Darkness crept in again, slow and smothering. Itama lay curled beneath the slanted roots of a thick tree, the forest cool and damp around him. The fire Takeshi had made hours ago had burned low, a flickering glow casting long shadows across the ground. The wounds across his body pulsed in waves—each heartbeat a dull hammer pounding against bruised flesh. His breathing was shallow, labored. Sweat clung to his brow despite the chill in the air.
He tried to sit up. His arms gave out.
The forest faded.
The world unraveled.
Suddenly, he was on the battlefield again. Not just the clearing from before—but somewhere older. Somewhere colder. Rain fell in sheets, pattering against steel and mud. Screams echoed in the distance, distorted and strange. He looked down and saw blood coating his hands—fresh, sticky, warm.
He was standing over someone.
A boy.
A Senju boy no older than him, eyes wide and empty. His chest had been torn open, ribs shattered like porcelain. Itama staggered back, horror twisting in his gut. He hadn't killed this boy—but the boy looked just like him. Exactly like him.
A mirror.
A whisper carried through the wind, low and taunting.
"You're already dead, Itama."
He spun around—no one there. The mist swallowed everything. Trees loomed out of the fog like specters, their bark bleeding. Shapes shifted in the corners of his vision—men and women in Senju armor, their faces blank, their bodies half-burned, hollow.
He stumbled through the haze.
Flames licked at the edge of the fog now—familiar, growing. A silhouette emerged from the inferno: an Uchiha, eyes gleaming red, Sharingan spinning.
"Too slow," the figure snarled.
Itama raised a kunai, but it was gone. His hands were bare. Useless.
"Too weak," another voice hissed.
Hands burst from the earth beneath him—ashen and skeletal. They gripped his legs, pulling him downward into the soil. His screams choked on dirt as the ground swallowed him.
He fell.
And fell.
And fell.
Then—
A flash.
His mother's face.
Soft eyes, kind smile, blood on her lips.
Her voice was barely audible: "Don't forget who you are."
He jerked awake.
Gasping. Eyes wide. The stars blinked down from between the canopy. His body trembled uncontrollably. His throat was raw, breath rattling in short bursts. He clutched his chest where phantom hands had dragged him into the abyss. Sweat drenched his skin.
He wasn't alone.
Takeshi sat nearby, silent, staring into the embers. He didn't look over. Didn't speak.
"You saw?" Itama rasped.
"I hear," Takeshi replied quietly. "You talk in your sleep. Cry sometimes too."
Shame twisted in Itama's gut, but he said nothing.
"The dead visit everyone eventually," Takeshi continued, tossing a branch into the fire. "Especially those who live too close to them."
"I didn't choose this."
"No one does."
Itama curled in on himself, arms wrapped tight around his chest. The fire's warmth reached him, but it didn't chase the cold inside away.
He closed his eyes again.
And the vision returned.
This time, it was Hashirama.
Tall. Proud. Standing on a cliff overlooking a battlefield. But his eyes were not the kind ones Itama remembered. They were distant, cold, weary. He turned, slowly, and looked down at Itama as though seeing something he didn't recognize.
"You were supposed to stay behind," Hashirama said, voice echoing.
"I wanted to help," Itama replied, reaching for him.
"You only made it worse."
Lightning cracked overhead. Blood spilled from Hashirama's mouth. He fell backward off the cliff, vanishing into the storm below.
Itama screamed—and opened his eyes again.
He was still in the forest.
Still alive.
But his heart felt crushed beneath the weight of a thousand ghosts. His clan, his dreams, his brothers. Their faces haunted the corners of his mind.
He didn't sleep again that night.
Only drifted—lost between moments of silence and the sharp clarity of fear. Each time he closed his eyes, someone else died. Sometimes him. Sometimes not. And in every vision, the flames burned brighter.
As dawn crept in, painting the sky with a pale gray light, Takeshi stood.
"It's time," he said simply.
Itama sat up slowly, limbs stiff. The shadows still clung to him, but his jaw was set now. Tighter. Firmer. He was afraid—but not broken.
He would not be broken.
He was a Senju.
And the flame, though flickering, had not gone out.