The wind across the Fire Plains was different—warm and dry, unlike the misty forests of the Senju homeland. Itama moved swiftly beneath a blazing noonday sun, cloaked in a long travel cape, his forehead protector tucked into his sash to avoid drawing attention. The road was barely a path now, just red-dusted earth winding through tall, pale grasses that shimmered with heat. His breath was steady, but his mind was a whirlwind.
He had left the camp before dawn, leaving behind a message only for Hashirama. No explanations. No details. Just a single line inked with care:
"I must understand what's stirring inside me."
The visions from nights prior still haunted him—twisting wood chakra, the faces of the dead, the pain in his chest that came not from any physical wound, but something deeper. Something ancient.
The further he walked, the more he realized this wasn't just about mastering Wood Release.
It was about understanding why he, and only he since Hashirama, could feel it whispering in his bones. Why it responded to his pain and grief. Why it had come alive during the vision, threatening to tear the very earth apart beneath him.
And only one place in the Land of Fire might offer answers.
The Temple of the Flame Root—hidden deep in the Red Bark Mountains, home to the oldest sages still connected to the primal chakra of the land. It was not a place the shinobi often sought. Many considered it a relic, more myth than institution. But Itama had heard Takeshi speak of it, once.
"The Land of Fire has its own memory," Takeshi had said. "Not everything sacred is sealed in scrolls. Some truths burn slowly—in stone, in trees, in those old sages who refuse to die."
By dusk, Itama reached the base of the mountain range. The terrain shifted drastically—rolling heat gave way to cool shadows as jagged cliffs loomed above. Moss clung to redstone boulders like a creeping skin, and thorned vines lined the path like sleeping serpents. He began the climb without hesitation, relying on chakra to scale the steeper edges.
Halfway up, he paused.
A symbol had been carved into the rock wall ahead—an ancient spiral surrounded by five claw-like lines. The Fire Sage emblem.
He pressed his palm to it.
The stone pulsed faintly, and then a portion of the cliff slid aside in absolute silence, revealing a narrow passage, choked with smoke-scented air. Itama entered, eyes adjusting quickly as he followed the scent of incense, old fire, and wood smoke deeper into the mountain.
The corridor widened into a cavernous hall dimly lit by smoldering braziers. At the far end, an enormous mural stretched across the stone—depicting a tree engulfed in flames, roots sprawling into shadowy shapes resembling dragons, foxes, and wolves. The tree's crown reached the sun.
From the smoke, three hooded figures emerged.
Their movements were slow, deliberate. One held a staff made of scorched ironwood. Another bore no weapon, but her eyes glowed faintly red. The last one—tall and wrapped in thick red robes—stared directly at him.
"You come carrying blood, memory, and something older," the red-robed sage said.
"I come seeking understanding," Itama replied, bowing.
The three sages exchanged looks. The eldest among them—his face lined with age but burning with focus—gestured for Itama to approach.
"We sensed you days ago. The land carried your chakra long before your footsteps did. Sit."
Itama obeyed, lowering himself into a lotus position on the scorched floor before them.
"You wield something not meant for most mortals," said the female sage. "Wood Release is not simply a bloodline—it is a legacy. A burden. A contract with the land itself."
"The chakra of the earth answers to me," Itama murmured, "but I don't understand it. Not fully. And sometimes… it feels like it doesn't belong to me at all."
"Because it doesn't," the red-robed sage said sharply. "Not yet."
He knelt before Itama and placed two fingers on his forehead. Instantly, a surge of warmth entered Itama's body—not hostile, but probing.
"You've tasted awakening," the sage said. "But not transformation."
"What do you mean?"
The female sage answered. "You dream of the dead. You see flames in the forest. Wood twisted into claws. Death wrapped in vines. These are signs of your root chakra stirring—not your physical one. Your ancestral chakra."
Itama's eyes widened. "My—?"
"Hashirama tapped into it by instinct," the elder sage said. "You were forced into it by pain. That's why your chakra is unbalanced. You are strong, but chaotic. You bend trees, but they bleed when you call them."
"I need to control it," Itama said. "Before it consumes me. Before it turns me into something I'm not."
The sages were silent for a long time. Then the red-robed one rose and turned to the fire pit behind him. He dipped his staff into the coals, which hissed and flared to life. From the flames, a small figure emerged—a creature of living embers shaped like a monkey with wood bark plating its limbs. It blinked at Itama, then bowed.
"This is Himoraki," said the elder. "A fire-spirit bound to wood. A paradox. Like you."
The creature climbed onto Itama's shoulder, surprisingly warm but not painful. He felt its chakra sync with his own—foreign at first, then eerily familiar.
"You will meditate with Himoraki until the wood and fire in you learn to coexist," the female sage said. "Until your chakra no longer lashes out in grief."
"And if I fail?"
"You will go mad," she said simply. "The land will twist you. Turn you into a shell of death and nature—unstoppable, but not yourself."
Itama nodded slowly. "Then I'll succeed."
So began his training.
Each day, he meditated at the heart of the flame-root cavern, surrounded by wood ash and incense smoke. Himoraki would sit across from him, watching. The sages spoke little, but corrected his form with the gentlest of taps or a single word: "Focus." "Breath." "Balance."
He learned to feel the earth's chakra without touching it. To let the fire within Himoraki and the wood within himself find a shared rhythm. When his visions returned, he no longer ran from them—he entered them, examined them, and saw the difference between prophecy and fear.
After a week, he woke from a trance to find himself surrounded by thick wooden vines shaped like arms—arms holding back a burning pyre. Himoraki sat atop the pyre unharmed.
The flames did not burn the vines.
The vines did not smother the flames.
They danced together.
When he opened his eyes, the sages nodded.
"You are beginning," said the red-robed one. "Now you must return. For this is where power ends. But your test begins again out there."
As he descended the mountain, Himoraki perched on his shoulder, quietly whistling a tune only creatures of the forest and fire could hear.
Itama smiled.
He was not the same boy who had once feared the visions of death. He was no longer a rogue spirit chasing peace in a storm of war.
He was rooted now.
Grounded.
And burning just enough to light the way forward.