In his previous life, he’d barely known his neighbors’ names. Here, in this world of ninja and violence, people seemed to cling together more tightly, bound by shared loss and the understanding that they needed each other to survive.

On the third morning after finishing his initial settling-in period, Yami made a decision.

It was time to stop wallowing in depression and start actually working toward survival.

He pulled up his status panel with a thought, the familiar interface materializing before his eyes with its soft glow.

—
User: Uchiha Yami
Level: 1 (0/3)
Bloodline: Uchiha
Ability: Sharingan Lv1 (2.5%)
Affinity: Fire Lv3, Yin Lv4

Health: 9/10
Chakra: 5/5
Fatigue: 0%

STR: 1
AGI: 1
VIT: 5
INT: 3
PER: 1

Skills: Accelerated Perception

[Quest] x1
—

His health had recovered to 90% over the past few days of rest and regular meals. The Sharingan training he’d been doing carefully—4 minutes at a time, once or twice a day—had pushed the progress to 2.5%. Slow, but steady.

The affinity information was new, or at least newly noticed. Fire Level 3 and Yin Level 4. He supposed that made sense for an Uchiha—the clan was famous for their fire techniques, and Yin release related to imagination and spiritual energy, which tied into their Sharingan and genjutsu prowess.

But it was the Quest marker that drew his attention now.

He’d been avoiding it, honestly. The requirements had seemed absurd—impossible for a five-year-old body. But he couldn’t avoid it forever. If he wanted to survive, to grow strong enough to fulfill that insane contract, he needed every advantage he could get.

With a mental command, he opened the Basic Training Quest.

—
[Basic Training Quest]

Pushups: 0/300
Squats: 0/300
Situps: 0/500
Pullups: 0/100
Run: 0/10km

Reward: 100 EXP
—

Yami stared at the numbers, feeling that familiar mix of despair and determination. Three hundred pushups. Three hundred squats. Five hundred situps. One hundred pullups. Ten kilometers of running.

For an adult in good shape, this would be a grueling but achievable workout. For a five-year-old child?

It seemed impossible.

But then again, everything about his situation was impossible. What was one more impossibility on the pile?

He changed into the simple training clothes he’d found in the closet—likely left by the clan as part of the basic provisions. Dark pants and a fitted shirt that would allow for movement. Then, with a deep breath to steel himself, he began.

“Okay,” he muttered, dropping into position on the floor of his small apartment. “Let’s see just how impossible this really is.”

He started with pushups, his small arms shaking as he lowered himself down. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

A notification appeared:

[Fatigue: 1%]

Yami froze in the up position, staring at the message. One percent fatigue for every five pushups? That meant… if he did three hundred pushups, he’d accumulate sixty percent fatigue. That was manageable, wasn’t it?

But wait—there was more information appearing now.

[Fatigue Recovery: 1% per minute]

His eyes widened. If he could recover one percent per minute, that meant he could work in bursts. Do exercises until his fatigue got uncomfortable, then rest for a few minutes, then continue. It wouldn’t be fast, but it was doable.

“Holy shit,” he whispered, then immediately felt guilty for cursing in a child’s voice. “This might actually work.”

He dove back into the pushups with renewed vigor. Five more. Rest for a minute while the fatigue ticked down. Five more. Rest. The cycle continued, and he found himself falling into a rhythm.

The squats came next, easier on his arms but burning his small legs in new ways. The same pattern—five exercises, one percent fatigue, one minute recovery. It was tedious, time-consuming, but it worked.

Situps were perhaps the easiest, his compact body making the motion less strenuous. He pushed through them faster, building confidence with each completed rep.

Pullups were the real challenge. The apartment didn’t have a proper pullup bar, but Yami found he could use the doorframe—though his small hands could barely grip it properly, and each rep felt like it might be his last. These took the longest, with frequent rests needed to let his screaming muscles recover.

