That afternoon, the fly-headed cursed spirit plastered against the glass didn’t even get a chance to shriek before a flash of cold light shredded it into drifting ash.
After handling that little nuisance and finishing up the council paperwork, by the time he cleaned up the room and stepped out, the sun had fully set.
Night had fallen.
Neon lights took over where the daylight left off.
Uchiha Ayato’s apartment was in a mid-to-high-end building in Toshima Ward.
Not exactly a luxury penthouse, but it blew whatever they had over in Akabane completely out of the water.
The sofa sat in the middle of the living room.
Along the wall, a solid wood display cabinet held rows of organized case files and a few anti-surveillance mini cameras.
Tucked in the corner of the room, seemingly at random, sat a Roland FANTOM-8 that cost more than most people’s monthly salaries.
A sixteen-year-old orphan with nothing on paper should not have been able to afford six-figure monthly rent.
All of this came from Uchiha Ayato’s side work.
He’d been an orphan in this world too, so he’d started planning his own path from early on.
After finishing primary school, he left the welfare facility and started making his own way in the world.
Using his age as cover — plus a handy Transformation Jutsu, a Shadow Clone or two, and a few crows under a genjutsu to do some covert photography — he’d built himself a pretty solid reputation in the underground private investigation business.
Digging up a politician’s backroom deals?
Snapping a photo of a wealthy housewife’s husband in a compromising position?
Easy money, straight into his pocket.
Honest work — boring, sure.
“Ugh, dealing with monsters is so much easier than babysitting middle school girls.” A lazy mutter drifted down from the ceiling.
Uchiha Ayato was upside down, fresh out of the shower, his still-damp black hair hanging loose, feet planted flat against the ceiling.
He had his phone in both hands, thumbs flying across the screen.
Concentrating chakra evenly through the soles of his feet to hold this anti-gravity position was just his everyday baseline training for chakra control.
Ding.
Line confirmed delivery.
The chat window was full of what he’d just typed: Anon, what I said this afternoon went way too far.
The moment I watched you walk out, I felt awful.
Hurting you with my words was never my intention.
Knowing you might actually be going somewhere far away…
I guess I just don’t know what to do with that feeling.
Maybe you’re right.
I think I really am going to miss you.
Absolutely dripping with sentiment.
Hard to imagine this was a middle school boy texting a girl who wasn’t even his girlfriend.
Ayato didn’t even blink.
“This should have her bouncing back to normal by tomorrow.” Ayato knew Anon would forgive him.
Because that was just the kind of person she was — practically a saint.
Even when she was furious at him, all you had to do was put her on a pedestal, smooth her ruffled feathers a little, and her temper would pop like a pricked balloon and vanish without a trace.
Ayato tossed his phone aside and was about to flip off the ceiling.
Then he went completely still.
A thread of something ordinary people would never be able to sense — thick, cold, and deeply unpleasant — rolled in from two streets away, carrying the smell of rust and open sewers.
By this world’s grading system, it was probably sitting around Grade 1 in cursed spirit terms.
“Tch.” Uchiha Ayato scrunched up his face and raked a hand through his hair.
“A cursed spirit, huh…” “Great timing.
Had to show up right when I was about to sleep.
Can’t catch a break…” Meanwhile, in a house with a garden somewhere nearby.
“AAAAAAAHHH——!” Chihaya Anon had wrapped herself up in her duvet and was writhing across her mattress like a caterpillar having a crisis.
THUNK.
Her knee slammed into the wall, but she barely noticed.
She flung the covers off and sat bolt upright.
Her eyes were practically sparkling with barely-contained excitement, and the glow of her phone screen lit up her flushed cheeks.
She’d read those messages at least five times from start to finish by now.
“I KNEW IT!” “I KNEW Ayarin couldn’t stand the thought of me leaving!” Anon sucked in a deep breath and pressed the phone hard against her flat chest.
She tilted her head back and stared dead at the bedroom ceiling, the corners of her mouth pulling up into a smile with a dangerously high sugar content: “Hehehe…” “Says all those terrible things with his mouth, but deep down I’ve clearly got him completely wrapped around my finger…” “Ayato-kun, love~” Two streets over, Uchiha Ayato stood at his window.
