The shouts of the pursuing Shadow Fang hunters had faded into the vastness of the Ashen Woods, their echoes swallowed by the skeletal trees and shifting grey dunes. Each ragged breath Hirokage drew tasted of ash and despair. Devouring had taken too much from him not just energy, but pieces of his very soul. Moreover, the techniques he had been using were not his to begin with; they were stolen, foreign things that left his chakra pathways feeling scraped raw and burning with residual energy that was not his own. The aftermath was a deep, cellular exhaustion, a hollowing out that went beyond mere physical fatigue. He knew, with a certainty that chilled him, that he could not win against all of them. Not now. Not like this.
He used the dregs of his strength, moving with a speed that felt both unnatural and terrifyingly effortless. The shadows themselves seemed to congeal around him, carrying him leagues in moments a highlevel shadow walking technique pulled from the depths of Sensei Kage's consumed memories. It felt like wearing another man's skin, the movements precise and cold where his own would have been frantic and warm.
That stolen power had its cost. The adrenaline that had been a roaring fire in his veins was guttering out, leaving behind a cold, hollow exhaustion that seeped into his bones. The Devouring Sword's hum had faded to a low, satisfied thrum against his thigh, its single malevolent eye nearly closed, sated for now. But the stolen power from Sensei Kage and Daichi was a storm of foreign knowledge and strength churning inside him, a chaotic symphony of another man's ruthlessness and his friend's cold discipline. Flashes of secret techniques and battle strategies he had never learned flickered behind his eyes, overlaying his own memories with a sinister, secondhand film.
He found shelter in the shell of a long dead beast, its enormous rib cage half buried in a dune of fine, white ash that glittered faintly under the weak light of the wasteland's twin moons. The bones were ancient, polished smooth by countless scouring winds, each rib the size of a ancient tree trunk. He slid between two bony spars, the ash whispering around his boots like a morbid sigh. The inside was dry and eerily silent, the air stale and smelling of old bone and deep, undisturbed time.
He sank to his knees, the grit of the ash grinding beneath him, then onto his side, his back against the smooth, cold curve of a rib. The Devouring Sword clattered onto the ash beside him, the sound unnaturally loud in the absolute quiet.
Silence.
And in the silence, the memories rushed in, unimpeded by survival instinct or the Sword's hungry whispers.
Daichi's face. Not the cold, disciplined mask of the elite shinobi, but the boy he had trained with for years. The shared bruises from sparring, the silent understanding across a campfire, the unshakeable trust that he would always be at your back. He saw the exact moment the light in those familiar eyes had been sucked out, replaced by a void that was his own doing. He felt the ghost sensation of the Sword plunging in, the terrible, euphoric rush of consuming his friend's very essence his strength, his loyalty, the very core of who he was flooding into him, a warm, stolen vitality that now felt like a poison in his veins.
Then, the image of Sensei Kage's desiccated hand, the skin crumbling to dust like ancient parchment, the life and decades of hard won experience violently extracted and now rattling around inside Hirokage's own skull.
The weight of the stolen knowledge in his head was a library of atrocities written in another man's blood. He could suddenly recall the precise feeling of administering a fatal nerve poison, the calculus of sacrificing a lower ranked member for a tactical advantage, the cold satisfaction of a perfectly executed betrayal all with the vividness of his own experience.
His stomach convulsed.
Hirokage pitched forward, onto his hands and knees, and retched violently. Nothing came up but acid and bile, burning his throat. His body shuddered, wracked by dry heaves that felt like they would turn him inside out, each spasm a visceral punctuation mark to the horror of what he had done, what he had become.
When the heaving finally subsided, he stayed there, forehead pressed into the cool ash, breath coming in ragged, wet gasps. Then the tears came. Not silent tears, but great, wracking sobs that tore from a place so deep within him he did not know it existed. He cried for Daichi. He cried for the stern but caring man he thought Sensei Kage was. He cried for the terrified initiates, for his idealistic parents cut down for their peace, for the bright eyed boy he had been just hours ago, who still believed in justice and the code of the Shadow Fang.
