Farmlands of Wall Rose, Forty kilometers to Orvud District
The night was calm. A thin crescent moon hung in the sky, casting a pale glow over the lands of Wall Rose.
It had been about Three hours since Seiji left Trost, the sun having long since set over Paradis Island, and darkness ruling the fields. Off one of the main roads, The rhythmic pounding of hooves echoed through the quiet night, blending with the soft creak of wooden wheels rolling over dirt. A cart trundled down the road, its lantern swaying gently with each bump and the wind carrying the smell of damp earth and rotting leaves.
"I can confidently say …" In the horse-driven cart, Seiji muttered softly as he looked at the evening sky. "That the anime beats reality."
"…" silence responded to him as always, with the exception of the trudging horse and moving cart. He didn't mind.
The boy sat still, unmoving as numerous thoughts flew through his mind.
In the first hour on foot, Seiji had covered half the distance he needed to his destination. Then, he simply decided to look for another means of Transportation instead of running all the way there himself.
From Gregor's memories of the location of the second batch of handlers for the Trafficking ring, Seiji had gotten that second means of Travel. This cart, drawn by a weary horse and steered by a man who no longer had control over his own body.
Seiji's gaze flickered toward the driver, the last surviving member of the trafficking ring he had encountered along the way.
'How I love Genjutsu'.
His body sat unnaturally straight, his hands gripping the reins with the stiffness of a marionette. The glassy, unfocused look in his eyes betrayed the Uchiha Genjutsu that bound his will. He would drive until Seiji commanded him to stop.
Leaning back against the rough wooden frame, Seiji let the cold night air brush against his face as he pondered his actions.
It had been Two days since he arrived here from the Ninja world, and while It took some time, he had recalled as much of the Attack On Titan anime as he could from his last life memories.
For anyone else, it would have been unnerving. But he already Transmigrated into a Fictional reality before this one, so the surreal effect was minimal.
Nevertheless, that wasn't where his thoughts lay. Instead, his thoughts lay on his understanding of the current Fictional world he found himself in.
The world of Attack On Titan was profoundly complicated to understand. However, It could be summed up in Five words.
Eren Jaeger's Fight For Freedom. The primary source of confusion was the world's Twisted timeline where the Mechanics of Time Travel worked in ways to Seiji that made no sense.
Here, time moved in a non-linear fashion in which Past, Present, and Future coexisted as one with none coming before the other.
In simpler terms, the Future influenced the past and that past shaped out to form the future that would later influence it to be that way.
Remembering the Time Logic, Seiji felt a headache coming on.
It was precisely for this reason he opted to get a Cart to drive him to Orvud district. Not because he couldn't run the rest of the way but because he needed time to slow down and use that time to understand a theory he once shoved aside while he was still alive.
From what he remembered, Eren Jaeger experienced a series of events that shaped his life.
His longing to see the world outside the walls as he saw it in Armin's book.
The Fall of Wall Maria.
His mother's death at the hands of his Stepmother who had been turned into a Titan.
His Father killing the Reiss Family to obtain the Founding Titan which he would later pass on To Eren alongside the attack Titan.
Then he would Join the Cadet Corps, Graduate, Discover his abilities, Join the Survey Corps and go through a myriad of adventures of self discovery in his fight for Freedom.
Up until he and his friends discovered that The outside world was nothing like they ever imagined it would be, and they were hated by the rest of the world.
Then, he would see The Future and realize in a shocking Turn of events, that his Future self who unlocked the Full power of The Founding Titan was the one responsible for his mother's death and the one who led his Father to slaughter the Reiss Family, all to aid his ultimate goal of achieving The Rumbling by using the power of the Attack Titan's ability to send Memories to its inheritors in the past and The Founding Titan's ability to see past, present, and Future all at once and even take a step further to directly influence the Past using said ability.
Future Eren used his Powers to shape the past as he saw fit to lead to a Future where he would do the same thing.
The Future influenced the past to shape the present that would lead to the Future all, so the past could happen.
This was the Attack On Titan Timeline. Not a straight line like in other universes, but in a Circular pattern where there was no clear starting point.
In Seiji's simple understanding, a Terrible wreck. It kind of reminded him of Season 3 of The CW Flash and the whole Savitar is Barry From the Future Nonsense.
Was it confusing? To him, it was. Did he care? No, not really.
Unlike the Timeline, The young Uchiha's thoughts were easy to understand. He came from The Ninja world. Hence he had no plans to stay here.
In Seiji's view, whatever he did now was bound to have butterfly effects. Because unlike his original intention during the time he buried his Nana, Seiji's goals had changed from spending his time practicing until the cooldown was completed to having much bigger plans.
During these two days, he had been asking himself a simple question in preparation for his return to konoha.
Could he rely solely on the gains of his training and his Mangekyo?
Would he be able to master as Many Jutsu as he could before his return? Could his Ninjutsu, Taijutsu and Genjutsu all be a match for Itachi upon returning to the Ninja world?
This wasn't a random Kage, but Itachi Uchiha. Life and death in the battlefield could be nothing but a split second's delay difference.
Would his combat experience and battle instinct be up to par when that time came? Faced with all Itachi's abilities and Trump cards, could he truly win after nothing but Six Months of self training?
He didn't know the answer, but Seiji wasn't too optimistic about his odds.
Opening the Mangekyo wasn't enough. Itachi was a True genius before awakening The Mangekyo. His strengths lay not just in one aspect but in every category capable for Ninja.