And finally, the run. Ten kilometers. He broke it into manageable chunks, jogging around the compound’s paths. Other Uchiha gave him curious looks—a five-year-old child running laps wasn’t completely unusual in a ninja clan, but his determined expression and obvious exhaustion probably seemed odd.

He didn’t care. He just kept running, kept pushing, kept moving forward.

The sun tracked across the sky as he worked. Morning became afternoon, afternoon faded toward evening. Hanako knocked once to offer lunch, seeming concerned by the sounds of exertion coming from his apartment, but Yami politely declined, too focused on his goal to stop.

His small body screamed in protest. Sweat soaked through his training clothes. His muscles trembled with every movement, and the fatigue meter climbed and fell in waves as he pushed himself to the limit, rested, then pushed again.

But finally—’finally’—as the sun began to set, he completed the last kilometer of running.

[Basic Training Quest – COMPLETE]

Pushups: 300/300
Squats: 300/300
Situps: 500/500
Pullups: 100/100
Run: 10km/10km

Reward: 100 EXP

[Calculating…]

The notification hovered for a moment, then exploded into a cascade of new messages.

[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]
[LEVEL UP!]

Level 1 → Level 7

HP +10 per level (6 levels) = +60 HP
CP +5 per level (6 levels) = +30 CP
Free Stat Points: +5 per level (6 levels) = +30 points

[Status Reset: All injuries and fatigue removed]

The sensation was indescribable.

One moment, Yami was on the verge of collapse, his body pushed beyond anything it had ever experienced, every muscle burning, his fatigue meter sitting at a concerning forty-seven percent despite his attempts to manage it.

The next moment, it all vanished.

Not gradually—instantly. Like someone had flipped a switch and reset his body to perfect condition. The burning in his muscles disappeared. The exhaustion evaporated. Even small aches he’d been carrying from the Kyuubi attack and its aftermath simply ceased to exist.

He felt ‘good’. Better than good. He felt strong, energized, like he could run another ten kilometers without breaking a sweat.

“This is insane,” he breathed, staring at his hands in wonder. They weren’t trembling anymore. His breathing was steady. His heart rate calm. “This is absolutely insane.”

He pulled up his full status panel, eager to see the changes.

—
User: Uchiha Yami
Level: 7 (17/36)
Bloodline: Uchiha
Ability: Sharingan Lv1 (2.5%)
Affinity: Fire Lv3, Yin Lv4

Health: 70/70
Chakra: 35/35
Fatigue: 0%

STR: 1
AGI: 1
VIT: 5
INT: 3
PER: 1

Unallocated Stat Points: 30

Skills: Accelerated Perception

[Quest] x1
—

Thirty stat points. Thirty points he could distribute however he wanted among his five attributes. The question was: how should he allocate them?

Yami sat cross-legged on his apartment floor, thinking carefully. His analytical mind—the part that had spent countless hours optimizing game characters in his previous life—kicked into high gear.

A new information panel appeared when he focused on the stats, as if the system was reading his intention.

[Attribute Effects]

Strength (STR): Increases physical strength, movement speed, and attack power.

Agility (AGI): Increases dynamic vision, physical reaction speed, and evasion rate.

Vitality (VIT): Increases maximum HP and recovery speed. Also affects physical stamina. For every 100 points in VIT, host gains 1% HP recovery per minute (equivalent to Lv1 Uzumaki bloodline recovery).

Intelligence (INT): Increases maximum CP and CP recovery speed. For every 100 points in INT, host gains 1% CP recovery per minute (equivalent to Lv1 Senju bloodline recovery).

Perception (PER): Sharpens the five senses and increases danger perception ability. Directly affects Sharingan effectiveness. Higher PER values allow for better utilization of Sharingan abilities.

Each stat had its merits. Strength would make him more dangerous in combat. Agility would help him avoid attacks. Intelligence would expand his chakra reserves and recovery. Perception would enhance his Sharingan, which was arguably his greatest potential asset.

But Yami’s eyes kept returning to Vitality.

