Chapter 172 (Patreon)

At nine o’clock in the morning, sunlight streamed into the dining room of the Hyūga clan’s main residence.

Hiashi had left the compound early, leaving Mihawk, Hinata, and Hanabi to eat breakfast together.

Hinata had prepared a simple meal of steamed rice, miso soup, fried eggs, and several small side dishes. Mihawk ate quietly while Hanabi sat across from him, stirring her rice without taking a single bite.

“Hanabi, is something wrong?”

Hinata slid a fried egg onto her sister’s plate and studied her face with concern.

“Does the food not taste good? You’ve barely touched anything.”

“Hee-hee…”

Pulled from her thoughts, Hanabi grinned sheepishly.

“I drank two glasses of milk before I went to wake Mihawk-nii. I’m still a little full.”

Mihawk’s chopsticks paused halfway to his mouth.

For a moment, he remembered being woken by Hanabi’s kiss on his forehead—and the promise she had demanded from him immediately afterward.

Hanabi noticed his reaction. The mischievous sparkle in her pale eyes made it clear that she remembered too.

Hinata, however, remained completely unaware.

“You shouldn’t fill yourself up before breakfast,” she gently scolded. “Next time, tell me. I’ll serve it with the rest of your meal.”

“Can you warm it and add some honey?”

“Only a little.”

“Yay! Then I want some tomorrow!”

Hanabi raised both hands in celebration before pointing her spoon at Mihawk.

“Mihawk-nii can have some too.”

“I’ll pass.”

His answer came so quickly that Hanabi covered her mouth and giggled.

Hinata tilted her head, unable to understand what the two of them found so amusing.

“Hanabi, eat your egg before it gets cold.”

“Okay!”

Breakfast continued amid their quiet conversation.

Once they had finished, Hinata began gathering the dishes.

“I’ll come to your house later, Mihawk-kun,” she said.

“There’s no need to hurry.”

Mihawk stood and slipped on his sandals.

Hanabi immediately jumped to her feet.

“I’ll walk with you!”

She caught up with him before he could leave the room and took his hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

Hinata watched them go with a gentle smile before carrying the dishes into the kitchen.

After leaving the main residence, Mihawk and Hanabi walked through the Hyūga compound together. The morning training sessions had already begun, and the occasional sound of palms striking wooden targets echoed from the courtyards.

Hanabi remained unusually quiet until they passed through the compound’s main gate.

“Mihawk-nii?”

“What is it?”

She looked up at him.

“What did you mean this morning?”

“Which part?”

“You know which part.”

Hanabi puffed out her cheeks.

“When I woke you up, you said that if this world didn’t have a place where all three of us could stay together, you would find another one.”

Mihawk glanced down at her before smiling faintly.

“It means exactly what I said.”

“That isn’t an answer.”

“You’ll understand when the time comes.”

Hanabi narrowed her eyes at him.

“You’re being mysterious on purpose. That’s mean.”

“Am I?”

“Yes! I’m never waking you with a kiss again.”

“That sounds serious.”

“It is serious!”

Despite her declaration, she did not release his hand.

Mihawk chuckled and gently ruffled her hair. Hanabi tried to maintain her pout, but the pleased look in her eyes betrayed her.

When Mihawk raised his gaze toward the cloudless sky, a faint golden light passed through his crimson eyes.

His attention turned inward.

Two distinct images emerged within the depths of his consciousness.

The first belonged to his second template.

[Second Template: Shiki Ryougi]

The other was something completely new.

It resembled a pale, translucent doorway standing alone within an endless dark space. The moment Mihawk focused on it, information appeared in his mind.

[World Gate]

[A dimensional passage connecting the current world to another.]

[The host may bring chosen companions through the gate.]

The Template System had always translated the impossible into information Mihawk could understand at a glance. His abilities, progress, and templates were presented with the cold precision of numerical data.

The World Gate followed the same pattern.

The system described each destination as though it were a new stage or instance in a game, but Mihawk had no intention of treating it that way.

A world where people lived, struggled, and died was not a dungeon.

