"Huh… where am I?"
The words left my mouth before I could think. My throat was dry, my voice trembling. Smoke stung my nose, and a faint heat pressed against my face. When I forced my eyes open, I froze.
Everything around me was gone.
The village—what was left of it—was nothing but a field of blackened rubble. Charred beams jutted from the earth like broken ribs. The air reeked of blood and ash. A half-burnt banner fluttered weakly from a post, its clan symbol barely visible through the soot.
I stood there, numb. "What… happened here?"
A sharp pain suddenly tore through my head. My knees buckled, and I clutched my temples as flashes of foreign memories crashed into me like a raging tide. Names, faces, voices—emotions that weren't mine yet felt familiar.
When the pain finally eased, I gasped for air, blinking through the haze.
Fragments of truth began to piece themselves together.
My name—no, this body's name—was Tamashira Makato, the youngest son of the Tamashira Clan's leader. A small, relatively unknown clan of around three to four hundred people, with less than a hundred trained ninjas among them.
A few jōnin. A handful of special jōnin. Twenty or so chūnin. The rest were genin.
In this chaotic Warring States Era, even that was considered decent. Entire clans disappeared overnight—slaughtered, burned, erased from existence. Survival itself was strength.
But now, standing amidst the ruins, I realized we hadn't survived.
A bitter sigh escaped my lips. "So… this is real."
My last clear memory before waking here wasn't from this world at all. I'd been sitting on my couch, lazily watching the Naruto anime. Hashirama and Madara were fighting their final battle, their chakra shaking the screen. Then the flash of reconciliation, the birth of Konoha—
—and then nothing.
Darkness.
And now I was here.
Tamashira Makato. Eleven years old. Genin-level strength. The youngest son of a dead clan in the middle of a war-torn era.
I let out a small, humorless laugh. "Just my luck."
From Makato's inherited memories, I recalled bits of his life. His mother had died giving birth to him—a tragedy too common in this brutal age. His father, the clan leader, was a busy man, strict but fair. He had two older brothers: one five years older, the other three. Both were chūnin, talented and hardworking, rarely home due to missions.
Makato himself… was ordinary. Maybe a little talented compared to others his age, but nowhere near a prodigy. Strong enough to hold his own in genin missions, weak enough to die if he met a real jōnin on the battlefield.
I exhaled slowly. "So that's the situation."
The first thing I needed to do was simple: survive.
Wandering through the debris, I tried to think logically. The attackers might return, and staying here meant death. But before leaving, I needed resources—money, supplies, anything that could help me last.
A faint memory surfaced: a hidden compartment under the tatami in my old room, where Makato used to stash his savings. He'd sit there after training, watching the sunset, dreaming of adventure.
I hurried to what remained of the clan compound. The building was barely standing, its walls blackened and beams cracked. Carefully, I made my way inside, stepping over collapsed wood until I reached what had once been my room.
The tatami mat was half-burnt but still recognizable. I lifted it, revealing a small wooden space beneath. Inside were several bundles of ryō wrapped in old cloth. My heart skipped.
Still intact.
I counted quickly—five hundred thousand ryō. Not much by noble standards, but enough for a single shinobi to survive several months. Relief flooded through me.
"At least this survived," I whispered.
I sealed the money into a small scroll I found nearby and stood, brushing off the dust from my clothes. The world was silent except for the faint crackle of distant flames.
When I reached the village entrance, I spotted movement. A few figures stood together—survivors. I recognized some faces from the body's memories: comrades from the last mission I'd supposedly been on. Their expressions were grim, their uniforms torn and bloodied.
Our jōnin captain, a broad-shouldered man with a scar running across his left cheek, was speaking quietly.
"Now that everyone's here, we're leaving," he said. "It's not safe. Whoever did this might come back to finish the job."
A boy near me—about my age—asked, "But, Captain, where do we go? The forests are full of scouts."
Before anyone else could answer, I spoke. "We should go to a nearby town. Stay at an inn. Our enemies will expect us to hide in the woods or mountains, not in plain sight. It's safer, at least for a while."
The jōnin studied me, then nodded slowly. "Good thinking. We'll follow that plan."
No one objected. We were too tired to argue.
The journey took about an hour. The road was quiet except for the crunch of dirt underfoot. The morning sun rose higher, turning the sky a soft gold.
When we finally reached the town gates, I exhaled. The settlement was large—bustling with merchants, travelers, and shinobi. Five medium-sized clans shared control of this place, each running their own trade networks.
I didn't know that from the body's memories. I knew it from anime. The Uchiha were famous for forging weapons and handling security. The Senju dabbled in agriculture, cotton, and medicine. The Sarutobi and Shimura clans managed transport and tobacco.
It was strange, using knowledge from fiction to analyze reality—but in this world, it might be my only advantage.
We entered quietly, avoiding attention. The jōnin led us to an inn tucked between a blacksmith and a tea shop. The building was sturdy, clean, and—most importantly—neutral.
The innkeeper, a sharp-eyed woman, looked at us but didn't ask questions. She accepted our payment—double the usual rate—and gave us rooms. In this era, secrecy cost money, and we all knew it was worth every ryō.
Inside my small room, I collapsed onto the futon, my body aching with exhaustion. The ceiling above me was wooden and cracked, but solid enough. For the first time since waking, I allowed myself to breathe.
My modern memories crept back—my small apartment, my boring job, my lazy weekends. Compared to this, that life felt like paradise.
But there was no going back.
This world was real now. The war, the blood, the fear—everything. The anime I once watched for entertainment had become the stage I had to survive in.
I stared at the ceiling, whispering to myself, "Alright, Makato… let's first survive."
The last thing I remembered before sleep took me was the distant sound of laughter from the street below—a rare sound of life in a dying world.