A Monster Reborn at This Moment

Rain poured over the border forest of the Land of Fire, mingling with mud and blood as it flowed silently along.

In a clearing among the trees, ninja corpses lay sprawled everywhere. Crows crowded the surrounding branches, cawing mournfully as they watched the bodies greedily, seeming to wait for the rain to stop and their feast to begin. Every so often, an impatient crow would swoop down and peck at a corpse.

In the Warring States Period, which had only recently ended, this scene was nothing unusual. But in the newly dawned era of shinobi villages, such a cruel sight seemed to foretell that the peace so many ninja had hoped for had perhaps come—and perhaps not.

The bodies lay scattered across the ground, their faces contorted in death, their eyes retaining a deep fear, as if they had seen something terrifying and inhuman. Each bore the same fatal wound: a stake of wood as thick as a bowl had pierced through their bodies. Some were pinned to the earth, others to trees or rocks.

The scene was eerie and exceptionally cruel.

At the center of their encirclement stood a humanoid figure that looked as if it had been carved from wood. Its body was riddled with cracks made by Kunai, Shuriken, and Ninja Blades, while ninja tools lay scattered all around it.

Not long ago, a fierce encounter had taken place here—or, more accurately, an ambush.

The corpses bore the Forehead Protectors of Takigakure. There were eleven of them, organized like the forces of Konoha, the first shinobi village founded in the new era: three standard four-person squads, each led by a Jonin with three Chunin under them. With a lineup like that, they could have fought even a village's Kage, yet they had been all but wiped out. It seemed only one person had managed to escape with her life...

No, there was one more...

In the downpour, a girl's corpse had been pinned to the trunk of a giant tree. Her finger twitched slightly. A crow pecking at the body noticed something strange, paused suspiciously, and scrutinized the dead girl from Takigakure, her reflection visible in its crimson eyes.

She was about twelve years old, young and beautiful, with a sweet face and a petite, slender figure. At a glance, she seemed delicate and harmless, but that hadn't earned her any mercy from the enemy. A section of wooden stake had pierced straight through her abdomen.

Rainwater mixed with blood and trickled from her small chin, over her fair skin, and down her mangled abdomen. No one could survive such a fatal injury—unless they weren't human.

Suddenly, her eyelids trembled. As if waking from a deep sleep, a pair of ruby-red eyes snapped open. The crows perched on her corpse sensed something was wrong, cried out shrilly, and scattered in every direction. A peal of thunder shook the heavens, and a flash of pale lightning illuminated her bewitching face.

She had already died, but now it was as if she had returned from hell. Her crimson eyes swept indifferently over her surroundings before she slowly lowered her gaze to the wound in her abdomen, where the wooden stake had pierced through her. Memories from her life churned in her mind.

A string of key words rose to the surface.

The Shinobi World, the Warring States Period, God of Shinobi Senju Hashirama and the founding of the shinobi village era, the third year of Konoha, Takigakure, a mission to assassinate Senju Hashirama, Naruto, the legend of the eyes...

The corner of her mouth twitched, forming an incredulous, absurd smile.

She had reincarnated in the Shinobi World and spent sixteen years in a daze. After joining Takigakure with her clan, she had been a mediocre Chunin, a disposable nobody, and had been forced into accepting the village's mission to assassinate God of Shinobi.

Of the three Jonin who had accompanied them, the one who had barely escaped was named Kakuzu.

She looked up, her gaze falling on the lone Wood Clone in the clearing, while memories of her encounter with it churned through her mind.

They had run into God of Shinobi Senju Hashirama's Wood Clone. The twelve of them had fought with everything they had and still couldn't beat it. Their opponent had clapped his hands, and half of them had died in an instant. Seeing how things were going, Kakuzu had fled in a panic. After wiping out the rest of them, the enemy had calmly dismissed the Wood Clone he had sent to scout.

"Unbelievable..."

Weakly reaching out, she slowly and laboriously pulled herself free of the stake. Once her body came loose from the wooden stake created by Wood Release, she floated lightly down from the tree, more than ten meters above the ground. She landed with a thud, then staggered to her feet.

The crows nearby heard the noise and shrieked as they scattered, afraid to approach. They watched the abnormal monster from the shadows among the trees.

Her condition was strange. There was no doubt she had died, yet she had no place in the Pure Land. As an outsider, it seemed she couldn't go there. She was like a wandering spirit stranded among the living, or a monster reborn. Her body was in terrible shape, and instinct drove her to act.

Staggering along weakly, she bent down and picked up the sword she had carried in life.

It was a small tachi made of refined steel. The moment she gripped it, she instinctively unleashed the power she had awakened after death. Her soul began to flow out of her, then took up residence in the small tachi.

