The Purest Malice in the World!

Chapter 1: From the World's Purest Malice!

Dark clouds pressed down upon the city, as if announcing the arrival of something ominous.

The air was saturated with heavy moisture, so thick it made breathing difficult.

"Ugh..." A boy lying on the ground gently rubbed his head, opened his dazed eyes, and struggled to lift his head.

As his consciousness slowly recovered, three questions involuntarily surfaced in his mind:

Who am I?

Where am I?

What am I doing?

Fragments of memory surged like a tidal wave, violently crashing into the boy's mind.

The boy slammed his head—which didn't look very large to begin with—hard against the ground, using the pain to alleviate the intense throbbing in his brain.

His pale lips, stained with blood from where he had bitten through them, created a sense of extreme contrast.

Slowly, two completely different sets of memories reorganized within his mind.

One was the long, complex memory of a young man in his twenties, while the other was the simple memory of a child no older than ten, which perfectly matched his current body.

The overlapping of these two memories left the boy unable to distinguish which one was his true self for a moment.

"My name is... Sheren? Or... Toneri?"

After a long while, the boy held his head with mottled hands, his hoarse voice slowly spilling from his mouth.

The pain in his head gradually dissipated, and his memories became clearer, but the pain in his body now became distinct, surging against his nerves in waves and causing beads of sweat to break out across his forehead once again.

Enduring the agony radiating from his body, especially his abdomen, he forced open the eyes he had instinctively squeezed shut from the intense pain.

He immediately locked onto the most painful part of his body: his stomach!

He slowly lifted the only garment covering his belly, a piece of coarse hemp cloth.

"This is..."

Seeing his small, frail stomach so sallow and gaunt, with his protruding ribs starkly visible on both sides, it looked nothing like the stomach of a normally developing child.

But what surprised Sheren most was that right in the center of his abdomen was a series of special symbols, including a character he recognized...

"Seal"!

Surrounding this "Seal" character were tiny, strange tadpole-like symbols, encircling it in a perfect ring.

"A sealing jutsu?!" Sheren was somewhat uncertain.

But the vocabulary currently available in his mind was so limited that this was the only word he could find.

He jerked his head up.

Because of the sudden movement, his head throbbed with a sharp pain the moment he looked up, feeling as if something were trying to burrow out from under the skin at his temples.

His vision blurred, turning pitch black.

It took a great effort for him to recover.

As his vision cleared, Sheren finally began to survey his surroundings.

It was a very dilapidated and crude house; the only thing inside that could be called furniture was what was referred to as a bed, which was essentially a collection of weeds and rags.

In Sheren's memory, in such an era of war, having a house that could keep out the wind and rain was already a rare luxury.

Other than that, the house was completely empty.

Oh, it couldn't be said to be entirely empty.

Sheren finally spotted an Old Man lying in a pool of blood on the floor by the doorway, though he couldn't tell if he was dead or alive.

In fact, the man wasn't far from him, but when he had looked up earlier, the Old Man's position hadn't been within Sheren's field of vision.

The Old Man's hand, stained with blood, pointed in Sheren's direction, and his unclosed eyes were fixed intently on this side.

It looked somewhat chilling.

But Sheren's gaze was drawn to something on the Old Man's forehead.

A Headband!!!

"Ninja!!" This term blurted out instinctively, as if deeply engraved within a fragment of his memory.

Engraved on the Headband was a symbol resembling a cloud.

"Kumo Ninja!!" This word came from the other memory, the one belonging to the young man in his twenties.

This symbol represented the Kumo Ninja!

Or rather, Kumogakure Ninja!

This place... is the world of ninjas!

Sheren suddenly felt a sense of confusion, both familiar and bewildered, regarding where he was.

Immediately following this, another fragment of memory popped into his mind.

Time returned to half an hour ago.

Toneri, who was sleeping on the only bed in his crude wooden shack, heard the sound of a little girl crying from the house next door, accompanied by the comforting voices of her parents.

