The sound of thunder again.
Even in sleep, he could hear it, that hollow, distant rumble that crawled through his bones. The same storm that had followed him through the mountains of Eastern Asia all those years ago. Lightning cleaved the sky in his dreams, flashing against the temple walls slick with blood. The smell of rot. The echo of Kenjaku's laughter.
He turned, blades of memory slicing through the haze of rest.
... One year ago..
The air was choked with decay. Not the ordinary rot of time, but the vile stench of corrupted life, cursed energy so thick it clung to the lungs like ash. Sasuke stood at the base of a jagged cliff, where ivy-covered stone stairs wound up to an ancient temple etched into the mountain itself.
Thunder groaned overhead, but there was no rain, only the oppressive silence of something watching.
His Mangekyou Sharingan whirred to life, crimson spirals flickering as he peeled away layers of illusory concealment. Barriers cracked and crumbled before his gaze, revealing the true nature of the temple: a cursed research stronghold, bathed in blood and profaned by madness.
"Kenjaku's trail ends here. This cursed convergence… it's monstrous," he murmured.
As he stepped inside, the wooden floor beneath him groaned like a corpse exhaling its final breath. The walls pulsed, vein-like tendrils of cursed flesh slithered beneath the tatami, some twitching as if sensing prey.
The traditional paper doors were torn and soaked with old blood, and the ceiling sagged under the weight of mutated growths.
He advanced deeper, the hum of cursed energy becoming a deafening pressure in his skull.
Then he entered the heart of the temple, a massive underground chamber glowing with a sickly green luminescence. It was a grotesque theatre of horrors: dozens of containment pods lined the walls, filled with twitching, convulsing lifeforms, fusions of humans, cursed spirits, and something that should never have existed.
"What is this…?" Sasuke whispered, fury curling his lip.
He stepped closer to a pod. The creature inside twitched violently, pressing its distorted face against the glass. Multiple limbs jutted from its sides, and embedded in its forehead pulsed a pale violet eye a malformed Rinnegan, oozing corrupted power.
"The Rinnegan... Kenjaku, you've crossed a line no mortal should ever touch." Sasuke's eyes gleamed in shock.
A voice answered, silky and sinister, from everywhere and nowhere. "Welcome, Uchiha Sasuke. Took you long enough to get here. Even after leaving you all those clues, you still came short. Sigh. I thought you were smarter, guess I overestimated you.."
Sasuke's eyes snapped upward. "Show yourself."
"In due time. First… admire the pinnacle of my research. Human ingenuity, cursed evolution, and... alien perfection. The beginning of our true legacy."
"You're not a scientist, you're a madman playing god." Sasuke snapped. Hands gripping the handle of his sword tightly.
"Call it madness. I call it salvation." With a snap, the pods exploded.
The chamber filled with blood-curdling screeches as dozens of grotesque beings lunged at Sasuke, moving erratically, impossibly fast. Flesh slithered, claws flashed, jaws unhinged.
Sasuke vanished in a blur. Steel hissed. Blood sprayed.
One abomination dropped headless to the floor, then two, then six. Sasuke darted through the swarm, his katana crackling with lightning, his Sharingan tracking each unnatural twitch.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"
The chamber exploded into fire. A dozen creatures screamed, their twisted bodies consumed in flame. But more poured in crawling from vents, climbing from beneath the floorboards, growing from the walls.
"A trap. Of course." It's a trap. Sasuke gritted his teeth.
One creature, larger than the rest, roared and charged. It sprouted arms from its back mid-attack, its body morphing mid-air. Sasuke leapt, flipping sideways, Chidori sparking in his palm.
"Chidori Stream!"
Lightning erupted outward like a living storm, frying a radius of monsters. The walls themselves split from the energy. But still they came.
Bleeding from a shallow cut on his cheek, Sasuke crouched low, his breath sharp. Mangekyou Sharingan blazing, the world slowed to a crawl, every movement predicted, every strike countered. His blade moved like flowing water, severing limbs and shattering skulls with surgical fury.
Finally, silence returned. Burnt flesh steamed in heaps around him. The air reeked of death.
"Impressive. You've exceeded expectations." Kenjaku's voice sounded out, with a ridicule.
The walls rippled, like water struck by stone.
A swirling vortex of cursed energy bloomed midair, and from it emerged Kenjaku's spectral form, stitched forehead grinning, his image flickering like a dying signal. "You slaughtered my prototypes faster than anticipated. Bravo." His face twisted into a small sneer.
"You're insane." Sasuke growled. "You don't even understand the power you're trying to control."
"Oh, but I do." He scoffed.
With a wave of his ghostly hand, the floor beneath Sasuke shifted. Dust exploded as a massive circular formation lit up, a sigil pulsing with alien geometry, etched in glowing crimson runes.
