Rain fell hard.Clouds cracked open like broken bones.Lightning split the night.
Raien sat on the edge of a broken wall.The hideout was buried deep in the old ruins of Uzushiogakure.Far away from Konoha.Far away from everything.
He stared at his hand.Fingers trembling.The chakra in his veins—it didn't feel like his anymore.It moved too fast.Too sharp.Like it belonged to someone... something else.
Behind him, the fire crackled.He didn't turn around.
"You're changing," a voice said.
Raien knew it was her.The masked woman.Always watching.Never blinking.
"I didn't ask for this," he muttered.
"No one ever does."She stepped closer. Her presence felt like cold steel."Your dojutsu... it's growing. But it's not complete yet."
He looked at her, finally.The glow in his left eye reflected in her mask.
"What's happening to me?"
There was silence.Then a whisper.
"You're remembering."
Another flash of lightning.And in that instant, his mind opened.Images. Screams. Seals.
A battlefield.A red sky.A girl... holding his hand. Crying.Blood. So much blood.
He staggered back.
"No... that's not me."
But it was.A memory from another life.Buried. Forgotten.Now breaking through.
His eye pulsed.A sudden jolt.Raien fell to his knees.And then...A seal appeared under his feet.
Glowing red.Spinning.
"What the hell—"
The masked woman didn't move.She just watched.
The seal exploded in light.
Raien vanished.
The light faded.Raien hit the ground hard.It was sand.Heat.And screams.
He looked around.
Sunagakure.
He was inside the village.Alarms ringing.Shinobi running.The Kazekage Tower in flames.
Then he saw him.
Gaara.
Younger. Bloody. Laughing like a beast.
"This is... the past?" Raien whispered.
Another scream.A Jonin flew past him, unconscious.
Raien stepped back.He shouldn't be here.
Gaara's eyes locked on him.
That monstrous chakra...It hit like a wall.Raien staggered again.
"Who are you?" Gaara growled.
"I... I don't know," Raien said.
Gaara didn't care.He attacked.
Sand shot like knives.Raien jumped.Barely avoided it.
But he couldn't fight him.Not now. Not in this state.
He focused.
His broken eye burned.
Time... cracked.
Everything stopped.Raien moved.One step. Two.Right behind Gaara.
But his eye flickered.
And time snapped back.
Gaara spun—sand like a storm.
It hit.
Raien was slammed into a wall.Blood. Pain.But his vision... changed.
Gaara's chakra—
It wasn't just violent.It was screaming.
A trapped voice.A spirit.Caged and raging.
The One-Tail.
Raien saw it clearly now.Not with his eyes.But with his broken dojutsu.
He reached out.
"Stop," he whispered.
Gaara's sand froze.
Just for a second.
Their chakras connected.
And in that second—Raien heard something else.
A voice.
"You're not ready."
Then everything disappeared.Like a popped bubble.
He woke up again.Back in the ruins.Breathing hard.Face drenched in sweat.
The masked woman still stood there.Like she hadn't moved at all.
"You saw it, didn't you?" she asked.
Raien nodded slowly.Eyes wide.
"That was the Shukaku," he said."And the Kazekage's son."
"You were shown the past," she said."Your dojutsu connects you to chakra... in ways no one else understands."
Raien didn't speak.
He was shaking.From fear.From exhaustion.From truth.
The woman crouched near him.
"Soon... you'll see more. Time. Death. Power."
Raien looked into the fire.Eyes burning.
"What am I becoming?"
She didn't answer.
Outside, the storm raged louder.But inside the ruins—The real storm had already begun.