(AN: Thank you for reading the Chapter enjoy and Happy Holidays!!!)
Raizo Uzumaki turned seven beneath a sky that felt heavier than any morning before it.
Fog rolled in slow, patient sheets across the cliffs of Uzushiogakure, softening the village into blurred spirals and pale silhouettes. Stone paths vanished into white. Rooflines faded until the world looked smaller than it should have been, like it had folded inward on itself.
Quiet wrapped everything.
Too quiet.
Raizo stood on the cliff ledge with his hands resting lightly on his knees, toes curled against cool stone. He breathed the way Akane had taught him—deep, even, careful. In with the wave. Out with the tide. Each breath was measured, controlled, practiced until it felt like part of him.
As he exhaled, mist curled inward around his ankles.
As he inhaled, the breeze lifted gently through his hair.
The world listened to him now.
That was the part that frightened him.
Not the wind. Not the water. Not the way the fog responded like it understood him. Those things felt natural, almost comforting. What scared him was the other feeling—the one that pressed against his chest like unseen eyes.
He didn't feel unsafe.
He felt watched.
Footsteps approached behind him, slow and deliberate. Raizo knew who it was before she spoke. He always did.
"Good morning, little storm."
Akane stopped a short distance away, careful not to let her shadow touch him. Even shadows mattered these days. Raizo didn't turn right away. He waited for a wave to strike the rocks below, waited for the echo to fade into the fog.
"The ocean feels heavy today," he said.
Akane's fingers tightened briefly in the fabric of her sleeve. "Heavy how?"
Raizo searched for the right shape of the feeling. Words were harder lately. The world was giving him more than words could carry.
"Like when you're holding your breath," he said slowly, "but not because you want to."
Her heart pinched at the sound of it.
She stepped closer and knelt, wrapping her arms around his shoulders from behind. Her warmth anchored him, steady and familiar. "You're safe," she whispered.
Raizo leaned back into her, but his gaze never left the horizon. He didn't feel danger. He felt attention. Focus. The sense of something turning its face toward him.
He didn't know how to explain that.
So he stayed quiet.
Later that morning, Hina arrived the way she always did—running fast enough that her sandals slapped the stone like thrown pebbles.
"RAIZO!" she yelled. "There's a boat! A new one! Come on!"
Raizo blinked and turned at last. "A boat?"
"Yes! A real one!" She grabbed his wrist and tugged hard. "It looks different!"
He let himself be dragged, sandals tapping behind her as they hurried toward the main pier. Fog thinned near the docks, revealing the dark shape of a vessel rocking gently against the wood.
The moment Raizo saw it, he stopped.
Not because it looked strange.
Because it didn't feel right.
The boat sat calmly, sails lowered, crew smiling politely at curious villagers. Laughter drifted across the pier. Fishermen shouted at gulls. Children ran past, chasing one another through the mist.
Everything looked harmless.
Raizo felt a hollow place beneath it all.
A sharpness hidden under politeness.
A presence that was trying very hard to be nothing.
Hina tugged his sleeve. "Raizo?"
"The boat is lying," he whispered.
She frowned. "How can a boat lie—"
Akane appeared beside them, breath shallow as she felt the tension coiled in her son's small frame. "What is it?" she asked softly.
Raizo's voice barely carried. "Someone on the boat feels… wrong."
Not angry.
Not cold.
Empty.
Akane's pulse spiked. She scooped him close, turning him slightly away from the pier. She caught the eye of two shinobi nearby. They exchanged a brief, silent understanding and began drifting closer to the vessel.
Riku arrived moments later, sliding into place beside them like a shadow cast too sharply to ignore.
"I felt it too," he murmured.
Raizo looked up at him. "Do you know who they are?"
Riku's jaw tightened. "No. But we will."
His hand hovered near his kunai—close enough to draw, far enough not to alarm the crowd.
Around them, the village went on pretending nothing had changed.
Raizo knew better.
That night, the Uzumaki Council convened.
Raizo sat just outside the meeting hall, legs crossed, tracing slow spirals in the dirt with a stick. Lantern light flickered through papered windows, shadows stretching and twisting with every movement inside.
Voices murmured beyond the walls.
Raizo didn't listen for words.
He felt intention.
Fear braided with urgency. A thin thread of desperation pulled tight between the elders, vibrating like a plucked string. And beneath it all—something deeper. Something older.
A presence brushed the air like a distant memory.
Warm.