He bawled like a child, utterly alone in the skeleton of a forgotten monster, in a world that had only ever taught him how to kill and be killed. The sounds were ugly, raw, and utterly, shamefully human.
You weep for the fuel? the Sword's voice slithered into his mind, not angry, but with a detached, academic curiosity, like a scientist observing a strange specimen. A peculiar ritual. It changes nothing. The weak are meant to empower the strong. It is the first and last law of this existence. You did not break it. You finally understood it.
"Get out of my head," Hirokage choked out, his voice a broken thing. He slammed a fist into the ash, the impact a dull thud. "Just… get out."
I am in every shadow of your mind now, little vessel. There is no 'out'. There is only forward. The path is made of what you have consumed. Walk it, or be walked upon.
The sobs eventually subsided, leaving him hollowed out and empty. The tears dried into salty tracks on his dusty cheeks. The emotional storm had passed, leaving in its wake a fatigue so profound it felt like death itself. His limbs were leaden. His thoughts moved through syrup.
The voice was silent. The Sword seemed to understand that its vessel needed maintenance. That even the most powerful engine must cool.
His head nodded, his chin hitting his chest. The world swam. The ache in his soul was too vast to process. The only escape was oblivion.
With the last of his strength, he dragged himself fully into the hollow, curling into a tight ball in the ash.
Sleep… the voice whispered, its tone almost… gentle. It was the gentleness of a master soothing a prized hunting dog after a hard day's work. Digest your strength. Your sorrow is a seasoning. It will make the next feast taste all the sweeter.
The words should have horrified him. But he was too far gone. His eyes, their unnatural glow extinguished, fluttered shut. In the absolute darkness, he did not dream of Daichi or Sensei. He dreamed of a vast, silent maw, and of a hunger that could never, ever be filled.
He slept. And the Sword lay beside him, its single eye closed, its dark presence a blanket over the tomb, keeping watch over its most precious acquisition.
The first light of the wasteland day was a sickly grey smear through the cracks in the barracks wall. Ayame was already awake, sitting on the edge of her bunk, meticulously checking the edge of a kunai. Her movements were sharp, angry. Sleep had been impossible. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw it, Daichi crumbling to ash, Hirokage's eyes burning with an alien darkness, Sensei Kage's desiccated corpse.
A faint shift in the air, a whisper of shadow deeper than it should be, made her freeze. Her head snapped up.
He was just there. Leaning against the doorframe of the room they had once all shared, as if he had simply walked in. The shadows around him seemed reluctant to let him go fully, clinging to his form like a second skin. He looked exhausted, haunted, the unnatural glow in his eyes dimmed to a faint ember.
Ayame shot to her feet, the kunai held in a white knuckled reverse grip. Her heart hammered against her ribs. "What are you doing here?" she hissed, her voice low and venomous.
Hirokage offered a weak, tired version of his old smile. It looked wrong on his face. "Relax, Aya. It is just me."
"Just you?" she spat, taking a step back, putting the bunk between them. "I said, what are you doing here? How did you even get in? The whole sect is hunting for you!"
He ran a hand through his hair, the gesture familiar yet now utterly alien. It was the gesture of the boy she knew, but the eyes belonged to the thing that had killed Daichi. "I know… I know I did some really bad things yesterday, Aya."
She let out a sharp, incredulous bark of laughter. "Really bad things?" Her voice rose, trembling with fury and grief. "Since when were we murderers, Hiro? Huh? Since when did our nindo include devouring our own squad? That is not crossing a line, that is obliterating it! Daichi is dust because of you!"
He flinched, the words hitting him like physical blows. The casual act dropped. "He was going to kill those kids, Aya! He was part of it! They all were!"
"So that makes it right?" she fired back, her eyes blazing. "You become the monster to fight the monsters? You are worse than they are! At least they did not… did not consume their own!"
