WHOOSH!
In the heart of a churning black thunderhead, a cyan-blue light flared.
Qianyu stood with his hands raised high above his head. A massive Wind Style: Rasenshuriken spun violently in his grasp, its furious rotation tearing apart the storm clouds around it.
The darkness broke. Sunlight returned. The whole land below lit up in an instant.
Fwoom!
Qianyu took aim at Hiruko, who was still on the ground maintaining the Storm Ghost Dragon. He hurled the Rasenshuriken down with all his might.
"Dark Release: Inhaling Maw!"
Hiruko showed no fear. He raised both hands, palms facing the incoming attack. The black sealing script etched into his skin blazed with light as he channeled his Dark Release at full power.
"What? It won't absorb?!"
A split second later, Hiruko's face changed.
The energy inside the Rasenshuriken was pure, violent chaos, teetering on the edge of eruption. And his Dark Release—his ever-reliable, all-consuming technique—was doing nothing. Absolutely nothing.
"Impossible! A jutsu like this… it can't exist!"
His roar of disbelief was swallowed whole.
BOOM.
The Rasenshuriken detonated. A cyan-blue maelstrom of wind swallowed Hiruko whole, shredding everything in its path.
Qianyu flashed back, putting distance between himself and the storm. He watched, face impassive.
When he was weak, he had no choices. Now he was strong. Now, the initiative was his. His to take. His to hold.
To kill, to use, to cooperate—that wasn't Hiruko's decision to make. It was his. And he'd only make it from a position of absolute control.
Fsssh.
The storm dissipated.
Hiruko's knees buckled. He collapsed to the ground. His body looked like porous, brittle foam, riddled with countless tiny, needle-like puncture wounds.
Only when he was sure the threat was gone did Qianyu stride forward. Just like in the anime, he let the broken man fall against him.
"We… we were the same," Hiruko gasped, his voice a ragged whisper. He looked up at Qianyu, eyes clouded with pain and a deep, searing bitterness. "I could have become complete. Why… why didn't I succeed?"
"Because…"
Two lines flashed through Qianyu's mind.
The villain: A clear goal. A meticulous plan. Relentless daily effort for his ambition.
The protagonist: One week of special training and the 'power of friendship,' suddenly understanding the 'Will of Fire' mid-fight.
"…Because you ignored the power of bonds! Of love!"
Qianyu said it after a long, theatrical pause. "You tried to fix your weakness by discarding others. By wanting perfection for yourself alone. That's wrong."
"Ha… Easy for you to say." Hiruko shook his head weakly, a profound loneliness passing over his face. "That's just the philosophy of those born strong. I… I never had any comrades. I was always alone."
The three he considered his friends… their strides were so long, so fast. They never looked back. Never waited. In their eyes, he was probably just background noise. An extra.
He just… he just wanted to catch up. To stand beside them.
In the original story, Hiruko died without ever closing that gap. And the fact they were ever a team of four? Only he ever mentioned it. Only he remembered.
"No," Qianyu said, his voice firm and resonant. "You chose loneliness. You should have chosen to trust the bonds you had with your comrades!"
Qianyu didn't personally put much stock in bonds, love, or the Will of Fire. Not really. But if Hiruko believed in them? Then they were perfect tools. Perfect chains.
He watched Hiruko's defeated face carefully. The man's next reaction would decide everything. Live, or die.
Earlier. The border between the Land of Earth and the Land of Grass.
Several Iwagakure squads moved along the border, searching. They reached the vicinity of the Golden Wheel Mountains. Their leader—a mountain of a man—suddenly snapped his head up. He stared intently toward Mount Sumeru.
The man stood over two and a half meters tall. He wore specially forged crimson armor and a red woven hat. He looked like a force of nature.
"There! I'm going ahead. Follow as fast as you can!" the man grunted. White steam billowed from the vents in his crimson plates. The next instant, he shot forward like a locomotive, a blur of red and white streaking toward the distant mountain.
