Konoha was still.
Too still.
When Root retaliates, they don't do it with fire or fury. They do it with silence. With accidents. With rumors. They do it in a way that makes you question whether anything happened at all.
Arashi woke with a cold feeling in his chest.
Something was wrong.
He'd learned to trust those feelings—gut instincts sharpened not just by his current life but by the fragments of memory from his old one. He sat up, scanned his surroundings. No seals disturbed. No chakra anomalies. But the wrongness lingered.
He dressed in silence, strapped on his weapons, and slipped out of the compound before dawn. His destination wasn't a mission site or training field.
It was the archives.
Because yesterday, a boy from his academy days had passed him a sealed note. Nothing fancy. Just a folded piece of paper, palmed into his sleeve during a crowded street.
"They're replacing names in the record scrolls. One is yours."
He hadn't thought much of it then. But now—
He arrived at the back entrance to the archives, just as the sun cracked over the Hokage Monument. He entered through the side—a path used only by researchers and special jonin archivists. The records room was dim, lit only by thin chakra-laced lamps that cast shadows sharper than they should've.
Arashi moved to the Hatake files.
As expected, there was a new folder—inserted between mission logs and awards. The ink was fresh.
"OPERATION: WHITE FANG – POTENTIAL INSTABILITY"
His father's name, Sakumo Hatake, was listed under "Increased Risk".
There were three fabricated entries—none written in Sakumo's hand. One stated he had refused to follow an assassination order in the Wind Country. Another hinted he had met with a known Leaf defector. Both were lies.
But once something was written in ink and stamped by the Archives Division, it became recorded history.
Arashi replaced the scroll carefully and stepped back into the hall.
And that's when he heard the scream.
It wasn't loud.
It was choked.
He ran.
Down three corridors, past the clan record shelves, until he turned into the narrow hallway leading to the civilian census records.
A boy lay crumpled against the wall.
Head bowed. Neck twisted.
Blood pooled beneath his chin.
Arashi dropped to his knees, eyes scanning the body.
It was Kenji.
The same boy who passed him the note.
Barely seventeen. Low-ranking chunin. Too curious for his own good.
And now… dead.
No wound. No external injury. Just a broken neck.
Too clean.
Root.
Arashi rose slowly.
There were no signatures. No scroll residue. Not even the scent of oil or steel.
But he knew.
This was a warning.
He left the scene before anyone could see him.
—
Later, at the Hatake compound, Arashi stood in the backyard training field, barefoot in the grass.
He stared at the dirt.
Not meditating.
Just… standing.
Sakumo approached quietly. "What happened?"
"Someone helped me," Arashi said. "Now they're dead."
Sakumo waited.
Arashi continued. "Root erased him. Quietly. Just like they erased the others."
"You're sure?"
Arashi nodded. "No chakra left behind. No prints. Neck snapped clean."
Sakumo exhaled through his nose. "And you blame yourself."
"I dragged him into it."
"No. He stepped in."
"That's the same thing."
Sakumo didn't reply.
Instead, he knelt, picked up a small stone from the training field, and held it out.
"You know what this is?"
Arashi frowned. "A throwing weight."
"From your mother's set," Sakumo said. "She used to train with them every evening. But she never used them in battle."
"Why?"
"She said there's no point carrying tools you don't intend to use."
Sakumo stood again, eyes sharp. "You've been carrying weight for too long, Arashi. Tools you're afraid to use. Rage. Grief. Fear. Sooner or later, they'll weigh you down more than the enemy ever could."
Arashi looked away. "I can't lose control."
"No," Sakumo said. "But you can't pretend you're not angry, either. That's when they win. When they make you afraid of your own fire."
Arashi closed his fist around the stone.
—
That evening, he entered the mental realm.
No simulated opponents. No sparring.
Just stillness.
He sat beneath the giant hollow tree that marked the center of his personal landscape.
He'd never noticed before, but the branches above him had started to wither. Not physically. Metaphorically. The realm mirrored him—and something inside him was shifting.
He thought of Kenji.
Of the scroll.
Of Kakashi.
Of the timeline.
He was diverging from it. Rapidly. And every change was a ripple. Some helpful. Some... lethal.
The boy had died because he cared.
And caring was dangerous.
But apathy?
That was Root's weapon.
He stood, summoned a training target in the shape of a generic Root mask, and threw the stone from his palm.
It struck with such force the mask cracked down the middle.
No chakra. No trick.
Just anger.
Real. Heavy. Human.
—
Two nights later, Arashi met with an unexpected guest.
Not a Root agent.
Not a spy.
But Shikaku Nara.
The man walked into the field behind the Hatake estate uninvited, hands in his pockets, face unreadable as always.
Arashi waited.
Shikaku spoke first. "You've stirred a lot of wind lately."
"I wasn't aware wind noticed me."
"It does when you start shifting trees."
Arashi eyed him. "What do you want?"
"Kenji was a friend."
Arashi's posture didn't change. "Then you know who killed him."
"I do," Shikaku said. "But I'm not here to avenge him."
"Then why?"
"I'm here to warn you."
Arashi raised an eyebrow.
"Danzo has plans," Shikaku said. "Big ones. He's moving people around. Reassigning certain chunin. Redirecting patrols. Replacing academy instructors."
"For what?"
"To shape the next generation."
Arashi's eyes narrowed. "You think he's building something?"
Shikaku nodded. "He's not trying to control the village. He's trying to replace it."
And just like that, everything clicked.
The scrolls. The altered records. The disappearances.
Danzo wasn't just manipulating history.
He was rewriting it.
From the inside.
From the bottom up.
If allowed, he wouldn't just control the narrative—he'd own the future.
Arashi stepped forward. "Are you with him?"
Shikaku laughed. "I'm a Nara. We don't pick sides unless the odds favor survival."
"Then why tell me?"
"Because you're the only one pissing him off fast enough to make him sloppy."
And then, Shikaku turned to leave.
But before he vanished, he added:
"Be careful, Hatake. Because the last boy who spoke too much just stopped speaking forever."
And Arashi was left in the darkness.
Knowing the next move couldn't be a warning.
It had to be a message.
One the whole village would hear.
To be continued.