Chapter 135: “The White Spiral Child”
The sky cracked.
Not with thunder.
With silence.
Somewhere deep within the Land of Rivers, space curled.Birds vanished mid-flight.The grass turned to glass.And a boy—barefoot, breathless—stood in the eye of the spiral.
White spiral.
Perfectly still.
He didn't blink.Didn't speak.Didn't move.
But things moved around him.
Rocks floated.Air pulsed.And timelines bent—just slightly—whenever he exhaled.
This boy wasn't born.
He was written.
By the fallout of the Spiral War.By the fragments Ryuki shattered.By the piece of Kurashiki that refused to die.
A ripple.
A remnant.
A child.
Eri stood across from him.
Cloak flapping behind her.
Golden spiral mark hidden under skin.
She'd come alone.
No backup.No chakra signatures near her.Just faith.
In him.
In Ryuki.
In the boy.
The child tilted his head.
Not curious.
Analyzing.
"You're not time."
His voice was barely a whisper.
"You're not memory."
Eri stepped forward.
"No. I'm something older."
"What?"
"Hope."
His eyes blinked.
The spiral turned faster.
And suddenly—Eri wasn't there.
She was in a different world.One where Ryuki never lived.One where she died at age six.One where Orochimaru ruled the Five Nations.
She screamed—
Then snapped back.
Knees hit ground.
Blood at her lips.
The boy hadn't moved.
But his presence distorted everything.
Back in Konoha—
Ryuki knelt in a quiet shrine.
Eyes shut.
Tracking Eri's chakra.
He found it.
And found him.
The boy.
And something else.
"Impossible," he muttered.
"He has no spiral."
But that wasn't true.
The boy didn't carry a spiral.
He was one.
Flash—Ancient Memory.
Kurashiki speaks to a shadow.
"Even if I fall…The Spiral Seed will remain.It will not be red.Not gold.Not void."
"It will be pure.Free of fate."
"And it will be... perfect."
Back in the field, the child turned his head sharply.
Eyes glowing.
Not hostile.
Not afraid.
Just... curious.
Eri rose again.
"I'm not here to seal you."
"I'm not here to be sealed."
She reached out a hand.
"Then… let's understand each other."
The spiral in her chest pulsed.
And for a moment—
He reached too.
That's when Ryuki arrived.
A red flicker behind him.
His presence rewrote the wind.
The boy turned instantly.
Eyes narrowed.
And for the first time—
Emotion.
Recognition.
"You're the broken one," the boy whispered.
"You unthreaded Kurashiki."
Ryuki didn't deny it.
He stood between the boy and Eri.
"You're not my enemy."
"Not yet."
"But soon... you'll have to choose."
"Between what?"
"Between letting me live…"
"Or letting the Spiral begin again."
The grass beneath them started to spiral.
Faintly. Silently.
Reality… tugged.
The Spiral wasn't dead.
It had evolved.
And this child—this perfect spiral—
Was the beginning of something neither Ryuki nor Kurashiki ever planned.
End of Chapter 135.