Toneri was very familiar with this crying; it came from a family living next door, and he vaguely remembered it was a little girl who had been born only about two years ago.

Born in such chaotic times, it was hard to say whether it was a blessing or a misfortune.

However, the crying soon died down.

Just as Toneri was preparing to endure his hunger and force himself back to sleep, his dilapidated wooden door was kicked into splinters with a violent crash.

A blood-drenched Old Man appeared in his line of sight, leaning against the doorframe.

Seeing this Old Man, Toneri felt as if he had suddenly forgotten how to breathe; his face flushed red, and he felt a sense of suffocation.

The Old Man's gaze was fixed tightly on Toneri, as if he were scrutinizing an object, a commodity, or perhaps... a vessel?

The Old Man was pressing his left hand firmly against his right chest, but blood still uncontrollably seeped through his fingers, soaking his entire garment.

It was an outfit that looked like a combat uniform.

Beyond that, his body was wrapped in a layer of hazy blue light, somewhat faint and indistinct.

"Pfft—"

Spitting out a mouthful of blood, the Old Man's face slowly began to flush with a ruddy hue.

"As expected of Ōnoki, known as the 'Two-Sky Scales'; the power of his Kekkei Tōta is truly terrifying. If not for the tenacious vitality of the Two-Tails, I wouldn't have made it back here...

But this is as far as I go. Those Anbu who stayed behind to cover my retreat must be gone as well!"

It sounded as if he were explaining himself to Toneri, or perhaps talking to himself, or maybe his mind was becoming muddled from excessive blood loss.

"This place is truly wretched. Either two-year-old toddlers or eight- or nine-year-old children—there are no other choices!"

A painful, hoarse voice squeezed out from the Old Man's mouth, accompanied by a large amount of blood continuously spilling out.

Toneri could tell there were complex emotions in his words, but as a young child, he could not discern exactly what they were.

"Forget it, there's no other way. An older child will ultimately have a stronger capacity to endure. As the village's ultimate weapon, it cannot vanish along with me!

I hope this child can hold on until the Anbu arrive..." The Old Man's words sounded like the final murmurs of someone departing this world.

Toneri's body lost all control!

He was grabbed by the Old Man, who roughly tore open his coarse hempen shirt, revealing a stomach shriveled by hunger.

He never expected a dying man to possess such immense strength!

A trace of reluctance flickered in the Old Man's eyes, but it was quickly replaced by determination.

In these chaotic times, mercy was useless, especially for a man like him who was already at death's door.

Releasing his hand from his right chest, the Old Man used the blood spilling from his wound to draw a symbol with strange markings on Toneri's stomach.

As the Old Man drew this symbol, a large amount of pale blue flames rose from his body, as if they were about to engulf him.

"Pfft—"

Another mouthful of blood sprayed from his mouth, splattering onto Toneri's face.

The sensation at that moment was distinct.

The blood...

It was hot.

"Two-Tails!! Do you intend to leave with me?

Even if you can resurrect, can you endure three years of deathly silence?! If you don't want that, then at the very end, lend me a sliver of your power!!!"

As the Old Man shouted these words, the pale blue flames on his body slowly dissipated and retracted into his own body.

Toneri, being held down, could not see the entire process.

He only vaguely noticed a similar special symbol on the Old Man's own stomach.

Then, with great agony, the Old Man pulled a strange little blue beast from the special symbol on his own stomach.

It looked a bit like a cat, but also felt like a tiger, or perhaps something else entirely...

He then shoved it very roughly into Toneri's stomach.

"Seal!!" The Old Man pressed his left hand onto Toneri's stomach, his right hand forming a sword-finger gesture, as he spat the single word from his mouth.

Boom—

As the sound faded, the Old Man collapsed straight to the ground.

Immediately afterward, Toneri felt as if his body were catching fire.

Mixed with a burning pain, it felt as though his entire body was being scorched.

Having lost the Old Man's control, he twisted and struggled, slowly crawling forward.