"I did not have a choice!" he snapped, his own frustration breaking through. "It was them or us! It was that or let them turn more kids into..."
The hide curtain over the doorway rustled.
"'Yame, you will not believe the rumors flying around the mess..." Katsuro's voice cut off as he shouldered his way into the room, a half eaten ration bar in his hand. He stopped dead. His eyes locked onto Hirokage.
The ration bar fell to the floor.
Every ounce of color drained from Katsuro's face, replaced by a wave of pure, unadulterated rage. A wordless, guttural roar erupted from his throat.
"YOU!"
He did not hesitate. He did not question. He launched himself across the room, a battering ram of grief and fury, his hands aimed for Hirokage's throat.
It should have connected. The old Hirokage would have taken the tackle, would have tried to talk him down. This one moved.
He did not even seem to tense. He simply flowed to the side, a shadow dislodging from a wall. Katsuro barreled past him, slamming hard into the doorframe with a grunt of pain and frustration.
"Katsuro, stop!" Hirokage said, his voice strained.
"I WILL KILL YOU!" Katsuro screamed, spinning around, his eyes wild. He drew a kunai, his chest heaving. "I WILL KILL YOU FOR DAI!"
He lunged again, a wild, telegraphed swing fueled by pure emotion.
Hirokage caught his wrist. The movement was too fast to follow. His grip was like iron. Katsuro struggled, snarling, but he was utterly immobilized.
"Listen to me!" Hirokage's voice cracked, the dual toned echo faint but present. "Both of you! I did not come here to fight!"
"Then why did you come?" Ayame snarled, her own kunai still raised, watching the terrifying display of speed and control. "To finish the job? To devour us too?"
Hirokage looked from her enraged face to Katsuro's, which was twisted in a mask of hate and betrayed tears. The fight seemed to go out of him. He released Katsuro's wrist, shoving him back a step.
"I came," he said, his voice dropping to a desperate whisper, "because I need your help."
Katsuro stumbled back, clutching his wrist where Hirokage's grip had left a bruise already blooming on his skin. His chest heaved, tears of rage and grief streaking through the dust on his face. "Help you? Why in the name of the fallen gods would we ever help you?"
Ayame had not lowered her kunai. "You have five seconds to give us one reason we should not scream for every hunter in this stronghold," she said, her voice like shards of ice.
Hirokage took a shuddering breath, the act of pleading clearly costing him. He held up his hands, a gesture of surrender that felt hollow coming from him. "First, because right now, I can not get out. The Shadow Sniffers are on the eastern ridge. The main pass is sealed with a ward I can not break without setting off an alarm that will bring the entire elite guard down on me." He looked at Ayame. "You know the old ventilation shaft that leads out to the sulfur vents. The one we used for that infiltration drill. It is narrow, it is tight, but it is unguarded. All I need is for you to create a distraction at the east gate. A small fire, a false alarm. Just long enough for me to get to it."
"So we can help you run away after you murdered our family?" Katsuro spat.
"No," Hirokage said, his voice gaining a sliver of strength. He gestured to the oilskin satchel slung across his back. "So I can figure out how to make sure it never happens again." He looked between them, his eyes begging them to understand. "I took scrolls from the Black Vault. Maps. Dossiers. It is all real. The sacrifices, the other sects, the Black Sun… it is all in here. But Sensei's memories… they are a storm in my head. I can not make sense of it. It is just… noise."
He took a step closer, ignoring how they both tensed. "Aya, you are the only one with a mind sharp enough to see the patterns he hid. I need you to look at this. Tell me what it means. Tell me where I need to go to understand this… this thing I am carrying." He tapped the hilt of the Sword, a gesture that made them both flinch.
"You want us to be your strategists?" Ayame asked, her voice dripping with disbelief.
