Uchiha Demon Dragon - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Echoes of Tragedy and the Pig Talisman

The rich, savory aroma of high-grade roasting beef finally filled the Uchiha household, making up for the bitter anxiety of the previous night.

In the evening, they finally had their long-delayed party. Hanta’s head was still tightly wrapped in white medical bandages, and he moved with the cautious stiffness of a man trying not to aggravate a concussion, but his spirits were incredibly high. He sat at the head of the low wooden table, using his chopsticks to expertly flip thin slices of marbled meat on the tabletop grill, ensuring the best cuts went directly into Aki’s and Yami’s bowls.

“Eat up, you two,” Hanta urged, flashing a warm smile that crinkled the corners of his tired eyes. “Your mother practically interrogated the butcher to get this cut. It’s not every day we get to celebrate our son discovering his chakra on the very first try.”

Yami happily stuffed a piece of beef into his mouth, letting the rich flavors melt on his tongue. “It’s really good, Dad! But you shouldn’t be the one doing all the cooking tonight. You’re the one who got a piece of a burning warehouse dropped on his head.”

“Nonsense,” Hanta chuckled, wincing slightly as he shifted his weight. “Cooking is relaxing. Besides, I have to make the most of my time at home tonight. Tomorrow is going to be incredibly busy, and unfortunately, it won’t be a happy occasion.”

Aru, who had been quietly pouring tea, paused, her expression turning somber. “The village elders have finalized the arrangements, then?”

Hanta nodded, his jovial demeanor fading into the grim professionalism of a shinobi. “Yes. The top brass of Konoha is organizing a combined mourning ceremony tomorrow morning. It’s for all the shinobi and civilians who lost their lives during the Nine-Tails incident last week. The entire village is expected to pay their respects.”

Yami slowed his chewing, listening intently.

“Because the police force is entirely responsible for crowd control and perimeter security during large gatherings, my squad has been called in for guard duty,” Hanta explained, looking at his wife apologetically. “I won’t be able to stand with you. So, Aru, you will have to take Yami and Aki and attend the ceremony on behalf of our family.”

Aru nodded solemnly, setting the teapot down. “Of course, Hanta. We will be there. It’s the least we can do to show our respect for the fallen.”

“Do we really have to go, Dad?” Yami asked, putting his chopsticks down. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful; he was just genuinely terrified of large crowds in a village that had recently been stomped flat by a giant demon fox. “We survived the attack. Our house wasn’t even damaged that badly.”

Hanta reached over and gently ruffled Yami’s hair. “I know it’s scary, Yami, especially after you got hurt so badly that night. But it’s not just about our family surviving. The village suffered a terrible blow. Hundreds of people died, including the Fourth Hokage himself. When the leader of our village sacrifices his life to protect us, every family must attend to honor that sacrifice. Furthermore, as members of the Uchiha clan, it is important that we show our absolute solidarity with the rest of Konoha.”

Yami caught the subtle, underlying tension in his father’s words. ‘Solidarity.’ The village was already whispering rumors that the Uchiha had controlled the Nine-Tails. Hanta wasn’t just talking about respect; he was talking about political survival. If the Uchiha boycotted the Hokage’s funeral, the village’s suspicion would turn into outright hostility.

“I understand, Dad,” Yami said softly, his cowardly heart doing a nervous flip. “I’ll hold Mom’s hand the whole time.”

—

The next morning, the bright blue sky felt entirely inappropriate for the mood that blanketed the Hidden Leaf Village.

Yami, Aki, and Aru were dressed in plain, dark clothing, joining the massive river of villagers slowly making their way toward the Hokage Monument. The usual bustling noise of merchants haggling and children playing was completely absent, replaced by the shuffling of feet and muffled, quiet sobs.

As they walked, a familiar voice called out from the crowd. “Aru! Over here!”

