Your Ideal? I Tread Upon the Past

Wind and snow howled through Thunder Throat Pass, sweeping up mountains of snow as though playing an elegy for the dead.

Darui stood alone atop a massive boulder. Explosive tags wrapped around him snapped loudly in the wind, each connected by fine chakra wires that bound him to the land like a spiderweb.

He was not defending anything. He himself was a volcano on the verge of eruption, a tombstone buying Hidden Cloud Village its final moments.

His crimson eyes pierced through the snowstorm, staring at the figure slowly emerging from the darkness.

Iron sand swirled around him like a nebula. Every step landed upon the drumbeat of the heart—heavy, suffocating, as though Death himself had arrived.

The newcomer was Xuan.

"You're still alive." Xuan's voice was as calm as water, yet carried a bone-deep chill as it reached Darui clearly through the wind and snow. "I thought you would choose to run."

Darui straightened his nearly frozen spine. The remnants of chakra surged through his body with a low rumble.

He bared his teeth in a grin, his smile carrying a crazed determination. "I'm no deserter! I am Hidden Cloud Village's blade, Lord Raikage's spear! Even if I break, my point will forever face the enemy!"

His hands suddenly came together, forming a complex, ancient hand seal.

In an instant, chakra far surpassing that of an ordinary jonin soared into the sky and tore through the night!

Blue-white arcs of electricity raced madly across his body, merging with the moisture in the air to form a strange energy that was neither lightning nor water.

That was Storm Release—the ultimate secret technique the Third Raikage had taught him, an inheritance forged from Hidden Cloud Village's blood and tears!

"This is the final move my master taught me!" Darui's voice was hoarse yet ringing, filled with a martyr's pride and tragedy. "Storm Release: Myriad Annihilation Domain! Xuan, feel it well! This is lightning that can freeze space, light that can tear apart souls!"

The moment his words fell, heaven and earth changed color!

Countless brilliant blue-white bolts burst forth from Darui's body. Yet rather than vanishing in a flash like ordinary lightning, they condensed and intertwined in midair, becoming shards of lightning ice that gleamed with a cold radiance.

Those ice shards spread wildly at a speed the naked eye could barely follow, forming a vast net that covered the entire pass and sealed off every route of retreat, every space Xuan could use to evade!

The air seemed to have been drained away. Under that terrifying energy, the structure of space itself began to twist and freeze.

Every shard of lightning ice contained enough terrifying power to instantly vaporize a jonin!

"Don't go over there!" At the far end of the pass, Baba Tesshin grabbed Saori, who was about to move, his voice incomparably grave. "That's a suicidal forbidden technique! He has detonated all his chakra and life force at once, pushing Storm Release's nature transformation to its absolute limit! In that area, space itself is a weapon. Any matter that enters will be broken down!"

Saori's nails dug deeply into her palms, her eyes filled with anxiety.

Yet Xuan, trapped in that hopeless situation, showed not the slightest trace of panic.

He even revealed an almost amused smile, as though admiring an interesting work of art.

The strange Mangekyō Sharingan in his right eye slowly began to rotate.

Beyond the three tomoe, the pattern representing "Eternal Cycle" lit up at an unprecedented speed.

Law Simulation—running at full power!

One second: the frequency of Storm Release's chakra fluctuations was captured.

Two seconds: the internal connection between its energy composition and spatial freezing was analyzed.

Three seconds: a solution was generated!

The corners of Xuan's lips rose slightly. His low voice carried a hint of mockery as it pierced clearly through the roar of lightning. "Freezing space? An interesting idea. But Darui, have you ever tried... making your lightning grow legs and run away on its own?"

His hands slammed together before his chest. Lightning Release chakra and Yin Release chakra, utterly opposite in nature, intertwined, collided, and fused within him in an unprecedented frenzy!

An evil, tyrannical aura that seemed capable of devouring everything erupted with a bang!

The Mangekyō pattern in his right eye abruptly twisted. After countless simulations and deductions, the "Eternal Cycle" pattern beyond the three tomoe finally... fully closed into a perfect ring for the first time!

The next instant, Xuan thrust out his palm.

Black Lightning: World Erosion!

There was no earth-shattering roar, no dazzling radiance.

There was only a jet-black pillar of lightning, so deep it seemed capable of swallowing all light, blasting fiercely from his palm!

