CUT TO: EXT. FOREST CLEARING — DAY
The forest has a scar.
A straight-line trench ripped through dirt and roots and pride, as if something decided "trees are a suggestion."
Bark is peeled. Leaves are confetti. The air smells like burned sap and hot metal that shouldn't be here.
SFX (SMOLDERING): tktktk—
SFX (DISTANT WATERFALL, FADE): rrrrr—
Then—
A thin seam of light slices open midair.
Not a portal.
Not a swirl.
A clean, wrong CUT, like reality got edited with scissors.
SFX (TINY, WRONG): …snk?
KILLUA FLARES INTO EXISTENCE—
—already moving.
He skids to a stop on both feet, knees bent, hands out, like his body arrived half a second before his brain finished loading.
DIRT sprays forward in a wave.
A few saplings SNAP from the shock.
SFX: FSHHHH—!
SFX (WOOD): KRAK!
Killua freezes.
Not because he's scared.
Because he's listening.
His eyes flick left, right, up.
Green everywhere. Too much green.
Too alive.
This is not Yorknew. This is not anywhere he recognizes.
A micro-second of "where am I" tries to become panic—
—and gets throttled in the throat by training.
Killua inhales once.
Slow.
Control.
He checks his wrists.
No wires.
No pole.
No desert.
Just faint residual static crawling over his skin like a memory.
SFX (FADING STATIC): krk… krk…
Behind him, the trail he carved finishes catching up with physics.
A small line of fires pops and crawls along shredded bark.
SFX (FIRE): fff—ff—ff—
Beat.
A tree that's been thinking about falling finally decides to commit.
It TIPS, teeters, then collapses with a heavy, offended THUD.
SFX (TREE): THUUUM!
Killua turns his head very slowly to watch it fall.
His mouth does a tiny, involuntary :p "oops."
He immediately fixes his face like someone just caught him being twelve.
KILLUA
(under his breath)
…Great.
He scans again.
No people. No roads. No buildings.
Just forest.
Which means: predators, traps, and somebody's territory.
Killua's posture shifts without him thinking.
Light on his feet.
Hands ready, but not obvious.
He's not making a threat.
He's making a promise.
A presence touches the edge of his awareness—
Not Nen.
Not quite.
Something like being looked at through a lens.
Killua's eyes narrow.
KILLUA (V.O.)
Not an animal.
A shadow moves at the clearing's edge.
SASUKE UCHIHA lands without a sound.
No dramatic crunch. No announcement.
He just appears in the way killers do—already where you wish they weren't.
CLOAK damp at the hem. Hair wet from the waterfall. Eyes flat and sharp.
He takes in the burned path. The snapped saplings. The smoking bark.
Then he looks at Killua.
The look isn't anger.
It's inventory.
SASUKE
You did this.
Killua doesn't answer immediately.
Because answering first is how you let someone set the rules.
He tilts his head instead, studying Sasuke the way he studies a knife before he decides where to put it.
Teenage. Lean. All tension.
But the danger around him isn't just posture—
It's the way the air seems to behave near him.
Killua feels it like pressure in his teeth.
KILLUA
(guarded, polite enough)
Where am I?
Sasuke doesn't even pretend to care.
His gaze sharpens, and for a half-second—
His Sharingan flickers. Not fully unleashed.
Just a quick diagnostic. RED—then gone.
Killua feels it like a hand brushing his aura.
An invasive little "hello."
Killua's eyes narrow a fraction.
KILLUA (V.O.)
He can… see it?
Sasuke's voice stays calm, but there's a faint edge of irritation—like the world is breaking rules in his vicinity.
SASUKE
Your chakra… isn't chakra.
Killua blinks once.
He files the word away.
Chakra. Local term. Local system.
Got it.
Killua's mouth curls into the smallest half-grin—testing, not friendly.
KILLUA
You can see it.
Not a question.
A confirmation.
Sasuke doesn't respond.
He lifts one hand, palm angled slightly forward.
Electricity begins to crackle around his arm—tight, controlled, surgical.
Lightning chakra doesn't spread.
It aims.
SFX (CHAKRA LIGHTNING): tk—TK—TK—
Killua's pupils tighten. Instant recognition. Instant interest.
KILLUA
Electricity…?
He says it like it's a shared language.
Like—finally—something here makes sense.
Killua's aura rises.
Not a flare. Not a flex.
A defensive bloom that still looks like confidence because he doesn't know how to do "halfway."
Electricity crawls over his shoulders like living snakes.
SFX (NEN STATIC): krk—krk—krk—
Sasuke's eyebrow lifts.
The tiniest "interesting" he ever gives anybody.
A beat of silence.
Two predators on opposite ends of a clearing, both doing the same math:
If I move first, I might win.
If I hesitate, I might die.
Killua shifts his weight.
Sasuke's fingers tense.
And then—
They move.
Both at once.
CUT TO BLACK.