The figure stood still.
Not breathing.Not blinking.Not human.
Kurashiki.
The spiral before time.
Not created by chakra.
But creator of it.
Seven eyes blinked one by one.
Vertical. Cold. Eternal.
Each blink sent a ripple through the air.Each ripple twisted the world slightly off-balance.
Ryuki felt the pressure in his bones.
His spirals shivered.Not with fear—With recognition.
Kurashiki wasn't a new threat.
Kurashiki was where it all began.
Eri kept her arm out, blocking Ryuki.
She didn't speak.
Didn't move.
The spiral mark on her hand pulsed in response.
Gold met Void.
And the world shuddered.
"She holds the key," Kurashiki said, its voice digging into their thoughts.
"Return it. And your identity remains yours."
Ryuki stepped forward.
"No."
The word was small.
But it echoed.
Across the trees.Across time.
Kurashiki tilted its head.
"Then I shall take it."
Instant motion.
Not speed.
Not teleportation.
Subtraction.
Kurashiki removed the space between him and Eri—
And was suddenly in front of her.
Its hand reached forward.
Ryuki moved.
Too slow.
Eri raised her glowing hand.
The golden spiral blazed.
Light pierced time.
Kurashiki staggered.
Just a step.Just a moment.
But it felt pain.
Ryuki summoned the fifth spiral—
The one of memory.
He dove forward.
Blades of crystallized time sliced through air.
He slashed.
Kurashiki blocked with a single finger.
Time cracked around the point of contact.
"You carry Tengoku's flaw," it said.
"Emotion."
Ryuki's eye burned.
The sixth ring spun out of control.
Overload.
He dropped to one knee.
Blood from his eye.
Eri caught him.
But behind her—Kurashiki raised its palm.
Seven spirals spun in silence.
A force began to pull.
Light. Heat. Breath.
Reality itself bent toward the spiral.
A void technique.
One that unmade.
Eri stood.
Hand out.
No fear.
Only defiance.
She screamed:
"I reject you!"
And golden spirals surged from her chest.
Not one.
Three.
Flash—Unknown Past.
Eri as a child.In a room of gold.Dozens of spirals orbiting her.
A woman kneeling before her, face hidden.
"You're not a tool.You're not a weapon.You're the one thing the spirals can't control—A soul with choice."
Back to now.
Kurashiki hissed.
"Impossible."
Ryuki looked up.
"…You weren't just a lock."
"You're a countermeasure."
Eri's body glowed brighter.
The golden spirals weren't stolen.They were born.
And the Void Spiral recoiled from her presence.
Kurashiki raised both hands.
"Then I shall reset you."
The void behind him cracked wide open.
A spiral the size of a mountain.
Eri turned to Ryuki.
"…We stop him here."
He shook his head.
"We're not ready."
She grinned.
"Neither is he."
She stepped into the void.
Ryuki followed.
And the world swallowed them.
Far away.
Tsunade dropped her tea.
Jiraiya looked up from a scroll.
"Something changed," he muttered.
The scroll in his hand unraveled on its own.
Seven spirals.
Each glowing now.
One… golden.
Inside the void.
Kurashiki floated in the dark.
Waiting.
Ryuki and Eri emerged on shattered ground.
No stars.
No gravity.
Only forgotten time.
Kurashiki's voice echoed across the nothing.
"Welcome to the Spiral Before Time."
"Let us end where it all began."
End of Chapter 132.