After struggling for a brief moment, he lay on the ground and lost all movement.

The screen vanished.

Half an hour later, Sheren regained consciousness.

With an expression of disbelief, he reached out to touch the tadpole-like seal tattooed onto his abdomen.

Though his mind remained somewhat chaotic, Sheren's eyes widened as he began to grasp his current situation.

It was one thing to be in the Ninja World, a place of extreme chaos, but to have unknowingly become a "glorious" vessel for a Tailed Beast?

The Two-Tails?

The Two-Tails, Matatabi?

A Two-Tails Jinchūriki!?

For the first time, he felt that this world was filled with malice toward him.

As he accessed his memories, the two sets of experiences merged completely.

There was no distinction between primary or secondary, but since this was the Ninja World, his name would be Sheren.

According to his knowledge of the Ninja World, the Two-Tails Matatabi was a weapon of war for Kumogakure.

In his impression, the Two-Tails Jinchūriki should have been a woman, not the Old Man before him.

Could it be that this is the most chaotic period, during the First or Second Shinobi World War? That darkest and bloodiest of eras?

Sheren felt a dull ache in his head.

Logically speaking, becoming a Jinchūriki should grant one a decent status within the village.

That was, of course, provided one could control the Tailed Beast.

Based on the Old Man's words, it was clear he only intended for Sheren to be a transit point, ensuring the Two-Tails wouldn't vanish upon his death.

An experiment.

The original Sheren had died because of it, allowing Sheren from Earth to successfully inhabit this body...

Regardless, he had indeed successfully become a Jinchūriki.

Although the Land of Lightning isn't as comfortable as the Land of Fire, it's not a bad place. At the very least, whether it's the Second or Third Shinobi World War, the Land of Lightning never became a battlefield, Sheren consoled himself.

Aside from the living environment being inferior to the Land of Fire, the Land of Lightning possessed formidable high-end combat power.

Moreover, the Land of Lightning was a nation that revered martial strength, and Kumogakure was a village that believed in the Strong Person.

As long as one had strength, one could obtain corresponding status; the future Eight-Tails Jinchūriki, Killer B, was the best proof of this.

Just as Sheren was contemplating what explanation would be most reasonable to give if he encountered Kumogakure ninjas, so that he might survive...

Click—

A shackle in his mind suddenly snapped open, and a fragment of sealed memory surfaced in his consciousness.

This was content he had not seen when he was reviewing his memory fragments just moments ago.

But after Sheren "finished" viewing this memory, his face turned deathly pale, beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead, and his entire body began to tremble slightly.

It wasn't from pain; it was from fear!

Because in that potentially suppressed memory, he had seen the person he least wanted to see.

A man with a cross-shaped scar on his chin and a gloomy expression!

Sheren reached out and pulled at his tongue, trying to look at it, but due to the angle, he couldn't see everything inscribed upon it, though he caught enough.

"Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal!"

Sheren muttered, despair welling up in his eyes.

Thud—

He collapsed onto the ground.

Looking at the dried blood on the floor, Sheren once again felt the unmasked, intense malice the Ninja World held to welcome him.

Originally, becoming a Two-Tails Jinchūriki, while difficult to accept, was not necessarily a bad thing for the newly arrived Sheren.

Possessing the Two-Tails Matatabi provided him with a layer of security to survive in this world; at the very least, he was no longer powerless.

As for how to utilize the Two-Tails without being controlled by it, that was a matter for another time.

But as long as he could demonstrate his value, he could survive in the Land of Lightning as a Jinchūriki, perhaps even living quite comfortably.

That was, of course, assuming he didn't let the Two-Tails escape and remained a competent Jinchūriki.

He had indeed thought this way; even being confined by Kumogakure wouldn't be unacceptable, as long as he stayed alive.

But now!

He discovered that he actually bore the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal!

Sheren happened to know the origin of this curse mark.