Almost at once, as her soul left her body, the deathly emptiness and weakness ebbed away like a receding tide. In their place came an eerie power, flowing from the sword in her hand into her body. It was still weak, but incredibly potent.

This was something no ninja could ever do. It was the power of a demon, born from absorbing resentment.

Now she was no longer human. She was a ghost.

Feeling her body return to normal, despite the gaping, bloody hole in her stomach, she stared blankly down at the small tachi in her hand—her true self. At a thought, her ear-length black hair began to grow wildly, becoming long enough to writhe like an octopus's tentacles in the still, rainy air. She murmured:

"Strange. The last thing I watched in my previous life was Yura of the Demon Hair fighting Inuyasha, with Kagome appearing too. So why did I awaken Yura of the Demon Hair's powers instead of Inuyasha's?"

She couldn't figure it out...

"Never mind. At least I'm not Mukade Demoness. Compared to Inuyasha's half-demon body, being a full-fledged demon is still better."

Yura wasn't a powerful great demon, but she was formidable among lesser demons. As a Hair Demon born from absorbing resentment, she had only three abilities, but she was a demon, and that made her stronger than ordinary people from the start.

The first was hair manipulation. Her signature skill gave her an innate ability to control any strand of hair. In a sense, it was the equivalent of the String-String Fruit.

The second was Demon Fire. As a demon woman who controlled hair, she also had a special ability to burn her enemies with blazing flames. They could get so hot that they roasted an opponent down to the bone. It was a signature skill and, in a sense, the equivalent of the Flame-Flame Fruit.

The third was immortality. Her body had incredible endurance. Even if her arms and legs were cut off or her heart pierced and her belly ripped open, she could move as if nothing had happened, without feeling any pain. As long as her true self wasn't damaged, no injury could kill her.

With just that immortality, she could become an incredibly troublesome and tenacious opponent in this Shinobi World.

With power like this, she could feel safe even in this cruel Shinobi World.

Besides, this wasn't merely immortality. As a demon, she was ageless and deathless.

The thought made her gasp and draw in a sharp breath. She clenched her fist, and a wild smile bloomed at the corner of her mouth, impossible to suppress.

The standard transmigrator cheat had finally arrived. Next...

She looked up. Rainwater dripped from the thick fringe over her forehead as her crimson eyes fixed on Senju Hashirama's Wood Clone.

It was the third year of Konoha. God of Shinobi was still alive, and Uchiha Madara had already left Konoha. The Five Great Villages had all been established over the past three years, and the long-turbulent Shinobi World had entered a rare period of peace. That would last until the eighteenth year of Konoha, when the First Shinobi World War broke out.

She reached into her ninja pouch and pulled out a Kunai. Empowered by her demon-like physical strength, she hurled it with a flick of her wrist. It shot out like a streak of black light and sank deep into the Wood Clone's forehead.

She spun around and strode away.

First, she would return to Takigakure and seize Earth Grudge Fear and Hero Water. Then she would choose one of the Five Great Villages to join, lie low, and build up her strength. Konoha was absolutely off-limits. Hashirama was still alive, and he had seen her face.

The Five Great Villages had only just been founded. Every village but Konoha was desperate to recruit people and build up its strength. Their new organizations were also chaotic, and they basically accepted anyone, making this the perfect time to slip in.

"Since I've said goodbye to my past self, from now on, my name is Yura. Yura of the Demon Hair..."

In the rain-soaked forest, a figure slowly walked away. Her wildly growing black hair danced behind her, then rapidly shrank until it was once again cut to ear length. At last, her figure disappeared into the darkness among the trees.

On an ordinary afternoon that no one would ever know about, a true monster had been born in the Shinobi World.

Wait...

The crow that had just landed on a treetop sensed danger and, shrieking in terror, took flight with the rest of the flock. A figure came rushing back out of the forest's darkness.

Yura returned to the battlefield and silently began looting her comrades' bodies one by one, her eyes brimming with tears. Kunai, Shuriken, sealing scrolls, and even bills—all of it went into her pockets. As she worked diligently, a sweet smile spread across her petite, oval face. She hummed a cheerful little tune.

"They made me eat rat poison~"

"Two packets and I was suddenly feeling so high~"

"Tastes good~ really hits the spot~"

"Two bites in and I'm about to kick the bucket~"

"Everyone here hates me~ looks down on me~"

"I'm just struggling to make a living~ I did nothing wrong~"

Humming as she finished cleaning up the battlefield, Yura left again with a huge haul, skipping away with light steps.

Three days later, outside a small town on the border of the Land of Fire, the Warring States Period had ended, but the conflicts between ninja had not. The Shinobi World was still full of wandering ninja, clan shinobi, and bands of bandits made up of large numbers of rogue samurai.

