Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
Uesugi Sasuke's mind went blank. He wanted to scream, but only hoarse, breathy sounds escaped his throat.
That face was twisted, hideous, filled with the utmost malice toward life.
Those eyes were scarlet and bloodthirsty, reflecting his own face, frozen in terror.
Fear gripped him like countless icy hands reaching from every direction, holding him so tightly that he could not move.
"Another... meal..."
The monster split its mouth in a grin, its voice like two pieces of rusty iron scraping together.
It moved.
One second, it was beside his father's corpse; the next, a blur lunged right in front of Sasuke.
So fast!
So fast my eyes can't keep up at all!
The breath of death rushed toward him, the thick stench of blood nearly suffocating him.
At that critical instant, the instinct to survive overpowered his fear.
"Aaaaaah!"
Sasuke let out a roar he could barely hear himself, shut his eyes, and swung the billhook in his hand wildly forward.
But this was only a child's futile struggle.
Smack!
A sharp sound rang out.
He felt tremendous force surge through the billhook, instantly splitting the web of skin between his thumb and forefinger.
The billhook flew out of his grasp, spinning through the air before burying itself deep in a roof beam.
Immediately afterward, a claw covered in bulging veins and tipped with sharp nails struck his chest with ease.
Thud!
Sasuke felt himself fly like a rag doll, his back slamming hard into the wall before he slid to the floor.
"Pfft!"
He spat out a mouthful of blood, fierce pain radiating from his chest.
He could clearly feel that at least two of his ribs had broken.
His consciousness began to blur, and his vision grew dim.
Despair.
Utter despair.
So this is the gap between humans and demons?
I can't even fight back.
Like a bug crushed underfoot, I can only wait helplessly for death.
The monster approached him step by step, savoring its prey's final struggles.
To Sasuke, its footsteps sounded like the tolling of death's bell.
"It's over..."
Watching that hideous face draw closer and closer, Sasuke slowly closed his eyes.
Father, Mother...
I'm sorry...
I'm coming to join you...
But...
I can't accept this!
Why!
Why did our home have to be destroyed!
Why did I have to watch you get killed, powerless to do anything!
Kill it!
I want to kill it so badly!
Tear it into pieces!
At the very instant Sasuke's consciousness was about to be swallowed by darkness, at the very instant that claw was about to touch his forehead.
An intense hatred, powerful enough to nearly tear his soul apart, erupted from the deepest recesses of his heart!
[Ding!]
A crisp mechanical notification, utterly out of place in this bloody world, thundered through his mind!
[Intense desire for revenge detected in host... binding conditions met...] [Sasuke Template System... activated!] [Template integration in progress...]
"What is that?"
The monster stopped, looking at the boy before it in confusion.
It sensed a trace of strange energy fluctuations.
The next second.
An immense torrent of information, like floodwater bursting through a dam, violently crashed into Sasuke's brain!
These were not memories, but an infusion of "knowledge" on a higher level.
Chakra...
Ninjutsu...
Taijutsu...
Genjutsu...
Sharingan...
Chidori...
Countless unfamiliar terms and images turned into torrents of data, forcibly branding themselves into the depths of his soul.
"Urgh!"
Sasuke let out a muffled groan of pain. His head felt as though it were about to burst from the inside.
At the same time, a warm, powerful energy surged from some unknown source within his body, quickly flowing through every limb and bone.
A tingling itch spread through his broken ribs, and the pain was actually fading rapidly!
Something even more incredible happened.
The coarse cloth clothing he wore actually began to break down into specks of blue light, dissolving into the air.
In its place appeared a dark blue, high-collared, short-sleeved training shirt and a pair of white shorts.
In his hand, inside the fist clenched tight with fear, a cold metal object appeared out of thin air.
The object had an unusual shape, like a short sword without a hilt, with a ring at its base.
"Kunai."
A name surfaced naturally in his mind.
As though he had been born knowing it, born to wield it.
All these changes happened in a single brief instant.
When Sasuke opened his eyes again, the terror and despair in them had already faded.
In their place were a calm utterly at odds with his age, cold as thousand-year-old ice, and a searing, deeply ingrained hatred so intense it almost took physical form!
Before you continue