Chapter 1: The Late Arrival
The setting sun painted the streets of Konoha in hues of orange and purple. Shuichi Mayumi walked the familiar path home, his pace slow and measured. The long shadow stretching behind him was missing an arm, a silent testament to the night that had shattered his world.
Ten years.
A full decade had passed since the "gold-medal employee" of the God of Time—a truck—had brought him to this village hidden in the leaves. He arrived as a civilian child, just old enough to enter the Ninja Academy, his mind buzzing with a "dog-raised system" that promised nothing.
Back then, Shuichi had been filled with naive fantasies. He'd read the stories. He imagined himself punching Uchiha Madara, kicking Hashirama Senju, and ascending to the pinnacle of the ninja world. The future seemed a playground for his ambition.
Reality proved colder.
In his second year, his father, a simple chunin named Naoto Mayumi, was buried at the tail end of the Second Great Shinobi War. The system remained silent.
That was his first clue that something was deeply wrong. Undeterred, Shuichi resolved to become a ninja through his own effort. He trained until his muscles screamed, asked for advice with humbling earnestness, and studied every scrap of theory he could find.
Yet, no matter how hard he tried, he could not refine chakra. Not a single wisp. It wasn't a matter of difficulty or poor aptitude; it was a complete absence, like a congenital defect that sealed his fate.
By the fourth year, he was ten. His mother succumbed to illness. The last thread of family and income snapped, leaving him utterly alone. Four years of futile struggle had carved a harsh truth into his heart: effort meant nothing. He could not be a ninja. He was, in the eyes of this world, broken.
The ridicule from his peers first stung, then, after his parents' deaths, morphed into a pity that pierced deeper than any insult. He left the Academy. Using meager relief funds, he began taking any odd job he could find in the village, his dreams of glory traded for simple survival.
The seventh year brought a flicker of hope. Through relentless saving, he amassed a small sum. He rented a storefront and, calling on skills from a life half-remembered, opened a small restaurant. The flavors were unique, the prices fair. To his stunned relief, it thrived. The shop became a bustling hub, and the profits allowed him to finally buy his own property. For the first time, he had built something solid.
Then came the Kyuubi.
Last year, the Nine-Tails' rampage turned his hard-won stability to splinters and dust. His shop was obliterated. That night, business had been too good to close early. When the colossal tail swept through the street, he was buried.
They dug him out alive, but his right arm was a lost cause. He woke up in the hospital, a disabled man in a world that had little use for one.
Through the pain and the terror, the system—his silent, useless companion—remained as dead as stone. No activation. No help. Shuichi's anger at it was a brief, hot flare, quickly smothered by a crushing wave of helplessness. He didn't even understand why he was here.
Now, he lived off dwindling savings. A missing arm made returning to the kitchen a distant dream. He'd hired two apprentices for the rebuild, but their results were… disappointing. They weren't incompetent, just leagues away from the skill he himself had possessed.
Shuichi reached his newly built apartment, a smaller, plainer replacement for his old home. The key turned with a familiar click. The interior was tidy, almost stark—cleaning had become a way to fill the empty days. He moved to the refrigerator, the motion practiced and one-armed, and retrieved a single, cold can of beer.
The first sip was a sharp, familiar comfort.
"Heh. I'm not even human anymore, but you… you're a real dog," he muttered to the empty air, a decade of bitterness in the words. Insulting the absent system was a hollow habit, a way to vent.
[Host detected. Binding…]
Shuichi froze, the can halfway to his lips. He frowned, listening intently. Silence.
Auditory hallucination. Too much wishing, he decided, and took another long drink. As if a beer could wake a ten-year coma.
[Ding. Binding successful. The Strongest Ghost King System is at your service.]
The can hit the floor with a metallic clatter, beer foaming across the clean floorboards.
It… wasn't a hallucination. The damn thing was back. Alive. Now, of all times.
A torrent of rage, bottled for years, surged up his throat. But before he could unleash it, the system's name registered: The Strongest Ghost King System. It sounded absurd, yet somehow fitting for his cursed luck.
"You sick piece of…" Shuichi began, his voice low and trembling. He took a sharp, steadying breath. "We came here together! Where were you? Do you have any idea what the last ten years have been like? Look at me!" He gestured violently with his empty sleeve. "I lost my arm! And 'Strongest Ghost King System'? I'm almost a ghost already! You should call yourself the 'Strongest Masochist System!'"
"Host, please remain calm." The system's voice was a flat, neutral tone in his mind. "I was merely… lost on the path of life. My arrival is only slightly delayed."
"Slightly delayed?" Shuichi echoed, his voice dripping with incredulous venom. "Ten years! You call ten years a slight delay? Another 'slight delay' and I'd be putting a tombstone over your grave! I'd train stray dogs to pee on it every day!"
"Ahem. Host, let us focus on civility and solutions." The system interjected smoothly, cutting off his tirade. "The matter of your arm is trivial. If the host is willing, I can restore it immediately."
The anger died in Shuichi's throat. He looked down at the empty sleeve, the phantom itch of a missing limb suddenly acute. The promise, however suspicious, was a lure he couldn't ignore. To be whole again…
"Really?" The word came out quiet, stripped of its earlier heat.
The system did not reply with words. Instead, a semi-transparent screen materialized before his eyes, simple and clear.
Initialization Reward: Demon King Template (Basic)
Fusion Requirement: User must be in a 'non-living' state.
Note: Fusion will reshape host's existence based on current physical template.
Shuichi stared. Demon King Template. Not 'Ghost King' as the system's name implied, but something called 'Demon King'. The requirement was stark: 'non-living state'. Because he was missing an arm in life, would it make him a ghost missing an arm? But a 'Demon King'… that sounded less like a pitiful spirit and more like a force.
He hesitated, his mind racing over a decade of humiliation, powerlessness, and loss. The Kyuubi's roar echoed in his memory, the crunch of rubble, the finality of the surgeon's words.
A slow, cold resolve settled in his chest.
To hell with it. A human life brought me nothing but pain.
The fantasies of his first days were ashes. The humble success of his restaurant was rubble. His body was broken. Konoha had given him only hardship.
If being human in this world meant being a crippled bystander to its chaos, then he would cease to be human.
"Fuse it," Shuichi Mayumi said, his voice flat and final.
There was no dramatic flash of light, no surge of pain. Instead, a profound coldness began at his core, seeping outward like ink in water. The sensation in his sole remaining arm faded, replaced by a strange, solid stillness. The rhythms of his heart and breath simply… stopped. Yet, he did not fall. Awareness remained, sharper and clearer than ever.
He looked at his left hand. The skin was pale, almost luminous in the dim room, but it was whole, solid, and brimming with a quiet, terrifying strength. He flexed the fingers, feeling no muscle strain, only pure, controlled power. The empty right sleeve of his shirt now hung flat against a newly formed limb, a perfect mirror of the left.
He was not a ghost. He was something else. Something remade.
A new, deeper notification echoed in the silent chamber of his mind.
[Ding. Congratulations to the host for successfully fusing with the basic 'Demon King Template.' You have been registered as a member of The Twelve Kizuki. Awaiting further directives.]
Shuichi Mayumi stood motionless in his clean, quiet apartment. The last light of the sun had vanished. Outside, the village of Konoha carried on, unaware that within its borders, a new kind of existence had just awakened—one that had finished with being its victim.
🤗If you enjoyed this chapter, please add it to your collection and
keep supporting the story 💖✨