The moon was wrong.
Naruto felt it before he saw it—a tugging in his chest, like someone had tied a string around his heart and was pulling from the sky. He stood on the inn's rooftop, barefoot, breath misting in the cold air, and looked up.
The moon was half-eaten.
Not by shadow. Not by eclipse. Something was moving across its surface, swallowing light inch by inch. And with every inch it took, the darkness inside Naruto purred.
He's close, it whispered. One of us.
"One of what?"
A hunter. A collector. Someone who's been looking for me for a very long time.
Naruto's blood went cold. "Looking for you? Or looking for me?"
You are me now, boy. There's no difference.
Below, a dog started barking. Then another. Then all of them at once, a chorus of panic that spread through the village like fire. Lights flickered on. Voices shouted. Someone screamed.
Naruto jumped off the roof.
He landed in the street and ran toward the sound. The darkness inside him stretched, reaching, tasting the air. It found something. Someone. A presence that felt like a mirror—familiar and wrong at the same time.
The docks came into view.
Five men lay on the ground. Not dead—worse. They were empty. Eyes open, chests rising and falling, but no one home. Like dolls waiting for hands to move them.
Standing over them was a man in a long coat. Black hair. Pale skin. Smile like a knife wound.
He turned when Naruto arrived.
"Well, well." His voice was silk over steel. "The rumors were true. A child ate my fruit."
Naruto's hands clenched. "Your fruit?"
The man spread his arms. "I died holding that box three hundred years ago. Spent decades as a ghost watching it pass from hand to hand, waiting for someone stupid enough to open it. And finally—" He laughed. "Finally, a little boy with demon eyes and a monster in his gut."
He stepped forward. The air around him twisted.
"Give it back."
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