The Second Survivor

Huff.

Lin Zhen suddenly opened his eyes and let out a breath of stale air.

"Where am I?"

The moment the thought crossed his mind, fear filled him.

He realized he couldn't move. Aside from breathing with difficulty, he couldn't even twitch a finger, as if he were a corpse.

Then a voice without a hint of emotion sounded beside his ear.

[Return Mission: Dawn!]

[Complete the return mission to return.]

"!?"

Lin Zhen froze.

The words left him completely baffled.

Return mission?

Dawn?

What the hell was that supposed to mean?

Just then, footsteps drew closer.

"Someone, help me!"

Lin Zhen tried to cry out, only to find that no sound came from his throat.

His eyes were covered by a piece of white cloth—or rather, his entire body was covered as he lay flat on his back.

His head was completely covered!

"Huh?"

A soft exclamation came from the direction of the footsteps.

Soon, a figure appeared before Lin Zhen and lifted the white cloth covering him.

Lin Zhen had thought he was being rescued, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief. Then he looked at the figure who had uncovered him, and his mind went blank.

Kakashi?!

Silver hair sticking up like a broom, black mask.

Lin Zhen couldn't mistake him. The person who had lifted the cloth was none other than Kakashi Hatake, a familiar character from an anime!

Kakashi, who had looked Lin Zhen over, called out, "Medical Team, we've got another survivor here."

A flurry of footsteps immediately sounded in the distance. A few people in medical uniforms hurried over and gathered around Lin Zhen.

"How is that possible? I checked him. He had no vital signs."

"Maybe he was in a state of suspended animation."

"That's pretty rare!"

The medical personnel murmured among themselves as they helped Lin Zhen sit up and began examining him.

As his body was raised, Lin Zhen's field of vision finally widened a little.

What he saw was a huge morgue.

More than a hundred funeral beds were arranged neatly throughout the room. Every single one held a corpse covered by a white cloth.

Medical personnel were busy all around.

Some even had glass jars nearby, each containing a pair of eyeballs soaking in liquid.

His body was still numb, and though Lin Zhen was terrified, his face showed no expression at all. Even his eyes were vacant.

Seeing his dazed expression, Kakashi, dressed as ANBU, asked the Medical Ninja examining him, "How is he?"

"His vital signs are stabilizing, but his mental state seems..."

The Medical Ninja shook his head and sighed.

Kakashi watched Lin Zhen with a complicated expression, then instructed the Medical Ninja beside him, "Take him to the hospital for treatment. I'll report to Lord Hokage."

The hospital.

Lying in bed, Lin Zhen still looked dazed.

But he could feel his body gradually recovering. His fingers could twitch slightly, which was proof enough.

At the same time, a jumble of images flickered through his mind.

"Shinji Uchiha..."

Based on those fragmented, fast-moving memories and what he had just seen in the morgue, he slowly began to understand his current situation.

It seemed he had transmigrated into the body of an eight-year-old boy named Shinji Uchiha.

The date was the very night the Uchiha Clan was wiped out.

He just couldn't understand how he'd gone from sleeping in to waking up in the Naruto world, inside the body of a corpse in a morgue.

There was no doubt about it: the real Shinji Uchiha had died, killed by Itachi Uchiha's blade!

"What was that voice I heard earlier?"

The strange voice he had heard beside his ear when he woke in the morgue also troubled him greatly.

Anyway...

His mind was a complete mess.

The confusion caused by absorbing Shinji Uchiha's remaining memories, the shock of his unexpected transmigration, his uncertainty about the future, and his fear of the unknown—all of it was flooding his thoughts. He couldn't calm down enough to sort through any of it.

Hiss.

Suddenly, he sucked in a sharp breath.

He had just absorbed the final memory Shinji Uchiha had experienced before dying.

It was the instant Itachi Uchiha swung his blade.

Perhaps because of his fear, the memory had been completely distorted. Everything else in it was blurred and warped. Only Itachi Uchiha's cold, blood-red Sharingan, as he swung his blade, remained startlingly clear.

"It feels like I really took a blade to the body!"

Cold sweat broke out across Lin Zhen's back.

He had absorbed only some of Shinji Uchiha's fragmented memories, yet the immense mental shock was unavoidable.

Before he could collect himself, his vision suddenly grew hazy.

His dark eyes instantly turned red. One Tomoe after another appeared, forming the Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

But that wasn't all!

Next, the three Tomoe spun. The dark spots spread across his crimson eyes, transforming into three ink-black rings arranged in an interlocking triangular pattern.

Once it was done, the rings vanished and the red faded.

The eyes in his sockets returned to their ordinary dark color. That brief moment seemed like nothing more than an illusory vision.

"Mangekyō Sharingan!"

Lin Zhen was startled.

The change in his eyes had been brief, but he knew it wasn't an illusion. He really had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, the fabled ability of the Uchiha Clan.

Shinji Uchiha's intense emotions before his death had awakened the Sharingan.

But he had died too quickly. His Sharingan had only awakened to the Three-Tomoe stage before his life went out. Then Lin Zhen had transmigrated into his body, and his new soul had stimulated the Sharingan. The two of them had taken turns, completing the final awakening of the Mangekyō.

"I never thought this guy would be a genius!"

Now that he understood what had happened, Lin Zhen couldn't help but marvel.

He knew that intense emotions like resentment, hatred, and love could stimulate the Uchiha Clan into awakening the Sharingan.

But it surprised him that Shinji Uchiha had managed to awaken the Three-Tomoe Sharingan and even touch the realm of the Mangekyō in the brief instant before his death.

The last person who had managed something like that was Obito Uchiha, the man who had single-handedly set the Fourth Shinobi World War in motion.

And Sasuke Uchiha, who had been deliberately provoked by Itachi Uchiha, trapped in Tsukuyomi, and forced to witness his parents' deaths, had awakened only the One-Tomoe Sharingan.

So Shinji Uchiha, an Uchiha who had left no trace in the original timeline, was actually one of the few members of the Uchiha Clan with the potential to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan.

"Am I going to be Shinji Uchiha from now on?"

Lin Zhen felt a little lost.

He had taken over Shinji Uchiha's body and memories. From now on, he would probably have to live as Shinji Uchiha.

[The plane has been invaded.]

[Countdown: 9]

Suddenly, that mysterious voice sounded in his ear again.