It came from the secret organization of the greatest nation in this world, the Land of Fire's Konoha—Root. The purpose of this special curse mark was to prevent the victim from revealing any information regarding the leader of Root—Shimura Danzō.

The Two-Tails and the Cursed Tongue Eradication Seal—to be tainted by either one was troublesome, but at least there was still a chance to survive.

Yet when these two things gather in one person...

There is almost no possibility of survival!

Toneri slumped on the ground, feeling as if the heavens had played a massive joke on him!

They let him transmigrate and be reborn, yet provided no path for him to survive!

Sitting on the ground for half an hour, Toneri's mind was in complete chaos, not knowing what to do.

Even as a former battlefield doctor who had faced countless terrifying wars, he had never felt as lost as he did now.

"Forget it! Leave this place first! If the Kumo Ninja find out that their current Two-Tails Jinchuriki is actually a Konoha spy, they will likely extract the Two-Tails from my body immediately, then read my memories until they kill me!"

Toneri staggered to his feet; his legs were numb from sitting for so long.

He slowly paced to the doorway, looking at the full moon in the sky outside, which looked exactly the same as the one on Earth.

"I can't go back, can I..." The faces of his former comrades flashed briefly before his eyes.

He reined in the untimely sentimentality in his heart.

The cold midnight wind blew against Toneri, causing his body to shiver instinctively. As his pores contracted, the sweat on his back and forehead made him feel even colder...

He tightened his only coarse linen robe.

"No, I can't just leave like this! Otherwise, it will be trouble!"

Perhaps due to the cold wind, Toneri jolted, and his thoughts suddenly became much clearer.

Better to live a wretched life than to die; if one can live, no one wants to resign themselves to fate.

Thinking of this, Toneri turned and rushed back into the house, throwing himself onto the Old Man's corpse to search it...

Looting the body...

The Old Man's corpse was already cold, but Toneri's attention was clearly not on that.

Soon, all items of value were neatly laid out on the ground.

A professional ninja tool pouch; although it didn't look large, it could hold quite a few things and was an essential item for almost every ninja.

Three dark, gleaming Kunai—these were the first things Toneri discovered after opening the pouch, and also the items he valued most.

With three Kunai in hand, he felt, to some extent, that he was no longer a person without the strength to truss a chicken, providing a sliver of comfort to his heart.

Although he was only a battlefield doctor, that did not mean he lacked any combat ability; with a sharp weapon in hand, his safety would be better guaranteed.

Next were five small and sharp Shuriken.

And three pieces of paper with strange, talisman-like markings, the only one he recognized being the character "Explode" written in the center—these had to be the "infamous" Explosive Tags of the Ninja World!

However, Toneri, who lacked Chakra, didn't even know how to use something like an Explosive Tag.

In the very bottom, he finally found what he needed most right now: two Money Tickets worth one thousand Ryo each, and a small bag of... poop-colored pills!

Military Rations Pills!

These were his lifelines.

He didn't care that a foul, pungent odor rushed out the moment he opened the storage pouch for the Military Rations Pills.

Mixed with a heavy herbal scent and a multitude of unknown, chaotic odors, he tossed one directly into his mouth.

In an instant, the stimulation to his taste buds almost made Toneri spit it out immediately!

Fortunately, he held it in at the end...

He didn't know if he would have the courage to put it back in his mouth if he had spat it out.

The taste was roughly similar to something of a similar color...

There weren't many of these Military Rations Pills in the small bag, but for Toneri, each one was a lifeline.

However, it must be said that although the Military Rations Pills tasted terrible, they were very effective.

Not long after eating it, Toneri felt a trace of warmth emerge from within his body, flowing to his limbs and bones.

And as time passed, with the flavor fermenting in his mouth, it actually became less bitter.

Possessing a sliver of strength, Toneri braced his knees and slowly stood up from the ground. What he would have to face next was likely the most authentic display of malice this world had to offer him.

He turned and left, clutching the Kumo Ninja headband in his hand. Behind him was a dilapidated house engulfed in raging flames!

It was also his entire past!