His pupils contracted.
The black irises drained of color in an instant, replaced by a creeping, eerie crimson.
Two black tomoe spun rapidly at the edges of his pupils.
The world his retinas captured shifted.
The foul-smelling current that had been hiding in the darkness of the night was now visible — a series of deep violet smoky tendrils, clear as day.
Every time the source of that cursed energy shifted, the concrete walls it passed through groaned under the strain and cracked.
Uchiha Ayato glanced toward the living room.
He’d just renewed his lease for the coming year.
This thing was heading in a perfectly straight line.
Straight through his apartment.
If he didn’t stop it, he’d be looking for a new place tomorrow morning.
“Moving again would be such a pain.” He sighed, grabbed his phone off the sofa and chucked it onto the cushion, then opened his wardrobe and pulled out a windbreaker to conceal his gear.
But before heading out, might as well check his stats real quick — [Name: Uchiha Ayato Chakra: 349,995 / 350,000 MEGA Sharingan: Two-Tomoe Ninjutsu: Chakra Sensing, Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu, Fire Style: Flame-Extinguishing Blast, Fire Style: Great Dragon Fire Jutsu, Wind Style: Vacuum Sphere, Wind Style: Wind Cutter, Lightning Style: Chidori, Lightning Style: Kirin…
Rank: Genin (Chunin Exams not yet passed)] Based on past experience, a Grade 1 cursed spirit’s chakra (cursed energy) usually sat somewhere in the 10,000 to 30,000 range, while Special Grade ones ran from 100,000 to 300,000 — a whole tier above.
Of course, chakra volume wasn’t the only thing that mattered.
Even with an overwhelming advantage in raw energy, if your opponent had a weird enough bag of tricks, you could still get caught out.
The real threat level would only become clear on the ground.
System panel closed.
Chakra gathered at his feet.
Uchiha Ayato stepped out lightly, and like a crow spreading its wings, he dissolved into the Tokyo night.
Two streets over in a residential block, a streetlight flickered twice with a crackling buzz, then gave up entirely.
A monster was pressed against the side of an apartment building — something that resembled a warped gecko, its body covered in human severed limbs.
Its enormous eyes reflected the warm glow of a thousand lit windows.
The sticky drool dripping from the corner of its mouth instantly ate through the security grille it landed on.
It was a Grade 1 cursed spirit born from humanity’s collective fear of home invasion — the kind that posed a serious threat to human lives.
The cursed spirit’s eyes caught a dark silhouette dropping from above.
It let out a piercing shriek and coiled its massive body tight as a drawn bow.
Yawn.
“Way too slow.
You’re so full of openings it’s embarrassing.” Ayato’s voice came from directly above it.
The Sharingan’s dynamic vision stretched every one of the cursed spirit’s movements into a frame-by-frame slideshow.
He formed hand seals in an instant.
Chakra compressed furiously in his palm, and the high-frequency vibration of lightning-natured chakra tore through the air.
Blinding white light lit up half the street.
Lightning Style: Chidori.
No drawn-out standoff.
Ayato’s figure cut a sharp arc through the air, passing clean through the cursed spirit in a single stroke.
The moment the lightning died, the cursed spirit’s massive body exploded apart.
The smell of scorched flesh buried the original stench.
A Grade 1 cursed spirit — with no room to even struggle — was exorcised in seconds flat.
“No real challenge, but I still got a little dirt on my jacket.” Ayato shook the residual arcs off his right hand.
The tips of his hair drifted in the air pressure.
A pale blue glowing panel materialized in midair, pushing back a small pocket of the night — [Long-Term Mission: Return one thousand summoned creatures to the Three Great Sage Lands.
(369/1000).
Reward: Sage Mode] Even after seeing that prompt close to four hundred times, Ayato still found it a bit much.
Like, how on earth does a cursed spirit count as a summoned creature?
The urge to complain was intense.
“Oh ho ho, no wonder Ijichi’s reports have been saying these few blocks have been unusually quiet lately…” “Turns out there’s been a good Samaritan cleaning up in the shadows this whole time~” “And pretty efficient too, I must say.” “Not bad, not bad~” Uchiha Ayato: !!!
To be continued…