In an unnamed village in the Land of Fire, a mother held her newborn child. The mother, with bright red hair, green eyes and a slender frame was smiling happily as her husband, black-haired and eyed looked on. Finally, they had been able to have a child. Finally, they could live in peace and in happiness. The child was healthy, a boy. With a short head of red hair akin to his mother.

But the moment the child opened its eyes everything changed. His eyes were blood-red, not only the Iris, but the sclera as well. From the pupil outwards spread out four circles in increasing diameter, the first three of which each held three tomoe separated in equal distance from each other as if to form a perfect triangle if they were connected with straight lines.

However, in a literal blink of an eye it was gone and the normal black eyes of the child revealed themselves only for them to close again as the child went to sleep. Needless to say, the parents were surprised at this. The father instantly recognized it for its resemblance to the sharingan, something his own clan was famous for. But that can’t have been right. Awakening the sharingan in itself was an ordeal, in fact he had not done so himself, choosing a normal life as opposed to that of a shinobi. His wife didn’t fail to see the significance in this either. They were scared, terrified in fact, of what could be wrong.

Could it have been that they had witnessed the birth of a completely new bloodline limit? One never seen before? Or was it something so rare they had never heard of it before? Seeing the lines, the mother had thought of one thing, but it couldn’t have been that. It didn’t fit the description. The third great dōjutsu wasn’t supposed to look anything like the sharingan. This was something else.

Even as they took care of their son they couldn’t stop worrying about it. But by the time they were tempted to take him to Konoha they found out that the village had faced a crisis. The nine-tailed fox had assaulted it and caused unprecedented amounts of destruction and death. They couldn’t take him there in these circumstances. The village likely had more than enough to deal with their own injured, let alone a child that seemed completely healthy. In the first place, they had no idea how they would even prove that he had this dōjutsu. He hadn’t performed it once since the first time he had opened his eyes.

Months passed with everything seeming normal. The boy learned to speak at an unusually young age, but his parents were only happy for it. He continued to show promise as he learned to walk before it was usual as well. He was energetic, always crawling, and later even running around the house and when he was allowed to, outside as well. When he was old enough his parents decided to try to teach him to mould chakra. While his father wasn’t a ninja, his mother knew a thing or two, even though she never got the chance to train much, before her village was destroyed and she was left in Konoha. She only really knew Kushina at first, but it had been a long time since then and they had proceeded down two completely different roads. That still didn’t stop her from grieving when she heard that the Fourth Hokage and his wife had perished in the nine-tail attack.

The mother taught her child the tiger seal and asked him to feel his chakra. To her surprise he managed it quickly, even able to direct it to his eyes upon her asking, to see if they would recreate the same jutsu. To her surprise, rather than turning into the eyes they had seen once those two years ago, his iris became blood-red and three tomoe appeared around his pupil. In surprise she called over her husband and asked him to repeat it, shocking him just as much. At two years old, the child had a fully-awakened sharingan and enough chakra and control to maintain it. After a few days, he didn’t even need the handseal to keep it active and he always did until his parents would tell him to stop.

To the child the world looked so much more attractive when he had his eyes active. He could see so much more, do so much more. He didn’t feel discomfort in it at all. Only wonder. The parents debated, argued even about what to do about this, but eventually the father approached the child with a question.

“Son, would you like to become a shinobi?” he asked, knowing the answer would probably come in the form of a question.

“A shinobi?” came the expected answer. The child was only two, he barely knew anything about shinobi, never even having seen one in their small and humble village.

“You see, shinobi are…” he started explaining “…They’re people who help others at any cost. They’re people who train and protect their village and everyone in it.”

The child felt something was off with that description, but couldn’t understand what exactly. He was much more concerned with something else. “Would I be able to protect you and mom?” He surprised his father, though that surprise quickly turned into a happy smile.

“Of course.”

“Then I want to!”

The man felt somewhat guilty about not being able to properly explain what a shinobi is, but even he knew that his son would have to understand. When he’s old enough to attend, the ninja academy would teach him what he couldn’t. He would only truly become a shinobi when he graduated. Dropping out before that wasn’t forbidden. So he hoped that during that time, his son would be able to really decide whether he wanted to stick to the career.

Only a week later, they moved. They had lived in the small village in hopes for peace, but they had to go back to Konoha. The boy’s father had left the Uchiha compound in the past because of this, but learning that his son had awakened his sharingan already at such a young age they welcomed him into the new compound with open arms. “Another genius,” they thought. “Could he even surpass Itachi and Shisui?” They wondered.

The boy was wowed as he entered the village and ran around in happiness. But that didn’t last for long. The nine-tail attack had only happened two years ago. Signs of destruction still existed, but moreso than in the village, it was apparent on people’s faces. And he was clever enough to notice this.

That didn’t stop his energy though. Upon arriving in the compound and seeing that they would live in a bigger house, he was elated. And now he didn’t need to conceal his sharingan, even if only within Uchiha land. Even as they settled in and his training began, he was only excited to do it. Training was fun, learning to control his chakra, throwing kunai and shuriken, training his body and in taijutsu. All of it was fun to him.

Even though he was too young to even try for the academy entrance exams, he quickly showed skills on par with the average genin, perhaps more. Even if he had no one to learn any jutsu from, he was happy having achieved a high level of chakra control. When he was six, the day he would try out for the academy finally arrived. The entrance exam was easy. Testing out both his physical prowess and his ability with chakra. He passed without any problems and the first day of the academy quickly arrived.

An excitement not unlike what he’d felt when he first arrived in Konoha in his heart, he sat down together with the rest of the students who would make up his class from now on. It was the first day. The first class. Everyone was supposed to introduce themselves and not even the fact that he was forbidden from keeping his eyes activated outside Uchiha grounds took away from his enthusiasm. “Akimichi Choji”, “Inuzuka Kiba”, “Nara Shikamaru”,”Uchiha Sasuke”, “H-Hyūga Hinata”, “Yamanaka Ino”. One by one everyone introduced themselves until it became the boy’s turn. He stood up energetically, with an honest smile and spoke “Uchiha Shinkumaru!”. That was the name given by his parents. And he would wear it with pride, no matter where that took him.