The boy was gone when Raizen emerged from the shrine—either fled into the ruins or vanished like a phantom himself. The night above was darker now, clouds swirling unnaturally as though the world itself recoiled. Raizen tilted his head back, sensing the storm before it even formed.
> They're moving faster than I thought…
A whisper of chakra signatures pricked at his senses. They were faint, distant… but converging. Not ordinary shinobi. These were sharper, ancient—like the apostle's, but subtly different.
Raizen's jaw tightened. "Shibai's apostles…"
The wind shifted. A flurry of ash skated across the ruins, coiling into faint outlines of shattered faces—Kage who once stood against him. A cruel reminder. Raizen clenched his fists. Even erased, their condemnation echoed.
He forced his mind back to the present. The apostles aren't just hunting me. They're probing the world, testing its seams for weakness. If they stir the shinobi world again—if the Five Nations begin to remember—everything unravels.
He reached for the old Uchiha pendant at his neck, the only thing that hadn't vanished with the erased memories. It was cracked, but it pulsed faintly with his chakra. A relic of a clan erased by his own hand. He still remembered their eyes, the way they'd stood by him even when the world turned.
> I told myself it was mercy… that wiping everything clean would give them a chance at peace. But maybe all I did was reset the board for Shibai's game.
Lightning flickered over the horizon. Not natural lightning—this bolt twisted in on itself, forming a sigil midair before dissipating. A warning.
Raizen disappeared in a blur of motion, heading toward the source.
---
The Ash Plains
The plains stretched endlessly, the remnants of a forgotten battlefield. Charred earth crumbled under Raizen's sandals as he landed atop a jagged rock spire. Below, three figures in pale robes knelt in a perfect triangle, their hands pressed to the ground. The air around them warped, faint echoes of distant dimensions bleeding through.
Raizen narrowed his eyes. Apostles. But their chakra signatures were incomplete—fragmented.
One of them spoke without looking up, voice distorted. "The betrayer comes."
Another chuckled, low and hollow. "He still walks among mortals. Pitiful."
The third, the tallest, finally turned. His mask was split vertically, revealing a single glowing eye. "Your erasure bought time, nothing more. Shibai's will lingers."
Raizen stepped forward, lightning crackling along his arms. "I won't let him return. You should have stayed scattered."
The tallest apostle tilted his head. "You still don't understand. You cannot stop what you began. Shibai's shadow is bound to you. Destroying us only feeds the storm."
In an instant, all three moved. Space warped—one moment they knelt, the next they were around him, forming a barrier of shifting sigils.
Raizen slammed his palm to the ground. "Raiton: Shattered Tempest!"
Lightning burst outward, shattering two of the sigils, but the third absorbed the attack and redirected it skyward, tearing a hole in the clouds. The storm above rumbled, forming a vortex that pulled even the air from Raizen's lungs.
The tallest apostle advanced. "See how the sky answers him? The world remembers, even if the mortals do not."
Raizen's Sharingan spun to life—its pattern fractured, unique, a remnant of an Uchiha bloodline now forgotten. Sparks danced between his fingers as he formed a blade of pure lightning and lunged. The apostles scattered, moving like echoes of light.
The battle was brutal and fast—sigils warping space, lightning carving through reality, echoes of past destruction bleeding into the present. For a moment, Raizen felt the weight of his past self—the storm god who had defied Shibai. He could taste the same fury, the same resolve.
Then, unexpectedly, the apostles retreated. They didn't vanish instantly; instead, they stepped backward, their forms fading like smoke.
The tallest one's voice lingered on the wind: "When the nations remember, your sins will crush you. And Shibai will walk again."
Raizen stood alone amid the ruined plains, chest heaving. The storm above began to calm, but unease dug deeper into his heart.
> If they're retreating… then this wasn't their main strike. They're waiting for the right fracture in the world. And when it comes… the Five Nations will remember everything.
---
A Flicker of the Past
A sudden pulse of chakra rippled through him, not his own. A vision—brief but vivid—flashed in his mind:
The Kage gathered in the Leaf's great hall. His name spat like venom. Uchiha banners burning. Shibai's laughter in the sky.
Raizen's breath caught.
> Fragments of the erased timeline are bleeding back in…
As the vision faded, he noticed something glowing faintly in the dirt where the apostles had knelt. A fragment of crystal, etched with the same sigil they'd carved into the sky. When he touched it, energy surged through him—a whisper, faint but unmistakable:
"The recorder of truths was not the only witness. Others still remember."
Raizen pocketed the fragment, his mind racing. There were more secrets out there. Hidden records. Witnesses who'd somehow escaped erasure.
And if they spoke… the world would turn on him again.
---
Closing Scene
He turned toward the distant horizon where the Hidden Leaf Village lay, lights faint against the night. For a moment, he let himself imagine what would happen if Konoha remembered him—if Naruto, Sasuke, and the others knew the truth of their world's vanished history.
Would they hunt him again? Or would they stand with him against Shibai's return?
The storm flickered once more, then faded entirely, leaving only cold stars above.
Raizen whispered to the wind, "Not yet. Not this time. I'll face what's coming… and this time, I won't run from the truth."
---