Metal sang in the air, screeching into the empty void.
Sparks flew, born from the collision of steel.
A man with wild eyes and a scar carved across his face huffed in adulation. He was wrought with happiness.
Another clash. More sparks flew. His smile widened at the taste of challenge.
His katana, flush with black steel, struck against a naginata, if you could even call it that. It was a crudely cobbled board, riddled with divots and openings where puppet contraptions rested. A large, broad blade extended from its end. Two puppet arms controlled it, extensions of someone else’s hands, twisting the massive weapon in rhythm as it tried to fend off the unparalleled strikes of the man before it.
Opposite him stood his adversary.
Yuuto.
More damaged than he had been since crawling out of the abyss.
His tarnished puppet armor was scarred and broken, the tattered remnants barely holding together. His body was riddled with cuts, blood seeping freely. Every few seconds, however, a green aura of chakra washed over him, closing wounds as quickly as they formed. Regeneration was mandatory. Nanjirou Yokazinaga, his target, lived up to the bounty.
Yuuto had known this would not be easy. Taking the bounty in the first place had been questionable, but the job had called to him.
A criminal.
A weapons master.
A vile man no one would miss.
Yokazinaga checked every box.
He assaulted civilians. Robbed wary travelers. Betrayed small-time employers who tried to cheat him. He lived recklessly, always on the edge, as if death itself were something he courted.
The reason?
Yuuto had not known before.
Now, after crossing blades with him, he understood.
It was pleasure. Passion.
He drew danger to himself deliberately, mercilessly killing pursuers and bounty hunters alike. His crimes targeted those who had money but little strength, people who could buy muscle but could not fight themselves. Though weaker than Yuuto, this man was frighteningly proficient, his blade sharpened on a grindstone soaked in the blood of his victims.
Yuuto could not hesitate. Too many times already he had taken wounds that should have killed him, surviving only because his medical training kept him barely in the fight.
The man had seen through his stealth. Worse, his weapon bore some sort of blessing. How ironic that something so drenched in blood could be considered holy. Every strike stung far more than it should have. Thankfully, Yuuto still held a defensive edge. The Chimera technique granted him fleeting advantages, allowing him to copy fragments of the man’s swordsmanship and channel them through Kusanagi.
Without his unique style of puppeteering, he would not have kept pace with the relentless slashes. Most disturbing of all, the blade was slick with blood, gaining traction with every cut it landed. The swordsman’s high-speed taijutsu made him a lethal match.
Even so, despite the raw talent on display, the man could not land the killing blow.
Yet he smiled all the same, swinging with visible delight.
“Is this the best you can do, shinobi?” he mocked, baiting him.
Yuuto bit.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been a shinobi,” he replied. “Perhaps your fate would be luckier if I still was.”
The man hesitated, perplexed. Yuuto clearly wielded shinobi techniques, yet rejected the title outright.
There was no time to dwell on the words. The puppeteer’s pressure mounted.
Up until now, Yuuto had only challenged him through Kusanagi, attacking with the incomplete puppet’s arms and blade, testing its primary weaponry. He wanted Nanjirou in his element. Comfortable. Confident. On top of the world.
He wanted a window.
Just one.
While they clashed, Yuuto had been arming puppet limbs scattered across the battlefield. Broken armor pieces and incomplete components had wrapped around him earlier, falling away as he took damage. Each had been placed deliberately.
Traps.
He casually lowered Kusanagi to one side, almost as if his control had slipped.
Now it was Yokazinaga’s turn to bite.
The swordsman surged forward, pouring his full weight into the swing, aiming to drive his blade clean through Yuuto.
With a sudden burst of smoke, Kusanagi reappeared, intercepting the strike. The katana lodged deep within the folds of the puppet. Its arms snapped shut, wrapping around the blade and extending forward, pinning the man in place.
Yuuto leapt back as the battlefield came alive.
Puppet arms detonated, releasing toxic gas that bloomed into a thick cloud. Yokazinaga slashed wildly, sweeping smoke aside, but the damage was done.
The poison had already taken hold.
His eyes reddened. His throat swelled. Blood spilled from his lips as he coughed violently.
Poisons were not his specialty.
He stumbled, driving his sword into the earth to keep himself upright. Through ragged breaths, he saw Yuuto manipulating chakra threads attached to multiple puppets.
Arms. Broken armor. Nearby debris.
All of it was drawn together, pulled by a vacuum of chakra. They fused into a towering construct, a crude yet terrifying golem of wood, steel, and strings.
