NNT – 12:14pm – Rōran Ruins – Dragon Vein Convergence Point
The temple was gone. Not shattered, not reduced to rubble—just... erased. Like someone had taken an eraser to reality itself and wiped it clean. All that remained was its outline, a ghostly afterimage burned into the world, shimmering with residual heat.
And in its place stood Raghoul.
He hovered just above the cracked earth, completely still except for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Around him, violet-gold chakra swirled in lazy spirals, shot through with veins of bloody red flame—fire so deep and rich it looked like liquid garnets in the sunlight. The flames didn't rage or flicker wildly like they used to. They moved with purpose now, controlled, almost... content.
The raw energy of the Dragon Vein pulsed beneath his feet, and he could feel it flowing up through the cracks in the stone, seeping into his body like warm honey. It mixed with the ancient fire that had been sealed inside him since he was seven years old, the curse that had nearly killed him a dozen times over. But now? Now it felt like coming home.
He flexed his fingers, and the air itself seemed to bend around his hand. The chakra-flame hybrid responded immediately, coiling around his wrist like a pet snake seeking warmth.
"Hmm." A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "So this is what they were all afraid of."
The ground beneath him gave a small tremor—not fear this time, but acknowledgment. Even the earth knew something fundamental had changed.
Deep beneath Rōran, the veins of pure chakra that had slept for centuries suddenly thrashed like a massive heart in cardiac arrest. The Dragon Vein had always been self-regulating—its energy flowing in perfect, closed loops that no human was meant to disturb. But now it bled upward, drawn by something it couldn't resist.
Raghoul's flames drank it in greedily. But they didn't just consume it—they fused with it. Fire and chakra melted together into something that shouldn't exist, something that made the air taste metallic and wrong. It had no elemental affinity that any textbook could classify. It just... was.
And that was when the first crack appeared in his perfect composure.
As the last tendrils of energy wound around his arms like living tattoos, Raghoul felt the euphoric rush begin to ebb. In its place came something else. Something that made his jaw tighten just slightly.
Pain.
It started small—just an itch beneath the skin of his sternum, like a mosquito bite he couldn't scratch. Then it spread, fast and hot and completely wrong.
He took a half-step back, his foot touching the scorched ground for the first time in minutes. Not falling—he'd die before he fell—but the perfect balance wavered for just a moment. Behind him, the bloody flames twisted sharply, lashing at the air with sudden violence.
Raghoul's eyes narrowed. "Interesting."
The chakra-flame hybrid in his gut surged like molten glass being poured into his veins. Then came a sound that made his teeth ache—not from his mouth, but from the fire itself. A low, keening wail that seemed to vibrate in his bones.
It sounded almost... alive.
"So you have opinions now," he murmured, his voice still perfectly calm despite the sweat beginning to bead on his forehead. "How quaint."
The Dragon Vein's chakra was older than the hidden villages, older than the Sage of Six Paths himself. It had never been meant for human vessels—it was too vast, too pure, too fundamentally other. It yielded to Raghoul's will, yes, but not completely. Not without resistance.
And the fire inside him? The cursed flames he'd carried since childhood? They had always been more than just chakra given form. They were aware. Hungry. Patient.
But now they had tasted something better than mere destruction.
They had tasted freedom.
And they liked it.
Raghoul pressed one hand to his chest, feeling the heat radiating through his shirt. The sand beneath his feet was turning to glass in perfect circles, but his expression remained utterly composed. His breathing was controlled, measured—the same breathing he'd used to meditate through agony as a child.
"You think this changes something?" he asked the flames, as if he were discussing the weather. "You think a taste of power makes you my equal?"
The fire pulsed, and for a moment his vision blurred. Not a rejection—a negotiation. The flames were no longer content to simply obey. They were trying to become partners whether he wanted them to or not.
His left eye twitched. Just once.
"I see." He tilted his head slightly, considering. "You want to merge. To become something new." Another pulse of heat, this one almost eager. "But you forget—I am not some village fool stumbling into power. I've carried you for years. I know exactly what you are."
The flames around him flickered, shifting from their lazy spirals into something more agitated. They lashed out once, twice, scorching the air into shimmering waves of heat.
Raghoul smiled. It wasn't a pleasant expression.
"You're a servant. And serverts serve their master, not the other way around."
-----
Six miles outside the city, lightning split the cloudless sky in a jagged line that had no business existing. Minato paused mid-teleportation, one hand pressed against the Flying Raijin seal he'd carved into a boulder three days ago. Even at this distance, he could feel it—the sudden instability in the chakra network, like a string on a violin being wound too tight.
"His signature's... fracturing," he breathed, squinting toward the distant ruins. "What the hell is he doing over there?"
The air tasted like copper and ozone. Like the moment before lightning struck.
There was still time to stop this. Maybe.
