The night was unnaturally still.
Moonlight filtered in through the open flap of Itama's tent, casting faint silver lines across the floor where his armor and scrolls lay carefully arranged. The fire pit outside had burned down to embers, and the last sounds of the camp—clanking armor, faint murmurs—had died out hours ago.
Yet Itama couldn't sleep.
He lay on his side atop a straw mat, his back damp with sweat despite the chill in the air. His eyes stared at the tent ceiling, unmoving. Every time he closed them, darkness came not as rest—but as assault.
The visions had returned.
They had started again the night after the council meeting—after Hashirama had stood before the elders and defended him in front of the entire clan. After Itama had walked out of that tent more supported, and yet more watched, than ever before.
The first dream had been like a whisper. A flash of fire. A familiar scream. A pool of blood under moonlight.
But now… they were stronger. Clearer. And they came whether he wanted them or not.
He blinked once. Twice.
Then the world tipped.
Without warning, his body froze.
Not physically—he could still move—but his surroundings shifted in that telltale way. The air thickened. The tent, the bedding, even the night wind—all gone.
He was standing.
In a burned field.
He recognized it instantly: the valley beyond the old Senju-Uchiha border. But not as it was now.
As it had been.
As it had looked the day he died.
Ashes swirled around his feet like mist, carried by a wind that smelled of charred flesh and wet soil. The sky overhead was bruised purple, lit by distant lightning but silent of thunder.
And in the distance, the first figure appeared.
A boy. No more than nine or ten. Black hair. Pale skin. A kunai driven straight through his stomach.
Uchiha.
The child stared at him—not accusingly, not angrily, but with hollow, empty eyes.
Itama turned, but more figures emerged through the fog.
Senju and Uchiha.
Men. Women. Children.
Some bore weapons. Some carried scrolls. Some had nothing but the wounds that had taken them. Slashed throats. Pierced torsos. Burned flesh. Eyes wide in that final, startled recognition of death.
They circled him.
Dozens. Then hundreds.
All silent.
All staring.
"No," he breathed. "Not again…"
A voice behind him spoke.
"How many do you remember?"
Itama turned sharply. And froze.
Standing there, bathed in the low red light of an invisible fire, was… himself.
But younger.
Bloodied, broken, and wild-eyed. Armor shattered. Skin torn. Eyes filled not with vision, but with vengeance.
Itama felt his chest tighten.
"You're the one I buried," he said.
"You buried nothing," the vision replied. "You just put me in a cage. And every time you speak of peace, I bleed again."
The younger Itama stepped forward, and behind him, another figure appeared.
Takeshi.
The rogue Senju who had saved him. The one who died alone, forgotten by the clan he once belonged to. Takeshi's eyes were warm—but tired. Deeply, eternally tired.
"You speak of peace, but you carry our blood on your back," Takeshi said.
"I never denied it," Itama whispered.
"Then why do you still run from it?" Takeshi asked, stepping beside the younger Itama. "Why do you fear the flames that shaped you?"
"I don't."
"Then prove it."
Suddenly the ground shook beneath his feet. The burned landscape cracked, and from the fissures, wooden stakes burst forth—sharp, jagged, twisted versions of his own chakra. They curled upward, misshapen and wild, like vines strangling a battlefield.
From the charred horizon came the sounds of battle—shouts, the clash of metal, the rumble of jutsu.
A battlefield was forming.
And he was in the middle.
Itama dropped to one knee, clutching his chest as a rush of chakra surged through him. Not his own—but an overwhelming force. Like the forest had awakened inside him, furious and ravenous.
"Stop it," he gasped.
But the specters around him began to move. Marching. Charging. Senju and Uchiha alike—echoes of fallen warriors, reanimated by memory, by trauma, by the collective grief of generations.
They didn't attack him.
They passed through him.
As if he were one of them.
"You were supposed to die," said his younger self again. "You were supposed to stay buried with the rest of us."
"I'm not ready," Itama whispered.
"Then why are you still here?" the echo hissed.
Itama staggered forward as a wave of pain—deep, spiritual pain—ripped through him. He collapsed to his hands, gasping, surrounded by endless shades of the dead.
And then—
A voice.
A different one.
Strong. Gentle. Unyielding.
"You are not alone."
Itama raised his head.
Through the fog stepped Hashirama—not real, but a projection of memory. And behind him, Tobirama, arms crossed, eyes wary. His mother. A younger version of her, smiling through tears. Takeshi again, now nodding slowly. And… Madara.
Madara, standing apart from the others, silent—but not hostile.
The battlefield faded.
The firelight dimmed.
And the figures remained—those who had shaped him. Those he had lost. Those he still fought for.
"You carry the dead," said Hashirama's vision, kneeling beside him. "But you also carry the living."
Itama closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, he was back in the tent.
Gasping.
Sweating.
Shaking.
The fire outside had burned out completely. The coals were cold. His bedding damp. His heart thundered against his ribs like a drumbeat of survival.
But he understood now.
The visions weren't just trauma.
They were legacy.
They were memory.
And they were warning him.
The past would not stay buried—not until the future was built to honor it.
He sat up, wiping his face, and reached for a scroll. Not a weapon. Not a war plan.
A brush. Ink.
And he began to write.
Not just for Hashirama. Not for the elders. Not even for the Uchiha.
But for those who had no voice left.
He would carry their names.
He would carry their hopes.
And one day, he would silence the battlefield inside him not with blades—but with peace.
Even if he had to fight the whole world to make it real.