A Puppet Fusion.
Yuuto watched as it attacked, each strike wielding a different armament. Yokazinaga dodged and countered as best he could, but the poison worsened. His body felt heavier. His vision blurred.
It was not just the toxin.
Genjutsu crept into his mind, layered and subtle, distorting perception. His eyes betrayed him, seeing multiple Yuutos at once. The illusion took root easily once the poison forced him to rationalize his confusion.
Time slowed.
He struck clone after clone, fending off the Puppet Fusion while poison burned through his veins, body and mind unraveling together.
One Yuuto vanished.
Or had he?
Three? Five?
Logic failed him as the real shinobi moved unseen, weaving hand seals beneath the cover of darkness. A disruption technique shattered one genjutsu, sending a spike of pain through the swordsman’s body. Immediately after, Night assaulted his vision, plunging him into temporary blindness.
Between poison and illusion, his senses collapsed.
The Puppet Fusion seized the opening.
A massive blow smashed him through a tree, splintering wood and bark alike. The construct followed relentlessly, striking again and again as Yuuto commanded Kusanagi to harass him with smaller attacks, never allowing relief.
Yuuto advanced, step by deliberate step, weaving increasingly intricate motions, accelerating the assault.
Though Yokazinaga fought valiantly, the attacks finally broke through. The crushing force and vicious blades became too much to endure.
It was time to end it.
Yuuto scorched his own chakra coils, forcing out two A-rank ninjutsu in unison. As he wove seals with one hand, Kusanagi’s pressure lessened just enough.
Enough for the man to break free.
Not by strength.
A scorching updraft ignited beneath him, lifting his body as flames licked at his flesh.
“Burn, scum.”
Updraft committed his body to the open air, suspending him only inches above the ground. Above them, a massive sphere of condensed heat formed, spreading across the battlefield.
For the first time, the man’s smile faltered.
Not from fear.
From awe.
He faced Amplifier head-on, colliding with the eruption of heat.
A smoldering body fell from the air, crashing into the earth below. Much of his skin was charred, scorched by the raw heat of Yuuto’s jutsu.
Yuuto stood over him.
Around him, puppets lay scattered and broken across the battlefield. His chakra reserves were stretched to their absolute limit, his breathing ragged.
The Nanjirou coughed weakly. Somehow, he still lived.
Yuuto approached slowly, the stench of burned flesh filling his nostrils. The man’s body barely moved as he turned his head, stiff and uncooperative from shock and pain. His eyes flicked to his sword, then back to Yuuto.
“So this is what it feels like, huh…” he muttered. “I didn’t think it’d be so peaceful…”
Yuuto understood the message without words.
He retrieved the katana, still steaming from the heat, and carefully placed it beside the fallen swordsman.
“I had a nice life…” the man continued, voice wavering. “I swung my blade… so much… I stained the world…” His breathing grew shallow. “And today… I got to have the best fight of my life…”
His voice faded, carried away as he slipped into death’s quiet embrace.
Yuuto did not have time to linger.
His body began to tremble violently, legs buckling as he collapsed to the ground. He had pushed himself far beyond his limits. Divinity Stance. Multiple puppet techniques. High-rank ninjutsu layered back to back. Combined with no sleep, little food, and massive blood loss, it was a miracle he had stayed conscious at all.
His vision blurred. Regeneration worked tirelessly, but even it could not replace the pints of blood he had lost.
He lay there, breathing heavily, eyes drifting back to the corpse.
Then to his palm.
The divinity seal of the Chimera technique rested there, humming faintly.
Yuuto dragged himself closer. The seal flared red, projecting itself onto the swordsman’s body. Flesh darkened and bubbled as it attempted to convert into biomass, the kinjutsu beginning its process.
Something was wrong.
Pain tore through Yuuto’s body without warning.
His own flesh began to darken and bubble, patches of skin writhing and crawling as if infested with parasites.
Genetic Instability.
The Chimera technique broke down the innate traits of living beings by unraveling their chakra. By ingesting biomass, it could go even further, absorbing abilities and reshaping the user with the essence of another.
Used on enemies, it stole power.
Used carelessly, it consumed the self.
Until now, Yuuto had carried only remnants of Chimera traits from past encounters. He relied primarily on his own training, his discipline as an ANBU, and the Masaru lineage. His genjutsu was spiritual in nature, born of the clan’s third eye, a dōjutsu tied to the spiritual realm.
But now, that foreign chakra surged.
