The storm was relentless as Raizen crossed the shattered valleys, lightning tracing scars across the blackened sky. The fragment of the Recorder's tablet pressed cold against his palm. Even broken, it pulsed faintly—like a heartbeat guiding him onward.
Each step felt heavier, as if the land itself resisted him. This was not the fear of a hunted man, but of a world remembering its own wounds.
---
Flickers of Forgotten Memories
Far away, in the Hidden Leaf, a young shinobi paused mid-training. The clang of kunai rang hollow in his ears as an image—foreign and impossible—flashed before his eyes: a towering figure with bleeding Sharingan eyes, standing against a god-like being beneath a crimson sky.
He blinked, shaken. The vision vanished, leaving only a dull ache behind his temples.
Across the nations, others experienced similar echoes—brief visions of battles they could not have witnessed, names they did not know. A merchant in the Sand whispered a word—"Raizen"—without understanding why. A retired Cloud veteran woke screaming, convinced she had once fought a war that no history book recorded.
The erasure was cracking.
---
Raizen's Determination
Raizen paused atop a broken ridge, scanning the horizon. The Sky Reaches—distant mountains said to touch the heavens—loomed like jagged teeth against the storm-lit clouds. The Recorder's fragment pulsed faster whenever he faced their direction.
"Sky Reaches," he muttered. "If you're my next step… then you'd better hold answers, not more ghosts."
The memory of the apostle's taunt haunted him: "Shibai's will lingers… gods never die."
Raizen tightened his cloak. His chakra reserves were strained from the monastery battle, but rest was a luxury he couldn't afford. The apostles were tracking him. Worse—if the nations began to remember, they would unite again, and this time, they might succeed in ending him.
---
The Sky Reaches' Guardian
Two days later, he reached the mountains' base. The air was thin here, sharp and electric. Ruins of an ancient gate marked the entrance, its stone arch carved with long-erased symbols—remnants of the Kaguras clan.
As he stepped through, a sudden pressure crushed the air. Rocks levitated slightly, drawn upward by invisible threads. A voice, deep and resonant, rumbled from nowhere and everywhere at once.
"Raizen Uchiha."
The name thundered like a verdict.
From the shadows of the cliffs, a towering figure emerged—a guardian cloaked in a robe of shifting starlight. Its mask bore three vertical slashes, like claw marks from another world. The presence wasn't human. It wasn't even entirely alive.
"You should not walk this path," the guardian intoned. "The Sky Reaches hold memories you chose to bury."
Raizen's Sharingan flared. "Then you know what I did."
The guardian's voice deepened. "I was there when you fought Shibai's apostle. I watched you beg the Recorder for help. And I watched you erase five nations to save your clan."
The words stung like blades. The air between them trembled as Raizen's chakra surged.
"I didn't do it for power," he said, voice low. "I did it to stop a war that would have destroyed everything."
The guardian's eyes burned brighter. "Then prove you still deserve to live."
It lunged.
---
The Battle Among the Peaks
The clash split the sky. Raizen's lightning met the guardian's spectral energy, sparks cascading down the mountain. Every strike echoed like thunder rolling across forgotten worlds.
The guardian moved with impossible speed, its form bending the air as though the mountain itself obeyed it. Raizen dodged a crushing blow, spinning mid-air and unleashing a volley of wind-chakra blades that carved through stone.
The guardian raised a hand, forming a shimmering barrier. The blades shattered harmlessly.
"Strength alone will not save you," the guardian thundered. "This world suffers because of your fear."
Raizen gritted his teeth. His Sharingan spun, bleeding into the Mangekyō. Lightning coiled around his arm, condensing into a blade so bright it burned his skin.
He dashed forward, a blur against the starlit peaks. The guardian countered with a sweeping arc of energy that split the ridge beneath them. The two forces collided, creating a shockwave that scattered clouds and revealed the full moon—a silent witness to their battle.
Raizen roared, pushing past the guardian's defense, driving his blade deep into the starlit robe. The guardian staggered but did not fall.
Instead, it smiled—a small, almost human smile. "You are not yet lost."
It dissolved into motes of light, leaving only its voice echoing:
"Seek the Sky Reaches' summit. The truth waits… and so does Shibai."
---
The Summit's Omen
Breathing hard, Raizen climbed higher, guided by the Recorder's fragment. Hours later, he reached the summit—an ancient plateau ringed by monolithic stones. In the center stood a massive seal, cracked and glowing faintly. Symbols of the Ōtsutsuki and Kaguras intertwined across its surface.
The seal pulsed—once, twice.
Raizen stepped closer. His reflection in the seal's glow wasn't his own. It was him, years younger, drenched in blood, standing over a fallen Shibai apostle with a broken blade. And behind that reflection… shadows of the Five Kage, eyes full of hate.
His hands trembled. The seal's glow intensified, and a voice—not the Recorder's, not Shibai's—slid into his mind like a blade into flesh:
> "The gods are waking, Raizen. The nations are remembering. You cannot outrun what you erased."
The wind howled across the Sky Reaches, carrying whispers of forgotten wars. Raizen stared at the seal, the weight of two worlds pressing on him—the world he had betrayed to save, and the world he had doomed by his choice.
> This isn't just about survival anymore, he thought. This is about finishing what I started.
Lightning crackled around his fists as he turned from the seal. Somewhere below, apostles regrouped. Somewhere far away, shinobi dreamed of battles they couldn't explain.
The storm had only begun.
---