The rain had fallen again that night, soft and insistent, washing the streets of Konoha. Tora sat alone atop a roof, looking down at the lanterns reflecting on puddles, the glow distant and fragile.
No one could see him, but he felt the weight of every life passing below.
Tora had not always existed in this world. Long before he became a shinobi of Konoha, he had walked another path, another life. He remembered it only in fragments: flashes of motion, fleeting images of techniques, whispers of a body moving faster than thought.
He had reawakened here, in the midst of a new life, inheriting the body of a boy born to a small, almost forgotten clan on the outskirts of Konoha. But the past was not whole — it was broken into pieces, scattered like leaves in a storm.
Sometimes he could feel the shape of his old skills, the rhythm of combat, the flow of strikes that had once defined him. Other times, they were just echoes, memories that refused to form words.
Despite the gaps, Tora retained knowledge that defied his age. Techniques like the Hiten Mitsurugi Ryu, Shigure Son'en Ryu, and Water Stream Rock Smashing Fist emerged naturally in his movements. The instincts were there first, before the memory, before the understanding.
He knew how to move, when to strike, but not always why. Each day, he reconstructed his past through practice, through observation, through living.
The Amegiri Clan
The Amegiri Clan was small, disciplined, and secretive. Its members were not famed like the Hyūga or Senju, but their skill with kenjutsu and water-based tactics was unmatched in subtlety.
The clan specialized in fluid strikes, adapting to the flow of the opponent rather than resisting it.
Every attack was a lesson in timing, patience, and anticipation.
Even the youngest members learned to blend shadow and movement, becoming effective before they were powerful.
Tora's inheritance was unusual: his mother's blood carried the Senju healing gift, while his father's line carried the precise, flowing strikes of Amegiri. He was, in a way, a living bridge between two philosophies: the discipline of water and steel, and the resilience of life itself.
This duality shaped him. In the streets, he moved unnoticed, absorbing the rhythm of Konoha, studying every motion, every breath. In battle, his body flowed like water, strikes lethal but measured.
Yet the fragments of his past reminded him of something crucial:
I am not meant to be remembered.
I am meant to be the invisible hand.
And so he moved through life quietly, teaching himself as he had always done, rebuilding skills lost and forgotten, until every piece of him — past and present — could flow as one.