"I want you to be my tether!" The words burst out of him, raw and desperate. The act fell away completely, leaving only a terrified young man. "The sword… it is always there. In my head. It is a voice that tells me to devour, to forget, that you are just fuel. It is so loud."
His voice dropped to a broken whisper. "I am scared. I am scared I am going to wake up one day and not remember what Daichi's laugh sounded like. Or the way Katsuro burns his breakfast every time. Or your stupid, perfect eye roll, Aya."
He was crying now, silent tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks. "I need to know you are out there. I need something to remind me that I was Hirokage before I was this… this vessel. Please. I need a distraction to escape. I need your mind to help me understand. And I need… I need you to remember me. So I do not forget."
The silence in the barracks was heavier than any stone. Katsuro's rage seemed to have been stunned into a confused, grieving numbness. Ayame's knuckles were still white on her kunai, but the outright hatred in her eyes had been replaced by a tumultuous storm of conflict, grief, anger, and a horrifying, dawning pity.
He was not just asking for help escaping. He was asking them to become lifelines to a man who was already halfway overboard into an abyss. And in doing so, he was forcing them to confront the horrifying truth that the friend they loved was still in there, drowning.
See how they hesitate? the Sword's voice was a silken rustle in the back of his mind. Their loyalty is a frayed rope. Cut it. They are baggage. Dead weight. We are beyond them now.
Hirokage ignored it. He saw the shift in their eyes, the crack in their armor, and he drove his final, desperate plea into it. He took another step forward, his voice dropping from a broken whisper to something low, intense, and terrifyingly earnest.
"I am not asking you to just let me go," he said, his gaze locking onto Ayame, then Katsuro. "I am not asking you to be a memory. I am asking you to come with me."
The air left the room.
"What?" Katsuro breathed, the word a puff of stunned air.
"You are insane," Ayame stated, but the conviction was gone from her voice, replaced by sheer shock.
Insane? No. Sentimental. A flaw we will correct.
"Am I?" Hirokage pressed, the momentum of his own terrifying idea carrying him forward. "What is left for you here? A sect that sacrifices its own? A leadership that is a nest of lies? They will brand you as traitors by association. They will question you, punish you for letting me get this far. Your lives here are over."
He gestured wildly at the satchel. "The answers are out there. Not in this tomb. The truth about the sects, about the wasteland, about what we are really supposed to be fighting… it is all out there. I can not decipher it alone. I need your mind, Aya. I need your strength, Katsuro."
We need no one. Their minds are limited. Their strength is a flicker to our inferno. End this. Devour them. Their doubt will taste of fear, and it will make us strong.
Then he played his final, most vulnerable card. He looked at them, his expression laid bare, fighting against the hungry whisper in his skull. "And I can not do it alone. The sword… it wants me alone. It wants me isolated so it can devour everything that is left of me."
It is the only way. Isolation is purity. Connection is a weakness to be exploited.
"You are the only people in this world who know who I was," he said, his voice straining. "You are the only ones who can stand beside me and remind me why I have to fight this. You can be my anchor. And I… I can be the power that protects us from what is coming."
He took a final, shuddering breath, laying his fate entirely at their feet.
"Do not just give me a distraction. Do not just give me advice. Come with me. Let us find the truth together. Let us burn this corrupt system to the ground. Together."
The barracks door curtain rustled.
A junior messenger, a boy of no more than twelve, poked his head in. "Ayame, Katsuro, Elder Morita wants a report on the… on the…"
His voice died as he saw Hirokage. His face went ashen. He turned and fled, his footsteps pounding down the hall.
The hunt is called. This farce is over. Kill them. Now. Before they choose to betray you. It is their nature.
They were out of time.
The decision was no longer theoretical. It was now.
Hirokage looked at his former squad, his last link to a life that was already ashes. The Sword's hunger was a cold pressure against his will, urging him to strike, to consume, to be done with it.
"Well?" he said, the word hanging in the air between them, heavier than the Devouring Sword itself. "Are you coming?"