Enemy attack

The first thing he saw was a familiar yet unfamiliar cream-colored ceiling.

In one corner was a fingernail-sized water stain shaped like a rabbit tilting its head.

It was one of the fragments of the body's original owner's memories that Madara Uchiha's brain had automatically retrieved after he woke.

He stared at the stain for two seconds, inexplicably relieved.

"At least it's a ceiling."

If it had been the sky, that would have been trouble.

That would have meant he might be lying on a park bench, under a bridge, or simply out in the wilderness.

A fifteen-year-old boy waking up somewhere like that had either run away from home or met with misfortune. Either way, it would attract unnecessary attention.

Besides, he had neither an interest in camping nor any memories of it.

He propped himself up on his arms and sat up.

Beneath him was a somewhat firm single mattress. The blanket covering him carried a faint sun-dried scent mixed with the lemon fragrance of cheap laundry detergent.

The room was small, about six tatami mats in size, with a layout typical of an old Tokyo apartment.

A desk stood right beside the bed, scattered with a few high school textbooks and notebooks. An old-fashioned flip phone lay beside them.

Faint sunlight seeped through a gap in the closed curtains, casting a narrow strip of light across the tatami.

Madara rubbed his temples.

A strange, persistent feeling of "fullness" swirled inside his skull, accompanied by mild dizziness and nausea.

"Ugh... weird memories are still burrowing in. This feels disgusting..."

He visibly gagged, his brows drawn tight.

The feeling was hard to describe, like being focused on eating when someone beside you suddenly started cleaning your ears without asking.

They weren't particularly rough, but you couldn't stop them. All you could do was endure the discomfort of that foreign intrusion, along with the confusion and nausea of having two senses forcibly occupied at once.

The memories pouring in were trivial yet specific:

The purpose of every corner of this room, the order of the clothes stacked in the closet, and how the bathroom faucet only gave hot water when turned all the way to the left.

When the convenience store downstairs discounted its boxed meals, how the landlady was an elderly woman named Nakamura who nagged a little but wasn't unkind, and how his bank card PIN was... stop.

These traces of his "predecessor's" life were forcibly merging with his own memories from Earth, as well as...

"Ugh... what a pain." He grumbled under his breath, his tone mixing annoyance with resignation.

Complaints aside, he quickly seized on the key issue.

Where was the power the god had promised?

That was the foundation for surviving in this unfamiliar world, and perhaps even continuing to "play."

"You properly converted my chakra into cursed energy, right? If not, I'm just going to give up." He muttered to himself, his voice sounding somewhat jarring in the quiet room.

It was a very necessary concern.

If the energy circulating inside him was still chakra from the world of Hokage, explaining himself would be an enormous headache once he used his abilities and the jujutsu sorcerers of this world noticed.

He had no desire to be dissected for research as an unknown cursed spirit or curse user.

Checking was simple.

Drawing on the basic knowledge of controlling power contained in the merged "Madara Uchiha template," he turned his awareness inward.

A sense of "flow" utterly different from chakra answered him.

Chakra was warm, active "life energy" produced by combining spiritual and physical energy.

What flowed through his meridians now, however, was a power that leaned more toward the "negative."

It originated from humanity's negative emotions, yet humans could tame and use it-this was cursed energy.

Madara raised his right hand and gave a slight mental nudge.

Ink-black energy quietly surfaced over his fist, faint yet stable, like flickering black flames.

"It worked." He breathed a sigh of relief and dispersed the cursed energy.

At least the energy systems were compatible. He wouldn't have to face the danger of exposing his identity right from the start.

But immediately afterward, another torrent of information, far vaster, more chaotic, and full of impact, slammed into his consciousness like a flood bursting through a dam!

"Urgh...!" Madara grunted and abruptly clutched his forehead as countless fragmented images flashed before his eyes.

A blue giant towering like a mountain, immense flames sweeping across a battlefield, endless dreams beneath cold moonlight... fragments of Madara Uchiha's proud, aloof, and defiant memories and emotions.

"Wait a second... why do Madara's memories have to go into my head too!? This feels so disgusting!!"

This time, the "nausea" was much stronger.

If receiving the original owner's memories was like having a stranger's diary forcibly stuffed into him.

Then receiving Madara Uchiha's memories was like having his head forcibly held beneath a bottomless sea of memories.

That enormous volume of information and those intense emotional imprints nearly washed away his sense of self as a "boy from Earth."

Especially the indifference toward killing and the practiced ease with it imprinted deep within.

Madara lowered his hand. His eyes briefly went unfocused and cold before clarity returned.

But a trace of something strange, difficult to erase, had already colored their depths.

He looked down at his open palms, which still had a boy's slenderness.

"All that combat experience entering my mind... now even killing someone doesn't feel like a big deal..." he murmured, his voice flat, yet carrying a barely perceptible hint of self-mockery and wariness.

"Three seconds of silence for how I've changed..."