The cursed energy he carried had been waiting. Biding its time. Waiting for his body to be exhausted, his defenses lowered, his will fractured.
You’re mine.
It was not a voice.
It was instinct.
Agony erupted across Yuuto’s body. The bones of his face cracked and forced their way outward, splitting skin as they shifted. His eyes burned as if cut open, the hidden third eye on his forehead tearing wide, blood pouring freely from its lids.
A searing pain ripped across his torso. Flesh stretched and peeled back as if pried open by invisible hands. Bone grew where it should not, his skeleton breaking and reshaping itself, reaching outward through his abdomen.
He howled, the Regeneration Jutsu the only thing keeping him from slipping into unconsciousness.
Cursed chakra flooded his system.
He was changing.
With what little consciousness remained, one thought echoed through him.
Consume.
His vision fractured into broken flashes.
Crunch.
Bone ground against bone, the sound wet and grotesque. Flesh tore. Something fed.
Time ceased to matter.
He saw fragments. Too many hands reaching, tearing into meat, shoving mass into a place that should not exist.
Darkness followed.
Eventually, the nightmare ended. Pain dulled, sensation fading as his body surrendered to a deep, unnatural slumber.
Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
Time had no meaning when he finally stirred.
Yuuto sat up slowly, his entire body aching. Pain danced across every inch of his frame. He reached up, gripping the bridge of his nose. The shape of his face felt wrong. Bone jutted beneath the skin, unfamiliar and unnatural.
Cursed chakra washed through him, not like an intrusion, but like marrow beneath flesh.
Normal.
That was the only word that fit.
The sensation was no longer foreign. The cursed energy felt like part of him now, woven into his very existence.
Yuuto opened his eyes. His vision sharpened, focusing from an unfamiliar depth before collapsing into a single, impossibly clear image.
He looked down.
He stood in a puddle of blood and black residue, the remnants of the Chimera’s conversion process. Even the criminal’s katana had been partially devoured, its edges chewed and warped by something jagged and cruel.
Slowly, his gaze drifted to his stomach.
A mouth.
Expressionless, sealed shut, stretched across his abdomen. Black residue smeared its edges.
Disgusting.
The only thing he could muster was a tired sigh.
A future steeped in curse lay ahead.
And with it, a reckoning that would not be avoided.
Sparks flew, born from the collision of steel.
A man with wild eyes and a scar carved across his face huffed in adulation. He was wrought with happiness.
Another clash. More sparks flew. His smile widened at the taste of challenge.
His katana, flush with black steel, struck against a naginata, if you could even call it that. It was a crudely cobbled board, riddled with divots and openings where puppet contraptions rested. A large, broad blade extended from its end. Two puppet arms controlled it, extensions of someone else’s hands, twisting the massive weapon in rhythm as it tried to fend off the unparalleled strikes of the man before it.
Opposite him stood his adversary.
Yuuto.
More damaged than he had been since crawling out of the abyss.
His tarnished puppet armor was scarred and broken, the tattered remnants barely holding together. His body was riddled with cuts, blood seeping freely. Every few seconds, however, a green aura of chakra washed over him, closing wounds as quickly as they formed. Regeneration was mandatory. Nanjirou Yokazinaga, his target, lived up to the bounty.
Yuuto had known this would not be easy. Taking the bounty in the first place had been questionable, but the job had called to him.
A criminal.
A weapons master.
A vile man no one would miss.
Yokazinaga checked every box.
He assaulted civilians. Robbed wary travelers. Betrayed small-time employers who tried to cheat him. He lived recklessly, always on the edge, as if death itself were something he courted.
The reason?
Yuuto had not known before.
Now, after crossing blades with him, he understood.
It was pleasure. Passion.
He drew danger to himself deliberately, mercilessly killing pursuers and bounty hunters alike. His crimes targeted those who had money but little strength, people who could buy muscle but could not fight themselves. Though weaker than Yuuto, this man was frighteningly proficient, his blade sharpened on a grindstone soaked in the blood of his victims.
Yuuto could not hesitate. Too many times already he had taken wounds that should have killed him, surviving only because his medical training kept him barely in the fight.
The man had seen through his stealth. Worse, his weapon bore some sort of blessing. How ironic that something so drenched in blood could be considered holy. Every strike stung far more than it should have. Thankfully, Yuuto still held a defensive edge. The Chimera technique granted him fleeting advantages, allowing him to copy fragments of the man’s swordsmanship and channel them through Kusanagi.
