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 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 and finally stood.
As he shuffled toward the bathroom, his gaze briefly 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 the mask and cloak on the table no mind as he trudged into the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face to wipe 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. Red 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.
Max sighed. "Still not used to that."
After a quick breakfast—eggs, toast, and instant coffee, the holy trinity of tired superheroes—he changed into the classic blue mailman uniform. He slung his bag over one shoulder, gave himself a once-over, and 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 Max, how're you doing, my boy?"
Here we go again, Max 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.
Max knew the man well. Once Mr. Barclay started talking, he did not stop. One topic turned into five, which turned into a dissertation on local politics, the war, and why sandwiches tasted better in 1973. Max had mastered the art of walking responses—talking just enough to be polite while moving fast enough to escape.
"Good morning, Mr. Barclay," Max said, already heading down the path.
"Doing just fine—if you don't count in back pains as always!" the old man chuckled, shuffling toward the fence.
"Why don't you just see a doctor for once?" Max 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!" Mr. Barclay called back proudly.
Max let out a short laugh. "Alright, you do you—and I'll do me," he said, already turning the corner.
He could still hear Mr. Barclay muttering something about "kids these days" and "back in my time," but it faded into the morning buzz of Star City.
Max smiled to himself. Annoying, but harmless the old man was just too kind and he'd occasionally hang out with him when he is free.
Yes, his name was Max. Max Martinez now—but that wasn't the name 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 from Earth. The next? He woke up in a cold alley, naked, confused, and inside a body that wasn't his.
That first week was pure 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 give him everything at once. He had to work for it. Fight. Kill. Grow. But even at just 10%, it was enough to beat a group of street thugs, steal some clothes, and walk out of that alley with his first few bucks and a pair of too-tight jeans and man was that uncomfortable especially when he found a stain at the back while taking it off.
The real problem came when he tried to get 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 o facial recognition hits. Nothing. He was a ghost.
At first, he didn't even know that was a problem. He figured he could just rent a motel and lay low.
But when the guy at the front desk asked for ID, Max froze. "I lost it," he'd said.
The man narrowed his eyes. "Alright. What's your name and number? I can pull you up."
That's when Max gave the most generic name he could think of—"John Smith."
Nothing. Not a single match. He tried again. Still nothing. Even fake names usually got some hit.
So Max made a call from a stolen burner to a city clerk office, pretending to be his own assistant. They ran the name. No record. No Max Martinez. No Max anything.
No medical history. No criminal record. No credit. No paper trail.
Nothing.
It was official: He didn't exist in this world at all.which in its own way had its perks.
So Max improvised.
He beat information out of a small-time ID forger named Rico, paid him with money snatched from a crook he had caught mugging a woman and also made a fake birth certificate, fake social number, fake job history, even a postal test record.
The name?
Max Bullock.
It had a nice civilian ring to it. He filed for a change to Martinez a month later to make it more personal.
Using that ID, he managed to rent a cheap apartment for two months. Then, with more "liberated" cash, he put a down payment on a permanent place. He was still paying it off in monthly installments through a completely legit mailman paycheck.
By day, he was Max Martinez, mailman, low-income civilian, quiet 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 neither did he way to be one.
He didn't kill everyone. But he had standards. Rape. Child trafficking. Murdering innocents. Anyone caught doing those? You didn't get a second chance. You got a one-way trip to the afterlife.
That reputation—plundering from criminals, killing the worst of the worst—earned him a place on both villains' hit lists and heroes' watch lists.
He'd clashed with a few of the costumed do-gooders before who had less restraint towards villians in this world .He would fight them for a while to compare his fighting skills more specifically Madara's fighting skills against them at certain fusion percentages .
He adjusted the strap on his mailbag, humming as he turned the corner.
Life in this world wasn't so bad—as long as you had strength and absolutely never took public transportation.
Because Max had tried that once.
One single bus ride.
It was raining. He didn't feel like walking. "Just this once," he told himself. "What could go wrong?"
He was on that bus for eight minutes before some wannabe anarchist stood up, shoved a pistol to Max's temple, and started screaming about justice, oppression, and how the whole bus was rigged with explosives.
"Get on the ground!"
Max had complied, of course. Couldn't exactly beat up the guy civilians without blowing the mask off his double life ,sure he could have done it and said he has some training but he didn't like explaining too much.
But that day was burned into his memory of how things In this world change from a good normal day to a worst one.
And the guy with the gun?
He was still in intensive care, last Max heard.
Max had found him.
Tobi had made sure the man would never point a weapon at anyone again. Now he ate through a straw and screamed in his sleep.
Not that anyone ever connected the dots He was just that damn good.
Sure, Green Arrow and his sidekick eventually stormed in and saved the day with his lame ass cringey one-liners.
But Max didn't wait for that kind of rescue anymore.
He made a promise to himself walking home in the rain that day:
"No more buses. Ever."
He could take a bullet. He could take a beating.
But sitting in a box waiting for another maniac to yell "Everyone down!" or a fight between the heroes and Villians spiralling towards them .Nah hard pass on that.