It was another reality.

A new sky.

A new history.

A place governed by rules that might be completely different from those of the shinobi world.

The World Gate had not existed when Mihawk checked the system yesterday. He was certain of that.

It must have appeared sometime during the night, after he and Hinata had fallen asleep. Mihawk had first noticed it that morning, shortly after Hanabi’s kiss on the forehead woke him.

He did not know whether the gate had been unlocked because the war was over, because his strength had crossed another level, or because the Shiki Ryougi template had reached a particular stage.

For now, its existence mattered far more than the reason it had appeared.

Until that morning, Mihawk had assumed that he would spend his entire life in the shinobi world.

He would remain beside Hinata, watch Hanabi grow into someone capable of leading the Hyūga clan, and protect their home whenever another threat emerged. Then, after living a long human life, they would eventually meet again in the Pure Land.

There had been nothing wrong with such a future.

Before the Fourth Great Ninja War, Mihawk’s goal had been brutally simple: become strong enough to protect himself and those closest to him from Infinite Tsukuyomi.

He had accomplished that.

Madara had fallen.

The war was over, and the shinobi world had finally entered an age of peace.

But with that goal fulfilled, the path ahead of him had suddenly seemed far less certain.

The World Gate changed everything.

For the first time, Mihawk could see a road that stretched far beyond the borders of the Five Great Nations—and even beyond the world itself.

A new ambition quietly took shape within him.

He wanted time.

Not a few additional years stolen from an aging body, nor an imitation of life sustained through forbidden jutsu.

He wanted true Immortality.

In his previous life, traveling between worlds had belonged to fiction. Yet he had already crossed the boundary between one life and another before awakening in the shinobi world.

Now there was a doorway to other realities resting inside his mind.

After experiencing two impossibilities, it would be foolish to assume a third could never exist.

Mihawk could not honestly claim that immortality held no appeal for him.

If there was a way to live indefinitely without losing his body, his heart, or his humanity, he wanted to find it.

The shinobi world possessed several methods of extending life, but none of them were acceptable.

Orochimaru used Living Corpse Reincarnation to abandon his aging body and steal another.

Hashirama’s cells could grant extraordinary vitality, but forcing them into an incompatible body could create something that was no longer human. Even Madara had needed the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path to remain alive far beyond his natural lifespan.

The Reanimation Jutsu could bind a dead soul to the world inside an immortal body, while the Art of Rinne Rebirth could truly restore the dead—but only by sacrificing another person’s life.

Then there were the Ōtsutsuki, who prolonged their existence through Chakra Fruits and chakra pills created from the lives and energy of entire worlds.

Those were not paths to eternity.

They were curses disguised as answers.

Mihawk had no desire to survive by stealing another person’s body or sacrificing innocent lives. Nor would he allow Hinata or Hanabi to become twisted imitations of themselves.

He wanted all three of them to remain human.

Hanabi was still young, with many years of growing and countless choices ahead of her. There was no need to rush anything. But once each of them had reached adulthood, Mihawk wanted to find a way to preserve their health and youth without altering who they were.

Nineteen seemed like a fitting age—a point when they would be fully grown while still standing at the beginning of their lives.

If such a method did not exist in the shinobi world, perhaps it existed somewhere beyond the World Gate.

The thought made Mihawk eager to open it immediately.

But the gate offered more than the possibility of longevity.

It could also become a refuge.

The peace created after the Fourth Great Ninja War would not last forever.

Kaguya was not the only Ōtsutsuki in existence. In roughly sixteen years, others would arrive in the shinobi world. Beyond them waited even more dangerous powers: the Senrigan, Omnipotence, and other forms of shinjutsu that could overturn the rules of the world itself.

No matter how powerful Mihawk became, assuming Konoha would always remain safe would be careless.

Another war could reduce the village to ruins.

The Ōtsutsuki could return in greater numbers.

An enemy might appear whose abilities could not be overcome by strength alone.

If that ever happened, the World Gate would give Mihawk another option. He could take Hinata and Hanabi somewhere beyond the enemy’s reach instead of being forced to make a final stand with nowhere to retreat.