He closed his eyes and remained silent for three seconds, a ritual to sever himself from his ordinary life of the past.

Then he reached out and picked up the old flip phone on the desk.

He pressed a button to light up the screen.

The time read: January 3, 2018, 7:14 a.m.

"2018... January third." Madara repeated the date, his gaze shifting slightly.

The memories of the boy from Earth began connecting with his knowledge of this world's background.

"The Night Parade of a Hundred Demons... has it already happened?"

He remembered that incident.

The large-scale terrorist attack Suguru Geto had launched against ordinary people had ultimately ended in his death.

He couldn't remember the exact date, but it had definitely been before the end of 2017.

"I thought I might be able to save Suguru Geto..." He clicked his tongue softly, unable to say whether it was regret or something else.

As someone who had watched "Jujutsu Kaisen," although his memories had grown somewhat hazy and he only remembered the main characters and key plot points, he had complicated feelings about that special grade curse user who had gone astray.

Saving him might have changed many things, or it might have made the world even more chaotic.

But now, that option had vanished with the passage of time.

"So what should I do now?" He put down the phone and surveyed the cramped shelter that belonged to him for the moment.

The god had dumped him here, given him power and an identity, but provided no mission instructions.

"Did you drop me into an open-world game? There's not even a main quest prompt..."

He stood, walked to the window, and lifted a corner of the curtain.

Outside was the residential streetscape found everywhere in Tokyo, with only a few pedestrians on the early morning street.

Everything felt far too real.

"Maybe I'll look around first... forget it." He let the curtain fall, then turned and leaned back against the wall.

"You gave me power, anyway. From here on, I'll do things my own way."

If there was no script, he would write his own. That was pressure, but it was freedom too.

He began examining the changes in himself more carefully. All of Madara Uchiha's abilities-the Sharingan, his enormous chakra reserves, his extensive knowledge of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu, his combat intelligence...

They were like an immense library of skills and database imprinted deep within his soul, waiting to be accessed.

But there was one crucial thing the template couldn't grant him directly.

He clenched his fists, then did a few simple stretches.

His body gave him the feeling of an immature fifteen-year-old boy who had yet to finish growing.

Muscular power, bone strength, nerve response speed... this was the body of an ordinary fifteen-year-old human boy.

"I inherited all of Madara Uchiha's abilities, but not Madara Uchiha's body... that's the biggest headache."

This meant that even if he possessed Madara Uchiha's perception, capable of seeing through every movement.

Even if his combat awareness could predict an opponent's actions ten moves ahead.

His body might very well fail to keep up with his mind's commands.

In high-speed close combat, if his thoughts arrived but his movements lagged half a beat behind, the result would be a fatal opening.

"Looks like I'll have to start training as soon as possible..." Madara murmured, already beginning to plan basic fitness and reaction training in his mind.

However exquisite the Uchiha's taijutsu techniques were, they still required a corresponding physical foundation to execute.

With the relevant knowledge at hand, though, he should be able to achieve twice the results with half the effort.

Just then-

An aura filled with malice abruptly spread through his perception, like a drop of ink falling into still water.

Madara whipped his head around, his sharp gaze piercing toward the window-not the street outside, but farther up!

"A curse?" he judged instinctively.

The nature of this "aura" shared the same origin as the cursed energy he had just become familiar with inside himself, but it was far more frenzied, filled with an undisguised desire for destruction.

And it was approaching fast! Its target... seemed to be this apartment building!

Madara Uchiha's combat instincts, honed through countless life-and-death struggles, instantly took over. Unfortunately, his body was a step slower than his thoughts.

Madara reflexively raised his palm, fingers slightly spread. The cold cursed energy inside him surged, instantly gathering in his palm to form a defensive layer tough enough to withstand a blow.

His eyes stayed fixed on the view outside the window, predicting the possible trajectory of the incoming attack.

However-

Bang!!! Crash-!!!

The violent impact and the roar of shattering masonry came not from outside the window, but...

Overhead!

Dust sifted down from the ceiling.

Madara instantly withdrew the cursed energy in his palm and looked up.

The attack had come from upstairs! He had misjudged the direction!

The pressure of the cursed energy he had just sensed had been so intense that he had instinctively assumed it was a large-scale attack from outside. He hadn't expected a precise, targeted strike upstairs!

"Did I misjudge it? Upstairs..." Madara's expression shifted slightly as he quickly retrieved the original owner's memories.

"Isn't that the landlady's room!?"

In his memories, the elderly woman lived directly above him, in an apartment with the same layout.

"Tch!"

Without a moment's hesitation, Madara yanked open the door and rushed out.

The old apartment building's staircase was narrow and dim. He raced upward, taking several steps at a time, while the stairs creaked under the strain.

He rapidly calculated in his mind. The reason driving him to act was simple and practical.

Don't die. Where am I supposed to live if you die? Do I really have to find another place? Paying a deposit and key money, finding a guarantor-what a hassle! Besides, the rent here is pretty cheap...