Location: Forest of Death, Outer Ring
Time: Midnight
Status: Ocular Fusion – Stabilized | Threat Level – Critical
---
The quiet shattered.
Not with sound—but with absence of it.
A bubble of stillness swept across the trees, silencing even the leaves.
> [System Alert – Barrier Detected]
> Sound Suppression Seal: ROOT Variant – Level 3
Chakra Suppression Layer Active. Tracking Systems Offline.
Enemy Count: Unknown. Estimated: 14–16.
---
Sakura flinched.
> "The air—it's like we're underwater…"
Sasuke drew a kunai in one hand and activated his Sharingan. "They've cut us off."
Naruto instinctively dropped into a defensive crouch, his chakra flaring in agitation.
> "Kaizen?" he asked, voice lower than usual. "How many?"
I turned my fused eyes toward the forest line.
Silver flames traced the chakra threads—not visible, not normal.
But I saw them.
All of them.
> "Sixteen. Encircling us in a spiral pattern. No killing intent yet—but that's ROOT. They don't think, they execute."
> "They're here for you," Sasuke said flatly.
> "They're here for what I carry," I corrected.
---
The first shuriken came silently—tipped with paralytic ink and forged chakra.
I spun to deflect, and in the same motion, slammed a palm to the earth.
> [Memory Brand – Scatter Bloom]
Lines of crimson chakra spiderwebbed across the ground, glowing faintly. The moment a ROOT operative stepped inside—
> "Ugh—what—!"
He dropped, caught in a swirl of emotional feedback—a moment of his own past, when he hesitated before a mission and Danzo marked him for reconditioning.
> "He's forcing memories into them!" Sakura whispered. "He's not just fighting—he's unmaking them!"
> "That's the point," I replied. "You don't kill ROOT. You make them remember."
---
Then the real wave came.
From the shadows, masked shinobi emerged—silent, coated in sealing wraps, wielding weapons designed to disable, not destroy.
Naruto rushed the left flank with a Rasengan roaring in hand.
Sasuke took the right—his Sharingan flaring red as he launched a Fire Style: Phoenix Wing Barrage.
Sakura stayed close, intercepting tags with precision kunai throws, and weaving through medical hand signs to protect us from cursed ink.
> "Back-to-back," Sasuke muttered as he came up behind me. "They're targeting your blind side."
> "I don't have one anymore," I said, eyes spinning.
---
Two ROOT agents moved in sync.
One flashed behind me with a chakra scalpel aimed for my spinal cord.
The other attacked from above—kunai arcing downward.
I activated Ketsuryōgan Pulse Vision—
The world slowed.
> [Predictive Motion Stream – Active]
My body moved before my mind caught up.
A twist.
A spin.
A palm strike into the upper attacker's chest—
> [Memory Brand – Echo Burn: Buried Name]
He collapsed midair, convulsing as the echo of his own childhood name—erased by ROOT—flooded his mind.
The other attacker was caught by Sasuke's blade—
But Sasuke turned his head slightly.
> "Those eyes…" he said under his breath. "They're not just reacting. They're remembering the fight as it happens."
> "That's why I can't lose," I said flatly. "Because I've already seen it all."
---
ROOT pulled back. Briefly.
Regrouping.
But the next wave would be worse.
> "We need to move!" Sakura said. "This whole area is one big silencing seal—we'll be dead in minutes if we stay here!"
> "Too late," I said.
In the branches above us, a single masked figure appeared.
He didn't move like the others.
His chakra was… still.
Too still.
> "That one's the handler," I muttered. "Danzo's leash."
The figure raised a scroll.
> "Uchiha Kaizen. By the decree of the Foundation, you are a contaminant. You will be erased."
---
I stepped forward.
Eyes glowing silver-red.
Blood along my temple.
Memory trailing like smoke behind every step.
> "Then let's see what you remember… when I burn everything you tried to forget."
ROOT's handler stood motionless, scroll in hand.
I could feel the command ready to drop—some final jutsu meant to wipe me from existence.
But then—
the air rumbled.
It wasn't chakra.
It was something older.
Heavier.
Something that pulled chakra toward it like gravity—dense, suffocating, and primordial.
---
> [System Alert – Unregistered Entity Detected]
> Classification: Tailed Beast Vessel
Designation: ???
Chakra Profile: Hybrid – Draconic | Western Origin | Contract Seal Detected
⚠️ Warning: Unknown bloodline lock intertwined with myth-class beast. Risk Level – Unclassified.
---
The sky pulsed once.
A shadow moved through the canopy above—massive, slow, and gliding like a leviathan.
The ROOT handler looked up. "Impossible. That seal was supposed to be dormant…"
Branches exploded as a figure crashed into the center of the battlefield.
Dust shot out in a ring. Fire curled in every direction.
When the smoke cleared—
A figure stood, cloaked in red-black armor plating, scales curling from their shoulders down one arm.
Their eyes glowed gold.
Their veins pulsed not with chakra—but with dragonfire.
And behind them—coiling in ghostly echo—was the translucent image of a Western-style dragon, wings outstretched, horns like carved stone, and chains glowing with seal runes trailing from its limbs.
> "Found you," the figure said, voice layered with something ancient beneath it.