The gate could also give Hanabi choices that the traditions of the Hyūga clan could not.

She would no longer have to accept a future simply because her family name demanded it. If she wanted to lead the clan, Mihawk would support her. If she eventually chose a different path, then the existence of other worlds meant that path no longer had to end at the borders of the Land of Fire.

Of course, Mihawk knew nothing about the destination awaiting him.

The next world might be peaceful.

It might be more dangerous than the shinobi world.

Its people might not use chakra at all, or they might possess powers that made ninjutsu seem insignificant.

The possibilities were endless.

That uncertainty should have made him cautious.

Instead, Mihawk felt an excitement he had not experienced since the end of the war.

For the first time in years, the road ahead was completely unknown.

“Mihawk-nii?”

Hanabi’s voice brought him back to the present.

They had reached the street where they would part ways. The Hyūga compound stood behind them, while the road to Mihawk’s villa stretched ahead.

“You were staring into space,” Hanabi said. “Were you thinking about something strange again?”

“Something like that.”

“Is it about your promise?”

Mihawk looked down at her.

“I haven’t forgotten it.”

Hanabi searched his expression for a moment before finally releasing his hand.

“You’d better not.”

“I don’t break promises.”

Satisfied, she smiled and began walking backward toward the compound.

“I’m going back to help my sister. But I’m coming to your house with her later!”

“I expected as much.”

“And don’t think I’ve forgiven you for teasing me!”

Hanabi turned around and ran through the gates, waving over her shoulder before disappearing into the compound.

Mihawk watched until she was gone.

Then he turned toward his villa.

The pale outline of the World Gate remained clear within his consciousness, silent and motionless as it waited for him to take the first step.

Another world lay beyond that door.

Mihawk did not know what he would find there.

But he intended to find out very soon.

Time passed.

By the time Mihawk and Hinata had both reached adulthood, the excitement he had felt upon discovering the World Gate had gradually settled into something calmer.

He still intended to cross into another world, but this was not a decision he could make recklessly.

Entering an unknown reality was entirely different from stepping onto a battlefield.

Mihawk knew nothing about what awaited him beyond the gate, whether he could return whenever he wished, or what dangers might follow him back to the shinobi world.

Every possibility had to be considered before he took that first step.

Even so, Mihawk did not spend every waking moment preparing.

The war was finally over. After years of training and fighting, he allowed himself to enjoy the peaceful days he had earned.

He trained in the mornings, ate with Hinata and Hanabi whenever they came over, and occasionally walked through Konoha without any particular destination in mind.

Those leisurely days slowly eased the tension that had remained buried within him since the war.

Late one night, Mihawk sat on the edge of his bed with his eyes closed, when the mattress behind him suddenly sank.

Before Mihawk could turn around, a pair of slender arms slipped around his waist.

A familiar warmth pressed against his back as Hinata embraced him from behind. The soft curves of her body yielded against him when her arms tightened, and the faint scent of lavender drifted past his nose.

Mihawk was surprised for a moment before a small smile appeared on his face.

“Hinata? When did you come in?”

“Just now,” Hinata whispered beside his ear. “You were thinking so deeply that you didn’t notice me.”

“It seems I was.”

Mihawk placed one hand over hers.

Hinata usually became flustered whenever she initiated this kind of closeness, yet tonight, she made no attempt to release him. Instead, her embrace tightened further.

Mihawk immediately sensed that something was different.

“Hinata?”

Her body stiffened slightly.

For several seconds, she remained silent with her face hidden against his shoulder. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft enough to nearly disappear into the quiet room.

“Mihawk-kun… you don’t have to keep holding yourself back anymore.”

Mihawk’s eyes narrowed slightly.

He felt the nervous tension in her fingers, the warmth of her body pressed tightly against his, and the rapid beating of her heart.

Her meaning was unmistakable.

Hinata’s cheeks burned crimson, but she did not retreat.

Instead, she closed her eyes and hugged him even tighter.