“You killed someone.”
“Yeah.”
“Are your hands still shaking?”
“They shake after the fight. I can still hold the knife steady.”
Age seven. Battlefield in the Land of Rivers. Thirteen corpses. A chipped short blade.
When Jiraiya picked him up and brought him back to Konoha, he thought he’d saved a life.
He didn’t know he’d brought back a ball of fire.
S-rank fire affinity, tenfold comprehension. He could see a ninjutsu once and take it apart down to its fundamental structure. Flying Thunder God? Three days. Sealing Jutsu? Personally taught by Mito Uzumaki. Fire Release channeled through a blade? No one in the entire shinobi world had ever done that.
Twenty Iwa shinobi pressed in. Thirteen were killed in seven seconds. The enemy report read: “Intercepted by a flash of red fire.”
They gave him a codename: Red Comet.
No one knew what was sealed in his bloodline.
Orochimaru knew a little, but said nothing.
Danzo knew some of it, but was waiting.
Jiraiya left a letter. It said: “Don’t let the fire consume you.”
But when Chiyu gripped his blade, he thought
Let it burn, then.
What is that?