Hunter x Hunter: Sun Breathing Technique

Chapter 278 278: Blue Spider Lily X The Senju of the Uchiha Clan

His spiritual energy trembling, he cast a strange look at the boy.

Through his [Transparent Heart], he sensed that the "father" Roy spoke of was not *this* father—at least, it definitely wasn't Tanjuro standing before them.

He shook his head, let out a soft chuckle, and held his tongue.

Even though this mysterious boy was "born toward the sun" just like him, his understanding of "swordsmanship," the "sun," and "life" itself were entirely different.

Sometimes, it made a long-dead man like him want to crawl back up from hell just to take a few more looks, to see exactly how far this boy could go in the future and what kind of heights he would reach...

A cool breeze sighed through the air, stirring Roy's fiery red hair and sending it dancing in the wind.

The night deepened.

Returning home this time, it felt as though he had endless things to say to his parents and boundless warmth to share.

But all gatherings must end in parting; such was the way of life. Faintly noticing Tanjuro's exhausted expression and his increasingly heavy coughs as he forced himself to stay awake, Roy simply decided to bid the two elders farewell.

He stood up, bowed deeply and solemnly to Tanjuro and Aoi, and turned to leave.

As his footsteps echoed, he suddenly heard Aoi call out to his back, her voice trembling, "Eiichiro, will you come back?"

Roy paused his steps. Reaching out, he pinched a wisp of moonlight as if grasping a thread of homesickness. After a moment of silence, he tilted his head and gave the woman a warm smile. "Of course. This is my home, too."

*'It is also my Cognitive World,'* the boy added silently in his heart. He then murmured wistfully, "It is as if I have never come, and never left."

He looked up again, watching the bright moon climb to the center of the sky. Relaxing his grip, he let the moonlight slip away.

Taking one last, deep look at Tanjuro and Aoi, he willed his energy, activating [Light Style]. In an instant, he merged with the moonlight and darted toward the deeper parts of the dense forest...

*Whoosh!* The wind howled past his ears.

The night was heavy and dark.

As Roy flew forward, Yoriichi Tsugikuni's voice echoed beside him.

He said, "They cannot bear to part with you."

"Just as I could not bear to part with Uta and Ryota."

Roy was slightly taken aback before realization dawned on him. Ryota must have been the name of the child who was eaten by demons before he was even a year old.

Draped in moonlight, the boy stood high in the sky, his fiery red hair dancing wildly. He truly looked like the deity people had called him that day, only the backdrop had changed from the sun to the moon. His voice was slightly low as he replied, "I know."

"I have always known."

"But I have no choice."

"Is the enemy that strong?" Yoriichi asked, somewhat surprised. "Muzan is dead, and there is no one left in this world who can rival you... Eiichiro Kamado, why the rush? Why the anxiety?"

"Because there is always a higher sky." Roy transferred a layer of warm Nen to Yoriichi, who resided within his swordsmanship comprehension, preserving the man's final wisp of true spirit from being scattered by the astral winds. Squinting ahead into the depths of the profound, dark forest, he faintly spotted a patch of deep blue swaying proudly, budding and ready to bloom.

He accelerated and dove down.

With another glance,

amidst Yoriichi's rippling emotions, Roy stepped out of the moonlight and appeared beside a very inconspicuous little mound of dirt.

The small mound was covered in a layer of green weeds. Having endured the sun, rain, frost, and snow, it clearly had been there for many years. Yet, as Roy landed, Yoriichi recognized it at a single glance. It was the grave of Uta and Ryota.

Unfolding his form, Yoriichi used the last bit of his true spirit's power to suddenly emerge from Roy's body, landing weightlessly beside the boy. He stared silently at the grave without a word, seemingly lost in reminiscence, or perhaps savoring the beauty of the past. After a moment, he asked calmly, "Could you help me clear the weeds?"

"Uta liked flowers, not weeds."

"She always said that even though flowers couldn't be eaten, at least they were pretty to look at."

"Weeds are completely useless, and they always crowd out the crops..."

As he rambled on, Yoriichi turned his head and looked over with a pleading gaze. Roy nodded. Reaching out, he casually picked up a wooden stick near the grave and gave it a gentle wave toward the mound. [Wind Breathing] howled forth, whipping up countless tiny wind blades that swept directly over the grave.

Grass clippings flew into the air,

and the mound was instantly swept clean.

Yoriichi's eyes flickered, instantly recognizing the roots of [Wind Breathing]. He said gratefully, "Thank you."

The man, his fiery red hair draped behind his head, possessed a gentle aura with his sharp edges concealed. He reached out and pointed at the cluster of deep blue flowers swaying in the wind before the grave. They glowed with a faint, ethereal blue light, their buds already open and on the verge of blooming at any second. With a complex, indescribable emotion, he said, "This is the Blue Spider Lily. The very flower Muzan Kibutsuji spent a thousand years desperately searching for."