Without his unique style of puppeteering, he would not have kept pace with the relentless slashes. Most disturbing of all, the blade was slick with blood, gaining traction with every cut it landed. The swordsman’s high-speed taijutsu made him a lethal match.
Even so, despite the raw talent on display, the man could not land the killing blow.
Yet he smiled all the same, swinging with visible delight.
“Is this the best you can do, shinobi?” he mocked, baiting him.
Yuuto bit.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve been a shinobi,” he replied. “Perhaps your fate would be luckier if I still was.”
The man hesitated, perplexed. Yuuto clearly wielded shinobi techniques, yet rejected the title outright.
There was no time to dwell on the words. The puppeteer’s pressure mounted.
Up until now, Yuuto had only challenged him through Kusanagi, attacking with the incomplete puppet’s arms and blade, testing its primary weaponry. He wanted Nanjirou in his element. Comfortable. Confident. On top of the world.
He wanted a window.
Just one.
While they clashed, Yuuto had been arming puppet limbs scattered across the battlefield. Broken armor pieces and incomplete components had wrapped around him earlier, falling away as he took damage. Each had been placed deliberately.
Traps.
He casually lowered Kusanagi to one side, almost as if his control had slipped.
Now it was Yokazinaga’s turn to bite.
The swordsman surged forward, pouring his full weight into the swing, aiming to drive his blade clean through Yuuto.
With a sudden burst of smoke, Kusanagi reappeared, intercepting the strike. The katana lodged deep within the folds of the puppet. Its arms snapped shut, wrapping around the blade and extending forward, pinning the man in place.
Yuuto leapt back as the battlefield came alive.
Puppet arms detonated, releasing toxic gas that bloomed into a thick cloud. Yokazinaga slashed wildly, sweeping smoke aside, but the damage was done.
The poison had already taken hold.
His eyes reddened. His throat swelled. Blood spilled from his lips as he coughed violently.
Poisons were not his specialty.
He stumbled, driving his sword into the earth to keep himself upright. Through ragged breaths, he saw Yuuto manipulating chakra threads attached to multiple puppets.
Arms. Broken armor. Nearby debris.
All of it was drawn together, pulled by a vacuum of chakra. They fused into a towering construct, a crude yet terrifying golem of wood, steel, and strings.
A Puppet Fusion.
Yuuto watched as it attacked, each strike wielding a different armament. Yokazinaga dodged and countered as best he could, but the poison worsened. His body felt heavier. His vision blurred.
It was not just the toxin.
Genjutsu crept into his mind, layered and subtle, distorting perception. His eyes betrayed him, seeing multiple Yuutos at once. The illusion took root easily once the poison forced him to rationalize his confusion.
Time slowed.
He struck clone after clone, fending off the Puppet Fusion while poison burned through his veins, body and mind unraveling together.
One Yuuto vanished.
Or had he?
Three? Five?
Logic failed him as the real shinobi moved unseen, weaving hand seals beneath the cover of darkness. A disruption technique shattered one genjutsu, sending a spike of pain through the swordsman’s body. Immediately after, Night assaulted his vision, plunging him into temporary blindness.
Between poison and illusion, his senses collapsed.
The Puppet Fusion seized the opening.
A massive blow smashed him through a tree, splintering wood and bark alike. The construct followed relentlessly, striking again and again as Yuuto commanded Kusanagi to harass him with smaller attacks, never allowing relief.
Yuuto advanced, step by deliberate step, weaving increasingly intricate motions, accelerating the assault.
Though Yokazinaga fought valiantly, the attacks finally broke through. The crushing force and vicious blades became too much to endure.
It was time to end it.
Yuuto scorched his own chakra coils, forcing out two A-rank ninjutsu in unison. As he wove seals with one hand, Kusanagi’s pressure lessened just enough.
Enough for the man to break free.
Not by strength.
A scorching updraft ignited beneath him, lifting his body as flames licked at his flesh.
“Burn, scum.”
Updraft committed his body to the open air, suspending him only inches above the ground. Above them, a massive sphere of condensed heat formed, spreading across the battlefield.
For the first time, the man’s smile faltered.
Not from fear.
From awe.
He faced Amplifier head-on, colliding with the eruption of heat.
A smoldering body fell from the air, crashing into the earth below. Much of his skin was charred, scorched by the raw heat of Yuuto’s jutsu.
Yuuto stood over him.
Around him, puppets lay scattered and broken across the battlefield. His chakra reserves were stretched to their absolute limit, his breathing ragged.