Seiji knew his own talent. Pre Mangekyo, he was just a Chunin, and without enough time to sublimate, It wouldn't be enough.
Sure, he knew Itachi's data, but how much advantage could that give him?
60-40? Or 70-30 or was it 50-50?
If he judged Itachi based on the Fight with Sasuke, then he would be digging an early grave for himself.
Even if he could defeat Itachi, The Man probably still had Shisui's Eye at present.
Beyond Itachi lay other threats. Obito, Nagato, The Akatsuki, The Otsutsuki, black Zetsu, perhaps even the True Madara.
The last was a stretch, but a chance existed. Hence, adhering to The Transmigrator codebook, Section 1, Paragraph 7 that states.
[In a battle against a Formidable Foe, Make sure you create Contingency Plans for your Contingency Plans]
If Seiji was going to face Itachi, then he needed to ensure that there was no possibility of defeat.
Hence, a Training Montage alone wasn't enough. From his current understanding of AOT, there was little that he could gain to strengthen himself immensely.
However, there were Three Exceptions to this, and alongside his original Training plan, he had made it a priority to obtain all Three.
This was why Seiji was sure that the butterfly effects he would cause in the Future would be extremely substantial.
Because The First and biggest objective among them would ensure that The Fate of the AoT world would change completely.
This was The Power of The Founding Titan.
Thud!
The riding cart rolled over a stone, causing a gallop, briefly interrupting Seiji's thoughts for a moment.
In the history of Attack on Titan Lore, there were Nine Titans.
Each one with different sizes and abilities, but the most powerful among them was undoubtedly the Founding Titan.
Capable of Manipulating Eldian biology, Manipulating Memories, and Turning Eldians into Titans and Controlling them as they wished on a massive scale.
It was the power that allowed The Great Eldian Empire to dominate the world for Two Thousand years.
And it was the same power that allowed king Karl Fritz to Turn Millions of his people into Pure Titans with Sizes comparable to The Colossal Titan.
The same power allowed Eren Jaeger to implement The Rumbling and Control an Army Of Tens Of Millions of Colossal Titans.
However, This form of the Founding Titan was not what Seiji was after.
The abilities of the Founding Titan could only be implemented on Eldians and only had effect on Eldians.
Hence, in a world without them, apart From transforming into a Titan of varying size, its extensive abilities would be meaningless.
Eren Jaeger, placed in The Naruto world without his army of Eldians would be slaughtered by a random Jonin who knew to aim for The Nape.
Seiji wasn't an Eldian. Even if he could inherit the Founding Titan the normal way, its abilities would be useless to him apart from transforming into an Ugly monster.
Quite Inferior to the Mangekyo Sharingan Susanoo. Even copying the ability with his right Eye Technique was out of the Question, as he would copy the ability with the same effects.
Hence, Seiji's goal was never the Founding Titan powers Eren possessed but rather, the Power Of The Original Founder.
Ymir Fritz, the First Ever Living Titan. Or to be More specific, his goal was what granted her her abilities in the First Place.
The Source of All Living Matter. That glowing worm thing that had attached Itself to Ymir's spine.
A being that could power the creation of organic matter and fuel its existence for as long as needed, manipulate matter to form Titans capable of Mass destruction yet with light body parts.
Create a Timeless dimension capable of connecting billions of people together across time and space. Manipulate and modify the physical biology of human beings.
A creature of extraordinary power, limited solely by its container, Ymir herself. A broken individual with the mentality of a slave, forever doing nothing more than serving her descendants.
Despite that, she had been able to achieve this much.
In the proper hands, exerting the same level of power as the Ten Tails upon full mastery was probably the minimum. For Seiji, that was the only thing in this world that could grant him the massive surge in power he sought.
Power comparable to the Ten Tails Jinchuriki.
This, however, was all just his hypothesis based on the memories of his past life. Nevertheless, the implications were obvious.
If Seiji succeeded in his plan, and Ymir lost The Source Of All Living Matter, it would mean the end of The Titan era in this world as it was.
Just like the ending of AOT, all Titans would disappear. Pure Titans and Titan shifters included.
However, instead of happening at the end of the Rumbling in year 854, it would happen now, in 849.
It meant, The Rumbling would never come to Fruition. Eren Jaeger would lose everything that made him special, Mikasa and Levi Ackerman would lose their powers.
The Titans on the Island would disappear. Marley would lose all Seven of The Nine Titans they possessed.
The Struggle For Trost Arc would never happen. The Timeline that was supposed to follow Eren's graduation would be drastically altered.
Everything would go off the rails in six months. The aftermath and the Fate of Paradis and Eldia would become unknown.
The most important point being .... Seiji wasn't going to be here to see what happened.
To accomplish this goal, Seiji needed to find Eren Jaeger. However, not knowing which Cadet Corps he was spending his final year in and not knowing where to start looking, Seiji decided to kill two birds with one stone.
First Locating Rod Reiss and using him to find Eren Jaeger, while also preparing the Man with Royal blood for becoming a Titan so Seiji could use him and Eren to access The Paths.
Of course, this was all following the best-case scenario in which everything went smoothly and Seiji faced no resistance from Ymir or the Creature in question.
The likelihood of that was another thing Seiji didn't want to gamble on. Hence, leading to the second exception needed in case he failed to obtain The Source Of All Living Matter.
Iceburst Stones.