Mateo Valverde has always been a stranger in the nest. He was born and raised in the suburb of any city, where concrete burned under the sun and dreams dissolved into the smoke of exhaust. The only child of a couple exhausted by life, their home was a prison of silence and deviated looks. The father, a man of few words, buried himself in double shifts, avoiding his son as a mirror avoiding; The mother, eternally tired, was lost between antidepressants and soap operas, taking refuge from the real world with more discipline than any monk. No one expected anything from Mateo. And he, in turn, expected nothing from life.
From a young age, he found shelter in worlds that did not exist. First were the medieval fantasy books found in a mold sebum of the center. Then came the manga, the anime, the online forums, the games that consumed whole days without even noting the passage of time. It was a convinced sedentary. The body, swollen and soft, was both reflex as a shield - a soft breastplate against the cruel world. Never stood out at all. It was mediocre in studies, unfit in sports, invisible in social interactions. It was that kind of young people that teachers forget to call on the call and that colleagues do not remember whether or not it was present. But in fictitious worlds, Mateo was someone. He was a hero, he was a warrior, he had arcane powers. It was necessary.
At 19, his room was his kingdom. A shrine of faded posters, dust -covered action figures and monitors shining day and night with some new obsession. Naruto, in recent months, had become his main universe. Reading the episodes compulsively, discussed theories in the darkest subreddits, knew every detail of the canon and even what should have been canon. He cried with Jiraiya's death, got annoyed by Sasuke's return, and deeply admired Maito Gai, a hero of his day, someone who didn't care with boundaries and became the strongest and the one to almost defeat Madara Uchiha. But his greatest fascination was with the jutsus forbidden, the secrets that were beyond the reach of the common. He identified himself with those renegade, those who needed to exceed limits to become someone. He believed that there was a richness in Lore that surpassed any other, that there were larger secrets above the Otsutsuki. But he was not the author, so he could not unravel them but only theorize about them.
His days followed a rotten cycle. He woke up late, with a dry throat and stomach from so much soda. I ate anything ready, turned on the PC, dived on the internet. The night came without warning, and he was still in the same place, with the blue light of the screen reflecting in the eyes. And then I slept. He dreamed of battles, flamenco jutsus, with red eyes and ancestral seals. I dreamed of being part of something larger. I dreamed of leaving. And sometimes, I cried without understanding why. He even shouted for some entity or God that could make him someone bigger, stronger and more feared. But there were no answers.
There was no friends. He talked to avatars, with faceless profiles, with anonymous voices on Discord. I didn't trust people. They always lied, betrayed, disappointed. But never the characters. The characters were constant. Loyal. Strong. Real, at least for him. He fantasized, at the darker moments, to be taken from his reality. I didn't want to die, I wanted to disappear. Go to another world. Be invoked. Receive a destination. Not for cowardice, but by exhaustion. Nothing that was worth there. The world fell into hypocrisy and lies, ego and exacerbated pride. There was no honor to be kind, there was no glory in being a hero. The world for him did not have the grace of those imagined by a hundred authors of the countless stories he consumed.
Mateo's body was the map of his surrender. The fallen shoulders, the back eyes, the nails rolled to bleed. The pale skin like that of a spectrum. But there was something there. A spark, hidden between the ashes of despair. A fire is not yet lit. A call he himself could not hear.
One night, after another episode of Naruto and a discussion about the forum prohibited seals, Mateo fell asleep on the keyboard. The head hung to the side, drooling on the table, the headphones still vibrating with the closing of the series. But that night, the dream wasdifferent. He felt hot. A suffocating, deep, almost solid heat. Heard old, distant voices. In a language he did not understand with words, but understood with the spirit. Something was calling. Something burned inside.
Woke up in a field. The sky was dark, the stars litted like embers, and there were tall trees around, silent silhouettes like sentinels. The floor was cold, damp, smelled of the earth alive. But what caught his attention most was the pain. His whole body hurt as if he had been crushed, bent, reborn. He stood up, looked around. It didn't recognize anything. And then he heard. Voices.
"Naruto! Come back here with the parchment!"
That phrase tore the world. It was the same scene. The same moment. Naruto with the parchment of forbidden seals. Mateo was there. In the universe that had spent a lifetime idolizing. But not as a spectator. He was real now. Meat and blood. Soul and fire.
But something was wrong.
He barely had time to orient herself when shadows appeared. Masks. Cloaks. Lethal force. He tried to run, but could not run. He tried to fight, but never fought. It was knocked out in seconds, swallowed by cold hands, dragged like an animal. When he opened his eyes again, he was in an underground cell. Dark. Silent. And in front of him, the colder man he has ever seen.
Danzo Shimura.
The look was calculated. An old man who didn't see people saw pieces. Evaluated. Calculated. Controlled.
"You don't belong to this place. And yet… you are here. Curious"
Mateo didn't know what to answer. It was in shock, trembling. The body weighed like lead.
"Your chakra is different. Wild. Indomitable. Something old stirring yourself. Something that in my opinion precedes the chakra itself."
The eye covered by bandages seemed to burn, even hidden. Danzo approached.
"You will be useful"
And then everything changed.
Mateo Valverde, the useless. The sedentary. The invisible. Now it was something else. A receptacle. A sacred vase. The inheritance of the true fire, forgotten by the ages, had chosen him. Not by merit. But by affinity. Because only those who have nothing more to lose… they support the weight of a fire that never goes out.