Uchiha Senmon

Nakano Ward was a relatively small ward sandwiched between Shinjuku Ward and Suginami Ward, with Shibuya Ward to the south. Only three subway stops from Shinjuku, its convenient transport links attracted plenty of young people looking for a place to rent.

Large office complexes surrounded Nakano Station, and with the evening rush hour at five or six in full swing, Uchiha Naruto squeezed onto a packed train and struggled home.

Uchiha Naruto's home was a detached house in Yayoi-cho 2-chome, in southern Nakano Ward.

A detached house with its own entrance might look like a villa, but living in one was not necessarily more comfortable than living in an upscale apartment. For starters, stairs and hallways ate up a lot of usable space, and cleaning upstairs and downstairs was hard work. If the house had a yard, typhoon preparations, pest control, and weeding were even more of a headache.

Uchiha Naruto hesitated outside the door for quite a while. Having awakened the memories of his previous life, he had mixed feelings.

Still, Uchiha Naruto came from a single-parent family. His mother had died before he started elementary school, while his father was busy with work and frequently away on business. They spent far more time apart than together, and their relationship had grown increasingly distant. His father probably would not notice anything amiss.

When his father received news of Uchiha Naruto's traffic accident, he had rushed to the hospital overnight to see him. After the doctor said it was nothing serious, he had gone back to work the next day.

After changing his shoes, Uchiha Naruto went straight into the living room. His father, Uchiha Senmon, was sitting on the sofa and beckoned when he saw him.

"Naruto, you're home. Come sit here for a moment."

Although the Uchiha of this world were not the same clan as the Uchiha of the Shinobi World, they had one thing in common: they produced plenty of handsome men.

Uchiha Senmon was a famously handsome man in the neighborhood, with ink-black hair, sharp brows, and bright eyes. At thirty-six, he did not look middle-aged at all.

Although he worked at the Metropolitan Police Department, his glasses gave him a scholarly air. His black hair, a little too long from neglect, was simply tied back and hung over his chest. He looked gentle, refined, and unfailingly polite.

Uchiha Senmon had also been an outstanding student at the University of Tokyo, the first person from his home village in Shizuoka Prefecture to gain admission there.

Blessed with both good looks and an excellent education, he had passed the Metropolitan Police Department's recruitment exams after graduation and moved from the countryside to Tokyo. The only blemish on his otherwise enviable life was his wife's early death.

Though a widower, he was an excellent catch. There had always been a steady stream of people trying to set him up with someone, but he had turned them all down. Nearly ten years after his wife's death, he was still single.

However, Uchiha Senmon was extremely busy with work. Business trips lasting ten days or half a month were commonplace, and he was rarely around. His being home today was unusual.

"The hospital called and told me you'd been discharged. Didn't the doctor say it would be best to stay another couple of days for observation?" Uchiha Senmon asked with concern.

"I felt fine, so I left."

Uchiha Naruto knew that the more he said, the more likely he was to slip up, so he offered no further explanation.

Uchiha Senmon asked Uchiha Naruto:

"Now that I've seen you're all right, I can stop worrying. But you've only just come back from the hospital. Would you like me to ask your teacher for a couple of days off so you can rest before going back to school?"

"No need. Taking time off right after the term starts would leave a bad impression on my classmates and teachers. I'll go to class tomorrow."

Uchiha Senmon nodded without saying anything more. Just then, his phone suddenly rang.

He picked it up and listened for a moment. The lingering hint of casual ease on Uchiha Senmon's face vanished, replaced by a grave expression.

"What... a fire? All right, I'll be right there."

"Something's happened. I have to get to the Metropolitan Police Department. I've already ordered sushi, so eat it yourself when it arrives. Don't wait for me."

Uchiha Senmon stood, grabbed his jacket, and hurried toward the door.

Did he not even know his own son disliked sushi?

After hastily eating a meal he barely tasted, Uchiha Naruto returned to his room.

Unlike the room of an ordinary high school boy, Uchiha Naruto's room was spotless. There was not a speck of dust on the floor, and the bedding, folded with its corners neatly aligned, carried the fresh scent of laundry detergent.

The desk opposite the bed was crammed with study guides and workbooks, piled as high as a person's head.