The Nanjirou coughed weakly. Somehow, he still lived.
Yuuto approached slowly, the stench of burned flesh filling his nostrils. The man’s body barely moved as he turned his head, stiff and uncooperative from shock and pain. His eyes flicked to his sword, then back to Yuuto.
“So this is what it feels like, huh…” he muttered. “I didn’t think it’d be so peaceful…”
Yuuto understood the message without words.
He retrieved the katana, still steaming from the heat, and carefully placed it beside the fallen swordsman.
“I had a nice life…” the man continued, voice wavering. “I swung my blade… so much… I stained the world…” His breathing grew shallow. “And today… I got to have the best fight of my life…”
His voice faded, carried away as he slipped into death’s quiet embrace.
Yuuto did not have time to linger.
His body began to tremble violently, legs buckling as he collapsed to the ground. He had pushed himself far beyond his limits. Divinity Stance. Multiple puppet techniques. High-rank ninjutsu layered back to back. Combined with no sleep, little food, and massive blood loss, it was a miracle he had stayed conscious at all.
His vision blurred. Regeneration worked tirelessly, but even it could not replace the pints of blood he had lost.
He lay there, breathing heavily, eyes drifting back to the corpse.
Then to his palm.
The divinity seal of the Chimera technique rested there, humming faintly.
Yuuto dragged himself closer. The seal flared red, projecting itself onto the swordsman’s body. Flesh darkened and bubbled as it attempted to convert into biomass, the kinjutsu beginning its process.
Something was wrong.
Pain tore through Yuuto’s body without warning.
His own flesh began to darken and bubble, patches of skin writhing and crawling as if infested with parasites.
Genetic Instability.
The Chimera technique broke down the innate traits of living beings by unraveling their chakra. By ingesting biomass, it could go even further, absorbing abilities and reshaping the user with the essence of another.
Used on enemies, it stole power.
Used carelessly, it consumed the self.
Until now, Yuuto had carried only remnants of Chimera traits from past encounters. He relied primarily on his own training, his discipline as an ANBU, and the Masaru lineage. His genjutsu was spiritual in nature, born of the clan’s third eye, a dōjutsu tied to the spiritual realm.
But now, that foreign chakra surged.
The cursed energy he carried had been waiting. Biding its time. Waiting for his body to be exhausted, his defenses lowered, his will fractured.
You’re mine.
It was not a voice.
It was instinct.
Agony erupted across Yuuto’s body. The bones of his face cracked and forced their way outward, splitting skin as they shifted. His eyes burned as if cut open, the hidden third eye on his forehead tearing wide, blood pouring freely from its lids.
A searing pain ripped across his torso. Flesh stretched and peeled back as if pried open by invisible hands. Bone grew where it should not, his skeleton breaking and reshaping itself, reaching outward through his abdomen.
He howled, the Regeneration Jutsu the only thing keeping him from slipping into unconsciousness.
Cursed chakra flooded his system.
He was changing.
With what little consciousness remained, one thought echoed through him.
Consume.
His vision fractured into broken flashes.
Crunch.
Bone ground against bone, the sound wet and grotesque. Flesh tore. Something fed.
Time ceased to matter.
He saw fragments. Too many hands reaching, tearing into meat, shoving mass into a place that should not exist.
Darkness followed.
Eventually, the nightmare ended. Pain dulled, sensation fading as his body surrendered to a deep, unnatural slumber.
Seconds. Minutes. Hours.
Time had no meaning when he finally stirred.
Yuuto sat up slowly, his entire body aching. Pain danced across every inch of his frame. He reached up, gripping the bridge of his nose. The shape of his face felt wrong. Bone jutted beneath the skin, unfamiliar and unnatural.
Cursed chakra washed through him, not like an intrusion, but like marrow beneath flesh.
Normal.
That was the only word that fit.
The sensation was no longer foreign. The cursed energy felt like part of him now, woven into his very existence.
Yuuto opened his eyes. His vision sharpened, focusing from an unfamiliar depth before collapsing into a single, impossibly clear image.
He looked down.
He stood in a puddle of blood and black residue, the remnants of the Chimera’s conversion process. Even the criminal’s katana had been partially devoured, its edges chewed and warped by something jagged and cruel.
Slowly, his gaze drifted to his stomach.
A mouth.
Expressionless, sealed shut, stretched across his abdomen. Black residue smeared its edges.
Disgusting.
The only thing he could muster was a tired sigh.
A future steeped in curse lay ahead.
And with it, a reckoning that would not be avoided.