Reborn in Naruto

Hurrying to work, packed into a crowded subway car—so crowded he would not fall even without holding the handrail.

There was no time for breakfast. It would not be too late to buy something once he got downstairs at the company. With inherited low blood pressure compounded by hypoglycemia, he did not know how many times he had fainted like this.

At one stop, the crowd squeezed out of the subway, and the figure collapsed on the ground drew the attention of the surrounding passengers.

The cries around him quickly became impossible to hear.

But unlike before, this person sprawled on the ground would never wake again.

The doctor's shake of the head, his relatives' weeping...

The corpse in the emergency room knew nothing.

Sensing his physical discomfort, Shi Xiaosong felt that things were bad. He might have fainted again.

He wondered whether it would delay him from getting to work today. If he was lucky, he would wake up right after fainting and would not be late.

Five hundred yuan for perfect attendance!

Enduring the agonizing headache—??? Why did his head hurt? Had he hit something when he fell?

He forced his eyes open.

Work...

Pale moonlight streamed in from outside, barely granting him some visibility.

Wooden floor? Paper doors? Where was he?

There was also a pile of unidentified objects on the floor before him. A faint smell of rust and stench lingered at the tip of his nose.

The bizarre situation left him no time to think. The intense headache did not feel like it had been caused by hitting something; it felt as though his head were about to burst apart.

His brain seemed to be swelling within his skull, and his eyes along with it.

He could feel his Accelerated Heartbeat, his blood vessels throbbing as well. Tears streamed uncontrollably down his face, as if he had caught COVID again.

But why was he so sad?

No, he...

His brother, his parents, the Uchiha, Konoha, his brother Itachi Uchiha...

Elementary school, middle school, high school, university, family, work... It seemed he had fainted.

Was he dead?

Two sets of memories, those of Uchiha Sasuke and himself, had mixed together.

It was hard not to think of the word "transmigration."

Seven years of memories set alongside nearly thirty years of memories, along with the show Naruto appearing in those memories.

Shi Xiaosong would never think that he was supposed to be Sasuke himself, and that the extra memories had arisen from some accidental genjutsu or something.

So, had he transmigrated into Uchiha Sasuke?

Memories from many years ago resurfaced. It was hard to say how much he could still remember, but the current situation was undoubtedly the famous Night of the Uchiha Clan Downfall. Sasuke had lost his whole family—no, his whole clan...

His biological older brother, Itachi Uchiha, had done it, together with the Konoha High Command and Uchiha Obito.

At that thought, his nose stung, his breathing became labored, and tears began flowing again.

Had the transmigration not been complete? Was Sasuke's soul still there, not yet fused or fully consumed?

Going back? How many transmigrators had truly managed that? He did not dare think about it.

But in this world of ninjas, there was no place for him.

He was Shi Xiaosong, but no one would ever call his name again.

At the same time, he was Sasuke, and he could only be Sasuke.

With the tears welling out to lubricate them, he opened his eyes.

It was already daylight.

He sniffed hard. A faint salty taste entered his mouth, but it clearly did nothing to ease his breathing.

Light-colored curtains, privacy screens, spotless white bedding, and the not-too-strong scent of disinfectant...

This should be Konoha Hospital.

The headache had disappeared, but other discomforts had emerged. He tried to push himself up from the bed, but his arms tensed in pain and he could not exert much strength.

His right shoulder and arm were already bandaged. It seemed to be a wound Itachi had left on him earlier. Compared to the clan's destruction, such a wound was truly a joke.

He struggled out of bed. He did not know how long he had been lying in the hospital; his body was stiff and weak, and he could barely use any strength.

And besides... he really needed to go.

He was a homeless dog. Though he was the Uchiha's sole survivor, at most he was just a seven-year-old brat. This was still peacetime, so he did not believe he would be under constant surveillance.

There was no way the monitoring around him could be tighter than that around Uzumaki Naruto, the Jinchuriki.

Even if there was surveillance, it would certainly have been tightest in the first few days before he woke up. Over time, they were bound to grow lax.

It seemed he would have to put on an act for a while.

Even if he did not force himself to keep a stiff face and wear an expression of deep grief, he at least could not smile. That would make him look far too heartless.

He needed to organize his words before speaking.

People here spoke Japanese, with the occasional English word tossed in.

The writing was a mix of Chinese and Japanese. Whenever there were Chinese characters, he could guess some of the meaning without struggling to search Sasuke's original memories.

He had encountered Japanese more or less through shows and games. Combined with Sasuke's memories, he could speak it, even if he might stammer a little. If it had been Korean instead, he would have been helpless and could only pretend to be mute.

After leaving the ward, taking care of his biological needs, and finding a passing medical worker,

"Hello, may I ask what date it is today?"

"Oh, today is June 23rd... Wait, are you the Uchiha child?! You were unconscious for over two days and finally woke up. Are you feeling all right...?"

"Yes, thank you."

He had originally planned to ask for the date and then estimate how long he had been unconscious to work it out, but he had gotten the answer directly. Sasuke quickly turned and left.

He had not prepared any more lines for the conversation. If he said a few more words, he was afraid he would be left dumbfounded by questions.

Watching Sasuke's swiftly departing back, the medical worker remembered something.

"The Third Hokage seemed to have said someone should inform him when this child woke up. I never expected something like this to happen to such a prestigious clan as the Uchiha. Sigh."

The Uchiha Clan Grounds had been replanned after the Nine-Tails Attack and placed far from the village center. That was what people said online.

Relying on his memories alone, he could naturally find the way home, but he could not say exactly how far it was, and he had no watch to keep time.

After jogging for a while, he finally caught sight of an iconic Uchiha building.

Konoha Military Police Force

An Uchiha Gunbai crest on a blue Shuriken stood out conspicuously.

With the Police Department almost serving as the boundary, the Uchiha Clan Grounds and the rest of Konohagakure began to feel distinctly separated.

Far away?

Not really. It had definitely taken less than half an hour on foot. Back when he was in school, cycling had taken him over half an hour. Could such a short distance be called far?

Konoha was really tiny.

The Konoha High Command had not rushed to take over the place just because the Uchiha had been exterminated. They even seemed uninterested.

Of course. The most valuable thing about the Uchiha was the Sharingan after it awakened.

Then there were the corpses.

Only two days had passed. Danzo, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and the others were probably still busy dissecting bodies and digging out eyes for experiments.

The Uchiha's ninjutsu and secret techniques?

Not much.

Others without Uchiha blood could not learn the clan's ocular techniques even if they had the eyes.

As for techniques collected from other clans, they were only written into scrolls when needed.

There was no better way to keep something secret than memorizing it directly.

Relatives taught each other orally.

Or they would write it down temporarily during instruction, then destroy it immediately afterward.

Or two Uchiha could meet each other's eyes and use genjutsu to pass on the knowledge directly. The rest was up to the learner to practice, and if they did not understand, they could ask again.

Everyone had done things this way in Sasuke's past memories.

The only ninjutsu actually written into scrolls were some C- and D-rank techniques for children who had not awakened their Sharingan to practice with.

Only civilians without clan backgrounds might care about them.

To a village, they held no great value.