"This… isn't just cursed energy." Sasuke's heart pounded. "It's something else."
"Correct. This formation is a beacon. A signal tuned to dimensions you mortals can't even perceive. Beyond time. Beyond cursed energy. Beyond comprehension."
The walls moaned as the sigil pulsed like a heart.
"You've noticed the eye in their foreheads. I've got no one but you to thank for my advancement, the uncovering of the divinity of those eyes, Uchiha. It's all thanks to you. And with this power I bring with me Liberation.."
The chamber grew cold.
Even the cursed spirits in the walls recoiled. "Its DNA was... divine. I grafted its essence into my subjects. This is evolution, Sasuke. Not imitation. Ascension."
But Sasuke stepped forward, his aura crackling. "You're defiling the Otsutsuki's corpse. You'll doom us all."
"On the contrary. I'll save us." Kenjaku quipped. He pointed to the formation's core. "Once this gate opens, the veil will tear. They will return not as invaders… but as gods. And I will be the first to receive their blessing."
Suddenly, the formation erupted in light. Space distorted. A dimensional fracture formed above the sigil, a wound in reality, pulsing with black starlight and void energy.
"I won't let you open that portal." Sasuke raised his blade. "Even if I have to bury this mountain."
"Try. But it's already begun." Kenjaku smiled. And then, his form blinked out like static.
Outside, the sky darkened unnaturally. Clouds twisted into a spiral, and from the heavens, pale lightning forked downward, striking the peak with silent rage. Birds scattered, animals screamed, and somewhere deep underground, something began to stir.
Sasuke stood alone in the desecrated temple, every sense screaming. He clenched his fists.
"The war for this world... no, for reality itself, has begun."
Sasuke's eyes snapped open.
The dim orange of a lantern flickered from the far corner of the tent, its light trembling across his face. Sweat ran down his temple, his breath ragged. For a heartbeat, he didn't move. The silence felt wrong, too quiet, too soft after the carnage of his mind.
Then the scent of lilac and cedar reached him.
Warmth pressed faintly against his arm. Mei lay curled beside him, her head resting against his shoulder, strands of chestnut hair tracing the edges of his skin. The rise and fall of her breath was steady, unhurried. She shifted slightly, murmuring something in her sleep, a sound that pulled him back from the cliff of memory.
Sasuke exhaled slowly. The tension in his chest eased, if only a fraction. His Mangekyō flickered for an instant before dimming again, returning his vision to the muted dark.
He turned his head slightly, watching her. Her hand was still loosely wrapped around his wrist, as if afraid he'd vanish the moment she let go. How many nights had she kept him tethered like this, wordless, patient, waiting for him to breathe again after the ghosts came calling?
"Another dream?" Mei's voice was soft, barely a whisper, but awake. She didn't open her eyes yet; she didn't need to.
Sasuke nodded once, his voice low. "It's always the same."
"The temple?"
A pause. "…Yes."
The wind outside brushed against the tent walls, making them rustle like old paper. Mei sat up slowly, the blanket slipping from her shoulders. Moonlight spilled through the small opening above, catching the faint shimmer in her eyes.
She reached for the pot beside the bedroll, poured a small cup of water, and handed it to him without a word. He took it, fingers brushing hers briefly, a touch that said more than comfort ever could.
"You've carried that night for too long," she said quietly, folding her legs beneath her. "Even now, when you're far from that place, it still holds you."
Sasuke stared into the cup. Ripples trembled across the water's surface as though reflecting his unease. "I thought I understood the limits of human corruption… until I saw what Kenjaku did in that mountain. He wasn't trying to destroy humanity. He was trying to evolve it, twist it into something unrecognizable."
Mei didn't speak right away. Instead, she reached out, brushing her thumb along his jaw, grounding him again. "And you stopped him."
"For a time," Sasuke said. His tone was quiet, but the bitterness beneath it was unmistakable. "The ritual wasn't complete. But he opened something that night, a doorway that shouldn't exist. The energy from that fracture… I still feel it sometimes. Like it's calling."
Mei's gaze softened. "Then we'll find it again. And we'll end it, together."
The silence that followed wasn't empty this time. It was warm, full of the steady rhythm of her breathing and the faint hum of the night beyond their shelter. Sasuke looked at her, the flickering lantern light catching the faint curve of her lips, calm, certain, unafraid.
For a long moment, he simply watched. Then, finally, he spoke, his voice softer than before.
"…When I was in that place, I thought the darkness had swallowed everything. But now…"
His eyes drifted to her hand resting on his.
"…Now I know it didn't."
Mei smiled faintly, leaned forward, and pressed her forehead to his shoulder. "Then let it rest, Sasuke. Just for tonight."