---
[POV: Rayn]
The first thing he felt was the ache.
It came from everywhere at once, as if his entire body had been twisted and snapped apart, then forced back together by hands that didn't understand anatomy. His skin stung. His limbs felt heavy. His mind pulsed in and out of clarity like a broken lightbulb.
Am I dead? he thought.
He wasn't. He was lying on the moist soil beside a riverbank, surrounded by unfamiliar trees and strange birdsong. The air was clean—too clean. No hum of electricity, no stench of city smoke, no distant honk of traffic.
Only nature. Unspoiled and vast.
Rayn sat up slowly. His body trembled. His face, however, did not move.
Stone. That was the best way to describe his expression. Cold, unmoving, eternally neutral.
His eyes blinked once. Sharp, piercing eyes that looked like pits of endless shadow. The kind of eyes that could stare through you, into whatever secrets you didn't know you were hiding.
Heartbeat... steady, he thought. But it wasn't. In truth, it thundered in his chest like a war drum.
Thump. Thump. THUMP.
The sound echoed across the trees.
What the hell is going on? he thought. Where am I?
That's when he saw them.
Two boys across the river. One wore brown, his hair spiky and untamed. The other had longer dark hair, sharp eyes, and a frown that looked too serious for a child. They stood ankle-deep in the water, holding stones like weapons.
Wait. No way. That's... Rayn's mind blanked.
Madara Uchiha.
Hashirama Senju.
He knew this moment. He had seen it in flashbacks, in filler episodes, in lore videos on YouTube. This was the Warring States Era.
The moment the two greatest shinobi in history met as children.
And he was here.
His heart pounded harder.
THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.
The boys looked up. Madara turned sharply toward the sound, his eyes narrowing. Hashirama looked behind him, uneasy.
Rayn remained still. Half-crouched, hunched slightly, one hand braced on the tree. A silhouette in the shade.
His face blank. His eyes deep and still.
To them, he looked like death.
---
[POV: Madara Uchiha]
The pressure hit him like cold water over his spine.
For a moment, Madara forgot about the rock in his hand. About the river. About the boy across from him.
There was someone else.
Someone powerful.
No chakra signature. No scent of killing intent. Just... presence.
He turned, eyes narrowing. On the far bank, half-shadowed by trees, stood a man. Maybe a boy. Still. Unmoving. Dressed in strange, dirt-streaked clothes. His face had no emotion. His eyes were worse.
They were empty. Yet full. Like a chasm looking back.
Madara's fingers twitched.
Who is he? What is he?
"Hashirama," he said, keeping his voice low.
The other boy turned, froze.
"What... is that?" Hashirama whispered.
Madara didn't answer. He took a step back. His body screamed fight, but something deeper said run.
Then came the sound.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
A heartbeat. Deafening. Unnatural.
He's not normal, Madara thought.
Then, to his horror, the man—no, boy—stepped forward. Not aggressive. Not fast. Just deliberate. One foot. Then another.
He looked like he had no soul. Or maybe he had too much of one.
Madara turned.
"We leave. Now."
Hashirama didn't argue. Both sprinted back through the woods.
Madara didn't look back.
---
[POV: Rayn]
They ran.
Rayn just stood there.
He hadn't said a word. Hadn't moved aggressively. He hadn't even gotten his bearings yet.
Did... did I just scare off Madara Uchiha? he thought.
His stomach twisted.
He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry. He settled for sitting.
Okay. Calm down. Think.
He was here. The Naruto world. Warring States era.
He had no chakra. No training. No gear. Just the clothes on his back and four... abilities?
Unbreakable - immune to illusion, mind, and soul attacks. Also immune to detection. Good.
King's Engine - the heartbeat sound. Apparently very scary. Pointlessly scary.
Calmness and Composure - people couldn't read him. Not even when he was on the verge of throwing up.
Soul Pressure Gaze - the stronger the opponent's mind, the harder it was for them to look him in the eye.
So basically, I'm a terrifying statue with anxiety, he thought.
His stomach growled.
"I need a place to sleep. And food. And a house."
Rayn stood up. He looked at the area around the river.
Plenty of wood. Flat ground. A river for water.
Alright, he thought. Time to build a house.
---
Day 1 - Building Begins
Rayn scouted the trees. He didn't have tools. No axe. No saw. Just his bare hands.
So he used gravity.
He found a thin, dead tree. Climbed up a thicker one nearby. Shoved the dead tree until it leaned. Then again. And again.
CRACK.
It fell.
He repeated the process. Over hours. Twelve trees. Enough for a frame.
He dragged them to a small clearing.
He dug with rocks. Shaped a square pit into the earth. Packed the mud down with flat stones.
Then the logs. Two upright. One across. A basic frame.
Walls came from stacked bark, stripped with sharpened rocks. Tied with twisted vines.
The roof was overlapping leaves and bark, pinned with branches.
The door was just a flap of bark, balanced between two stones.
Inside: a pit for fire. Flat rocks for bedding.
By sundown, he had something between a shack and a coffin.
It was perfect.
He collapsed inside.
Day 1. Still alive, he thought.
The heartbeat calmed.
But it still echoed.
---
[POV: Hashirama]
He couldn't stop thinking about those eyes.
They weren't angry. Or cruel. Just... nothing.
He sat at home, chewing rice in silence.
"You okay, Hashirama?" his father asked.
He nodded.
But he remembered the face. The stillness. The thunder of that heartbeat.
A shinobi with no chakra.
A soul with no expression.
Who are you? he thought.
Somehow, he felt they'd meet again.
---
To be continued..