"Move, move, move! Lord Han has found the bastard!"
"You three, rally the others! The rest, with me! Follow Lord Han!"
The man was Han, the Five-Tails Jinchūriki of Iwagakure. He preferred his other title: The Steam Ninja. A perfected Jinchūriki, granted freedom to operate outside the village. And technically, this was still Earth Country soil.
Damn Leaf-nin. Just wait until I drag you back to Iwa for judgment.
The thought was cold. His speed increased again. The Rock-nin behind him pumped their chakra, their sandals scraping the ground hard enough to spark, but they were already falling behind.
Within seconds, Han had vanished from their sight.
"Tch. Lord Han and his impatience. Nothing like his calm in battle."
"Right? But with him here, this mission's a cakewalk. We just have to show up."
The Rock-nin weren't worried. They even slowed their pace a little, chatting. A perfected Jinchūriki like Lord Han, who had fully mastered the Five-Tails Kokuō, was worth a hundred elite shinobi like them.
Even if the Leaf sent an army, they couldn't touch Lord Han. Not when the Leaf's own Jinchūriki was still a snot-nosed brat. The thought almost made them laugh.
Mount Sumeru's peak.
Hiruko stared blankly after Qianyu's words. His hand, weak and trembling, reached up to grip Qianyu's wrist.
"Someone like me…" he whispered, voice barely audible. "Can I really have bonds? With… comrades?"
"Of course you can!" Qianyu nodded, a big smile spreading under his mask—unseen, but warm in his voice.
Good. Hiruko believed in bonds. That made this simple. He'd forge a "bond" with Hiruko right here. Turn him into an asset.
"You must have guessed, Senior Hiruko. My teacher is Lord Jiraiya."
The moth motif was too obvious. Anyone with half a brain could connect the dots, just like everyone knew Copy Ninja Kakashi behind his mask. No point hiding it.
"To be honest," Qianyu continued, sighing as if burdened by a great truth. "It's because my teacher often spoke of you. He said you held a special place in his heart. That's why… I can't bring myself to finish you."
He spun the lie with practiced, earnest sincerity.
"Jiraiya… talked about me? Said I was special?" A faint light sparked in Hiruko's dimming eyes, quickly followed by disbelief.
"Yes." Qianyu nodded, his voice taking on a storyteller's lilt. "Lord Jiraiya said… when you were kids, there was a race. They were almost at the finish line when they realized someone was missing. They panicked, thought they'd lost you. Turns out you'd just collapsed from exhaustion, couldn't get back up."
"Yes… Yes! That happened!" A surge of energy, his last, burned through Hiruko. He nodded vigorously. "So he really did remember… he remembered me…"
The words spilled from his lips, a mantra of shocked hope. Tears, hot and uncontrollable, streamed down his face.
Seeing him like this… something twisted in Qianyu's gut.
Everything he'd just said was fabricated. Pieced together from half-remembered scenes in a movie.
"More?" Hiruko begged through his tears, his eyes pleading. "Is there more?"
"There is. Lady Tsunade treats me like a younger brother. You know how she is—stubborn, sharp-tongued. But even she mentions you sometimes."
Qianyu leaned in, his tone utterly serious. "And Lord Orochimaru. I've been assisting him with research lately. He said you lacked physical talent, but your intellect was unparalleled. He's still studying the Chimera Technique you created."
By now, Hiruko's vision was a blur.
"What a waste…" he sobbed. "Why… why did it take death for me to see their feelings? If I'd known sooner, I…"
In his fading mind, the three of them stood before him again. Smiling.
Such a shame… I'll never stand before you again. No, I'll never even get to run behind you anymore. I hope… I hope you remember your tag-along…
He couldn't speak anymore. With his last strength, he tried to reach for them. His hand closed on empty air.
In his final moments, Hiruko was filled with nothing but bitter, crushing regret.
If only…
If only he had another chance…
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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