The interior of the Tenjō temple smelled of ancient cedar and the damp, metallic tang of the black stain on Arahata's chest. Inside, the world was smaller, the data streams of the Jūgan narrowed by stone walls, offering a reprieve that was never quite silent enough.
Mei sat on a moth-eaten tatami mat, brewing tea by feel. Her movements were a sharp contrast to Arahata's. He moved as if sliding through the seams of reality; she moved as if carving her own space out of the dark.
"You should let Ren-kun come in now," Mei said, not looking up from the teapot. "He's been standing in the rain for twenty minutes. He thinks he's being respectful. He's actually just getting the floor wet."
Arahata, leaning against a pillar with his eyes half-closed, tracked a spider crawling across the ceiling. He saw seventeen different paths the spider could take. In three of them, it fell. In one, it caught a fly that hadn't even entered the room yet.
"He's not being respectful," Arahata corrected softly. "He's practicing his internal chakra rotation. He believes that if he maintains a perfect flow, I won't be able to see his insecurities. It's adorable. It's also wrong."
"Call him anyway."
Arahata exhaled, and the gold rings in his eyes shimmered. "Ren-kun. You can stop trying to vibrate. The tea is ready, and your left lung is beginning to strain against the humidity."
A moment later, a young man stepped through the doorway. He was lithe, dressed in the high-collared attire of the Hyūga, but without the traditional forehead protector. Where the Caged Bird Seal should have been—the green mark of divine servitude—there was only a jagged white scar.
Hyūga Ren didn't look at Arahata. To look into the Jūgan was to feel your own secrets being harvested like ripe fruit. Instead, he bowed to Mei and sat cross-legged at the edge of the circle.
"The border patrols are tightening," Ren said. His voice was steady, disciplined, but to Arahata, the "probability cloud" around Ren was a chaotic swarm of flickering neon. Ren was a man who had been told his entire life that he was a fixed point, a slave to a bloodline. Now that he was "free," his future was so broad it was dizzying.
"They aren't looking for a missing-nin anymore," Ren continued. "They're looking for a catastrophe. The Land of Water has labeled you a 'Spatial Phenomenon' rather than a person. There's talk of the Five Kage Summit."
"The Kage," Arahata mused, his fingers tracing the black pattern creeping up his neck. It felt like cold oil under his skin. "Men and women who believe they steer the ship because they have their hands on the wood. They don't see the ocean. They don't even see the wood. They see the idea of a ship."
"They see you as a threat to that idea," Ren said. "I found a Taki messenger bird five miles back. It carried a directive to the Hidden Leaf. They're asking for the Uzumaki to intervene."
Arahata's eyes opened fully. The golden rings expanded, filling his irises until his eyes looked like two miniature, dying suns.
"Naruto Uzumaki," Arahata whispered.
He had peered into the probability of that name many times. Most people were trees, branching and shifting with every breeze. Naruto Uzumaki, in Arahata's distant perception, was something else. He was a pillar. A single, stubborn line of golden light that seemed to defy the mathematics of the Jūgan.
"I want to see it," Arahata said.
"See what?" Mei asked, pausing with a cup in her hand.
"A soul that doesn't branch. Ren-kun is a cloud of 'maybes.' You, Mei-chan, are a 'void.' But the Uzumaki... he is a 'Shall.' It shouldn't exist. It violates the law of entropy."
He stood up, and the black stain on his chest flared with a dull, violet light. A sharp jolt of pain hit his brain—the Jūgan's warning. Data corruption. Information density approaching critical mass.
Ren looked at the scar on Arahata's chest, then at the golden eyes. "You're going to the Summit. You're going to challenge them."
"Challenge? No," Arahata said, walking toward the open temple doors. He stepped into the rain, but as he did, the droplets seemed to bend around him, refusing to touch his skin. He didn't use a technique. He simply inhabited a version of the present where he remained dry. "I am going to offer them a choice. I can manage the chaos for them. I can map the blood of their wars before they bleed it. I can show them the structure of their own peace."
"And if they refuse?" Mei asked, her sightless face turned toward him.
Arahata stopped at the edge of the stone stairs. Below him, the Land of Waterfalls stretched out—a billion possible lives, a trillion possible deaths, all weaving together in a tapestry so complex it was beginning to tear his mind apart.
"They won't refuse," Arahata said. "Because I will show them what happens if they do. I will show them the only future where they win—and then I will show them that I am the one holding the door."
He looked back at Ren. "Tell me, Ren-kun. Do you regret it? The seal? I gave you the ability to be anything. Has it made you happy?"
Ren looked down at his hands. He could use the Gentle Fist to kill, or he could use it to heal. He could go home and burn the compound down, or he could disappear into the mountains and plant rice. The weight of the options was a physical burden.
"Sometimes," Ren admitted, his voice barely a whisper, "I miss the cage. I didn't have to wonder who I was when I was in the cage."
Arahata smiled—the cruel, precise smile of a man who knew he was dying.
"That is the tragedy of humanity, Ren-kun. You crave the freedom of the sky, but once you're there, all you do is look for a branch to land on. I am going to build a sky so perfect, no one will ever feel the need to land again."
As he spoke, the black stain reached his jawline. Arahata winced, his vision flickering. For a split second, he didn't see the temple. He saw a room—white, quiet, and smelling of death. His own death.
Seventy-two hours, fourteen minutes, his eyes whispered into his consciousness.
"We leave for the Land of Iron at dawn," Arahata said, his voice regaining its icy composure. "I have a few days of existence left. I'd like to spend them correcting the world's vision."
Mei poured the rest of the tea onto the stone floor. "The tea was bitter today, Arahata."
"Everything is bitter when you can see the molecules of the leaf," he replied. "Sleep, both of you. Tomorrow, we walk into the eye of the storm. And unlike the rain... the storm will be forced to acknowledge us."