Konoha Village.
Night had fallen over an unremarkable house.
Sasuke Uchiha, the sole survivor of the Uchiha Clan, lived here. Night was when the sorrow came.
Usually so aloof he looked down his nose at everyone, Sasuke Uchiha now stared blankly at the moonlight outside. His eyes grew damp as he thought of his parents and murmured softly.
"Father, Mother..."
His parents' increasingly blurred faces flashed through his mind, followed a moment later by his older brother-the only family he had left.
Yet that man was also the enemy he had sworn to kill!
"I will kill you!"
After silently renewing his vow, Sasuke went to bed. He would train tomorrow morning. Thud!
"Ow, what the hell!"
He had barely lain down when something thick dug into him. Holding his head, he turned to look.
"Whose damn book is this?"
(Diary copy)
"Whose diary? Did someone break into my house to steal something?"
Sasuke's expression shifted as he held the book, but on second thought, there was nothing valuable in his house.
Heh, someone who carries a diary around must write things down. There ought to be clues in here. Let's see who had the nerve to sneak into my house!
With that, Sasuke set the diary beside him and flipped it open.
(Holy crap!)
(I actually transmigrated! Fine, transmigrating is great and all, but out of every world I could've ended up in, why Naruto? The danger level here is insanely high for an ordinary guy like me. I don't want to end up hanging from a tree. That would be way too humiliating.)
(And my cheat is so underwhelming. Why can't it just go ding and make me the strongest?)
(Back on topic. June 6. Sunny today. Went to class, but it was all basic stuff I already knew. So boring.)
(June 7. Cloudy. Still going to school. I wanted to get a look at Naruto, the so-called most miserable protagonist and the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, but I waited at the ramen shop and never caught him.)
(June 8. Rainy. Had to go to school in the rain. Still didn't run into Naruto on the streets. Looks like he's very well protected. Makes sense, though. He's the village's greatest combat asset, so he's not someone a small fry like me can just approach. Whatever, I give up. Better not get the Anbu watching me.)
(June 9. Sunny. Helped find a cat for a D-rank mission today. Making money is hard no matter where you are. What a pain.)
Although the earlier entries were all trivial little things, the one about Naruto made Sasuke pause in thought.
"Nine-Tails Jinchuriki? What's that?"
That goofy Naruto Uzumaki who hung around Sakura Haruno all day actually had such an important identity? He even qualified as a protagonist?
Even with two heads, Sasuke Uchiha would never have figured it out. He shook his head.
(July 2. Sunny. I saw Sunny Sasuke Uchiha today. The massacre really did hit him hard. He seems pretty gloomy now.)
???
Hadn't the Uchiha Clan been wiped out, leaving only him? Sasuke searched his memories over and over, but there was no one named Sunny Sasuke.
Since he couldn't find anything, he kept reading. Well, after the next page, he finally knew who this Sunny Sasuke was!
(July 3. Cloudy. Saw Sasuke Uchiha again today, with his little fangirl Sakura Haruno tagging along. I get it. They're teenagers, and having a crush is normal, but she should read the room. He just lived through the massacre of his clan, and she's trying to date him and distract him? Is she out of her mind?)
After reading that, Sasuke Uchiha frowned.
"Why call me Sunny Sasuke? Why does that nickname feel so irritating?"
The nickname filled Sasuke with an instinctive aversion. It felt strange.
Still, aside from the nickname, he agreed with what the diary said. Sakura Haruno wasn't ugly. If his clan hadn't been massacred, he might have accepted her feelings, or he might not have. But now that it had happened, accepting them was completely out of the question.
His goal now was to get stronger, stronger, and stronger still, then personally kill the beast who had murdered his own parents. Yet she hovered around him every day, interrupting his ninjutsu training. How could he not be annoyed?
He flipped farther through the diary, but there were no more entries. Sasuke closed it and lay on his bed, staring at the ceiling.
"This person understands me pretty well, but he never said what his name was. I can't figure it out."
Besides, he seemed to be just an ordinary ninja, and he had complained about how hard it was to make money. He must have been strapped for cash, not someone wealthy.
The diary seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.
Buzzz!!!
The diary he had just finished reading suddenly gave off a dazzling white light.
"Holy crap, is it going to explode?"
His expression instantly darkened, but after a moment's hesitation, he calmed down. There were no chakra fluctuations or any similar energy disturbances, so it probably wasn't going to explode.
Taking a deep breath, he worked up the courage to open it-and saw something that made his jaw drop.
There was no one else there, yet words were appearing in the diary out of thin air!
(July 4. Didn't pay attention to the weather today, but in my heart, it's a sunny day. This was my fifth time using a reward to draw from the level-two reward pool, and I finally got lucky for once. I actually awakened the two-tomoe Sharingan.)
Sasuke Uchiha froze at those words. There really was another member of the Uchiha Clan besides him!
And he had even awakened two tomoe. A smile instantly spread across Sasuke's face. At least he wasn't alone now. At least the burden of carrying on the Uchiha name no longer rested entirely on his shoulders.
Since the writer could see him, he was probably a student or a genin. A chunin might be in the Anbu or working as a teacher, while jonin generally kept out of sight.
Sasuke was sharp. A little thought was enough for him to deduce the writer's likely identity.
But what was going on with this diary? How could words appear out of thin air?
(I really got lucky, but the dangers ahead aren't something a two-tomoe Sharingan alone can solve. I still have to be careful, very careful. Besides, that bastard Danzo is always watching. If I reveal my Sharingan, he'll probably gouge out my eyes the next second.)
(At least I've gotten stronger. That's all for today. Good night, you twisted world. Everything will get better.)
As the final word appeared, the light slowly faded, and the diary returned to its ordinary state.
Sasuke Uchiha's mind went blank. What was going on? Why was the writer still so afraid after obtaining the Sharingan?
He had even said that revealing his Sharingan would get his eyes gouged out. How could that be possible?
"Danzo? Who's Danzo?"
"Am I dreaming?"
There had been far too much information today. Not just the miraculous diary, but more importantly, what was written inside it.
Sasuke lay back down on his bed, rubbed his head, and covered his eyes with his hand.
It didn't seem to be a dream.
He softly murmured a line from the diary and closed his eyes.
"Good night. Everything will get better."