The moon had risen above Inazuma, draping the land in a silvery glow. The gardens of Tenshukaku Castle were filled with the fragrance of cherry blossoms, and the violet lanterns hanging from the galleries cast their flickering light upon the pavilions. The wind carried up to the heights the distant murmur of the sea, while the mountains kept silent watch.
In their private apartments, the two goddesses shared a rare moment of intimacy.
Raiden Makoto, the elder, sat near a low table upon which rested an exquisite tea service. Her slender fingers wrapped around a still-steaming cup, but more than the drink itself, it was the company of her sister that soothed her.
Raiden Ei, kneeling a few steps away, was running a whetstone along the edge of her naginata. The metallic sparks rang out like a litany, a song of war amid serenity.
"You could relax, Ei, just for a moment," Makoto said gently, her voice brushing the air like a melody. "The world isn't always a battlefield."
Ei did not reply immediately. Her purple eyes remained fixed on the blade, her arm extended in a precise motion. She never allowed herself to let her focus slip. At last, she exhaled, without lifting her head:
"Those who lay down their weapons out of overconfidence are the first to fall."
Makoto sighed softly and brought the cup to her lips. She did not try to convince further. She knew too well the stiffness of her younger sister, that heart forged by war, incapable of fully savoring the peace the elder wanted to protect.
Whether before, during, or even after the Archon War, Ei never loosened her discipline and practiced her training with diligence. Honestly, there were times Makoto wanted to smack her younger sister so she'd stop overexerting herself and simply enjoy the peace.
As she was about to retort, a strange gust swept through the room. The lantern flames trembled, casting shifting shadows against the walls. A chill of cold air slipped under the doors, though they were tightly closed. Ei's head snapped up, her senses alert. Makoto set down her cup without a sound.
A muffled beat, like the crack of an invisible veil, resonated in the space. And suddenly, without warning, a figure appeared upon the tatami.
A man lay there, unconscious, clothed in an unfamiliar dark outfit of rough but worn fabric. His black hair, falling in heavy strands, framed a pale face hollowed by exhaustion. His closed eyelids hinted at a deep sleep, yet his entire body bore the imprint of a life crossed by a thousand battles. A faintly tied headband rested on his forehead, yet did not seem ready to slip away.
Ei was the first to react. She sprang to her feet, naginata in hand, her eyes blazing with electric light. Her voice split the silence like lightning:
"Who dares to invade this sacred sanctuary?!"
Makoto froze, but her face remained serene. She tilted her head, observing the stranger. His breathing was slow, steady, devoid of aggression. A veil of strangeness enveloped his body, an energy she had never felt before.
"Wait," she said calmly, lifting a hand to restrain her sister's anger. "He's asleep, can't you see?"
Ei gripped her blade, her eyes sparkling.
"And that is precisely what makes him dangerous. No man can appear here without being felt. He is neither a visitor nor a guest. He is a threat. Do not go near him!" She watched her elder sister carelessly draw closer to the man.
Ignoring her younger sister's protest, Makoto advanced, her steps gliding noiselessly across the floor. She bent over the prone body, scrutinizing it for a moment. Up close, the man seemed exhausted, drained. His features bore none of the arrogance of invaders, nor any trace of abyssal corruption.
"Look at him closely, Ei," she murmured. "He is not corrupted. I sense neither darkness nor malice in him. He did not choose to be here."
Makoto was not entirely naïve; she knew how to recognize danger when it was present. Even if this man had infiltrated their home, she strangely felt no danger from him.
"Don't be naïve," Ei spat, her fingers tightening around the weapon's handle. "Every apparent weakness hides an intention. You know nothing of him."
Makoto slowly raised her eyes toward her sister. Her lilac pupils shone with a calm that contrasted with the burning tension in the air.
"Perhaps. But what I see above all is a tired man. His presence here is not an attack, even if it is not by chance." Looking closer at his face, she could even glimpse a certain innocence she might describe as cute.
Ei stepped forward, ready to strike. Her gaze hardened further.
"You still believe in chance? Anything that crosses our walls uninvited must be treated as aggression."
Makoto then placed a hand upon the stranger's chest. His heart was beating—weak but steady. She let her fingers rest there a moment, as if trying to catch the echo of his soul.
"No… he did not come by his own will. I can feel it. His spirit is elsewhere—perhaps an individual from another world…?" She murmured this part to herself. After all, though rare, travelers from other worlds were not entirely unknown.
"That does not absolve him," Ei replied in a low voice, each word charged with icy distrust.
"You are always ready to strike, Ei," Makoto said softly. "But look around you. Lightning cannot always be the only answer. Sometimes understanding is stronger than the blade. Sheathe your weapon and calm yourself."
Ei stared at her, lips pressed together. She said nothing, but her eyes kept watching the stranger, as if the slightest suspicious breath would justify the strike. After a long silence, she finally lowered her naginata, though she did not set it aside.
"If he moves, I cut him down," she declared coldly.
Makoto nodded peacefully.
"Then you will be here to protect me, as always."
