Chapter 139: “The Spiral Hunter Awakens”
It started with a whisper.
One by one, Hidden Villages began reporting strange chakra ruptures.
Small squads vanishing mid-mission.Entire hideouts collapsing without a trace.
No jutsu.No survivors.Just one mark left behind—
A spiral carved into stone.
Crude.Jagged.Smiling.
Tsunade gathered them.
Old allies.New faces.
Ryuki stood in the back.Cloaked. Silent.
Souta by his side, watching everything.Hands in his pockets.Expression unreadable.
Eri hadn't spoken since last week.
Not since she saw the mark.
Because she remembered it.
She'd seen it before.
In Kurashiki's dreams.
The "true" Spiral.
The one that didn't bend reality—It fed on it.
"They're calling him the Spiral Hunter," said Tsunade.
A bingo book page fluttered open.
Blank face.
Unknown age.
Only one description:
"Smiles in silence.Folds time like paper.Leaves no future behind."
Ryuki stepped forward.
"This isn't a new threat."
Tsunade frowned. "You know him?"
Ryuki nodded.
"He was locked beneath the Spiral Temple."
"Who unlocked him?"
Ryuki glanced sideways at Souta.
Didn't speak.
Didn't need to.
That night, Ryuki told Eri everything.
About the underground crypt.The sealed Spiral memory blade.The man who whispered during the War.
"He called himself a 'Hunter of the Smile.'"
"Said he only wakes when the Spiral bleeds again."
Eri's voice cracked."So he's awake because of Souta?"
Ryuki didn't answer.
Because the truth was—
He wasn't sure who was bleeding anymore.
Souta…
Or the world.
Far outside the village, in a storm-soaked wasteland—
A lone man walked through the ruins of a shinobi outpost.
Not fast.Not hiding.
Just walking.
His face was hidden under a mask of spiraled bone.
Eyes stitched shut.
But he saw everything.
"Kurashiki failed," he muttered.
"But I won't."
He placed a finger on the shattered earth.
The spiral mark burned again—This time, glowing red.
Back in Konoha—
Souta woke from another dream.
This one was different.
He wasn't the Spiral.
He wasn't the Seed.
He was the prey.
And the Hunter stood over him—
No eyes.No chakra.
Just a spiral sword pressed to his throat.
"You opened the door," the Hunter whispered.
"Now you'll never close it."
He jolted awake.
Blood on his pillow.
Not his.
Eri's.
She lay unconscious beside him.
Her spiral mark was glowing.Twitching.
Like it was afraid.
Ryuki burst into the room.
Saw the blood.
Saw the mark.
And understood—
The Spiral Hunter had found them.
Far away, the Hunter smiled.
"Let the spiral weep."
"Let the Seed rot."
"Let the broken eye open again—and finally see what it was never meant to."
End of Chapter 139.