The abandoned shrine lay beneath the moon's pale gaze, broken tiles and ivy swallowing its form. Shin sat in the courtyard's center, cross-legged, calm as still water. Around him stood a ring of followers — each marked by self-made sigils, their chakra flickering and warping in impossible ways. They believed, and so reality bent.
Jiraiya stepped into the clearing alone. His eyes scanned the followers first — their haunted devotion, their warped chakra flows — before settling on Shin. The toad sage's face was hard, yet distant, like a man studying a ghost.
"Shin," Jiraiya said at last, voice low. "Call them off. You know why I'm here."
Shin looked at each follower in turn. "Leave," he murmured, gentle but firm. "Tonight is not yours."
They obeyed without question, slipping into the woods like shadows. In their eyes shone quiet sorrow — not for themselves, but for the man they left behind.
Jiraiya watched them go, his shoulders tensing. "You're giving up your shield. You've no intention to fight, do you?"
Shin stood slowly, robes shifting like waves. "Fight? Against you? No… That was never the point."
Jiraiya clenched his fists. "Then why gather them? Why spread these teachings? These warped beliefs will destroy them — their minds, their bodies — and now they'll roam, carrying your madness elsewhere."
Shin tilted his head, studying Jiraiya with almost childlike curiosity. "Madness? Or liberation? Belief is the root of chakra's form. You've known this. But you cling to seals, forms, traditions — cages. I showed them they could step beyond."
Jiraiya's eyes narrowed. "Beyond? Into what? You're tearing at the seams of the only system that keeps this world from descending into pure chaos."
Shin's smile was thin, serene. "Is that so terrible? The system you protect has birthed nothing but child soldiers and endless graves. It feeds on grief, then calls it necessary."
Jiraiya's face twitched. "There is still hope. Hearts can change. That's what I've believed — what I've given my life to prove."
Shin stepped closer, voice dropping. "Change hearts? How many wars have you survived, Jiraiya? How many graves? How many innocents bled because a changed heart arrived too late?"
Silence coiled between them.
Shin continued, almost tender now. "I do not blame you for clinging to your dream. But it is only that — a dream. The truth is simpler: as long as chakra remains as it is, hatred will always find a blade. No matter the heart."
Jiraiya's jaw tightened. "If you're so certain, why not destroy chakra yourself? Why not bear that burden?"
Shin chuckled softly, eyes distant. "A single belief cannot overcome the collective. I alone am nothing. But many... if enough believe, chakra itself will warp. It will become what they shape it to be. Perhaps it will vanish. Perhaps it will transform. The outcome is unknown. And that, Jiraiya, is freedom."
Jiraiya stared at him, gaze sharp as kunai. "You would unravel the world just to see what might grow from the ashes."
"Yes," Shin whispered, eyes luminous. "Because anything would be more honest than this cycle of false peace and quiet horror."
Jiraiya exhaled shakily, his hands dropping to his side. He looked almost older then, worn by old scars and countless funerals. "You speak of freedom, but you would leave people powerless. Unable to protect, to connect — to even dream as we do now."
Shin shook his head. "Dreams chained to violence are not dreams at all. They are nightmares we convince ourselves are beautiful."
The wind sighed through the broken rafters. For a moment, it seemed the moon itself leaned closer, listening.
Jiraiya's voice fell to a whisper. "I wanted to believe in people… that they could grow beyond hatred on their own."
Shin's expression softened, almost mournful. "And perhaps one day, they might have. But how many more children must be offered to that gamble?"
A long silence. Then Jiraiya's fingers curled around a kunai, the blade glinting under the moonlight.
"You leave me no choice," he said. His voice was not angry — it was weary, hollow.
Shin simply opened his arms. "There was never a choice. Only fear… and the comfort of old pain."
Jiraiya stepped forward. Shin did not resist. The kunai flashed once, clean and final.
As Shin sank to his knees, he breathed out softly, "One day… enough will believe."
Jiraiya stood alone as Shin's body slumped to the earth, moonlight pooling like water around it. His gaze was fixed and distant, not weeping — simply shattered by the enormity of what he had done, and what he had chosen to preserve.
Without a word, he buried Shin beneath the roots of the shrine. No marker. No testament. Only silence.
As he turned to leave, a scrap of parchment caught the breeze, skittering to his feet. On it, Shin's final words:
> "When enough believe, the world itself will bend. Perhaps not today… but someday."
Jiraiya watched the scrap burn away in his hand, its ashes drifting into the night sky. Even as he crushed the ember, he felt it — a quiet seed of doubt settling inside, cold and immovable.
He left without looking back, the wind carrying whispers no jutsu could ever silence.