Full speed across the pit, dropping to both knees beside Toji's face-down body. Turning him over carefully.
Fainted from the shock. The damage wasn't catastrophic—but the left side of his lips had taken the strike directly. Deep enough to see teeth through the wound.
That was going to scar.
Something tightened in the chest at the thought. After everything—every precaution, every hour spent training him—he still ended up with that exact injury. And this time, the cause was a mistake made right here.
A hand moved through his hair, voice dropping low.
"Don't worry, little brother. No matter what happens to me—everyone who did this to you isn't leaving this place alive."
That was the moment the promise formed. The higher-ups of the Zen'in clan. Every last one of them.
"But first… that bastard of a cursed spirit."
Standing up, Observation Haki extended to its maximum—
Something was wrong.
"Why aren't they attacking?"
The room came into focus.
Every cursed spirit in the pit was on the ground.
The memory of what had just happened surfaced slowly.
"A moment ago… that was…"
Conqueror's Haki.
Too consumed with Toji to register it in the moment—but it had been real. Completely, undeniably real.
The murderous intent toward the spirits transformed almost instantly into something overwhelming and electric. Trembling started. The pressure of it kept building, climbing—
"HAHAHAHA!!"
Dancing. Singing. In the middle of a cursed spirit pit.
"Who's the best? I'm the best! Oh yeah!"
A spin—and then a stop.
Toji, still unconscious on the ground.
The excitement collapsed. Guilt rushed in to fill the space.
A hand met the face. Hard.
'What the hell am I doing?!'
The awakening had temporarily erased the entire situation from the mind. Understandable, perhaps—Conqueror's Haki was the thing that could allow surpassing this entire universe by a vast margin. That was not a small thing.
Even now, the cursed spirits were dissolving. Haki disperses cursed energy, and Conqueror's Haki is essentially a massive discharge of it. Since cursed spirits are aggregates of cursed energy, they had been exorcised on contact. Clean. Instantaneous. Every single one.
The pit was completely empty.
A thought that had once felt reassuring—'showing strength early will protect us from harassment'—was no longer quite so convincing.
Several hundred cursed spirits, exorcised by two six-year-old children. That was not going to go unnoticed. The attention it would draw could land anywhere on the spectrum from useful to catastrophic.
Nothing to be done about it now. It had already happened.
As always, everything came back to the same thing.
Getting stronger.
Whatever else was true, this experience had unlocked one of the foundational pillars of future power.
"Once Conqueror's Haki can be activated at will and Armament Haki properly imbued into objects—then Observation Haki gets the focus it deserves."
It had been neglected badly. Most-used of the three, and the least trained over the past nine months.
"Wait—no. Imbue first, then Armament. Conqueror's can wait. Not the priority yet."
Something else still sat on the list.
"Now that real weights are finally available, jaw training for Santoryu can start."
A sigh at the sheer volume of it all.
"The more time passes, the more there is to do."
Sitting down, turning back to Toji.
"The bleeding hasn't stopped?"
Still seeping. Slow, but continuous. Not immediately dangerous—but leaving it alone could become a problem.
Up again. Toji lifted carefully, positioned against the wall with his head tilted slightly downward so the blood couldn't reach his throat. A sleeve torn free and tied around the wound, airway left clear.
Then, thinking.
"Always knew he'd need it eventually. Just never expected it to be this soon. Teaching him can't wait anymore—not being able to see or hit cursed spirits is becoming a real problem."
Haki. Toji needed to learn Haki.
The reasoning for waiting had felt solid at the time: his Heavenly Restriction would carry him for a while. His physical development was ahead of schedule. There was time.
But the truth was sitting right there on the ground, unconscious.
Toji's senses weren't refined enough to perceive cursed energy. His body wasn't strong enough to fight it directly. And he was far too young to wield a cursed tool.
"I won't always be there."
Missions were coming. Dangerous ones, regularly. Taking him along wasn't an option, and leaving him alone inside these walls without a means of protecting himself was equally bad.
"Besides… he's becoming too dependent."
Understandable, at six years old, in any ordinary situation. But this wasn't an ordinary situation, and Toji wasn't an ordinary child. Not here, not surrounded by people who would act without hesitation the moment a window opened.
"Alright. It'll slow down personal progress. But as soon as he recovers, Haki training starts. First though…"
Armament Haki coated both hands. A deep breath.
"For a good cause."
Left fist raised. Brought down onto the leg.
PAM!
The pain was immediate and total. It didn't stop.
Shoulder.
PAM!
Knees.
PAM!
Forearm.
PAM!
Face.
A brief hesitation there. Then the image of Toji's wound surfaced, and the hesitation ended.
PAM!
Blood from several places already. Multiple hairline fractures. One rib, broken clean.
Absolute agony.
The striking continued.
Anyone watching would have concluded something had snapped. They might not have been entirely wrong. But it was necessary.
Two six-year-old children without cursed energy. Several hundred spirits exorcised, including a semi-Grade 2. One of them walking out without a scratch on them.
Too clean. Too suspicious.
Under other circumstances, that wouldn't have mattered. But bringing consequences down on Toji through another reckless decision was not something that could happen again.
"Never again."
Collapse, finally. The pain had reached its ceiling.
"Ah… ah… ah…"
Breathless. And strangely, genuinely satisfied.
"Hahahaha… damn… what wouldn't I do for that kid?"
A moment passed before the irony of it landed fully.
The situation that had made all of this necessary had been created by the exact same person now lying here laughing.