Shadows clung to the peeling walls of the underground vault, where a single candle cast long, flickering shapes.
The air was thick with damp stone and the metallic tang of blood from Kakuzu's tattered cloak.
The legendary hunter stood perfectly still, but the silence was broken by the two hollow, jagged holes in his back. Across the scarred wooden desk, the middleman watched in fear as the warrior's gear showed the ruin of a brutal fight. Two elemental masks had been pulverized into dust, a feat thought impossible for a mere child.
"You look like you fought a war, Kakuzu," the middleman whispered, eyes darting to the empty sockets on the hunter's shoulders. "I didn't think anyone in the Land of Fire could strip your lives away like that."
"A variable appeared," Kakuzu replied, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "The Uchiha boy. I cornered the brat in a backyard, thinking it was a simple collection. I left two hearts in that dirt instead."
He leaned forward, candlelight catching the cold, emerald glint of his eyes. Kakuzu then detailed the encounter, explaining how a single punch landed with the weight of a collapsing ridge.
The force had multiplied inside his chest until his reinforced skin gave way like paper, proving the boy's power was far beyond his rank.
The middleman's charcoal pen snapped. "A punch? You're telling me a child broke Earth Spear and killed two masks with his bare hands?" the man asked, voice thin with disbelief.
"It wasn't just strength. It was absolute," Kakuzu stated, jaw tightening under his mask. He described the boy's fingers moving with the precision of five spear tips, piercing deeper than steel. He also spoke of the movement, a ghostly glide that left afterimages flickering in the moonlight.
To the hunter, the boy was a ghost who hit like a god, making it impossible to find the real threat.
Every detail provided was a list of lethalities that painted Yoichi as a refined and terrifying predator.
"What happened next? Is the target still in the village?" the middleman muttered, grabbing a new pen.
"I retreated," Kakuzu said, the admission coming out as a growl. "The damage was too great, and his vitality showed no signs of flagging. The brat has a reservoir of life force that defies logic."
He warned that the Hokage's shadow was surely over that house now, and any hunter seeking the Uchiha would find only a shallow grave. Kakuzu knew his own survival was a matter of calculation rather than luck, and he wouldn't risk more hearts without better odds.
The middleman pulled a heavy pouch from a locked drawer and slid it across the table. "Two million Ryō. Your fee for the intel and the 'trouble' of losing your masks," the man said, watching a gloved hand vanish the gold.
He leaned in closer, voice dropping to a barely audible breath. "The client in the high mountains of the North will be pleased. He issued this bounty specifically to find a body that could rival his own. He values lightning and strength above all else, and he will pay even more to know the Leaf has bred a storm of their own."
"Update the files," Kakuzu commanded, turning back into the darkness. "If anyone asks for a price on his head, tell them they don't have enough gold to pay for their own funerals." The hunter vanished into the shadows, leaving the middleman alone with a report destined for the Raikage's desk.
...
...
...
The Land of Lightning was a realm of jagged peaks and eternal thunder, where the Raikage's office sat perched above the clouds.
Inside, the Third Raikage stood by the window, a massive frame silhouetted by a flash of white light.
A calloused thumb traced the parchment of a black market scroll detailing a child's freakish vitality. The report didn't name the hunter who failed, only that a high-level master had been repelled by a force like a collapsing mountain.
"The blood of the mountains is finally manifesting in that boy," the Raikage rumbled, his voice like grinding stones. He turned from the window, heavy muscles bulging under a simple robe.
The scroll described a punch that could shatter the earth and a movement that left ghosts in the air.
This Yoichi was the product of a Kumo shinobi and a Uchiha, a mixture of lightning-touched resilience and the potential of the eyes.
To the giant of a man, the boy was a stray storm belonging in the north, and the Leaf's possession of the child felt like a theft of heritage.
"The gold we sent to the sand and the mist was a down payment on this ghost," the Raikage said to a masked subordinate in the shadows. "Contact the Kazekage and the Mizukage. Remind them that I have given them enough resources to rebuild their villages. In return, they will stop hunting for Uchiha eyes and start hunting for Kumo's lost bloodline. We will not start a war by attacking the Leaf directly, so tell them to prepare their men for a long wait."
A spark of blue electricity danced between his fingertips while thoughts turned toward the other villages. Suna and Kiri were hungry for the Uchiha eyes, but their cooperation had already been bought. By pouring vast gold and iron resources into thin treasuries, the prosperous land of Kumo shifted its focus. These neighbors were no longer hunting for a dōjutsu; they were now paid mercenaries for a reclamation project.
"The secret agreement is now in effect," the Raikage barked as the messenger bowed low. "Suna and Kiri will provide the distraction and the sealing teams once the target leaves the safety of the Hidden Leaf. We will wait until the brat takes a mission in the open. I want the sealing teams ready to strike the moment he is isolated in the wilderness. Do not damage the specimen; I want that body brought to me intact so I can see the true strength of his dual lineage."
The messenger vanished, leaving the room heavy with the scent of ozone. The ruler sat back in a heavy chair, a grim smile hidden in a thick beard.
Economic might had built a bridge between three powers, all to set a snare for a single genin.
Hiruzen would likely keep the boy close, but eventually, every shinobi had to walk the path of a mission. The investment seemed a bargain for a body capable of surviving a collision with absolute forces.
"The forest cannot protect you forever, and the mountains are calling you home," a whisper drifted through the room. Eyes looked out at the lightning, already calculating ambush points along the borders. A net was tightening, ready to snap shut the moment a foot stepped past the village walls.
...
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...
While the clouds gathered in the Land of Lightning, the target of the storm sat in the center of a silent room.
This temporary house in the Uchiha compound felt hollow.