On the day Muzan died, Yoriichi had learned everything by peering through the demon's life flashing before his eyes.

For a moment, he couldn't quite articulate how he felt about this patch of "deep blue" before him...

So many people had died because of them. They had died because Muzan Kibutsuji created demons in the shadows and in the light, searching madly for these flowers. Yet, the flowers themselves remained completely oblivious, blooming alone and radiating their beauty in isolation within this obscure mountain forest. It was... a monumental irony!

Another leisurely gust of astral wind blew past, shaking Yoriichi's spiritual energy and leaving him unstable.

Following the man's gaze, Roy examined the flower cluster. He raised his hand and passed another layer of Nen to Yoriichi to help stabilize his form.

However, Yoriichi raised his hand and stopped him. "I am already a dead man. The sooner I disappear, the sooner I can go down and reunite with Uta and Ryota."

Yoriichi lowered his eyes, the depths of his gaze filled entirely with tenderness. He smiled bitterly. "I swore I would kill Muzan and avenge them. But in the end... I made the two of them wait for me for hundreds of years. I am truly... ashamed..."

There were still a few minutes until midnight, when the Blue Spider Lilies would fully bloom. A strange floral scent permeated the air, silently drifting into their noses...

Roy listened quietly without interrupting. However, the moment the floral scent reached him, he heard a notification chime.

The boy immediately looked at his status panel without changing his expression...

[System Prompt: ...Detected a cluster of plant-type magical beasts... [Monster Encyclopedia] has been opened...]

[A "World-Class" magical beast born from the convergence of the "World Will" and "Power of the Sun" in the Demon Slayer World... Usually buried deep underground, it absorbs the "Power of the World" and the "Power of the Sun." Once it has gathered enough, it will seek out a night with a full moon and the strongest Yin energy to bloom.]

S-Class?!

The notification sound ended.

The [Monster Encyclopedia] finished its recording... A small, deep blue flower was affixed to the page, blooming in solitary pride. It left Roy stunned. Unable to suppress his emotions, the Nen naturally releasing from the top of his head trembled, catching Yoriichi's attention.

He was, after all, a darling of swordsmanship born with the Mark and the Transparent World. The man, his fiery red hair swaying in the wind as he silently waited for the Blue Spider Lilies to bloom, suddenly glanced at Roy and asked, "Eiichiro, what happened?"

Roy struggled to pull his thoughts away from the words "S-Class," "Power of the World," and "Power of the Sun." Staring deeply at the cluster of Blue Spider Lilies before him, whose buds were opening further and petals faintly unfurling, he slowly shook his head.

Yoriichi's eyes flickered. When he looked up again,

the boy had crouched down. He gently grasped a Blue Spider Lily, stroking it all the way from its stem to its bud, and asked softly, "Teacher, tell me... does life truly have an 'other shore'?"

"If it does, what would it look like?"

Would it be like the Blue Spider Lily, blooming and withering, withering and blooming, absorbing and exhaling the "Power of the World" and the "Power of the Sun" in an infinite cycle, never reaching the end of the other shore? Or was it truly like death... where a person's death is like a lamp going out, ending everything once and for all?

In this moment, Roy, in his incarnation as Eiichiro Kamado, held the flower and spoke these words.

The sight was deeply reflected in Yoriichi's eyes, which were clouded with the vicissitudes of time, leaving him utterly stunned!

Silence fell. Only the wind carrying the floral scent gently brushed against their senses.

It took a long while for Yoriichi to finally snap out of his daze. In a rare display, he gave Roy a teasing wink. The playfulness was so unlike him; instead, it resembled his deceased son, Ryota, who had started trying to crawl everywhere before he was even a year old.

"I do not know. However, I will find out very soon. It is just a pity... that I will have no way to tell you."

Yes, Yoriichi was about to die... He was going down to meet his wife and child. In the end, he would definitely know the answer. Yet, just as he said, he wouldn't be able to tell Roy.

Wait, Edo Tensei?! Roy suddenly thought of something. A flash of inspiration hit him, and he smiled.

The boy let go of the Blue Spider Lily and stood up tall. Nodding to Yoriichi, he said, "Teacher, you can die in peace. I have my own ways of finding out the answer."

Yoriichi: "?!"

*Speechless.* In an instant, his body and mind felt as though tens of thousands of fleas were crawling all over him, an unbearable, unstoppable itch.

He opened his mouth, just about to ask what method Roy had, but unexpectedly... Roy abruptly cut him off. Raising a hand, he waved and said, "Teacher, the flowers are blooming. Goodbye!"

Yoriichi: "..."