Yami turned to see a tall, broad-shouldered man waving at them. It was Aru’s older brother, a seasoned Chunin whose face bore the scars of the Third Great Ninja War. Beside him stood his wife, and a boy who looked to be about eight or nine years old.

“Brother,” Aru greeted him, stepping out of the main flow of traffic to embrace him. “It’s good to see you, though I wish it were under better circumstances.”

Yami looked at the boy. It was his cousin, Shin Uchiha. Shin was standing tall, his posture rigidly straight, and around his forehead, he proudly wore the shiny, metal-plated headband of a Konoha shinobi.

“Look at you, Shin,” Aru gasped, placing a hand over her mouth. “Is that…?”

His uncle swelled with pride, though he kept his voice respectfully low. “Yes. Shin graduated from the Ninja Academy just two days ago. He was in his third year, but given the massive shortage of manpower after the Kyuubi attack, they pushed the exams forward. He passed with flying colors. He’s a proper Genin now.”

“Congratulations, Shin! That is wonderful news,” Aru smiled, bowing her head slightly to her nephew.

“Thank you, Aunt Aru,” Shin replied, his voice cracking slightly with nervous excitement. “I’m going to do my best to make the clan proud.”

Yami offered a congratulatory smile and a thumbs-up, but internally, his stomach twisted into a cold knot. ‘He’s a Genin? At eight years old?’ This was the brutal reality of the ninja world that the anime glossed over with cool fight scenes and triumphant music. Because the village had lost so many fighting men to the Nine-Tails, they were actively accelerating the graduation of literal children to fill the ranks. They were throwing eight-year-olds into the meat grinder. If Yami didn’t get strong enough, fast enough, that was going to be him. And Yami had absolutely no intention of dying for a village that was planning to exterminate his family.

They walked together to the ceremony grounds, situated at the base of the towering Hokage Monument. Because they were an ordinary, branch-family Uchiha household, they were not given seats near the front. In fact, Yami noticed with a cynical eye that almost the entire Uchiha clan had been subtly directed toward the back and the far edges of the crowd, closely monitored by Anbu operatives hidden in the trees.

Still, from his vantage point, standing on his tiptoes, Yami had a clear view of the raised stage.

It was a surreal, dizzying experience. Standing at the podium was Hiruzen Sarutobi, the Third Hokage, who was stepping out of retirement to reclaim the hat. He looked incredibly old, his shoulders weighed down by an invisible, crushing burden.

Behind him stood the village elders. Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane looked like stern, unforgiving statues. And then, there was Danzo Shimura.

Seeing Danzo in an anime was one thing. Seeing him in real life was terrifying. The man wasn’t just a drawing; he was a living, breathing specter of war. His visible eye was cold, calculating, and completely devoid of human warmth. The heavy bandages covering his right arm and eye looked stained and old, carrying the distinct scent of medicinal herbs and dried blood that somehow reached Yami even from a distance. Just looking at Danzo made Yami want to run home and hide under his bed. ‘That man is a snake in human skin,’ Yami thought, shivering.

His gaze drifted to the side of the stage, where the clan heads were gathered. He immediately spotted Fugaku Uchiha, the stern and imposing leader of the Police Force. And standing perfectly still beside him, looking like a miniature adult, was a five-year-old Itachi Uchiha.

Itachi didn’t cry. He didn’t fidget. He just stared blankly ahead, his dark eyes absorbing the massive sea of mourning people. Yami swallowed hard. ‘So that’s the guy who is destined to kill me. He looks completely untouchable.’

The ceremony began. Hiruzen stepped up to the microphone, his deep, resonant voice echoing across the silent grounds. He spoke of the Will of Fire, of the leaves falling so that new buds could bloom in the spring. He spoke of Minato Namikaze’s sacrifice, and the bravery of the shinobi who died defending the walls.

As the Hokage spoke, the crowd began to weep. It started as quiet sniffles, but soon, it evolved into a wave of raw, collective grief. Thousands of people—mothers who had lost sons, children who had lost parents, comrades who had lost their best friends—weeping openly.

