A shrill alarm blared through the stillness of early morning.
A hand flailed out from beneath the covers, smacking around in search of the snooze button. Missed once. Twice. Then came a groggy growl, followed by a sudden crack—the clock shattered under a frustrated blow.
Silence.
With a groan, the young man sat up, his messy hair a battlefield of sleep and sweat. Stretching with a series of pops and satisfying cracks, he muttered something unintelligible under his breath before finally standing.
As he shuffled toward the bathroom, his gaze drifted to a nearby table.
An orange mask stared back at him—spiraled, emotionless. Beside it lay a folded cloak adorned with red clouds.
He paid them no mind, trudging into the bathroom and splashing cold water on his face to wash away the last traces of sleep.
He looked up.
Sharp facial features, black spiky hair, and eyes that were normally onyx black—until they shifted. Crimson pooled into his irises, three tomoe forming smoothly before twisting into a more intricate design: the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, patterned like a war god's seal.
Then, just as quickly, they faded back to black.
Sam sighed. "Still not used to that."
After a quick breakfast—eggs, toast, and instant coffee, the holy trinity of tired men everywhere—he changed into his blue mailman uniform. Slinging his bag over one shoulder, he gave himself a once-over, then glanced at the remains of his poor alarm clock on the nightstand.
"I really need to stop doing that," he muttered.
He stepped outside into the crisp morning air, locking the door behind him.
"Hey Sam, how're you doing, my boy?"
Here we go again, Sam thought as he spotted his neighbor, Mr. Barclay, standing by his white picket fence, newspaper in one hand and a big smile on his weathered face.
Sam knew the man well. Once Mr. Barclay started talking, he didn't stop. One topic turned into five, which spiraled into a dissertation on local politics, the war, and why sandwiches tasted better in 1973. Sam had mastered the art of walking responses—polite enough to be neighborly, quick enough to escape.
"Morning, Mr. Barclay," Sam said, already heading down the path.
"Doing just fine—if you don't count my back pains, as always!" the old man chuckled, shuffling closer to the fence.
"Why don't you see a doctor for once?" Sam asked over his shoulder as he closed the gate behind him.
"Going to the hospital means your days are numbered, and I've still got a good decade to go!" Barclay called proudly.
Sam let out a short laugh. "Alright, you do you—and I'll do me," he said, already turning the corner.
He could still hear the old man muttering about "kids these days" and "back in my time," but it faded into the morning buzz of Star City.
Annoying, sure. But harmless. Mr. Barclay was too kind for Sam to truly dislike. Occasionally, when he had time, he'd even hang out with the man.
Yes, his name was Sam. Sam Anderson now—but it wasn't on any birth certificate. Not in this world, anyway.
He had transmigrated into this universe seven months ago.
One second, he'd been a regular guy on Earth. The next? He woke up in a cold alley, naked, confused, and inside a body that wasn't his.
That first week was chaos.
No phone. No ID. No idea where—or who—he was. But thankfully, he wasn't completely alone.
Because he had a Goldfinger—a Template System, to be exact. The kind every isekai nerd dreams about. And his first template?
Madara Uchiha.
The system didn't just hand him power. He had to earn it—fight, kill, grow. But even at just 10% synchronization, it was enough to beat a gang of thugs, steal some clothes, and walk out of that alley with his first few bucks and a pair of jeans two sizes too small.
The real problem came when he tried to find a place to sleep that wasn't a park bench.
That's when he realized the obvious: he didn't exist.
No driver's license. No social security number. No school records. No fingerprints or facial recognition hits. Nothing. He was a ghost.
At first, he didn't think it was a big deal. He figured he could just rent a cheap motel and lay low.
But when the guy at the front desk asked for ID, Sam froze. "I lost it," he said.
The man narrowed his eyes. "Alright. What's your name and number? I can pull you up."
Sam panicked and gave the most generic name he could think of: "John Smith."
Nothing. Not a single match.
Even fake names usually brought up something. Not him.
So he improvised.
He tracked down a small-time forger named Rico, beat the man until he talked, and walked away with fake papers: a birth certificate, social number, job history, even a postal test record.
The name he chose?
Sam Bullock. Civilian enough to fly under the radar. A month later, he filed for a name change to Sam Anderson—something more personal.
With that ID, he managed to rent a dingy apartment for two months. Later, with more "liberated" cash, he put a down payment on a permanent place. He was still paying it off in monthly installments—legitimately, through his mailman paycheck.
By day, he was Sam Anderson: quiet civilian, low-income worker, the guy who waved at neighbors and delivered bills.
By night, he became Tobi, the Masked Menace.
He wasn't a hero. Not by their standards. And he didn't want to be one.
He had his own code. Rapists. Child traffickers. Cold-blooded murderers. The kind of monsters hiding behind human faces. Those people didn't get a second chance. They got a one-way trip to the afterlife.
That reputation—stealing from criminals, killing the worst of the worst—earned him a spot on both villains' hit lists and heroes' watch lists.
He'd clashed with a few costumed do-gooders already. Sometimes, he did it just to measure Madara's template against them. To see how he stacked up at different synchronization levels.
As he adjusted the strap on his mailbag and turned the corner, he hummed softly to himself.
Life here wasn't so bad—if you had strength and knew one rule: never take public transportation.
Because Sam had tried it once.
One rainy afternoon, he told himself: Just this once. What could go wrong?
Eight minutes into that bus ride, some wannabe anarchist pressed a gun to his temple, screaming about oppression and justice and how the whole bus was rigged with explosives.
"On the ground!" the man shouted.
Sam complied. Couldn't exactly blow his cover in front of civilians. Sure, he could've handled the guy, but explaining away that kind of skill wasn't worth it.
Still, the memory stuck with him.
The guy with the gun? He wasn't dead. But Tobi made sure he'd never point a weapon at anyone again. Last Sam heard, the man was in intensive care—eating through a straw, screaming in his sleep.
No one connected the dots. Sam was too careful. Too good.
Green Arrow and his sidekick eventually stormed in with their cringe one-liners, saving the day.
But Sam didn't wait for heroes anymore. That night, walking home in the rain, he made a promise to himself:
"No more buses. Ever."
He could take a bullet. He could take a beating.
But sit in a metal box waiting for a maniac to yell 'Everyone down!' while heroes and villains duked it out around him?
Nah. Hard pass.