"Uchiha Kaizen. You're like me, aren't you?"
---
Naruto stepped back. "What the hell is that thing behind him?!"
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "That's not a Tailed Beast I've seen in the bingo books…"
Sakura whispered, "That's a dragon."
---
> "Name?" I asked.
> "Shouryū," he said. "I carry the sealed spirit of Bahdrakorr—the Scorching Sky King. And my bloodline binds his wrath."
> "You're a Jinchūriki?"
> "Not like them. I wasn't chosen. I was bred."
---
The ROOT agents froze.
Even they weren't prepared for this.
The handler snarled, trying to unroll the scroll—but it caught fire before he could form a single seal.
Shouryū didn't move.
But the dragon behind him opened its mouth.
> FWOOOOM.
A silent wave of golden fire roared outward.
ROOT operatives screamed as armor plates melted and weapons crumbled to slag. Those that weren't incinerated outright dropped to the ground—paralyzed by heatstroke and chakra shock.
---
The air was warped now.
The battlefield distorted by sheer heat pressure and memory overload.
I stepped forward, my fused eyes locked on Shouryū.
> "Why now?"
> "Because," he said with a grin, "I smelled the embers. And dragons always follow the scent of awakening blood."
> "You're here to kill me?"
> "No. I'm here to see if you'll survive."
---
ROOT's handler tried to retreat.
He didn't make it far.
Between Sasuke's fire, Naruto's Rasengan, and my own Memory Brand, we boxed him in.
Then—
Shouryū landed the final blow.
A claw of condensed flame lashed forward, shaped like the dragon's talon.
The handler disintegrated, his mask the last thing to fall before turning to ash.
---
The silence afterward wasn't peace.
It was respect.
And fear.
---
> "You're a relic," I said.
> "No," Shouryū replied. "I'm a reminder."
He looked to the stars.
> "The era of hidden beasts and buried truths is ending, Kaizen.
You and I?
We're what comes next."
The Burn That Remembers (Final Part)
---
ROOT's handler stood motionless, scroll in hand.
I could feel the command ready to drop—some final jutsu meant to wipe me from existence.
But then—
the air rumbled.
It wasn't chakra.
It was something older.
Heavier.
Something that pulled chakra toward it like gravity—dense, suffocating, and primordial.
---
> [System Alert – Unregistered Entity Detected]
> Classification: Tailed Beast Vessel
Designation: ???
Chakra Profile: Hybrid – Draconic | Western Origin | Contract Seal Detected
⚠️ Warning: Unknown bloodline lock intertwined with myth-class beast. Risk Level – Unclassified.
---
The sky pulsed once.
A shadow moved through the canopy above—massive, slow, and gliding like a leviathan.
The ROOT handler looked up. "Impossible. That seal was supposed to be dormant…"
Branches exploded as a figure crashed into the center of the battlefield.
Dust shot out in a ring. Fire curled in every direction.
When the smoke cleared—
A figure stood, cloaked in red-black armor plating, scales curling from their shoulders down one arm.
Their eyes glowed gold.
Their veins pulsed not with chakra—but with dragonfire.
And behind them—coiling in ghostly echo—was the translucent image of a Western-style dragon, wings outstretched, horns like carved stone, and chains glowing with seal runes trailing from its limbs.
> "Found you," the figure said, voice layered with something ancient beneath it.
"Uchiha Kaizen. You're like me, aren't you?"
---
Naruto stepped back. "What the hell is that thing behind him?!"
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "That's not a Tailed Beast I've seen in the bingo books…"
Sakura whispered, "That's a dragon."
---
> "Name?" I asked.
> "Shouryū," he said. "I carry the sealed spirit of Bahdrakorr—the Scorching Sky King. And my bloodline binds his wrath."
> "You're a Jinchūriki?"
> "Not like them. I wasn't chosen. I was bred."
---
The ROOT agents froze.
Even they weren't prepared for this.
The handler snarled, trying to unroll the scroll—but it caught fire before he could form a single seal.
Shouryū didn't move.
But the dragon behind him opened its mouth.
> FWOOOOM.
A silent wave of golden fire roared outward.
ROOT operatives screamed as armor plates melted and weapons crumbled to slag. Those that weren't incinerated outright dropped to the ground—paralyzed by heatstroke and chakra shock.
---
The air was warped now.
The battlefield distorted by sheer heat pressure and memory overload.
I stepped forward, my fused eyes locked on Shouryū.
> "Why now?"
> "Because," he said with a grin, "I smelled the embers. And dragons always follow the scent of awakening blood."
> "You're here to kill me?"
> "No. I'm here to see if you'll survive."
---
ROOT's handler tried to retreat.
He didn't make it far.
Between Sasuke's fire, Naruto's Rasengan, and my own Memory Brand, we boxed him in.
Then—
Shouryū landed the final blow.
A claw of condensed flame lashed forward, shaped like the dragon's talon.
The handler disintegrated, his mask the last thing to fall before turning to ash.
---
The silence afterward wasn't peace.
It was respect.
And fear.
---
> "You're a relic," I said.
> "No," Shouryū replied. "I'm a reminder."
He looked to the stars.
> "The era of hidden beasts and buried truths is ending, Kaizen.
You and I?
We're what comes next."