The rain returned the mont Haji stepped back into Agakure.
Thin mist hung in the air, droplets streaking his silver armor as he stood silently on the tower's highest spire. Konan's paper charms still fluttered from nearby poles, remnants of the Akatsuki's once-silent control. Now, the village lay quiet, its people unsure of what had changed… only that sothing had.
But Haji didn't stay long. He wasn't here for farewells.
He closed his eyes, not to search blindly, but to focus. His mind extended outward like a radar, reaching through layers of the surrounding terrain, chakra threads weaving into the land's mory.
There it is.
The trail was faint, most would have missed it entirely. A foreign ripple. Not chakra. Sothing more precise. Controlled. Like a tethered knot unraveling just after being cut.
A spy had watched their battle.
But the presence wasn't in the village.
It ca from beyond the northern ridges, past the borders of the Land of Rain, into a place long left to nature's rule.
Without hesitation, Haji vanished.
He reappeared upon jagged stone, the wind harsher now, thin and cold.
The rocky cliffs stretched out across the horizon, rising and dipping like the spine of a sleeping titan. And above it all, carved into the face of a great mountain, was a structure, ancient, half-eroded, but still pulsing faintly with chakra signatures.
A temple.
It sat like a crown upon the mountain, forgotten by most. But not by the man inside.
Haji didn't move right away. He stood quietly for a mont, letting the wind pull at his cloak.
This place… it reeks of sothing alien.
Inside the Temple
Jigen stood near a circular window carved high into the stone, watching the horizon through narrowed eyes.
His black and red cloak barely moved. The dim glow of suspended chakra monitors flickered across his cheekbones, showing past feeds, recordings of the battle in Agakure, of Haji standing firm against Pain, of his golden halo resisting Shinra Tensei, of the brutal swiftness with which he erased Kakuzu and destroyed Zetsu.
Jigen's eyes narrowed.
"He's not from this world," he murmured.
He turned to the shadows behind him, where old relics humd with ancient Otsutsuki energy.
"That body… it's flawless," he muttered to himself. "His core strength, it surpasses anything I've seen. And that chakra, that's not purely chakra. There's sothing else."
It wasn't just raw power. There was sothing unnatural about Haji. Sothing perfect and unknown.
Jigen didn't understand it completely, but he wanted it.
"If I take that vessel… no, when I take it, I'll not only resurrect to my full power… I might evolve past even Isshiki's limits."
He turned, preparing to descend the stairs into the lab hidden beneath the temple.
"Gather data. Begin surveillance," he muttered to himself. "That body… will beco–"
But then he stopped.
He felt it.
Not chakra. Not sensor technique.
Presence.
The exact, perfect weight of soone watching him.
Jigen spun around.
Outside the window, sothing glowed in the darkening sky.
Outside the Temple
Haji stepped forward slowly, removing his helt.
He hadn't used ninjutsu in a long ti, his psychic force and Strenght had been enough. But now he needed to send a ssage.
Not to kill.
To draw out the one who had been hiding.
A burst of heat shimred around his mouth.
He didn't weave hand signs.
He didn't chant.
He simply opened his mouth.
The ground beneath him cracked as his chakra surged, condensing into his lungs like a molten core. Steam hissed from his mouth as he inhaled deeply, and then released it in a single, roaring breath.
A colossal stream of fire exploded forward, Dragon Fla Jutsu, amplified beyond anything natural.
But it wasn't fire as most would know it.
It was a beam.
A straight, howling jet of pure combustion, shaped like the roaring head of a dragon, its teeth wide open. The technique pierced upward through the cliffs and slamd into the temple with a noise like thunder cracking the sky.
Inside the Temple
The walls groaned. Heat warped the stone in seconds. Flas carved through ancient murals and shattered columns.
Jigen's body flickered, and vanished in an instant.
He reappeared atop a distant ridge, watching as his temple, his sanctuary, was consud.
The fire tore through the roof, then the rear, and finally the entire upper half of the mountain caved in, flas bursting from within like a volcanic eruption.
Jigen raised one hand to shield his eyes.
"He knew."
His voice was calm, but behind his words was sothing more dangerous: interest.
"I see…"
So the one I ca to observe… now hunts .
Back to Haji
Haji lowered his arm.
The beam flickered out, leaving the mountain glowing like a forge.
He watched carefully.
His eyes scanned the ruins. No movent. No presence left inside.
But he could still feel Jigen.
"He moved."
He raised his helt and placed it back on.
Haji didn't smile.
He didn't speak.
He simply stepped off the cliff and vanished again, this ti heading toward the direction where Jigen had fled.
To be continued in Chapter 129.
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