The first blast wasn't loud.
It was wrong.
It didn't crack trees or break stone.
It folded the air.
Like silence wrapped in heat.
Arashi stood still in the clearing, the brim of his cloak scorched by the edge of that first wave. Across from him stood the boy Danzo had buried, raised, and now unleashed.
"Project Ashfall," the boy said again, as if it were a greeting. "You're the wound Danzo could never close."
Arashi's eyes narrowed. "And you're the rot he left behind."
The boy didn't blink. "He called you a mistake."
"He was right," Arashi said coldly, "because I wasn't supposed to survive. I chose to."
The boy raised a hand. The spiral mark burned into the air again. Arashi felt the chakra begin to condense, like pressure in his chest.
Not explosive. Not elemental.
Just compression.
It was chakra weaponized into a singularity—folded mass forcing heat and pressure into a fixed point.
Arashi moved.
No wasted motion.
He darted sideways, kicked off a tree, and launched a kunai toward the boy's blind spot—not to kill, but to distract.
The boy didn't dodge.
The kunai hit a shield midair and vaporized.
So this wasn't just chakra manipulation.
This was absorption. Redirection.
"Is that your only trick?" Arashi asked.
"No," the boy replied. "But it's the only one Danzo allowed me to use first."
Back in the Namikaze estate, Yui flinched.
Her fingers twitched.
Something in her chest screamed—a seal resonance. She stumbled, clutching her collarbone.
Himari caught her. "What is it?"
"I… he's awake."
"Who?"
"The boy in the cell next to mine. The one who never talked. Danzo said he was meant for after me."
Kushina appeared at the door, sensing the chakra echo.
"I need to get to Arashi," she said.
"No," Yui said, eyes wide. "If you go now, he'll use your chakra signature to amplify."
"To amplify what?"
Yui stared at her with haunted eyes.
"To erase the forest."
Back at the ruined well, Arashi struck.
A flash step. Blade unsheathed. A perfect cross-slash aimed at the boy's lower rib—
—but again, the boy didn't dodge.
Instead, the blade passed through what felt like water and froze.
No—it wasn't water.
It was chakra bent around the blade, refracting it mid-air.
Arashi pulled back just in time to avoid losing fingers.
"You don't fight like Root," he muttered.
"I don't fight like anything," the boy said. "I am not a shinobi. I'm a design."
He raised his hand again.
A ring of ash spread out from his feet.
Everything inside it—leaves, insects, stones—crumbled into black dust.
Arashi backstepped out of range, tossing a suppression seal beneath him.
His mind raced.
Ashfall wasn't just chakra destruction—it was decomposition.
Cellular collapse.
Even matter surrendered.
If it touched Kakashi, or Himari, or—
He couldn't let this weapon survive.
Ten meters apart now.
The boy spoke again.
"Danzo told me mercy is the slowest form of cruelty. That you spared people who should have died."
"I did."
"Why?"
"Because this world doesn't need another Danzo."
The boy blinked once.
"You're wrong."
And then he moved.
It was fast.
Not Shunshin, not teleportation.
Just folded presence—his body ripping through the air with localized gravity bursts.
He was on Arashi in an instant.
Fist to chest.
The air imploded.
Arashi coughed blood and flew back ten meters, crashing into a tree trunk.
His ribs screamed.
His chakra flared to stabilize them.
"You hit harder than most jōnin," Arashi muttered. "You just don't know how to finish a fight."
"Danzo never taught me how," the boy said.
"I'll teach you," Arashi said, eyes darkening. "Lesson one—never corner someone you don't fully understand."
He clapped his hands.
Seal web—release.
The scroll he'd placed earlier in the forest snapped open, erupting with ten chakra threads, all connected to counter-seals.
The forest locked.
The Ashfall ring was caught mid-spread.
The boy's eyes widened for the first time.
"You… bound the field?"
"I built it the moment you announced your name."
"You knew I would come?"
"No," Arashi said. "I knew Danzo would send someone. You just volunteered."
The boy took a breath.
For a moment… he looked unsure.
Not afraid.
Just—human.
"I don't know what to do now," he whispered.
Arashi stepped forward, ribs still cracked.
"Then choose."
The boy looked down at his hands.
"I only know how to destroy."
"Then start learning how to stop."
The boy dropped to his knees.
His chakra retracted.
Ashfall... ended.
The next day, the forest was still standing.
Barely.
Charred trees. A crater the size of a house. Scorched earth.
But alive.
The boy—real name unknown—rested in a stasis field built by Kushina and Minato.
A containment system strong enough to hold a Tailed Beast, just in case.
Arashi stood outside it, watching the boy sleep.
Naori arrived beside him.
"You didn't kill him."
"I don't kill children."
"You once said Root wouldn't stop."
"They won't. But this one… he's not Root anymore."
"Then what is he?"
Arashi folded his arms.
"Ours. Now."
That night, Yui returned to the bed she now shared with Himari.
She didn't sing.
She just held her sister's hand.
And outside, beneath the plum tree, Arashi sat with Kakashi beside him.
"I heard what happened," Kakashi said.
"Which version?"
"The one where you stopped something that shouldn't exist."
"There's always going to be something that shouldn't exist."
Kakashi glanced at him.
"So what do we do?"
Arashi looked at the stars.
"We make sure the ones who do… survive."
To be continued.