Especially after the system of one country, one village was established, the Five Great Nations began annexing the smaller countries around them, while the daimyo abolished the samurai. This era was three times more brutal than the Warring States Period. Countless people lost their homes and families, and robbery flourished, almost impossible to stamp out. Even sixty years later, things were still much the same.

So it wasn't unusual to run into bandits on the road. This was already the third time it had happened in three days.

But this time was a little different. A group of more than forty wandering fighters was attacking the town. Cries of battle and the dying filled the air at the town gate as the able-bodied locals fought back.

Yura stood quietly nearby, suspended in midair. She stood on a strand of hair stretched between two large trees, as if she were standing on nothing at all, watching the battle between the two sides without any intention of intervening.

It was strange. She was so close—only four or five meters away—yet no one noticed her.

This wasn't an invisibility spell or a ninjutsu. To ordinary people, Yura, an abnormal monster, didn't exist in this world.

She had already discovered as much on her journey.

It wasn't that they couldn't see her. Their subconscious simply didn't want to. They couldn't bring themselves to look at her, or even want to look at her. It was a natural suppression between different levels of life, so they didn't register her presence.

Unless Yura revealed herself and spoke to them, breaking that state and making them aware of her.

In a way, her presence was even more overpowered than the Aburame Clan's ability to go unnoticed.

Or, someone with spiritual power like the miko Kikyo might be able to see through her. Japanese demons were like that: they naturally vanished from people's sight. As for what kind of ninja in this Shinobi World might notice her, that was harder to say. She would have to test it.

As for why Yura was lingering here, watching the slaughter, it was simply because she was eating.

What did demons feed on to grow stronger? The first answer was people—their flesh and blood. Yura wasn't that kind of vulgar demon.

Resentment, fear, hatred, jealousy, shame, loneliness, sorrow, despair, bitterness, emptiness, helplessness, and every other dark, negative emotion in the human heart—all of it was nourishment that strengthened Yura.

As a monster, Yura could keenly sense these emotions, these mental energies born from the heart, and naturally absorb them.

As she absorbed those mental energies, the demon's regenerative ability quietly activated. The hideous hole in her abdomen, made by Wood Release, gradually healed on this third day, revealing the fair, soft skin beneath her tattered clothes.

Yura could sense the changes in herself—not just in her body, but in her heart as well. They were the instincts of an evil demon: a thoroughly greedy and wicked nature, a sly, ruthless, vicious, bloodthirsty personality utterly unlike the timid girl she had been in life.

Deep in her crimson eyes, a hint of dark red surged like blood.

Yura watched the battle quietly, her smile elegant and amused, with a trace of bloodlust. She didn't reject the changes in herself. She still remembered going to war at the age of four with a Kunai in hand, struggling to survive, escaping death time and time again. It felt like yesterday. The cruelty of her life had taught her that in this world, being a person was far more exhausting than being a ghost.

Ninja, after all—how could any of them not go crazy, even if they weren't named Uchiha?

But Yura didn't want to become a beast enslaved by her desires, either. So she suppressed her excitement and impulse: the urge to charge in and chop everyone on both sides into tiny pieces.

So Yura simply watched quietly from the sidelines, savoring the fear, despair, pain, and hatred in people's hearts, as well as their hideous faces in their final moments.

Still, even as a demon, she needed something to care about. Yura of the Demon Hair had the simple dream most demons yearned for: to rule the demon world. That was why she had fought so hard to claim all the Shikon Jewel for herself.

Now that she was in the Shinobi World, she could set herself a modest goal: rule the Shinobi World.

This Shinobi World, forever torn by conflict, was the most wonderful and marvelous place for Yura.

Wherever there were people, there would be darkness. Where darkness took root, it would become Yura's food. She would never go hungry.

Yura hated being hungry.

She hated getting stabbed in the stomach even more.

That was why she hated Senju Hashirama most of all.

So...

"What a wonderful era..."

After fighting for a while, both sides left behind a pile of corpses and withdrew after a brief standoff. Blood covered the ground in front of the town.

"Thanks for the treat~"

The satisfied demon woman bowed politely and clapped her hands, thanking the people for their generous meal. Watching the souls float up and away from the corpses, Yura raised her hand. A strand of hair shot from her fingertip, extending rapidly until it pierced the town wall opposite. She then flicked her hand, sending the other end of the strand through the trunk behind her and deep into it. Stepping onto the path of hair suspended in midair, she walked toward the town wall as if on level ground. No chakra clung to the soles of her feet; her astonishing balance was entirely natural, pure skill. With one hand resting on the hilt at her waist, she strode through the air.

Black Secret Technique: Skyward Hair Path

As Yura's bare, shining feet lightly touched down on the town wall, the long path of hair behind her turned to ash and vanished in the blink of an eye.