Zander
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Chapter 129 – The One Who Watches
🕑 Added 2025-07-22 09:36:48 +0000 UTCChapter 129 – The One Who Watches
The wind howled across the shattered peak where the temple once stood, its ruins still smoldering beneath a sky darkened by soot and smoke. The crater glowed faintly in the night, molten stone dripping from exposed cliffs.
Jigen stood on a distant ridge, arms crossed, watching the devastation with unreadable eyes. His cloak fluttered gently as heat shimmered upward from the ruin. The very mountain trembled under the weight of the destruction Hajime had unleashed.
“So he noticed me back then,” Jigen murmured.
He had watched the entire battle in Amegakure from afar, how Hajime obliterated Kakuzu without effort, how he shattered the Chibaku Tensei like glass, how even the gravity of the Rinnegan couldn’t move him. The golden halo… that strange force. It was not chakra. Not any form he recognized.
That was when his desire ignited. Not curiosity. Greed.
“I thought I was the one hunting him… But he’s come for me instead.”
A sudden shimmer distorted the air behind him.
Jigen turned calmly.
And there he was.
Hajime appeared without sound or flash. One moment, the ridge was empty. The next, he stood there, helmeted, silent, eyes glowing faintly beneath the visor. The silver of his armor reflected the embers still rising behind them.
Jigen studied him closely.
“Perfect,” he said, a smile curling his lips. “You’re even more valuable than I thought. I sensed it back when you fought those Akatsuki fools… but now that you’re here, this close… it’s undeniable.”
He raised a hand.
“Come. Become my body. Together, we’ll be something the gods themselves would fear.”
Hajime didn’t respond. He didn’t even shift his stance.
He simply lifted his arm, and in his hand, summoned his halberd.
Warp energy coiled around the blade like serpents made of lightning. Purple arcs cracked in the air as the weapon extended, humming with unnatural power. No chakra radiated from it. Only something deeper. Older.
Jigen’s smile faltered.
“…That energy,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “That’s not chakra. What are you really?”
Still no answer.
The wind screamed between them.
And then Hajime moved.
In a blink, he closed the distance, his halberd crashing downward in a precise arc.
Jigen leapt back, summoning a black rod from his palm mid-air. The weapon met the halberd with a clash, metal shrieking against dense chakra alloy.
But Jigen’s eyes widened.
The halberd wasn’t just hard, it vibrated with raw kinetic energy, the moment of impact reverberating through his body like a shockwave. He barely redirected it, the force cratering the ground beneath them.
Hajime landed soundlessly and struck again, this time sweeping low.
Jigen shrank instantly using Sukunahikona, his body vanishing to microscopic scale. Hajime’s strike carved a trench into the earth, stone exploding outward in all directions.
Jigen reappeared above him, flipping mid-air and summoning a rain of chakra rods from his Daikokuten space. The black spears fell like missiles.
Hajime looked up.
And didn’t move.
The rods struck his armor, and stopped, suspended an inch from the surface. A shimmering psychic barrier had bloomed outward like a second skin, arresting all momentum.
Jigen’s eyes narrowed again.
“Tch.”
He landed a distance away and launched forward again, his Kama Seal glowing across his face and arm. His speed spiked sharply, and he reappeared behind Hajime in a blur, palm outstretched to absorb the halberd.
But as his hand touched it
Pain.
It seared up his arm like fire.
“What!?”
Hajime turned and slammed the butt of his halberd into Jigen’s ribs, sending him hurtling through two cliffs. Jigen rolled through the stone and skidded out, coughing, his chest armor cracked.
“That’s… not chakra. Not even natural matter…”
Jigen rose, eyes narrowed with more calculation than before.
“Fine,” he muttered. “You want a fight. You’ll get one.”
The Kama seal extended over his entire body. Dark marks crawled across his skin. His power surged as he teleported behind Hajime again, this time faster. Hajime blocked with the halberd, but Jigen struck with multiple rapid jabs using his reinforced rods, each blow targeting joints and pressure points.
For a moment, sparks flew from Hajime’s armor.
Then, Hajime moved. Just one step.
And Jigen’s entire world tilted.
The halberd spun and caught Jigen’s shoulder, flinging him across the battlefield like a ragdoll.
Jigen twisted midair and shrunk again to evade a follow-up bolt of warp lightning. He reappeared underground and launched a surprise pillar of chakra rods upward.
Hajime didn’t dodge.
He turned and drove his foot into the ground.
The entire earth buckled, and a localized shockwave blew the rods away before they could pierce the surface.
Jigen surfaced again, visibly irritated now.
“You really don’t speak, huh?”
Hajime tilted his head slightly. His voice, when it came, was calm. Distant.
"You Otsutsuki types never shut up, do you?"
The statement landed like a stone.
Jigen’s expression hardened.
“You think I’m like them?” he spat. “I am a god. You? You’re just a container. And I will take what I need.”
He rushed forward again, activating full Kama absorption. The very air bent around him as he attempted to draw in Hajime’s halberd
but it didn’t work.
His ability flared and fizzled.
The halberd refused to be absorbed.
Hajime’s eyes locked onto him.
“You are wasting your time.”
The warp lightning surged again, and Hajime struck in a full-bodied rotation, his halberd trailing afterimages of violet plasma.
Jigen formed a dimensional portal mid-spin and escaped through it, but Hajime reacted instantly, slamming his hand into the same space and disrupting the coordinates with a psychic pulse. Jigen staggered out of the exit portal only to find Hajime already waiting.
Another strike, this one aimed at the Kama seal directly.
Jigen blocked, but the force cracked the edge of his ribcage.
He coughed, blood spitting from his mouth.
His body was already starting to wear down.
Even with all his power, he was using too much.
And Hajime… hadn’t even broken a sweat.
Jigen stepped back, trying to calculate again.
“You’re not like the others,” he admitted, wiping his mouth.
Hajime didn’t answer.
Instead, he walked forward, slow, deliberate steps.
With each one, the air grew heavier.
Jigen could feel it now. Not chakra. Not physical weight.
But presence.
Hajime’s mere existence pressed down on the battlefield like a mountain.
Jigen smirked despite the pain.
“I see it now,” he said. “You’re not just a vessel. You’re something else entirely. Something… not meant for this world.”
Hajime didn’t deny it.
He raised his halberd.
The storm above gathered again, lightning spiraling down toward his weapon as warp energy exploded across the cliff face.
Jigen stood his ground, but his expression had changed.
He was no longer amused.
Now, he was wary.
And somewhere beneath that…
Afraid.
“To be continued...
