Rain fell sideways in the valley.
Thick. Cold. Smelling of ash.
It hissed as it struck the burning corpses—twelve in total, all nailed to pikes just outside the main gates of the Tatsugan stronghold. Their eyes were gouged, tongues removed. Markings carved across their torsos in a foreign script no one recognized.
Kaede stared at them, rain soaking her robes, jaw clenched.
"They weren't mercs," she said. "Too coordinated. Too silent. They didn't bleed the way people should."
Tatsuro crouched beside the corpses, fingers brushing the charred symbols. His eyes narrowed. "These aren't just assassins. They're... ritualists."
Takeshi stood behind them, scowling. "A new cult?"
"No," Tatsuro murmured. "An old one. One that was supposed to be dead centuries ago."
His hands trembled slightly.
Not from fear.
From memory.
Before Tatsuro had been reborn in this world, when the ROB offered him three wishes, he had seen a glimpse of the universe's hidden layers—threads of existence most mortals never touched. One of them had whispered a name in a forgotten tongue.
Jashin.
The god of blood. Of agony. Of eternal war.
The cult had once been purged by early shinobi. Or so everyone believed.
But now, they were back.
And targeting his clan.
That night, the village bell rang.
A scout returned, dragging himself across the dirt, half his body burned down to muscle.
"The river... the river village... they're all dead," he croaked. "Something... walked out of the fire... and it burned the rain itself."
Then he died.
Tatsuro didn't wait.
He rallied a strike team.
Kaede. Guts. Takeshi. Four of their elite shadow-runners. No negotiations. No talks.
They moved through the forest under silence, chakra cloaked, moving like wraiths.
When they reached the outer valley, they found it smoking. The entire river village—twenty families—reduced to cinders. The trees hadn't just burned—they'd melted. Rocks glowed faintly, as if cursed by heat that still lingered in the air.
At the center of it all stood a single man.
Bare-chested. Pale. Hair slicked down his back like a curtain of oil. And in his hand, a staff wrapped in black cloth.
When he turned, his eyes were not human.
They were inverted.
Black sclera. Crimson pupils. Marked by something not of this world.
"You must be Tatsuro," the man said, smiling.
Tatsuro stepped forward, hand on his blade. "And you must be a dead man walking."
"Not yet," the stranger replied. "But you're a problem. You saved the Uchiha boy. Slowed down the plan. The Spiral God is displeased."
Kaede stepped up. "Spiral God?"
The man ignored her. He focused only on Tatsuro.
"You shouldn't exist. You weren't meant to be born here. But the world... bends around you. Like it knows you're not part of the cycle."
He grinned wider.
"So I've been sent to unmake you."
He struck first.
The ground exploded under their feet as fire and wind erupted in spiraling runes. Two shadow-runners were vaporized instantly. Guts charged, swinging his greatsword, but the man moved like smoke—slipping between strikes with unnatural fluidity.
Kaede summoned twin whips of water, slicing toward him, but the rain turned against her—twisting midair, solidifying into spikes and cutting her shoulder.
Tatsuro's blood boiled.
He drew his blade—not metal, but forged of living crystal, born from his second wish—and slashed upward, sending a pulse of pure chakra through the ground.
The man stumbled, caught off guard. For a brief moment, his mask cracked.
And Tatsuro saw it—
The seal of Jashin.
Buried in his chest. Feeding him chakra. Pain. Hate.
He wasn't a ninja. He was a vessel.
"You want a war?" Tatsuro growled. "I'll give you one."
He charged, blade humming, chakra bursting from every pore.
The world blurred.
For thirty seconds, there was only chaos.
Tatsuro moved like a god of slaughter—his bloodline had adapted to elemental flux. Every fireball turned to mist before hitting him. Every wind blade split around his armor of shifting stone.
He landed a clean strike—deep into the cultist's chest.
But the man laughed.
"Fool," he hissed. "You think you've won?"
He stabbed his own hand into the wound—and detonated.
The blast wiped half the forest flat.
But when the dust settled...
Tatsuro stood.
Burned. Bleeding. But alive.
The man's body lay in pieces. Still smiling. Still twitching.
Kaede crawled from the rubble, coughing. "Is it over?"
"No," Tatsuro whispered. "It's just beginning."
Because inside the corpse's ribcage...
...something was still growing.
Back at the stronghold, Guts stood at the edge of the cliff, watching the storm build.
Below, scouts dragged the injured back. Women sobbed. Children wailed.
And Guts?
He said nothing.
But when Raikō—now two, fearless and curious—toddled up beside him and grabbed his hand...
The warrior gripped it back.
Silently.
Protectively.
Because he knew.
The war wasn't over.
It was only evolving.