The walls smelled of fresh wood, a constant reminder that Kakuzu's techniques had turned his old life into ash.
Outside, the village was still buzzing about the boy who had survived a legend, but only the data mattered now.
A translucent panel flickered to life, reflecting in calm, obsidian eyes. Twelve silver tickets remained. Pulling six was the rational choice.
"Start the roulette," Yoichi whispered. "I need to fix my body before someone else comes for it."
The wheel spun with a mechanical hum.
[Congratulations! You've obtained Qi Blood Pills (30 portions)!]
[Congratulations! You've obtained Qi Blood Pills (30 portions)!]
[Congratulations! You've obtained Qi Blood Pills (30 portions)!]
"Ninety pills," Yoichi noted, counting the red spheres in his mind. "The energy from the fight is still leaking. These will revitalize my blood and fill the gaps. My recovery speed will keep pace with the village's expectations."
The wheel did not stop. It landed on a bundle of dried, glowing plants.
[Congratulations! You've obtained Aged Herbs (30 portions)!]
[Congratulations! You've obtained a Demonic Bone Forging Pill (30 portions)!]
[Congratulations! You've obtained a Demonic Bone Forging Pill (30 portions)!]
Two cold, white porcelain bottles appeared on the floor. These contained the pills that served as the keys to the Bone Forging Realm. The medicine was designed to shatter and rebuild the skeletal structure into something denser than steel. To a rational mind, agony was just a price for durability.
"Sixty bone pills," Yoichi murmured, picking up a bottle. "The village sees a miracle. I see a target. I need to be harder than the ground they walk on."
The shirt came off. Long, jagged scars marked his torso and arms from the fight. The gashes had been deep and battered, but his internal vitality had already finished the basic repairs. The wounds had closed with unnatural speed, making the scars whitened and permanent against his tanned skin.
These marks would not fade. They were the map of his suffering and survival.
A steady, heavy rhythm of life pumped through his chest, anchoring his resolve. One Demonic Bone Forging Pill was tipped out of a porcelain bottle and held between two fingers. The scent of iron and cold medicinal energy filled the air. Yoichi swallowed it without hesitation.
"Time to refine," he said to the quiet walls.
The pill dissolved. A sudden, grinding heat spread through the marrow. It felt like the entire skeleton was being crushed by a thousand hammers.
Controlled breaths pushed through the pain, forcing the body to stay still as the Bone Forging process began. These resources would pave the way to the peak of the Mortal Realm.
Far to the north, the Raikage waited for a storm to break. In this room, Yoichi was becoming the storm. If the world wanted to treat a child like a strategic asset, the price to control him would be higher than any village could ever afford.
The internal temperature climbed until the air around his skin shimmered like a desert mirage.
Yoichi gripped his knees, knuckles turning the color of bleached bone as the Demonic Bone Forging Pill reached the core of his frame.
This was no gentle flow of chakra. It was a violent, physical reconstruction that felt like molten lead pouring into every crevice of his marrow.
"Focus," he grunted, teeth clicking together against the tremors. "The structure must hold."
A dull, metallic chime resonated through the silent room, though his lips remained sealed. The sound vibrated from his ribs, ringing with the resonance of struck iron as the medicinal essence forced his bones to thicken.
Every heavy thrum of his Second Heart sent a fresh wave of heat through the whitened scars on his chest, making the marks of his survival pulse like pale lightning.
To any observer, the scene was one of agony, but Yoichi's eyes remained fixed and clinical, watching his own evolution.
Black, oily sweat began to seep from his pores, staining the fresh wood of the floor with the impurities of his mortality. The floorboards beneath him groaned and groaned, bowing under a physical mass that seemed to double with every passing minute. Inside, the lattice-work of his skeleton shattered and fused, weaving a structure denser than any steel forged in a village fire.
"Again," he whispered, forcing his spine to straighten.
The grinding sensation moved to his vertebrae, each bone popping with the sharp crack of a forest branch under snow. He did not cry out, his mind remaining a detached fortress that monitored the cooling of the medicinal fire.
As the heat finally receded, the air in the room felt heavy and stagnant, pressed down by the sheer presence of the child.
He sat in the center of the ruin of his own exhaustion, a predator whose cage was no longer made of mere flesh and blood.
Yoichi pushed himself off the floor, and his palms left deep, damp imprints on the wood. There were no swirling auras or bursts of light to mark the transition.
No magical hum vibrated in the air.
The silence of the room remained absolute, and it was only broken by the sharp, crystalline snap of his joints as he stood.
The body felt fundamentally different. It was a change rooted in pure, heavy matter rather than spiritual trickery. A never-ending vitality coursed through his bones, and it felt like a surging current of ancient rivers flowing through stone.
He moved his arm, and the air seemed to offer less resistance. It was as if his increased density had turned him into a sharp blade cutting through a soft veil.
"Still too light," he murmured.
His voice carried a slight metallic resonance from deep within his chest. He took a single step toward the center of the room. There was no visible effort, yet the floorboard beneath his heel did not just creak. It splintered with a dry, violent crack.
The wood gave way under a weight that his small frame should not have possessed. He looked down at the shattered timber, and his face showed no surprise.
The whitened scars on his arms pulled tight across his muscles. They gleamed like silver threads under the dim light. These were no longer just marks of past trauma. They were the seams of a vessel that was rapidly becoming too small for the power it contained. He felt the dual rhythm of his hearts, and both worked together to anchor this new, terrifying solidity.
The room felt small. The world felt fragile. He flexed his fingers, and he felt the marrow in his knuckles hum with a strength that felt permanent. It was a cold, rational growth. This was a body being forged into a weapon that required no seals, but only the will to move.
"Bone Forging Realm, complete!" Yoichi clenched his fist, popping sounds resounded across the silent room.