Uchiha Naruto closed the door and sat at his desk. He recalled everything that had happened that day, then opened the system:

[ID: Uchiha Naruto]

[Rank: Genin]

[Skills: Sharingan LV1 (0/10), Fire Style LV2 (0/100), Three-Body Technique LV1 (0/10)]

Sharingan, Fire Style, and the Three-Body Technique were the three basic skills in the game's Uchiha Clan character template. Back when Uchiha Naruto played the game, he had collected not only Uchiha characters but ninja from other clans as well. Yet after crossing over, he had inherited only the Uchiha Clan's basic skills. He suspected this might be a butterfly effect caused by his coincidentally having the surname Uchiha in this world.

The system inventory also contained [Ninja Jewel ×10, Shadow Imitation Technique LV1]

Monsters in the game did drop Ninja Jewels, so Uchiha Naruto was not surprised when killing the tentacled monster and the evil spirit yielded them. A ninjutsu drop, however, caught him off guard. The game had never had that feature.

And why would an evil spirit drop something like that? Its ability to control other people's bodies through shadows was very similar to the Shadow Imitation Technique, but it was not ninjutsu.

He could only chalk it up to some change that had occurred during his crossing over and put it out of his mind for now.

"Fighting monsters to level up might be the classic route, but I don't really want anything to do with these monsters and spirits. I've lived in Tokyo for fifteen years in this life, and I've never heard any news about monsters eating people. Finding them wouldn't be easy, either. Besides, who knows how deep the waters run in this world? If I run into some powerful monster and get in over my head, I'm done for."

Although both encounters with the tentacled monster and the evil spirit had ended safely after a scare, he could not count on every supernatural creature being at that level. Great Tengu, Earth Spider, Shuten Doji, Yamata no Orochi-all the infamous, immensely powerful monsters of Japanese legend flashed through Uchiha Naruto's mind, making him increasingly wary.

If evil spirits and monsters existed, then supernatural practitioners such as onmyoji, Shinto priests, and Buddhist monks surely existed too. He just did not know how strong they were, or how they would regard him as the world's only "ninja."

More importantly, he did not know how much the authorities knew about these monsters and spirits.

In many popular light novels and manga, the authorities were little more than background scenery. They remained unmoved while the protagonists and villains-monsters, demon kings, aliens, and the like-turned cities upside down with their battles. Sometimes they did not even know what had happened.

Uchiha Naruto could not count on the real-world authorities being mere background scenery too.

There was no way the authorities knew nothing about supernatural beings, nor could they possibly have no interest in them. If they could keep those legendary monsters and spirits under control, preventing them from wreaking havoc in cities without so much as a rumor getting out, their strength had to be even more terrifying.

He did not think exposure would necessarily result in his being dissected for research, but being detained and investigated by the authorities would surely be unavoidable. Uchiha Naruto wanted no part of that.

The most frightening possibility was being dragged into battles against monsters as cannon fodder.

Until he understood the lay of the supernatural world and the authorities' attitude toward supernatural practitioners, he absolutely could not expose himself.

The monk Chiriku, whom he had impersonated with the Transformation Technique earlier, was merely an alias. The Naruto manga did not exist in this world, and with only a name to go on, that police officer would have no leads even if he wanted to investigate.

"If the sky falls, the tall ones will hold it up. Since human society has developed this far, monsters probably aren't that big a threat. It's not a Genin like me's turn to save the world yet."

"Better to play it safe. I'll set myself a small goal: unlock the three-tomoe Sharingan... no, unlock the Mangekyo Sharingan before I go out slaying monsters and taking Tokyo by storm!"

Uchiha Naruto certainly did not believe his One-Tomoe Sharingan and LV2 Fire Style could stand up to an army.

But unlocking the Mangekyo Sharingan would change things. With it, he would at least have enough power to protect himself, even against those legendary monsters and the machinery of a modern state.

Until then, he would keep a low profile, gather information, and train his skills in the training ground.

There were several feature icons at the bottom of the system's main page, with the training ground listed first. Every icon other than the training ground was blacked out and locked. Clicking them with his mind produced no response.

Perhaps some mishap during his crossing over had caused many of the game's original features to be lost when it became a system.

"I still have ten Ninja Jewels. I'll put them into the Sharingan first."

When Uchiha Naruto opened his eyes again, two tomoe appeared in them.

[Sharingan LV2 (0/100)]