Yami had always considered himself a bit detached. He was a transmigrator, right? He was an adult from Earth just playing a dangerous VR game.

But as the sound of genuine, heart-wrenching human sorrow washed over him, a strange feeling gripped his chest. This wasn’t a game. These were real people. The despair in the air was so thick it was suffocating. Yami thought of his own fear of death, the terror he had felt when his heart gave out on Earth, and the crushing anxiety of knowing his new family was destined for a massacre. The fear, the helplessness, the profound sadness of the crowd—it all crashed into his mind at once.

Suddenly, Yami felt a sharp, agonizing spike of heat behind his eyes.

It felt as though boiling water had been injected straight into his optic nerves. A small, involuntary gasp escaped his lips. Deep within his core, the three meager units of chakra he had passively accumulated over the last three days surged upward without his permission, rocketing through his chakra pathways and slamming directly into his eyes.

The world shifted. The colors became impossibly sharp. The slow-falling leaves from the trees seemed to freeze in mid-air. The chakra signatures of the crying people around him flickered like tiny, dim candles.

In Yami’s dark pupils, a ring of crimson flared to life, and a single, comma-shaped tomoe spun wildly around his iris.

[Ding!]
[Congratulations! Host has absorbed sufficient emotional resonance to permanently awaken the Pig Talisman.]

Yami’s breath hitched. ‘What? Pig Talisman? Right now?!’

He was completely confused. He hadn’t triggered any jutsu. He hadn’t been training. But before his mind could even begin to process the system notification, the absolute exhaustion hit him.

Maintaining the Sharingan, even a single-tomoe version, was a massive drain on an untrained body. Within exactly two seconds, his three units of chakra were completely devoured.

The crimson faded from his eyes instantly, returning to their natural obsidian black. The sharp, slow-motion world snapped back to its normal, blurry speed, and a wave of intense vertigo washed over him. Yami’s knees buckled, his vision swimming with dark spots.

“Yami!” Aru gasped, dropping to her knees and catching him before he could hit the dirt. She cradled his face, her hands glowing with a faint, green medical chakra as she checked his vitals. “Yami, what’s wrong? Are you hurt?”

“I’m… I’m okay, Mom,” Yami wheezed, his head pounding with a vicious migraine. “Just… suddenly felt really dizzy. I think the crowd is just too much.”

Aru let out a shaky breath of relief, pulling him tightly against her chest. “It’s alright, sweetheart. It’s overwhelming for adults, let alone children. Just close your eyes and rest against me.”

Yami buried his face in his mother’s dark clothes, keeping his eyes firmly shut as he tried to analyze what the hell had just happened.

He was pretty sure that what he had just experienced wasn’t a ‘new’ Sharingan awakening. According to the anime lore, the Sharingan was unlocked by extreme emotional trauma. When the original five-year-old Yami had his skull crushed during the Nine-Tails rebellion, that raw terror and pain must have triggered the awakening right before his soul vacated the body.

But because the boy was practically dead and had zero active chakra, the eyes had immediately gone dormant.

Now, three days later, Yami had passively generated exactly three units of chakra thanks to the Tiger Talisman. When the collective grief of the memorial ceremony stirred his own deep-seated fears and emotions, that tiny pool of chakra had instinctively reacted, flowing into his dormant eyes and forcing the Sharingan open for a brief, fleeting second.

And the system had somehow registered that ocular jutsu activation as the catalyst to unlock the Pig Talisman.

Despite the throbbing pain in his head, a wild, ecstatic grin spread across Yami’s face, hidden safely against his mother’s shoulder. This was beyond exciting.

He mentally commanded the system to show his status.

—

[Shendu System]

Health: 92%
Chakra: 0/3

Talisman: Tiger Lv1 (0%), Pig Lv1 (0%)

—

Yami’s internal focus shifted entirely to the new entry. He willed the system to provide the details on the Pig Talisman, and a block of text immediately expanded in his mind.