Silence fell again. The sleeper's steady breathing filled the room, an odd serenity amid the tension. The lanterns ceased flickering, yet the air remained heavy, charged with an invisible foreboding.
And in that sacred chamber, two goddesses contemplated the unknown.
I awaken as one comes out of a dream too heavy to be true: slowly, opening my eyes to a light too gentle to be the dawn of Konoha. An unfamiliar scent—tea, cherry blossoms—crosses my chest and, by reflex, I hold my breath. The world around me is not the one I left; it is calm in a way no peace after battle has ever given me.
The last clear image haunting me is not one of victory. It is my brother's face, the way he bowed under the truth I left him. I closed my eyes on his name, Sasuke, believing I was offering him redemption and, in a twisted way, life. Edo Tensei faded. The chains binding me to another's orders broke. I thought I was leaving. I thought, for a moment, I could dissolve into a finally pure void.
And yet something held me back. It was neither remorse nor a desire to return. It was a gentle pull, like the hand of a current calling me elsewhere. A crash of lightning, or perhaps simply the echo of a promise never kept. I don't know why my eyelids reopened here, upon this tatami, amid a silence filled with violet shadows and women's voices.
I blink. My headband, slumped and dirty, is still tied around my forehead; it has witnessed too many wars to fall without leaving a trace.
My fingers search automatically for the familiar feel of the cloth, like seeking a harbor after a storm. My muscles protest as I try to move; a fatigue that belongs neither to body nor to mind clings to my skin. My memories follow in fragments—farewells, blades, the smell of steel and the heat of a fire I will never again want to light.
Then the air changes. Two presences. Two intensities that pass through me and command silence. One is like a tranquil sea, vast and tamed; the other, a stormy sky ready to pour down rain and lightning. I lift my head despite myself. They are watching me.
The first, the one whose voice leans toward kindness: a gentle face, features holding the light, violet hair reflecting a nobility I never saw in Konoha. Her lilac eyes probe without cruelty, more curious than fearful. She approaches without hesitation, and her hand, when it rests upon my chest, is both light and firm.
I hear her thoughts like one hears a stream: she measures, evaluates, searches. She names me without words. She guesses.
The second has not moved. Identical in appearance to the first but, unlike the kindness of the one, a glacial aura surrounds her. Her gaze is a blade. I sense her vigilance, her discipline, the mark of battles carved into her bearing. Every fiber of her screams that the intruder must be punished. She trusts nothing intangible; the slightest breath out of place and she will strike. Her breath burns behind my ears.
I draw a long breath, as if I could still hold onto the world, or at least the shame and confusion clinging to it. My voice comes out low, measured, because if there is one thing I learned amid chaos, it is the value of silence and of the chosen word.
"Where am I?" I say softly, not trying to rise immediately. My muscles answer with stiffness, but my words betray neither panic nor arrogance. They carry the same neutrality as my gaze.
The first woman tilts her head, surprise and calm mingling. Her lips form a syllable I don't know, but the tone is universal: warning, a call to caution. The promised blade, held by the other, clicks against the floor like a reminder.
I feel curiosity pushing her. There is something almost childlike in her approach: she lifts a hand to touch the fabric of my clothes, to read with her fingers what my eyes cannot explain. Her gaze narrows, then softens with a gentle discovery—I am not tainted. No smell of the abyss, no corruption. Just a man marked by war.
I touch my own face, absently smoothing a stray lock. Images return: the hoarse voice of a puppeteer, Kabuto, whose orders I had refused to obey; my brother's face lighting up with a truth, then breaking in silence. I cried in the desert of other lives and made myself the strange promise never to demand more. Yet hearing these two voices, seeing these two faces—gentleness, anger—shakes me like a mirror I was never given.
The woman with the storm's gaze finally speaks. Her tongue is sharp, her words direct: "Who are you? How did you breach our walls?" Her posture does not release the threat, but beneath the rigor, there is something else: a contained fear, the instinct of a sovereign. She searches for weakness in my gestures, a flaw to justify the strike.
I lower my head slightly, not as submission but to contemplate the façade of the world receiving me. My breathing grows steadier. "My name is Itachi Uchiha," I say simply. My name rolls like a smooth stone, without adornment. "I do not know how I came here."
m
The first reaction that strikes me is surprise. Saying my name provokes a ripple, discreet but tangible. I hear myself called once more, in another place, and all of me tightens at the thought that this single word gathers entire lives, faults, reparations, lies. I sense, in the kindly woman's gaze, a spark of recognition, as though she had touched a chord behind my words. She speaks—the language eludes me—but her tone softens the room: she offers tea, a gesture of hospitality that disarms me more surely than any sword exchange.
At that moment, I did not have my shinobi reflexes or instincts; I simply felt the tiredness sliding through my body, that weakness I had not known for years. Why bother to defend myself and be agressive in this situation? I am the outsider, and they are in some way my benefactors.
The woman of steel, however, does not waver. She narrows her eyes, as if each syllable of my voice were being weighed on a divine scale. "What is your purpose?" she asks. "Where lies your loyalty?" Her words accept no ambiguity.
