Rain fell quietly on Konoha.
It wasn't the kind that shouted its arrival, but the kind that slipped in unnoticed — like a memory, or a curse. The village moved slower in the wet. Shinobi whispered more. Doors closed earlier.
And Akari felt it all.
He stood on the roof of the old archives, eyes scanning a horizon wrapped in gray mist. Somewhere below, Hokage Tobirama was briefing elders behind thick doors. But the true threat wasn't something that could be debated in council chambers.
It was already awake.
---
Earlier that day...
The scroll they found — the one burned with the name Kagura — had vanished from the vaults. No signs of forced entry. No unusual chakra signatures. It was simply... gone.
But Akari knew what no one else did.
He hadn't opened a vault.
He had opened a lock inside himself.
And now something old was watching again.
---
That night, the dream returned.
He was back in the same burned clearing — a place that didn't exist anymore. Fire crackled in reverse, embers flying upward. The air was thick, but silent. And standing before him was a figure cloaked in smoke, face half-lit, half-forgotten.
His voice felt like it came from inside Akari's own chest:
> "You carry me because they feared me.
They sealed me in blood and memory.
But memory bleeds."
The figure raised a hand.
From his palm, black veins spread into the air like roots. Symbols formed — jagged, ancient, breathing.
> "And now... you're beginning to remember who I really am."
---
Akari jolted awake.
He was drenched in cold sweat, the candle beside him extinguished. But it wasn't the darkness that made his breath catch — it was the mark on his wall.
The same rune from the Senju vault.
Freshly burned into the plaster.
He touched it. Warm. Still pulsing.
Then he looked at the window — and froze.
His reflection wasn't his own.
The face staring back had his eyes, but they glowed brighter, violet turning almost black. Its expression was calm — almost smug — and then it smiled.
Akari did not.
The reflection tilted its head and whispered, even though its lips barely moved:
> "You found me.
Now let's see if you remember...
how to survive me."
---
Elsewhere – In the Outskirts
Raien was restless.
He'd received a note — unsigned, smudged — marked only with a faint spiral. It said:
> "If you want the truth about your partner, come alone. Dusk. Old training grounds."
He came.
Sword on his back. Sharingan active. No words.
Mist hung low as he waited, thick like breath on glass. Then, through the haze, a shape appeared — dragging something heavy behind it.
Raien took a step forward.
The figure dropped its burden: a mirror — cracked, ancient, rimmed in obsidian.
He looked down into it — expecting his reflection.
What he saw instead made him grip his blade.
Akari.
But not the one he knew.
This version's face was pale, his eyes ringed in darkness. And behind him, silhouettes of people burned in the air like ghosts.
---
Back in Konoha
Akari stood frozen before the burning rune.
His fingers trembled, not from fear — but from recognition.
Whatever Kagura was… it wasn't just a name.
It was a voice.
A shadow.
A second heartbeat in his chest.
And it was getting louder.