He was still holding the line.
Time passed differently in the realm between souls. Michel didn't know how long he had been here—days, months, hours, seconds? He couldn't say. But the strain on his being never faded. It was like hanging over the edge of an abyss, arms locked to the cliff, knowing that below him lay the soul of a girl who would be destroyed if he let go.
And yet... parts of him were slipping.
Fragments of thought, strands of memory, whispers of will—they escaped him, drawn downward into the infant spirit below. He couldn't stop it. No matter how hard he resisted, she absorbed him slowly, like a sponge drawing warmth from the cold.
At first, Michel feared he was hurting her.
But soon he realized something stranger was happening.
She wasn't fading. She was growing.
Not the way a child should grow—not with laughter and breath and heartbeat—but with depth. Her soul, once gentle and soft as morning mist, now pulsed with a light far too strong for a newborn. It shimmered like silver fire, full of questions she couldn't yet ask, full of strength she couldn't yet wield.
Michel floated near her.
He didn't speak. He couldn't.
But he could feel her pulse.
Something was wrong.
He could sense the imbalance: her body lagged behind. It was like watching a tree try to contain a storm inside its sapling trunk.
"She's not just weak," Michel thought. "Her soul outpaces her form."
In the world of ninjas, they spoke of chakra, of balance between physical and spiritual energy. But what Michel felt now was something else. Something deeper.
"This isn't chakra. Not entirely."
His energy—what he now understood as soul power—was different. It did not flow like chakra. It pulsed. It condensed. It echoed with identity.
"It's what remains of us when we die," he mused. "The true self, refined by life, drawn toward peace or pulled into torment."
And in his resistance, his essence was feeding Hinata more soul than her tiny body could bear. She was surviving—but barely. Her heart fluttered like a candle in wind.
Michel realized what he had to do.
His instinct to protect overwrites all his other thoughts
He reached inward, not to her, but to himself.
To the part of his soul that had always taught, not imposed.
That had always nurtured, not commanded.
And then he did something no ninja had ever tried.
He took the spiritual flow inside Hinata—the radiant part of her essence where his fragments now pulsed—and began to guide it downward. Not violently. Not forcefully. But with patience, rhythm, and deep respect.
He remembered breathing techniques.
Postural awareness.
The way his students had once learned to ground their energy through the soles of their feet.
Now, he imagined that same principle—applied not to breath, but to spirit.
The soul as yin. The body as yang.
If one overwhelmed the other, imbalance would bring ruin.
But if yin could nurture yang... she might have a chance.
So Michel began to guide her soul to touch her body, not with power, but with harmony.
Through the parts of his soul that were inside her, during the fusion he was able to help give a little push, guiding her soul towards its goal.
To warm it. Feed it. Awaken it.
To breathe into it with light instead of force.
And slowly… it began to respond.
Her pulse steadied. Her inner light flickered less violently.
The imbalance did not vanish, but it no longer threatened to tear her apart.
Michel had not saved her. But he had kept her alive.
That would have been enough.
But then... he saw her eyes.
Not opened—no. She was still an infant, half-asleep in the cradle of the physical world.
But Michel could feel them, those strange pale orbs, even in the darkness of the soul.
They pulled.
Not from chakra. Not from memory.
From him.
They were feeding—drinking—from the fragments of his essence, his gray soul. Not just absorbing light passively, but reaching, like roots into soil, like hunger without shape.
Michel recoiled.
"What… is that?"
He tried to follow the pull, to trace it to its origin—but it vanished, slipping through his perception like smoke through fingers.
There was something buried deep.
A weight he couldn't see. A seal he couldn't define.
All he knew was that something inside her eyes was not natural.
He didn't understand it yet.
But it didn't feel like her.
It felt foreign, almost... like something watching him back.