The reasoning was straightforward, almost mathematical in its logic:

First, Vitality affected stamina directly. More stamina meant he could train longer and harder without accumulating fatigue. Given that his primary method of advancement was completing training quests, maximizing his ability to train was crucial.

Second, the HP bonus was significant. Each level gave him 10 HP, but looking at the numbers more carefully, it seemed that every 10 points in VIT also gave an additional 10 HP. That was a substantial boost to his survivability.

Third—and perhaps most importantly—reaching 100 points in VIT would grant him 1% HP recovery per minute. That was passive regeneration, equivalent to having Uzumaki bloodline healing. In a world where people could be killed by a single well-placed kunai, having passive regeneration could mean the difference between life and death.

And fourth, he was currently living in the Uchiha compound, surrounded by clan members who would protect their own. He didn’t need combat stats right now—he needed the ability to grow stronger faster. Itachi wouldn’t massacre the clan for another eight years. He had time to build up other stats later.

Decision made, Yami allocated all thirty points to Vitality.

The moment he confirmed the choice, he felt another change ripple through his body. It was subtler than the level-up healing but no less real. His muscles felt denser somehow, his body more resilient. And when he checked his status…

—
User: Uchiha Yami
Level: 7 (17/36)
Bloodline: Uchiha
Ability: Sharingan Lv1 (2.5%)
Affinity: Fire Lv3, Yin Lv4

Health: 100/100
Chakra: 35/35
Fatigue: 0%

STR: 1
AGI: 1
VIT: 35
INT: 3
PER: 1

Skills: Accelerated Perception

[Quest] x1
—

His HP had jumped from 70 to 100. The thirty points in VIT had added thirty HP directly, on top of the base increases from leveling. And more importantly, he could feel the difference in his body. His stamina felt vastly improved, like he’d suddenly become capable of much more than before.

Yami stood up, bouncing slightly on his feet, testing the new limits of his enhanced body. He felt amazing—stronger, more resilient, more capable than any five-year-old had any right to be.

“Only sixty-five more points until I get passive regeneration,” he murmured, already planning his next steps. “If each quest gives 100 EXP, and I need… let me see…”

He did quick mental calculations. Level 7 required 36 EXP to reach level 8. If the pattern held, each subsequent level would require slightly more. But even being conservative, two or three more quest completions should get him to level 10 or 11, which would mean another 15-20 stat points.

It would take time, but it was achievable. And unlike the impossible goal of surpassing Hagoromo Otsutsuki, this felt real, tangible, within reach.

A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.

“Yami-kun?” Hanako’s voice, concerned. “Are you alright? I heard a lot of noise earlier…”

Yami opened the door, finding Hanako standing there with Yui peeking out from behind her mother’s legs. Both of them looked at him with worry that was touching in its sincerity.

“I’m fine,” he assured them, offering a smile that felt more genuine than any he’d managed in days. “Just… training. I wanted to get stronger.”

Hanako’s expression softened. “You’re only five, Yami-kun. You don’t need to push yourself so hard.”

‘If only you knew’, Yami thought. ‘If only I could explain that I need to become stronger than a god or have my soul sealed for eternity.’

But of course, he couldn’t say that. So instead, he just shrugged. “I don’t want to be weak. I want to be strong enough to protect… to protect what’s important.”

Something flickered in Hanako’s eyes—understanding, perhaps, or recognition of the same determination that drove all shinobi, even the youngest ones.

“Just… be careful, okay?” she said finally. “And come to dinner tonight. I made too much again, and we’d love the company.”

As Yami accepted the invitation, watching Hanako and Yui return to their apartment, he felt something shift inside him. The depression that had colored his mornings was still there—he suspected it would be for a while yet—but it felt lighter somehow, more manageable.

He had a path forward now. A way to grow stronger, to survive, to maybe even thrive in this dangerous world.

And for the first time since waking up in that hospital bed, Uchiha Yami felt something that might have been hope.