Kaido ascended like thunder reversed. Obsidian walls blurred past in jagged streaks. Gravity screamed protest. Above, the sinkhole's ragged mouth grew—a pinprick bruise against deepening night. He burst free—not climbing, but erupting. Kinetic fury tore thorned vines to confetti. Dust-laden air tasted stale after the chakra-forge's purity. Dragon eyes scanned northwest. Stone Crags village nestled below—pinpricks of torchlight defiant against the consuming dark. Goro's frantic chipping echoed—a frantic beetle beneath his mountain. Closer? Three survivors still shuddered at the fortress corpse: Kenji froze beneath the skull banner's shadow; Hideshi whimpered against scorched earth; warriors groaned amidst rubble. Unworthy distractions. Kaido ignored them. His sandals slammed onto fractured courtyard stone—cracking bedrock anew.
He strode toward Stone Crags without hesitation. The path vanished beneath dragon strides—crunched roots, vaporized saplings, splintered rock. Distance dissolved. Minutes later, Kaido towered over Goro's frantic silhouette. The smith knelt bleeding—hands wrapped in torn rags—before a scarred granite boulder. His crude warhammer lay discarded, its steel head warped. Instead? A chisel forged from scavenged armor plate—clumsy, brutal. He battered the granite heart. Flecks flew. Progress? Measured in fingernail flakes. Goro didn't look up—terror betrayal etched deeper than stone grains. Kaido loomed—a hurricane given shadow. **"Enough."** The command froze Goro's hammer mid-swing. He flinched—expecting obliteration. Kaido merely tossed the obsidian ore shard onto packed earth before Goro's bleeding knees. Impact: Thud. Fractured cobblestones groaned. The shard pulsed—deepest black swallowing torchlight. Cold radiated—crystalline sharpness pricking skin. Goro stared—uncomprehending.
**"Your furnace burns beneath the mountain,"** Kaido rumbled. Crimson gaze flicked toward the pulsating sinkhole miles east—a smear of unnatural darkness against starlight. **"Pure chakra-fire awaits."** He nudged the ore with his sandal. **"Melt *this*."** Goro's trembling fingers brushed the stone. Instantly—visions: swirling white plasma… sapphire lightning… impossible heat. His bleeding knuckles whitened around the ore. Tears—not terror, but terrifying purpose—streaked ash-stained cheeks. He'd forge the kanabō… or shatter inside his own apocalypse. Kaido turned—task delivered. Tomorrow dawned hotter than dragon's wrath.
Kaido stalked southwest—toward Hideshi's sagging silhouette against vaporized earth. The samurai clutched the warped odachi hilt like a drowning man grips driftwood. Kaido halted before him—a monolith painted in moonlight and ruin-shadow. **"Listen,"** he commanded. Silence heavier than mountains crashed down. Hideshi froze—mortal breath trapped against immortal will. Kaido's crimson eyes blazed, projecting crystalline echoes: jagged obsidian corridors… razor-leaved creepers dripping venom… nests throbbing beneath petrified bark. A slicing wind howled through memory—cold, sharp, singing steel. **"Survive that,"** Kaido growled, pointing east toward the chasm-choked forest, **"and your Wind Scythe cuts bone. Fail?"** His scaled knuckles cracked—dry thunder. **"Become fertilizer."**
Kenji's ragged breathing echoed from the skull banner's shadow. Kaido didn't glance back—his voice lashed like a whip coiled in dusk: **"Your banner hangs? Good."** Footsteps crunched toward distant torchlight—Stone Crags' foothill village pulsed beneath Star Crags' looming silhouette. **"Tomorrow,"** Kaido added, words carving command into night air, **"carry it through thorns that crave your eyes. Plant Beast Pirate flags where vipers nest."** Kenji whimpered—a trapped hare's sound. Loyalty's crucible awaited sunrise.
Kaido vanished into shadow—ancient forests closing behind him like jaws. His Conqueror's Haki pulsed—silent, seismic—reaching northwest toward nascent legacies: **Rock Lee's sweat-stained dawns, Guy's roaring youth, Duy's flickering sacrifice.** Seeds needing stolen soil. Tomorrow forged weapons. Tonight… patience coiled dragon-tight. Blood and chakra-fire scented the wind. War's infancy tasted sweet.