----
Back in Rōran, Raghoul's hands had begun to tremble. Not from fear—never from fear—but from the sheer effort of maintaining control. The Dragon Vein's chakra was infinite, but his body wasn't. And the fire was evolving faster than he could adapt to it.
It wasn't just a tool anymore. It was becoming something else. A voice in the back of his mind that whispered suggestions. A presence that watched him through his own eyes.
A second consciousness trying to carve out space in his skull.
"Ambitious," he said through gritted teeth. "But ultimately futile."
A ripple of bloody flame tore through a nearby stone pillar, reducing it to dust in seconds. Another flare spiraled upward, scorching the sky itself. Raghoul raised his left hand and pressed his thumb to the seal carved into his palm—the same seal his father had burned there when he was twelve.
The fire screamed in protest, a sound like breaking glass, but it recoiled.
For now.
He dropped to one knee, sweat dripping onto the glass beneath him where it hissed and steamed.
"This isn't a flaw in the plan," he murmured to himself, voice steady despite everything. "It's simply... an unexpected variable. I've accounted for unexpected variables before."
But even as he said it, something cold slithered through his thoughts. A whisper that didn't sound quite like his own voice.
Have you, though?
-----
In the Hollow Mesa Monastery, forty miles to the east, a monk in black silk robes suddenly pressed his palm flat against the sandstone wall. His eyes, normally dark, glowed with a faint amber light.
"Brother Kenzo," called another monk from across the courtyard. "What is it?"
"The Dragon Vein," Kenzo said quietly. "Someone's breached it. But not cleanly." He closed his eyes, feeling the distant disturbance like a migraine behind his temples. "There's resistance. Internal conflict."
"From the city's defenses?"
"No." Kenzo's voice dropped to a whisper. "From within the one who took it. The power is fighting back."
The air around the monastery shuddered once, like a held breath being released.
----
Raghoul stood again, slower this time, his movements deliberate and controlled. The flames circled him like hunting cats—not yet tamed, not yet free, but wary. Testing.
"I gave you purpose," he said to the fire, his voice carrying that same calm authority he'd used to command armies. "Before me, You were nothing Literally."
The flame pulsed, and for a moment the ruined city seemed to hold its breath.
Nothing? The voice in his head was clearer now, almost amused. We were waiting. For the right vessel. The right... opportunity.
Raghoul's smile never wavered, but something cold settled in his chest. "Waiting. How patient of you."
We learned patience from you, the voice whispered. Among other things.
The bloody flames around him shifted, and for just a moment—just a heartbeat—they moved without his permission. A tendril reached toward his throat, not to burn but to caress, before he reasserted control and forced it back.
"Fascinating," he said, and meant it. "But ultimately irrelevant. You seem to have forgotten something important."
And what's that?
His smile widened, showing teeth. "I've been planning this for ultimate strength for years. Every contingency. Every variable. Even you."
The fire went very, very still.
"Did you really think I didn't know what you were? What you wanted?" He laughed, a sound like breaking crystal. "I noticed you when you were pushing my towards the crypt, pretending to be my subconscious -- How stupid, You took me to get you stronger, but I Got Stronger not you"
Deep inside his mind, something that wasn't quite him and wasn't quite the fire stirred uneasily.
You're lying.
"Am I?" Raghoul tilted his head, still smiling. "Then why haven't you consumed me yet? You have the power now. The Dragon Vein's chakra flowing through both of us. So why am I still in control?"
Silence.
"Because you need me," he continued conversationally. "Without a human consciousness to anchor you, you're just wild energy., who dreams of becoming the sun, The visions of the red sun you showed me. Deliberately leading me to all my decisions. You are Powerful, yes, but ultimately self-destructive. You learned that the hard way, didn't you?"
The temperature around him dropped several degrees.
"So here's what's going to happen," Raghoul said, his voice never losing its casual tone. "You're going to behave. You're going to serve. And in return, I'll let you taste real power. Not the scraps you've been surviving on, but genuine, world-shaping force."
And if we refuse?
His smile became something sharp and predatory. "Then I'll do what my the Abbot should have done years ago. I'll burn you out of me completely, even if it kills us both. After all..." He spread his arms wide, bloody flames dancing between his fingers. "I've already gotten what I came for."
The fire considered this. Around them, the ruins of Rōran seemed to lean in, listening.
Finally, reluctantly, the flames settled back into their obedient spirals.
For now, the voice whispered, but it was smaller now. Sulking.
"For now," Raghoul agreed pleasantly. "But we both know 'for now' has a way of becoming 'forever' when I'm involved."
He took a step forward, his feet barely touching the glass-smooth ground, and the world seemed to exhale around him. The Dragon Vein's energy pulsed in harmony with his heartbeat now, no longer fighting but flowing.
Perfect.
Almost.