Chapter 144: “Howls Beneath the Canopy”

Chapter 144: “Howls Beneath the Canopy”

The air in the forest twisted with heat and malevolence. A feral roar split the stillness, echoing like the cry of a wounded beast.

Sora, his body engulfed in boiling red chakra, lunged through the woods. A single tail swirled behind him, flicking embers with every movement. His eyes glowed with unrestrained hatred, his features distorted, lips peeled back to reveal sharpened teeth, claws outstretched like a wild predator.

Across from him, Hajime stood in a clearing where trees had already wilted from the pressure of chakra in the air. He didn’t move. His armor, etched with chakra seals and plated in polished black steel, gleamed beneath the moonlight seeping through the canopy. In one hand, he held nothing. He didn’t need to.

Sora roared and charged. The ground burned where his feet struck. His speed was blinding.

But not to Hajime.

In the split-second before impact, Hajime sidestepped, one hand casually reaching out. He grabbed Sora’s wrist mid-swing, twisting his momentum, and then, without effort, hurled him through the trees.

The sound was deafening.

Crack, crash, boom.

Sora’s body tore through bark and branch like cannon fire, smashing a straight path through half a dozen trunks before slamming into a mossy hillside. The earth trembled under the force.

From the ruined woods, a second tail exploded from Sora’s back, his body further warped by the power of the Nine-Tails fragment sealed inside him. The chakra around him began to harden, becoming a shell of armor over his limbs and back. His voice deepened, demonic, unrecognizable.

Sora snarled. Then charged again.

This time, his blows were faster, wild arcs of claw and chakra, ripping apart trees, splitting the ground. He pounced like an animal. His strikes split boulders and toppled trees, each attack laced with killing intent.

But Hajime remained still.

He let one clawed hand strike near his shoulder, and with one palm, he countered.

WHAM.

The blow sent Sora flying again, this time into a cliff wall at the edge of the clearing. Stone shattered under the impact. A faint shockwave rippled outward, shaking birds from the canopy.

Sora struggled to rise.

His breath was ragged now, steam pouring from his mouth. The crimson shroud over him flickered like flame. This time, he didn’t rush.

He opened his mouth and roared. A compressed wave of white chakra formed, then blasted forth in a sonic screech that bent the trees backward.

Chakra shockwave.

It cleaved through the forest like a blade, uprooting trees and disintegrating boulders in a straight line, headed directly toward Hajime.

And yet, Hajime didn’t move.

The shockwave hit, and the ground disintegrated around his feet. But Hajime hovered, weightless. Chakra and wind swirled below him, the debris dancing in a chaotic cyclone.

Then

Flash.

A distortion in space, Hajime vanished.

He reappeared directly in front of Sora, arm drawn back like a piston. Before Sora could react

Crack!

A clean blow to the head. The force sent Sora into the air, flipping wildly before he slammed into the forest floor in a puff of dust and sparks.

Hajime exhaled once.

Sora staggered to his knees, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. The demonic chakra still clung to him, two tails now lashing behind, but his body trembled. His desperation grew.

Then, he opened his mouth again.

But this time, the energy gathered slower. A dim, unstable white orb flickered at his lips, a malformed Tailed Beast Ball, lacking control, barely holding shape. It was a mistake. But Sora fired it anyway.

The orb hurtled through the air, cracking the sky as it spun toward Hajime.

But

Hajime raised a single hand.

The sphere hit his palm. There was a sound like glass shattering, then the orb was slapped away effortlessly, deflected into the sky where it detonated in a harmless burst of white fire, illuminating the forest like lightning.

Sora froze.

Then

Hajime appeared above him. One flash of light. One strike.

Boom.

The blow landed on Sora’s chest, knocking the wind, and the chakra, out of him. He hit the ground hard. The crimson tails flared one last time, then fizzled.

The cloak of chakra dispersed, revealing a battered boy beneath.

Before Sora could hit the dirt fully, Hajime caught him by the collar, suspending him in mid-air. His hand remained steady, while the other hand just seals Sora, with no Warning.

“Eight Trigrams Sealing Style”

A spiral-shaped seal glowed on Sora’s chest, etching itself into his skin. The moment it activated, Sora’s body went limp. His chakra was sealed, suppressed. His eyes rolled back and he passed out, unconscious but alive.

Hajime cradled the boy’s small frame in his arm.

Behind him, movement stirred.

Kazuma emerged from the treeline, his chakra blazing with fury. He shouted as he charged forward, flanked by Three surviving Guardian Nin.

“Return him!” Kazuma roared. “He’s ours!” As Sora, His son, His only hope of taking revenge on, to konoha.

Fire, wind, and lightning jutsu shot toward Hajime in a barrage. Blades of compressed air. Bolts of crimson lightning. Streams of molten flame.

Hajime didn’t flinch.

With a pulse of thought, a wide psychic shockwave rippled outward. The terrain buckled, trees snapped. The jutsu fizzled in the air as if snuffed by sheer pressure.

One Guardian was yanked into the air by telekinesis, his body twisting mid-scream before his spine cracked, then his corpse was flung into a tree.

The second ran forward, drawing a blade, Hajime sidestepped and twisted, snapping the man’s neck with a flick of his armored hand.

The last one died when Hajime swung a punch straight into his head, that send his head flying, leaving his body standing up straight, beheaded by a punch.

Kazuma finally closed in, his wind-infused blade slicing toward Hajime’s throat in a horizontal arc.

Hajime grabbed the blade mid-swing.

It shattered.

Kazuma’s eyes went wide. “No…”

Hajime reached forward and grabbed Kazuma by the throat, lifting him with one hand. “You use a child for you ambitions,” Hajime said, voice cold. “Your life ends here.”

Kazuma struggled, chakra sparking in his hands, but it was no use.

Crunch.

His throat caved in. Hajime dropped the lifeless body without ceremony.

The battlefield fell silent.

Bodies of the fallen were scattered across the blackened forest floor, smoldering trees framing the site like a ruined altar. The wind carried the faint scent of blood and scorched wood.

Hajime looked at the boy in his arms, his breathing shallow, his chakra sealed but still alive.

Then

He vanished.

The clearing was left empty, with the devastation of their fights, and corpses left from the Enemy.