The rain didn’t fall. It lingered, suspended in mist that curled around the clearing like a breath held too long.

  Rei stood barefoot in the center of the stone ring, her stance steady, grounded. The soft slap of water against her soles echoed between the trees. Her arms were wrapped in damp cloth, already stained from earlier strikes, and her fingers flexed, waiting. Across from her, her opponent, a Chūnin twice her size, circled with caution. He’d underestimated her in the first round. He wouldn’t again.

  The mist thickened as the wind curled in from the east, swirling damp strands of her black hair loose from their tie. One strand fell across her eye. She didn’t move to brush it back.

  “Begin,” came the call from the edge of the clearing.

  The Chūnin rushed first, chakra flaring in his legs. His technique was textbook, fast, direct, overwhelming force. Rei ducked beneath his elbow and drove her heel into the soft point beneath his ribcage. He stumbled, coughing, and she pivoted low, swept his legs, and brought her knee down on his sternum before he could roll away.

  He wheezed. “That’s... enough...”

  Rei stood and took three steps back, her breath shallow but even. The rain coated her arms and back in a silvery sheen, and the bruises already blooming beneath her skin ached with slow, familiar heat. She didn’t look down at her opponent. She didn’t offer a hand.

  Someone watched from the trees.

  She didn’t have to look to know who it was. His chakra signature was mild, gentle, barely noticeable, like standing near a warm fire that never spread. She could sense it always, just at the edge of her awareness. A presence she had once invited too close. Now, it stayed hidden, perched like a bird that no longer knew if it was welcome.

  Her eyes flicked toward the treeline for just a second. His shape was there, half-shadowed. Waiting.

  She turned her back and walked past him without a word.

  The boy who didn’t claim her called out. “Rei.”

  She didn’t stop. The slap of her wet footsteps trailed into the trees like falling ash. The mist swallowed her silhouette whole.

  Above the clearing, the rain thickened. But no one noticed the scent of lightning beneath it. Not yet.

  -flash back-

  The sky that night was red, not from sunset, but from fire.

  Ash drifted like snow over the Uchiha compound. Buildings cracked under the weight of exploding jutsu. Cries cut through the air, short, sharp, final. Somewhere to the west, someone screamed for their brother. To the east, a hawk's cry was silenced by steel.

  Itachi moved through smoke like a shadow with breath. His eyes burned with Sharingan clarity. There was no glory in their power tonight, only grief. He cradled the child tight against his chest, a little boy no older than Sasuke, face streaked with soot and tears. The boy didn’t cry anymore. He just clung to Itachi’s vest and stared over his shoulder at the burning wreckage behind them.

  “Don’t look back,” Itachi murmured, too soft for anyone else to hear. “There’s nothing there for you now.”

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  The child pressed his face into Itachi’s shoulder.

  Up ahead, the path was clear. For now. The loyalists had secured a route through the side alleys, the ones civilians rarely used. Itachi’s sandals hit the bloodied cobblestones in rhythm, his breath steady even as the air thickened. He didn’t dare slow. Behind him, the compound was dying.

  A voice crackled in his earpiece. His mother’s. “Go. We’ll hold the line. Don’t stop, Itachi.”

  “Understood,” he said. His throat tightened. He didn’t say goodbye.

  He turned down another alley and slid to a halt. Two loyalists, Kozue and Taka, stood guard at the end, blades drawn, blood on their flak jackets. They opened the gate when they saw him. Kozue reached for the child.

  “I’ll take him—”

  “No,” Itachi said. His voice was sharp, sharper than he meant. “He stays with me.”

  Kozue nodded once and stepped back.

  Behind them, the roar of flame surged higher. Another explosion lit the night like false dawn. For a moment, the silhouette of two figures was visible atop the main hall: Fugaku and Mikoto, back to back, blades flashing, holding the western approach with precision only decades of service could forge.

  Itachi looked up. He knew it would be the last time.

  His mother saw him.

  Even through the smoke and distance, her eyes met his. Calm. Knowing. A flicker of pride. Then she turned back to the fight, spinning a kunai into the neck of a traitor. The flames swallowed her from view.

  Itachi didn’t speak. He didn’t break. He shifted the child’s weight on his hip and kept walking.

  Behind him, the Uchiha burned.

  And those who remained became ghosts with living names.

  The briefing room in the Hokage’s tower smelled like ink and damp wood, with the faintest trace of ozone from the storm still clinging to the village’s edges. The lights overhead buzzed with static chakra interference. Nothing dangerous, just a lingering artifact of power that had passed too close.

  Rei stood against the wall near the window, arms crossed, steam still rising from her clothes. She hadn’t changed after training. She didn’t need to.

  A jōnin paced at the front of the room, rolling out scrolls and drawing formation diagrams with a speed born of habit. The mission brief was mid-level, likely escort with fallback protection detail. She didn’t care. It was just movement. It was something.

  The room was quiet except for the sound of pens scratching and the rustle of paper. Then one name cut through the hum like a blade.

  “Team Four will consist of Uchiha Itachi, Shinamori Rei, and Hyuuga Nao. Deployment in twelve hours. Border quadrant sweep. Intel recovery priority.”

  Rei’s eyes lifted slowly. Her heartbeat didn’t change, but something in her chest did. It tilted, shifted sideways.

  The words had been said plainly, like any other roster. But nothing was plain about being paired with Uchiha Itachi. No one in the room reacted aloud, but every chakra signature shifted. Tense, uncertain, curious. The kind of silence reserved for things people didn’t want to say out loud.

  Across the room, Hyuuga Nao glanced at her with brief disdain, then at the door, like he was already dreading the shared trail ahead.

  Rei said nothing. She stepped forward, took the mission scroll from the table, and turned.

  And there he was, entering as if summoned by name.

  Itachi Uchiha. Uniform crisp, hair tied, eyes unreadable. He didn’t scan the room. He didn’t need to. He knew where each presence was without looking.

  His gaze passed over her like a flicker of moonlight on steel. Quiet, cool, impossibly precise. It didn’t linger.

  She didn’t flinch.

  As she moved toward the exit, scroll in hand, her shoulder brushed his by half an inch. She didn’t stop. Neither did he.

  But something had shifted.

  Something inevitable had begun.

  Outside, the storm had passed. But the air still tasted like thunder.