The night pressed heavy over the Uchiha stronghold, its silence deeper than usual. Even the guards along the perimeter felt it—the kind of silence that made the hairs along the neck rise, as if something unseen was listening.
Far beyond the walls, hidden in the heart of the forest, a valley slumbered. Broken shrines dotted the clearing, their stones cracked, their inscriptions faded by centuries. The place was called the Valley of Forgotten Shrines, where the Uchiha once honored their dead.
Tonight, it was Keiji's battleground.
He stood at the center of the valley, his Sharingan glowing faintly against the shadows. His chest rose and fell in steady rhythm, though his pulse thudded with unease. Floating beside him, Shiny Gengar's grin gleamed wicked and reassuring all at once.
Keiji knew this was not a night for swords, fire, or stamina drills. This was about something far less tangible—the power that had brushed against him after Tajima's training. The Eidolon.
---
The Lesson of the Dead
Keiji pressed his hand against the smooth surface of a shrine stone. Cold surged through his skin, not the chill of stone but something deeper. Whispers bled into his ears, faint, like voices carried across water.
He froze. His eyes darted toward Gengar.
"You hear it too?" he whispered.
The Pokémon bobbed its head, shadow stretching unnaturally across the ground. Mist leaked from its body, seeping into the cracks of the shrine.
The whispers thickened. Keiji's chest tightened. He felt presence—dozens of them. Memories clinging to stone, regrets lingering like scars. The veil between life and death was thin here, almost transparent.
And that's when his body betrayed him. Chakra shifted inside him, tinged with something cold and spectral. His hand passed through the shrine stone as if his flesh had turned to air.
Keiji jerked back, gasping. His palm trembled. "Intangibility…"
Gengar grinned wider, urging him on.
---
First Trial – Through the Stone
The shrine wall loomed before him. Gengar's gestures made the intent clear.
"You want me to walk through it," Keiji muttered. "That's insane."
But wasn't everything about the Eidolon insane?
Closing his eyes, he reached inward. He searched for that hollow current he'd felt—the strange, cold chakra that wasn't his and yet was. He coaxed it forward, letting it wrap around his body.
He pressed into the stone. It resisted, like thick water. His instinct screamed to recoil. But he forced himself forward, shoulder by shoulder, breath burning in his lungs—
Until he slipped through.
On the other side, he stumbled free, drenched in sweat, chest heaving. His hands shook, but he laughed breathlessly. "I… did it."
The lesson was cruel but clear: to phase through, he had to surrender fear. Resistance only made the stone fight back.
The first step of the Eidolon was surrender.
---
Second Trial – Whispers of the Spirits
The shrines grew louder as midnight deepened. Sitting cross-legged on the damp grass, Keiji steadied his breath. Gengar loomed nearby, watchful.
The air chilled further, and then—he heard them clearly.
"Why…?"
"…our blood spilled…"
"…never forgiven…"
Shadows coalesced, flickering into outlines of armored Uchiha warriors. Their Sharingan glowed faintly, rage and regret chaining them to this place.
Keiji's throat tightened. "You're… spirits."
One stepped closer, voice like rust scraping steel. "We died for nothing. Forgotten."
Keiji clenched his fists. His pulse raced, but he forced his voice steady. "I can't undo your deaths. But I can carry your will."
Channeling the cold flow of the Eidolon, he spread chakra outward like ripples. The spirits flickered. For a moment, pain and betrayal flooded through his chest—decades of endless battles, of blood spilled in vain. His breath caught.
Then, one by one, they faded. Their whispers softened into silence, freed.
Keiji slumped forward, trembling. "Exorcism…"
The realization hit like thunder: the Eidolon wasn't just power. It was communion. A bridge between the living and the dead.
---
Third Trial – Scouting Beyond Sight
Gengar's shadow rippled. Keiji understood. This time it wasn't about walls. It was about becoming the shadow itself.
"Infiltration," Keiji whispered.
He sank into his shadow. The world shifted. Colors dulled into gray. Sound dimmed, replaced by a low, vibrating hum. His body was gone—no heartbeat, no breath—only awareness sliding along the earth like smoke.
He moved through roots, through stone, under the shrine. The world above felt distant, unreal. For a brief, terrifying moment, he realized: he wasn't alive. Not exactly.
With a gasp, he tore back into his body, collapsing on the grass. His lungs screamed for air, his heart pounding violently.
But his eyes widened. "I could scout enemy camps without being seen. Slip past guards. Strike from their shadows."
A new weapon, silent as death.
---
Fourth Trial – The Curse
The last trial was darker.
Gengar conjured a wisp of shadowy energy, curling it around Keiji's arm. He hissed. It wasn't pain of flesh but of soul, a cold burn gnawing deep.
He extended his hand toward a brittle branch. The energy leapt, clinging like rot. The branch blackened, crumbling into dust.
Keiji's stomach lurched. His hand shook. "A curse…"
The fourth gift of the Eidolon was corruption. Not fire to burn or blades to cut, but decay. Weakening an enemy, rotting their spirit, binding them without a sound.
Dangerous. Too dangerous. But powerful beyond measure.
---
Breaking Point
Hours dragged past. Intangibility. Spirits. Shadow-walking. Curses. Each drained more than the last. His stamina carried him, but his spirit frayed.
By dawn, he collapsed against the shrine stone, trembling, his chakra flickering erratically. His vision dimmed.
"I… can't…" he whispered. "Not yet…"
But deep within, something stirred.
His chakra network throbbed—just as it had under Tajima's brutal training. This time, it wasn't his body stretching. It was his soul. His essence cracked, strained—then expanded.
The Eidolon energy fused with his chakra, not foreign anymore, but his.
Keiji's eyes snapped open, glowing faintly. Not just crimson Sharingan, but a ghostly light that shimmered across his irises.
Gengar cackled, shadows swirling in jubilation.
And then—Keiji heard it. A whisper not from the shrine, not from the past. From something else.
"…danger… coming… the youth competition… blood will spill…"
Keiji froze. His breath caught. "What—what was that?"
But the voice faded, leaving him alone with dread.
Keiji clenched his fists, staring at the pale dawn bleeding across the valley. He had mastered the basics of intangibility, exorcism, shadow-walking, and curses. But the last whisper… wasn't a test.
It was a warning.
The Youth Ninja Competition—the very trial awaiting him—would not be a tournament.
It would be a slaughter.
And the Eidolon had chosen him to see it first.
---
End of the Chapter
---