He strode deeper—away from crumbling fortresses toward predator-thick wilderness. Scales scraped obsidian trunks. Silence? Deceit. Beneath decay's perfume… ozone's razor edge. Potential humming. Kaido halted. Crimson eyes pierced gloom—a clearing choked with razor-vined thorns thick as spears. Moonlight glinted on wet poison tips. Perfect. Hideshi's arena. Training wasn't drills. Training meant carving paths through death's own gardens. Tomorrow, flesh met thorns. Or Hideshi met oblivion.
Kaido pivoted—boots crushing venom-flowers blooming midnight blue. He inhaled—deep, slow—filtering decay's chorus: petrified wood resins, serpent musk… beneath it? **Pure steel.** A phantom echo—Konoha's future gates groaning open. Dragon nostrils flared wider. Not yet. His time demanded sharper fangs. Tonight… conditioning. Muscles coiled—cords snapping taut beneath scaled skin. Not Haki. Not Kozuki Oden's moon-splitter stance. Raw physicality. Essentials forgotten beneath sake and conquest. Every sinew screamed protest. Kaido smiled. Pain was the sharpest whetstone.
He dropped—no warning—into a one-handed handstand. Immense bulk balanced on fingertips alone. Stone cracked beneath scaled knuckles. Gravity's fist hammered downward—dragon blood roared defiance. Sweat beaded instantly—ice-hot trails carving dust-caked skin. Two breaths. Three. Spine screamed. Anchor. Core. Foundation. Kaido's crimson gaze locked northwest—toward unborn legends. Training wasn't preparation. Training was resurrection. Dragon reborn. Muscle by agonizing muscle. When Naruto's dawn arrived? He'd crack its spine over his knee.
The forest watched—silent judge. Razor-vines glittered cold poison. Thorns drank moonlight. Kaido shifted weight. Slow. Deliberate. Scaled calves flexed—corded ridges standing sharp beneath tension. Each tendon stretched near tearing. Tremors rocked his frame. Dust shook loose. Pain flooded veins—cleaner than sake. Purer than despair. He counted breaths: inhale ozone, exhale vaporized granite. Spine aligned. Vertebrae stacked like fortress stones. Weight settled. Balanced. Immovable. Above him, clouds bled crimson—dawn gathering like war drums beyond distant peaks. Konoha's ghosts whispered weakness. This silence answered thunder. Dragon sinews remembered.
He pushed upward—palm flattening—into a coiled crouch. Quads bulged—granite straining fabric. Scales rasped. Air thickened. Kaido surged skyward—vertical launch. No Haki-fueled flight. Pure tendon-snap propulsion. Treetops whipped past—needle-sharp branches tore kimono sleeves. Wind roared deafening. Momentum peaked—then gravity's claw snatched him backward. Plummet. Twisted mid-fall—landed cat-footed atop a petrified oak shattered earlier. Balance precarious. Knees bent deep—absorption trembling through joints. Wood groaned beneath dragon weight. Failure? Cratered earth awaited. He held. Muscles wept acid. Spine forged anew. Kaido grinned—blood on teeth. Tomorrow, Hideshi's screams would taste sweeter.
Below, dawn's first bleed painted Stone Crags crimson. Distant—Kenji whimpered at the Beast Pirate banner's shadow. Hideshi's ragged breath echoed past venom-thorns. Goro's frantic chipping resumed—desperate beetle beneath a mountain. Kaido ignored them. Crimson eyes tracked southwest—toward Konoha's future cradle. Where Rock Lee's leg weights would bite flesh. Where Might Guy's roar would shatter cowardice. Where Might Duy's flicker became inferno. Seeds needed stolen soil. Dawn demanded forged blades. Dragon patience coiled tighter—scales scraping obsidian. War's infancy smelled of ozone and bleeding knuckles. He inhaled deep. Exhaled vapor. Focus crystallized.