‘The Pig Talisman grants its bearer the magical power of thermal vision, enabling the emission of concentrated heat beams from the eyes. These beams carry immense destructive potential, capable of melting, cutting, or piercing through solid materials with remarkable precision. The bearer can activate the power at will by focusing their gaze, producing either rapid bursts of energy or sustained continuous beams depending on the situation. The intensity and range of the heat can be controlled through focus, allowing for both fine‑tuned applications and large‑scale damage. In practical use, its abilities have proven versatile for both offensive and utilitarian purposes.’

Yami practically drooled reading the description.

This was the core, basic ability of the Pig Talisman from the old cartoon. But the way it integrated into the Naruto world was absolutely mind-boggling. Because the system was tied to his body, and his body was an Uchiha, the Pig Talisman’s power was channeled directly through his visual prowess.

In a very real sense, the system had just gifted Yami an ability that was practically on the level of a Mangekyou Sharingan.

He definitively hadn’t awakened the legendary Mangekyou—he only had a measly, single-tomoe Sharingan that he couldn’t even keep open for more than two seconds. But regardless of the tomoe count, the system allowed him to shoot highly destructive, concentrated fire beams directly from his eyeballs!

“This is insane,” Yami thought, his mind racing with tactical applications.

This ability was shockingly similar to Itachi Uchiha’s terrifying signature move: Amaterasu. But there were distinct differences. Itachi’s Amaterasu spawned inextinguishable, cursed black flames at the focal point of his vision. Those flames would burn eternally until the target was reduced to ash, making it an incredibly lethal, slow-burn execution technique.

Yami’s Pig Talisman, however, fired a ‘projectile’ beam of concentrated thermal energy. While Amaterasu was arguably more destructive over a prolonged period because it couldn’t be put out, Yami’s heat beams had the advantage of raw speed, distance, and immediate kinetic impact. He didn’t have to wait for the target to burn to death; he could literally slice a rogue ninja in half with a laser beam from a hundred yards away.

‘Wait. Hold on,’ Yami thought, his excitement suddenly hitting a brick wall.

He looked back at his system panel.

‘Chakra: 0/3.’

Reality came crashing back down. The Pig Talisman was undeniably a god-tier weapon. It was an ultimate trump card. But firing a laser beam required energy, and right now, his energy pool was absolutely pathetic. Opening his basic, single-tomoe Sharingan had completely drained him in two seconds. If he actually tried to activate the Pig Talisman and fire a heat beam with his current reserves, the technique would likely misfire, or worse, completely fry his optical nerves due to lack of sustaining chakra.

“Okay, so it’s a pipe dream for now,” Yami sighed internally, resigning himself to patience. “I have the ultimate gun, but I don’t have any bullets. I need to let the Tiger Talisman do its job. I need to accumulate way more chakra before I even think about testing laser vision.”

Still, the sheer relief of having a genuine, offensive fallback plan was intoxicating. He wasn’t just a sitting duck anymore.

The rest of the mourning ceremony passed in a blur for Yami. His mother held him closely, assuming his quiet, resting state was due to the overwhelming emotional trauma of the day. Half of the day was entirely wasted standing in the sun, listening to political speeches and the continuous weeping of the crowd.

When they finally returned to the Uchiha compound in the mid-afternoon, Yami went straight to his room. He didn’t ask for snacks, and he didn’t ask to play with Aki. He just kicked off his sandals, fell face-first onto his futon, and let the exhaustion pull him to sleep.

Before his consciousness entirely faded, a small, confident smile graced his lips. He was a coward who hated pain and feared death. But today, he had successfully awakened an attack-type talisman. He finally had a hidden card.

‘Just you wait, Itachi. You might be a genius, but I’ve got a demonic dragon living in my head.’

With that final, comforting thought, Yami Uchiha drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep, the single unit of chakra slowly ticking back up in his core.