Land of Iron.
White.
As far as the eye could see.
Mountains, blanketed in thick snow.Winds sharp enough to cut skin.Trees black and bare, rising like claws from the ice.
And deep in the center—An ancient shrine buried beneath the frost.
Ryuki stood at its base.
Cloaked. Hood up.Snow clung to his shoulders, unmelted.
He felt it.
The fourth fragment pulsed somewhere beneath his feet.Alive. Waiting. Calling.
But so was something else.
Someone else.
Inside the shrine—
A circle of candles.None had melted.None had burned.
The silver-haired boy stood in the center.No cloak now. Just thin robes, barefoot in the snow.Unbothered by the cold.Eyes glowing faintly.
He didn't turn when Ryuki entered.
"I thought you'd run."
Ryuki didn't respond.
He stepped forward. Slow. Steady.
"You sent the Phantom," he said flatly.
"Yes."
"You failed."
"No," the boy said. "I measured you."
Ryuki's eye twitched beneath the bandage.
"…Who are you?"
Finally, the boy turned.
The room seemed to breathe when he did.
"I'm what you were supposed to become," he whispered."The original bearer. The one with all six."He raised his hand.
"And this—"
A small, black crystal floated from his palm.
"The fourth."
The shrine trembled.
A seal at the floor cracked open.
The snow outside began to evaporate.
Their eyes met.
And they charged.
Clash.
Ryuki struck first—Kunai slicing forward—
The boy parried with nothing but his palm.Steel bent.
Ryuki reversed time—half a second.
Dodged the counter.
But the boy didn't blink.
He'd already moved.
Their fists collided.Air shattered.Stone cracked.
Ryuki slid back across the floor.
Blood on his lip.
"Your dojutsu," he muttered. "It's not broken."
The boy smiled.
"Mine was never sealed."
Outside, storm clouds twisted.
Lightning carved across the sky.
The mountain shook as the shrine's foundation split.
Ryuki's eye flared.
Three rings spinning.
He raised his hand—chakra spiraling around his wrist.
The boy raised his too.
Four rings.
The difference was clear.
Ryuki lunged.
The boy stepped sideways—
And Ryuki's kunai passed through air.
The boy was gone.
No—Displaced.
Behind him.
Ryuki turned—
But too late.
A palm slammed into his back.
He crashed into the far wall, coughing blood.
"You're incomplete," the boy whispered. "Even with three. Your soul is still fractured."
Ryuki pulled himself up.
"Maybe."
He unwrapped the bandage.
His broken eye gleamed in the dark.
"But I learn faster."
He flared his chakra.
Seal ignited.
The third spiral expanded—
And suddenly—
He moved.
Not teleportation.Not speed.
Refraction.
He bent the light.
Vanished from vision.
The boy spun—
Too slow.
Ryuki appeared mid-air.Hand glowing.Palm to the boy's chest.
"Return."
The fourth fragment inside the boy pulsed.
It trembled—
And flew out of his body.
Right into Ryuki's hand.
The boy staggered.
Eyes wide.
"No—"
Ryuki's seal erupted.
Four spirals now.
The shrine collapsed.
Snow blasted outward like a bomb.
Hours later.
Ryuki stood on the mountain alone.
The silver-haired boy was gone.Fled.
The shrine buried in rubble.
The wind howled again.But it was quiet inside his chest.
Four fragments now.
Only two left.
Back in Konoha.
Tsunade read the report.
Silent.
Sai stood beside her.
"He's moving faster than expected," Sai said.
She looked at him. Tired. Cold.
"If he gets all six—what happens?"
Sai didn't answer.
Because no one knew.
Far across the sea.
The fifth fragment stirred.
Deep beneath the ruins of Uzushio.
And someone else had already arrived.
A woman. Masked. Humming.
She knelt before the red spiral seal etched into stone.
"I found you," she whispered.
Then smiled.
End of Chapter 125.