Muscles rippled—scaled knuckles pressing fractured bedrock. Kaido roared—not sound, but transformation. Bones cracked—not pain, but inevitability. Azure scales erupted across forearms and throat—obsidian-dark, shimmering with latent storm-light. Horns lengthened—curving backward like jagged lightning frozen mid-strike. Tail snapped free—muscled whip cracking air. Hybrid form towered—twelve feet of primal fusion: Human intellect armored in dragon's savagery. Twin jets of superheated steam burst from his nostrils—incinerating airborne dust. Crimson pupils narrowed—slitted focus piercing twilight's veil. Beneath scaled flesh, Haki stirred—sleeping leviathan roused.
Inside the fortress ruin, unconscious warriors groaned. Above him, a ceiling beam creaked—charred wood trembling. Kaido's clawed hand rose—palm open—toward the sagging timber. Violet-black energy pulsed beneath sapphire scales—Conqueror's Haki gathering like coiled thunder. Not unleashed. Not yet. He felt it resonate—bone-deep vibration humming through forearm tendons. Not control. Communion. The beam groaned louder—splinters raining down. Kaido snarled—a subsonic growl shredding silence. Willpower focused. Haki condensed—invisible pressure radiating from his palm. Dust motes halted mid-fall—suspended in trembling defiance. The beam's groan choked into strained silence—held aloft by dragon-will alone. Minutes bled. Arm quivered—scales gleaming with exertion-sweat. The beam shrieked—threatening collapse. Kaido's lips peeled back—glacier fangs bared. **Hold.**
Suddenly—pivot. Arm swept sideways—not releasing, but redirecting. Focused Haki tore free—a silent whip-crack slicing northeast. Air screamed. Fifty yards distant, a crumbling watchtower shuddered—jutting stone parapet vaporized silently into purple-grey ash. Disintegration bloomed—utter, absolute. No debris. No dust. Only vacancy carved by Conqueror's Will. The sagging beam remained suspended—dusted moonlight illuminating frayed wood fibers now trembling millimeters above collapse. Kaido lowered his arm slowly. Control wasn't suppression. It was annihilation redirected. Purpose served: a lesson etched in obliteration for trembling survivors below. **Hideshi watched from shadowed rubble—jaw slack, tears drying into salt tracks. Wind Scythe? Dust motes. This? Erasure.**
Kaido exhaled—superheated steam jetting twin geysers that scorched fractured flagstones black. Scales receded—azure sheen melting back into human flesh. Horns shortened with wet cracks like snapping tree roots. Hybrid form dissolved—leaving only the looming silhouette of the man who'd held ruin aloft with thought alone. Cold night air prickled sweat-slicked skin. Below, Kenji scrambled backward—banner pole clutched like a spear against nightmares. Goro's distant chipping faltered—hammer-strike echoing hesitation. Kaido ignored them. Crimson gaze swept northwest—past dying torchlight of Stone Crags village, beyond jagged peaks, into future mists where Might Guy's sunrise glare would one day burn. Patience. First—forge the blade worthy of such defiance.
He strode toward the cavernous ruin's eastern collapse—boots crushing pulverized obsidian to glittering powder. Dawn bled pale gold through shattered walls. Amidst fallen pillars, Hideshi still knelt—war-mangled odachi hilt clutched white-knuckled. Kaido halted before him. Towered. Silence louder than thunder. One scaled finger extended—not at Hideshi, but northeast toward the vanished watchtower's ghostly absence. "Your training ground," Kaido rumbled—voice grating stone. "Thorn forest waits." He paused. Let implication sink—razor vines, venom drips, nests throbbing with chitinous hunger. Survival meant carving wind-blades sharp enough to shatter destiny itself. Or becoming fertilizer. Simple.
Kaido pivoted—kimono tails whipping stale air. He vanished into dawn's bloody light—not towards Goro's hammer-song or Kenji's terror, but southwest. Toward Konoha's unborn cradle. Forests swallowed his silhouette whole. Behind him, Beast Pirate banner snapped taut—sudden wind howling through ruins. Kenji flinched. Goro's hammer struck stone—a defiant *clang* echoing Kaido's vanished roar. Hideshi rose—slow, shaking—blade-hilt aimed at thorns glinting poison-green in newborn sun. Training began now. Or oblivion did. Choice etched in dragon's shadow.