Morning.
The sky over Amegakure never changed.
Always rain.
Always grey.
Raien stood on the balcony outside the room they'd given him.Steam rising from his tea.Left eye glowing faintly—though he didn't will it to.
It responded to something.
He could feel it…Shifting again.
Behind him, Konan approached.
"You didn't sleep."
"No."
She handed him a file.Sealed documents.
"What's this?"
"Intel from the Hidden Rain archives," she said."Every case where a kekkei genkai changed its user."
Raien opened the file.
Dozens of records.
Photos. Names.
All of them ended the same way—
Dead.
Inside the file—One paper stood out.
Old. Yellowed.
Marked "CLASSIFIED."
A sketch of a symbol.It was identical to the one that had floated in Raien's eye during the dream.
His grip tightened.
Konan watched him carefully.
"You've seen this?"
He nodded.
"It appears… when I'm close to using something dangerous."
Konan sat beside him. Folded her arms.
"Your eye is warning you."
Raien blinked.
"…warning?"
She looked at the horizon.
"Something sealed inside you wants out. The cracks in your dojutsu—those aren't damage. They're limits."
Raien's chest tightened.
"Limits… breaking…"
He remembered the voice from the dream.
Break.
Konan whispered,
"Three cracks. Three seals. And after that…"
Raien turned away.
He already knew what came after.
Later that day, underground training chambers.
Raien stood in a circle of paper tags.
Konan watched from behind thick glass.Pain, too.
Sensors activated.
Raien took a deep breath.
"Let's see what you can do…"
His eye blinked once.
Nothing.
Second time—
Whispers.
Third time—
The world…Slowed.
Colors bled into grey.
Chakra became visible.Every thread. Every knot.
Raien staggered.
Pain's voice echoed from the chamber speaker.
"Can you control it?"
Raien didn't answer.
Because now—He saw something else.
Strings.Connected to Konan.
To the building.
To the rain.
"What… is this…"
He touched one.
A sound rang out—Like a bell underwater.
Instantly the world snapped back to normal.
Raien gasped.
Collapsed to his knees.
Blood dripping from his nose.
Pain walked in slowly.
"You saw them."
Raien wiped the blood.
"…What are they?"
Pain stared at him.
"Paths. Between cause and effect."
Raien blinked.
"What?"
"The eye doesn't just see chakra," Pain continued. "It sees intention."
Konan added, "And with enough focus… you could sever those paths."
Raien stood.Shocked.
"You're saying… I can rewrite decisions?"
Pain said nothing.
But the silence confirmed it.
That night—
Raien sat alone.Staring at the mark that floated just outside his vision.
It spun slowly.
A third crack forming across its surface.
He didn't sleep.
Didn't even blink.
Elsewhere.
The Hidden Leaf.
Uchiha district—ruins.
A child with golden hair walked among broken stones.
Eyes glowing red.
Not the Sharingan.
Something else.
He looked up.
A man stood at the end of the alley.
Robed. Masked.
A Collector.
"Is it time?" the boy asked.
The man nodded.
"You're the second."
The boy smiled.
"Good. I'm tired of waiting."
In Amegakure—
Raien jolted awake.
The eye burned.
He rushed to the mirror.
And there it was.
The third crack.
The symbol in his eye pulsed red.Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then—
His reflection changed.
Not just his face.
His aura.
A version of him stepped forward.
Like a ghost behind the glass.
It placed its hand against the mirror.
Raien, frozen, did the same.
Their fingers met.
The ghost whispered,
"Break."
The mirror shattered.
Chakra erupted.
The building shook.
Konan rushed in.
Pain followed.
Smoke filled the hallway.
Raien stood in the center.
Unharmed.
But something was different.
His hair—Streaked with white.
His eye—Now pulsed on its own. Even when closed.
Raien looked at them.
His voice was calm.Too calm.
"…I know what this dojutsu is now."
Pain narrowed his eyes.
Raien lifted his hand.
"The name is Nenseigan."
The room went silent.
Even the rain stopped for a heartbeat.
Far away—
Tenkai stood up from his desk.
Smiling.
"So it begins."
Behind him, the girl in bandages looked up.
"Third crack?"
Tenkai nodded.
"Third crack."
She looked uneasy.
"…And when the fourth breaks?"
Tenkai's smile faded.
He didn't answer.
Back in Amegakure—
Raien stood barefoot in the broken chamber.
The cracked seal on his eye stopped glowing.
But he felt it now.
Deeper than ever.
Konan asked the question no one wanted to say out loud.
"Do you still feel like yourself?"
Raien looked at his hands.
Then slowly nodded.
But his voice whispered something else.
"I don't think… I ever was myself to begin with."