---
The mist rolled thick over the forest floor, coiling between the trees like something alive. Akari moved silently through it, his chakra masked, each step calculated. He had left Konoha hours before dawn, slipping past the ANBU patrols and out into the hidden paths beyond the northern border.
Raien was already waiting when he arrived—perched on a broken stone pillar in the ruins of an ancient battlefield, the remnants of war scattered like old bones. His breath steamed in the cold air.
"You're late," Raien muttered, though there was no real irritation in his voice.
Akari pulled the scroll from his cloak and handed it over. "This was beneath the shrine. My mother's work… all of it points here."
Raien unrolled the scroll carefully. His eyes flicked over the symbols, lingering on the seal at the bottom—half Senju, half Uchiha, fused with something older.
"This mark," he said slowly, "it predates both clans."
Akari nodded. "And yet it responds to both. It's more than a jutsu. It's a link—between bloodlines, but also between what they could've become."
Raien glanced up. "You're thinking of using it?"
Akari's violet eyes hardened. "I don't think I have a choice."
A sudden rustle in the trees snapped both of them into silence. In an instant, they vanished into the shadows.
From the undergrowth, three shinobi emerged—cloaked, masked, their chakra strange and unfamiliar. One of them stepped forward, voice distorted.
"You weren't supposed to find that scroll."
Akari stepped from the shadows, mask in one hand, his voice low and steady. "And you weren't supposed to know I had it."
The intruder didn't hesitate—kunai in hand, chakra flaring.
Raien moved like a shadow. In a flash of steel, two of the attackers fell, stunned by precise strikes to the pressure points. The third lunged at Akari, blades coated in poison—but the Uchiha-Senju hybrid weaved a single seal and vanished.
Reappearing behind the enemy, he whispered, "Too slow."
The masked figure collapsed, unconscious.
Raien straightened, brushing snow from his shoulder. "They're not from Konoha."
"No," Akari agreed. "They're something else. Something that's been watching the village from the outside."
He looked at the scroll again.
"We're not the only ones chasing answers."
---
Back in the village, Tobirama stood at the edge of the Hokage's tower, watching the sunrise break through the fog. His eyes narrowed slightly.
A faint ripple in the barrier.
Someone had left.
And he already knew who.