Wherever that black lightning passed, space and time themselves seemed stained by an ominous layer of ink.

The lightning-ice net formed by Storm Release, said to freeze all things, not only failed to obstruct or freeze the black lightning upon contact, but instead lost all its savagery and sharpness in an instant, like subjects encountering their king.

Then something even more terrifying happened!

The blue-white lightning ice shards were forcibly "devoured" by the black lightning, becoming part of it and making the black pillar thicker and even more violent!

"Th-this is impossible!" Darui's pupils shrank to pinpoints, his face filled with terror that overturned everything he knew. "Storm Release is the fusion of pure natural energy and chakra! How could it be devoured?! Your lightning... what exactly is it?!"

His cry was the final question he left to this world.

The black lightning struck his chest with unstoppable precision.

The expected sight of his body being pierced through and blown apart did not appear.

That pitch-black lightning seemed like a living creature. It instantly coiled around Darui's entire body, crazily corroding every corner of him along his chakra pathways like maggots clinging to bone.

"AAAAARGH—!"

A heart-rending scream echoed through the snowy valley.

Darui's knees gave way, and he crashed heavily to the ground.

He felt his chakra being "contaminated" and "transformed" by a force from a higher dimension. His once fierce and explosive lightning-nature chakra became as docile as sheep before that black lightning.

His body trembled, not from pain, but from the terror born of life's instinct!

Amid the agony, countless visions appeared before his eyes.

The lingering will of the Azure Dragon, which had once left a deep mark upon his spiritual world, slowly appeared. It gazed at him, wrapped in black lightning, with complicated eyes and let out a long sigh. "He won... Darui. Because he is a monster who dares to devour even his own ideals and convictions without hesitation..."

The vision shattered. In reality, Xuan had already walked slowly up to him and looked down at him from above, his eyes so cold they held not a trace of emotion.

"You say you fight for peace, for protection?" Xuan's voice was soft, yet it struck Darui's collapsing will like a heavy hammer. "Ridiculous. You can't even protect the ninjutsu you take such pride in. Remember this: true power never needs any high-sounding justification."

He slowly raised a hand. The iron sand swirling around him transformed into a spirit serpent and silently coiled around Darui's throat. The icy touch made Darui's entire body stiffen.

"Go back and tell the Fourth Raikage, A—" Xuan's voice was like the freezing wind of winter. "Tomorrow, I will personally crush his village."

With that, he withdrew the iron sand and turned toward the outside of the pass, as though he had merely done something insignificant.

Darui lay collapsed in the snow, black arcs of lightning coiling around his body and crackling without ever fading.

The black lightning had not taken his life. Instead, it slowly and continuously eroded his vitality and dignity, nailing him firmly to that snowfield of shame.

"Lord Xuan, why... didn't you kill him?" Saori hurried after him and asked softly.

A living Hidden Cloud hero was, after all, still an unknown variable.

Xuan did not stop walking. His cold gaze fell upon the distant lights of Hidden Cloud Village, barely visible in the distance, and a cruel curve formed at the corner of his lips. "The dead cannot spread fear. I want all of Hidden Cloud Village, the entire ninja world, to know—this hero they placed such hopes in knelt at my feet and listened as I sentenced his village to death."

"I want every one of them to await dawn in despair and terror, awaiting my arrival."

Those words sent a chill through even battle-hardened Saori.

This was no longer merely war. It was a complete psychological slaughter aimed at every person in the village!

And deep within Xuan's right eye, unnoticed even by him, the Mangekyō pattern that had completed its full cycle emitted an unprecedentedly sinister glow.

A cold system notification rang through his mind:

"Warning: Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan awakening conditions have reached 90%!"

"Qualitative change in ocular power detected. Initiating 'Eye Technique: Genesis' preload module..."

Xuan's steps paused slightly before returning to normal.

He raised his head and looked toward the sky, which was beginning to pale at the horizon. In his deep pupils was reflected the final trace of darkness before dawn.

"Madara... Obito..." he murmured in a voice only he could hear. "The eyes you pursued your entire lives—I... will create them with my own hands."

Dawn was approaching. Across the snowy plains, a storm that would sweep through the ninja world had only just begun to gather.

Xuan stood at the edge of Thunder Throat Pass. The frigid morning wind stirred the hem of his robe, while the Mangekyō pattern in his mysterious right eye slowly turned in the darkness, like a black sun poised to devour the light.