Moon still high.
Yurei gone.
Wind blew across the monument.
He stood there. Alone.
Looking down at the glowing map in his hand.
The ink shimmered red now.
The village pulsed like a living heart.
Every dot, a person.
And one dot…
Black.
Flickering.
Underneath the Hokage building.
Underground.
It was calling him.
Next morning.
Iruka didn't show up.
Instead—A stranger.
Woman. Sharp eyes. Hidden Leaf jonin vest.
Said her name was Kura.
Said Iruka was on "temporary assignment."
But her chakra felt wrong.
Too still.
Like it wasn't moving through her body.Like it was waiting.
He watched her the whole time.
She never blinked.
After class.
He told Naruto and Sasuke he was going home early.
He didn't.
He went under the Hokage building.
Slipped past the guards.
They never saw him.
He walked into the dark… alone.
Step by step.
Whispers in the walls.
Eyes glowing in cracks.
Old voices from lives he didn't remember.
One hallway stretched forever.
But his eye told him it ended… soon.
He found a door.
Rusty. Sealed.
Had the same symbol as his eye.
He touched it.
The symbol burned into his skin.
Then the door opened.
Dust. Cold.
Inside…
An old lab.
Broken machines.
Scrolls melted into the floor.
In the center—A tank.
Filled with black water.
Inside it—
A boy.
His age.
Same face.
Same scar.
Same broken eye.
Only… dead.
He stepped closer.
Heartbeat loud now.
Not his.
The boy's.
Still beating.
He touched the glass.
Flash.
Memories not his.
Pain. Screams. Needles.
A name—"Subject 4-13."
They made him here.
They made both of them here.
His head hurt.
Blood ran from his nose.
He fell to the ground.
His eye glowed—out of control.
The glass cracked.
A hand reached out.
Grabbed him.
Pulled him forward.
Into the tank.
Darkness.
Silence.
Then—
Eyes opened.
He was floating.
Water around him.
But he could breathe.
The other boy—gone.
Instead, the water showed him visions.
A woman… holding him.
Not in Konoha.
Another land.
Another name.
He couldn't hear it.
But he felt it.
Family.
Then—Fire.
Screams.
Men in white robes.
They took him.
Wiped him.
Used the eye to erase everything.
To store it.
Inside itself.
He woke up gasping.
The tank was gone.
He was on the floor again.
The room collapsed behind him.
Cave-in.
No way back.
But something followed him out.
A presence.
It now lived in his left eye.
The original version of him.
Alive inside the dojutsu.
A living memory.
Trapped.
And whispering.
At night.
He didn't sleep.
Instead, he walked to the edge of the village.
Forest of Death.
Empty. Cold.
He waited.
At 2:07 AM.
The figure came.
Cloaked.
Face hidden.
Hands not human.
It crouched beside him.
"You opened the Fourth Door."
He didn't speak.
"Then the Fifth will soon follow."
"What's in the Fifth?"
The thing tilted its head.
"Time. And all the lies you swallowed."
Then vanished.
But not before dropping something.
A tooth.
Still warm.
Not human.
Next morning.
Yurei appeared at his door.
Blood on her sleeve.
"We're out of time," she said.
"They're preparing a culling."
He narrowed his eyes. "What?"
"Every child born with chakra abnormalities."
"They'll be removed."
"Silently."
He stood up. "Why tell me?"
"Because you're the first weapon that might survive the truth."
"And?"
"And because I saw you… back then."
"In the vision?"
"No. Before. In the real world. Before this life."
He froze.
"You were the one who screamed when they took me."
"You tried to fight them."
"You lost."
"And they made you forget."
She left without another word.
He sat for a long time.
Didn't move.
Didn't eat.
Stared at the wall.
The crack on it looked like the same shape as the glyph in his eye.
He knew what came next.
The Fifth Crack.
And then the real him would start to wake up.