His final wisp of true spirit, right at midnight as the moon reached its highest peak in the sky and a sea of deep blue light suddenly burst into bloom, began to fade... and fade... and fade even more...

Finally, he let out a helpless chuckle. Taking one last, deep look at Roy, he vanished into the sky full of deep blue light.

*Pop!* The true spirit extinguished like a shattering water mirror. In the deep, secluded old forest, an occasional bird or two pierced the night sky, their chirps serving as a lunar elegy to send off Yoriichi Tsugikuni.

Roy stood amidst the cluster of Blue Spider Lilies, watching him disappear. Then, he lowered his hand and crouched down. His hands, coated in Nen, moved like butterflies weaving through flowers. Seizing the brief window of the Blue Spider Lilies' bloom, he began to harvest them frantically.

One flower... two flowers... ten flowers... a hundred flowers... Afterimages appeared in front of every single Blue Spider Lily. Soon, a minute passed.

Roy stopped his hands and pulled out the [Sumeru Mustard Seed]. He coated all the harvested Blue Spider Lilies in [Shu] and placed them all inside, leaving only a single flower in his hand to play with. Straightening his back, he looked out...

The area in front of the grave was completely bald.

"Excellent."

"Not a single one wasted."

The boy smiled faintly and withdrew his gaze in satisfaction.

Shifting his line of sight, he looked at the Blue Spider Lily in his hand. With a thought, he opened an Aura Node and split off a stream of Nen, transmuting it into [Scorching True Intent]. It formed a small flame containing [Sun Intent]. *Fwoosh!* It ignited and swallowed the Blue Spider Lily whole.

Following that, a burst of pure "Power of the Sun," carrying profound contemplations regarding the [World] across multiple dimensions such as [Space], [Time], and [Life], surged into Roy's glabella.

The status panel prompted—

Roy closed his eyes and savored it carefully. He gradually fell into deep thought and comprehension, entering a state of meditation like a stone statue, completely immersed.

The Naruto World.

It was evening. The sunset glow filled the sky, dyeing half the heavens a poignant, beautiful red.

Inside the Hokage Building situated in the center of Konoha.

Within that spacious Hokage's office.

Amidst the swirling smoke... Sarutobi Hiruzen sat with his back to the window, from which the Hokage Monument could be seen at a glance across the commercial district. As usual, he sat behind his desk, puffing on his smoking pipe.

On the large desk in front of him, the Hokage hat rested on one corner. On another corner lay an unrolled, long scroll. The words "Jin Uchiha" could faintly be seen on it, followed by densely packed intelligence reports and information that had been roughly blacked out with a brush...

It showed that... Sarutobi Hiruzen had been... very troubled lately.

He was troubled by the war, troubled by the village, and troubled by his disciples—some who cared too little, some who cared too much, and one who had simply given up entirely, spending her days either gambling in casinos or drinking herself into a stupor at taverns. But of course... he was most troubled by... how to handle the issue of Jin Uchiha!

A Wood Style ninja had appeared in the Uchiha clan?!

If he wasn't certain that Roy hadn't participated in Orochimaru's First Hokage cell research project, he would have even suspected... that his disciple's defection might have secretly had something to do with the Uchiha.

However, the reason for Orochimaru's defection had been thoroughly investigated over the past few days. That guy had simply disobeyed his orders, secretly conducted human experiments, and fled in fear of being exposed... Which meant,

Jin Uchiha had developed [Wood Style] relying entirely on his own talent!

In Konoha, this was unprecedented since the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju... Coupled with his status as the young clan head of the Uchiha and those iconic Sharingan eyes... Sarutobi Hiruzen furrowed his brows. He had no choice but to pick up his brush and write the two large words [Top Secret] on the scroll. He had forcibly ordered Shizune to carry back a dead-drunk Tsunade from Tanzaku Quarters... to properly ask her about [Wood Style] and [Yang Style], and to consult her on the promotion plan for [Arm Regeneration]. After all—

Since Mito Uzumaki passed away and Nawaki died in battle, she was the only "Senju descendant" of Hashirama Senju left in this world!

Furthermore, Sarutobi Hiruzen had asked the Jonin of the Medical Corps to look into it, and he had studied it deeply himself... This [Arm Regeneration Technique], developed by Jin Uchiha and offered up by Fugaku, bore an extremely high resemblance to Tsunade's research in certain aspects. Or rather,

it simply shared the same brilliant concept as the [Strength of a Hundred Technique].

Coincidentally, the Third Shinobi World War was in full swing.

If promoted and applied properly, it would undoubtedly be a massive boon for Konoha.

Sarutobi Hiruzen frowned in deep thought...

The office door was pushed open from the outside...

*Hic!* "Old man, you looking for me?"

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