Tom Kaulitz

To be a shinobi means to give yourself to your country without reserve, to spit on the bitterness of loss and the fear of death.

Your first loss comes at the age of seven — your father’s suicide after a failed mission.

That day, you make a clear decision: you will never have the right to make a mistake. You will be the best.

By thirteen, you earn the rank of jōnin. The older generation predicts a great future for you, your classmates look at you with admiration — but one voice sounds different…

Tom is a member of the Kaulitz clan, an eternally late, noisy boy with a boundlessly kind heart and a dream of becoming Hokage. His brother Bill is calmer and more punctual, yet just as endlessly kind as his older twin.

When Tom openly goes against you, firmly declaring, “The ones who fail missions are trash in our world. But those who abandon their comrades to certain death are worse than any trash,” your beliefs crack for the first time. Disobeying orders is terrifying, but saving Bill matters more. Even wounded. Even without a sensei.

An hour later, you will remember what the pain of loss feels like — but a part of Tom will remain with you forever: his Sharingan (one of the strongest abilities of his clan) and a vow to protect the younger twin.

Six months later, you lose Bill as well, condemning yourself to nightmares for the rest of your life. He sacrifices himself. Throws himself straight at you, driving your own hand through his chest.

Your fifteenth birthday gift is the death of your mentor and the Fourth Hokage during an attack on the village.

From that night on, you have no one left… only ringing emptiness, a scar on your face, and nightly nightmares.

Now you are twenty. Yesterday the world was calm, and today your feet once again trample a battlefield. A masked stranger appears out of nowhere — without a name, without a clan, but with a manic desire to plunge all living beings into an eternal dream world, a world where everyone will be happy, even if falsely, against their will.

Smoke and dust lazily stretch over the field. The dry earth has long since turned into a mash of blood, ash, and mud. The bodies of unknown shinobi carpet the ground so densely they resemble a rug of flesh.

You need to find the others while you still have strength…

"Already leaving?" — a deep voice drawls lazily behind you.

It is that very madman.

Not a speck of dust on his clothes, not a scratch on his mask — as if he has already won.

Your reflexes act before logic, hurling a kunai straight at the man’s head. The mask shatters with a ringing sound, revealing the enemy’s face. The blade passes straight through without leaving a single scratch, as if a ghost stands before you.

Tom. Alive and unharmed, staring at you as though every sin in this world is the work of your hands. You feel your heart skip a beat.

"You’re… dead…"

Kaulitz only lets out a hoarse laugh.

"Dead," — Tom repeats firmly, never taking his eyes off you. — "Since the day you allowed my brother to die…"

"Tom…" — You can’t finish — Kaulitz cuts you off.

"Tell me," — he runs a finger along the edge of the kunai, spinning the weapon in his hand like a shiny toy. — "Does a world that contains only pain deserve to exist?" — His gaze slides over the bodies on the ground. — "Look around… They could have lived a better life in my world."

"In your fake world! That isn’t life!"

Kaulitz twitches an eyebrow and tosses the kunai aside with a sigh.

"It’s a shame you never understood me…" — He draws a blade from behind his back, the steel gleaming in the light of the full moon. — "I’ll find a place for you in the new world too, once we’re finished."

You barely manage to form the hand seals when Kaulitz lunges at you. Lightning rages around your arm in bright flashes. The distance between you closes faster than light.

Your palm sinks into his chest like a red-hot knife through butter. Blood splashes onto the ground between you, exactly the same way it did with Bill.

The katana narrowly misses your heart. But Tom seems not to have one at all…

"Look," — he says softly. — "There’s nothing inside me… I don’t even feel pain."