I never lie out of convenience, nor do I seek to manipulate. "I have no purpose here," I answer. "My loyalty is first to those who remain." I think of Sasuke; thinking of him alone gives my heart a sharp sting. I do not speak his name. I don't need to. The idea that a brother still carries the torch I revealed is enough to maintain the warmth of what I have lost.
The gentler of the women kneels beside me, arranging a cushion under my neck, and her fingers brush my wrist. It is a modest touch, a hand that demands nothing. She says something with a serious smile, like a warning: "You look tired. Rest." Her closeness is strange, almost maternal, and I feel, in a place I thought sealed, traces of emotions I had cut away: tenderness, anger eased, fragile peace.
I let my gaze linger on the two figures, one protective, the other protective in another way. They are of different natures, like two instruments of the same orchestra. I have known commanders, puppeteers, rivals. I have seen men humiliate themselves and others die pretending otherwise. They resemble nothing I have known. Their robes, the scent of tea, the way the elder slightly folds her fingers to place a cushion—all tell me I have fallen not into oblivion but into a place where authority is exercised differently.
"You should stand," breathes the woman with the storm's gaze at last, but the violence of command has softened by a thread. Perhaps because she senses I did not come here to harm. Perhaps because, even in her guard's heart, the recognition of a restrained strength prevents her from ending it with one strike.
I try then to sit up. My muscles protest, but I rise into a seated position slowly, as though each movement must be weighed so as not to betray a secret. Their eyes scrutinize me in turn; behind those gazes lies a labyrinth of decisions, traditions, ancient sorrows.
"Who brought you?" Makoto asks in a voice that does not judge but seeks to understand. "Did something force you?"
The world returns to me in fragments—flashes of black flames, whispers of souls, the sensation of the seal breaking under my fingers. I could tell them I said goodbye to my brother in silence, that I let him move forward because it was the only way to offer him peace. I could describe the heaviness of EdoTensei and the vertigo of a stolen freedom. But such truths are errors of too much clarity; they would call forth questions whose answers I do not want yet.
So I choose minimal honesty, hoping it will suffice to calm the ready blade. "I was held by a technique foreign to me," I say. "When it broke, I did not choose where to return. I simply woke up here."
I chose simply to be honest; what point is there in hiding a truth with no disadvantage? Besides, lying here is not at all a good idea to explain my situation, which is ambiguous even for me.
The second woman observes me, and for the first time, something like a spark of curiosity ignites in her watchful eyes. She does not abandon her mistrust, but the rigidity cracks a little. The gentle woman, meanwhile, nods with the kindness of a mother who understands invisible wounds.
The room is silent except for the distant sound of the sea and the echo of my own breathing which, against all odds, resembles a prayer. I feel the weight of centuries—not of the years I have lived, but of the stories gathered in the eyes that watch me.
"If you are lying," Ei says in a voice that is nothing but cold threat, "I will not be the merciful one who spared you."
I smile, or at least part my lips without affectation. "I'm not lying," I murmur. "I have nothing left to hide that does not hurt me."
Makoto pours a cup of tea, brings it to me like one offers a pact of non‑aggression. I take it, my hands still trembling—not from fear, but seized by the strangeness of being received this way after having crossed the night of so many other lives. The liquid is hot, bitter, and familiar in a way I cannot name. It anchors me to a humanity I had left on the roadside of my former battles.
How long has it been since I could enjoy such a moment of peace? Even if this reality were only a fleeting illusion, I do not reject it.
They exchange a silent look. I sense deeper questions to come: where I come from, what I can do, whether I am a weapon or a man. For now, the most urgent thing is simple and almost shameful: I know nothing of this place, of its laws, of its chains. I do not know either whether I will someday fall again into an instrument that deprives me of my will.
Am I even still in the same Nations I know? Konoha? Thewar? Sasuke…? Many questions without answers, indeed.
Yet, and this surprises me, I feel neither panic nor urge to flee. A part of me, worn by battles and abandonment, believes this chance (if chance it is) may be the last favor granted me: the right to stand beside two women capable of judging a man not only by the strength of his arms but by the way he carries his pain.
I set the cup down. The world still turns, uncertain, but there is, in this simple act of sharing a roof, a new possibility. I lift my eyes to them and, for the first time in a long while, let my shoulders relax with a breath—not a surrender, just a truce.
"Call me Itachi," I say, more to remind myself of my own name than to teach it to them. "And tell me where I am."
Makoto smiles softly, and Ei stares at me, still on guard. They pronounce a name I had never heard, and yet it writes itself as a promise of anchorage: Inazuma. A sky of lightning, they say, and ancient laws.
Why did I land beside two women, in a completely unknown nation? Because, I guess life, sometimes, plays out in the space between a last farewell and a first dawn. Because the world still holds scenes I could not have imagined. Because after losing everything, there remains the possibility of being seen, not as an enemy to be struck down, but as a mystery to be deciphered. I thought I had left for good, but it seems someone else had other plans for me.
I close my eyes for a moment, not to sleep, but to record this present as a stone laid upon the path. The past already belongs to me; the future, for the first time in a long while, opens.