Heavy.
Authoritative.
It wasn't in the room. Not fully. It felt like an echo carried through time, brushing past the edges of the present.
Then something else settled into his awareness.
Not a sound.
A shape of meaning.
A name without letters.
A coil of warmth wrapped in steel and resolve.
"Konoha," someone said inside the hall.
Raizo's breath caught.
He whispered it to himself. "Konoha…"
Hina, sitting beside him with her legs swinging, blinked. "What's Konoha?"
Raizo shook his head slowly. He didn't know.
But he knew it mattered.
The elders emerged looking older than when they had entered. Riku was the last to leave. His face was carefully blank, but his chakra felt… resigned.
Something had shifted.
Raizo felt it settle into the world like a stone dropped into deep water.
The next evening, Riku took Raizo for a walk along the cliffs.
The wind was colder than usual, carrying sea spray that dampened Raizo's sleeves. They walked in silence for a long while, the sound of waves filling the spaces between them.
"You've grown a lot," Riku said at last.
Raizo waited. His father never spoke without purpose.
"There are things I need you to understand," Riku continued. "Our clan is important. Our knowledge is rare. That makes us valuable."
Raizo watched the waves crash below. "And hunted."
Riku stopped walking.
"No," he said softly. "The world hunts what it doesn't understand."
Raizo absorbed that, feeling the words sink into his chest like smooth stones.
"Am I the reason everyone is scared?" he asked quietly.
Riku crouched and turned him gently by the shoulders. "No," he said. "You are the reason they're unsure. That's different."
Raizo nodded, though the heaviness didn't leave.
"You don't need to understand everything yet," Riku added, brushing his hair back. "Just keep breathing."
Raizo promised silently.
That night, the dream returned.
The cavern was closer now—warmer, darker, alive. Red stone glowed faintly through deep cracks in the walls. Every breath echoed like a heartbeat.
Raizo stepped forward. The stone beneath his foot cracked—not breaking, but answering him.
Something massive shifted in the shadows.
Heat rolled across his skin, familiar and overwhelming. A presence older than fear, older than names, regarded him with patient attention.
A voice emerged, deeper than thunder.
"Child of spiral blood…"
The cavern trembled.
"Your path bends."
Raizo reached out—
And woke with his hand outstretched into the air.
Steam curled faintly from his fingers.
His heart beat in a rhythm that wasn't entirely his.
The elders visited the next night.
Raizo lay in bed, eyes closed, breathing slow spirals as emotions drifted from the living room. Anger. Worry. Sorrow. Debate.
And something else.
A chakra so vast and warm it felt like a mountain breathing beside him.
He didn't know the name.
But it formed anyway.
Mito.
Raizo's eyes opened.
He didn't hear the word.
He felt its meaning.
A thread stretched across time.
A bond forged long before he was born.
He curled beneath the blankets, breathing carefully until the emotions outside softened into weary resolve.
When Akane came to check on him, he pretended to sleep.
He wasn't.
He couldn't be.
The next morning, Hina burst through the door—then froze.
Raizo sat at the table, brow furrowed in thought.
"You look weird," she announced.
"Thinking-too-hard weird," he agreed.
Akane knelt beside him, brushing his hair back gently. "Why did you ask about Mito last night?"
"I didn't hear it," Raizo whispered. "I felt it."
The house felt too small for the fear that followed.
A knock sounded at the door.
Raizo lowered his gaze. "I'm sorry."
Akane pulled him into her arms instantly. "You have nothing to be sorry for."
Riku rested a hand on his shoulder. "Something is happening beyond this village," he said. "That's all."
Raizo nodded.
The mist clung tighter than ever.
That evening, Raizo returned to the cliffside alone.
Fog curled around his legs. Wind pressed gently against his back. The sea drew close, listening.
He placed a hand over his heart.
"Mito," he whispered.
Something far away answered with a warm pull.
"Am I supposed to go there?" he asked the waves.
They didn't answer.
But the wind brushed his cheek, steady and reassuring.
Raizo closed his eyes.
The storm inside him had a direction now.
And soon, the world would reveal it.
Thanks for reading, feel free to write a comment, leave a review, and Power Stones are always appreciated.
I have two other stories I am currently working on
The first story is called Reborn as Stephen Cooper it currently has 20 chapters go and check it out tell me your thoughts
The second story has a work in progress name but it is a story a soul reincarnated as Cain (Bible) in the world of TVD/Originals.