It started with the rain.
Not the usual drizzle, Amegakure always wore like a second skin.
No, this rain was silent.
Soundless.
As if the very idea of rain had forgotten how to touch the earth.
Dazuro opened his eyes.
He stood at the center of an empty battlefield.
The sky above was iron-grey, swirling like something had stirred it with a giant ladle. Beneath his feet lay blackened soil, cracked and pitted. No trees. No buildings. No bodies.
Not yet.
But he knew they were coming.
He always knew.
The wind picked up, carrying voices, not words, just emotion. Fear. Rage. Sorrow.
He turned slowly, hands still buried in his pockets, his posture that of someone half-asleep. But his eyes... his eyes missed nothing.
Figures began to appear at the edge of the haze.
Ghosts in armor. Shinobi in full battle regalia. Some he recognized. Rain-nin, who had vanished years ago. Some bore symbols he didn't know. And yet, they all moved the same: weapons raised, eyes empty, marching toward him.
The silence pressed down harder.
Dazuro didn't move.
He couldn't.
His muscles obeyed, but something deeper refused. A heaviness. Not fear. No hesitation.
Guilt.
One of the ghosts broke from the crowd.
A young woman. Brown skin, messy hair tied back with a red cord. Her eyes, once mischievous, now stared through him. She held a broken short blade, jagged like lightning.
"You were silent," she said. Her voice was clear and bitter. "We died, and you said nothing."
Dazuro exhaled slowly.
"I couldn't save you, Kei," he said.
The ghost didn't blink. "You could've shouted. You could've run. You could've done something."
More shapes emerged behind her. A dozen. Twenty. Children, mostly. Some were smaller than he remembered. All of them wore the same expression: betrayal.
The same faces from his first squad.
The same missions that went wrong.
He had lived.
Then he died.
He was born anew.
They hadn't.
Another figure stepped forward. Taller. Leaner. Wearing an Amegakure flak jacket with a captain's insignia.
His brother.
Daiken.
His mouth curled in disgust. "Still lazy, huh? Still letting the world carry you while you sleep through the fire?"
Dazuro lowered his head.
"You died because I froze," he said. "Because I thought I had time."
Daiken took another step forward. Rain pattered on his shoulders. Not silent anymore.
"You always thought you had time."
Dazuro clenched his fists. "And I don't. Not anymore."
The silence cracked.
A scream penetrated the still atmosphere.
Suddenly, the ghosts rushed him.
He didn't run. He couldn't run. He dropped into a stance. Not one from the Academy. One he'd built himself. Low. Loose. Ready to move.
The first ghost came at him with a kunai. He sidestepped. The second swung a chain; he ducked and rolled, grabbing it mid-spin and yanking it forward. His movements were fluid. Relaxed. But present.
For the first time in years, Dazuro wasn't sleepwalking.
He was here.
Strike. Block. Pivot.
He didn't try to win.
He tried to answer.
One by one, he whispered their names as they struck at him.
"Kei."
"Jun."
"Raku."
He whispered apologies.
Not to be forgiven.
To remember.
By the end, he was bleeding from phantom wounds. Chest heaving. Knees trembling.
Only Daiken remained.
"You think pain makes it better?" his brother asked.
Dazuro looked up. Rain streaked down his face, mixing with blood and sweat.
"No. But silence makes it worse."
Daiken stared at him for a long moment.
Then nodded.
And vanished.
The battlefield dissolved.
Dazuro found himself kneeling in the center of a quiet dojo. The rain was gentle again. He was back.
His hands shook.
But not from fear.
He stood slowly, breathing in, then out. A weight had shifted.
He wasn't lighter.
But he was no longer asleep.
---
The first thing Kagerō noticed was the sound.
Not the screams. Not even steel. Not the wet crunch of life leaving flesh.
Silence.
Soft, distant, like the world had turned down its volume for a while.
He opened his eyes.
A ceiling. Plain, old, and cracked. Damp in one corner, with mold blooming like a secret. A lantern swung faintly on its hook. The light was dim and yellow.
He lay on a bed.
A bed.
Not a battlefield. Not soaked in blood or slick with chakra.
Just stiff straw padding beneath his back and a coarse sheet covering his body.
He didn't move for a full minute. Breathing quietly. Letting his mind adjust.
The memory of the illusion clung to his skin like ash. His muscles still trembled with phantom pain, the twist of lost limbs, the ache of loss, the unbearable snap of Mera's neck echoing in his bones. His fingers twitched toward where his arm should've ended. It was there. Whole.
He closed his eyes once more.
Then sat up.
Around him, others stirred.
Across from his bed, Yuni shot upright with a choked gasp. Her hand flew to her throat like she expected it to be slit. Her eyes were wide. Too wide, and it took a moment before her breath came in something like rhythm.
She didn't say anything. Just clutched the edge of her blanket, fingers pale, body tense.
A moment later, she laughed.
Not a happy laugh. A laugh that cracked down the middle, brittle and wild and a little too loud in the still room.
"Oh gods," she muttered, voice hoarse. "That… was not a normal test."
To her left, Rei was already sitting on the edge of his bed, knees together, hands shaking at his sides. His face was pale, jaw clenched. He kept blinking like the world might shift again if he looked too long.
He glanced over at Kagerō.
"You saw something too, didn't you?"
Kagerō nodded.
Rei's shoulders sagged slightly like that confirmation made the weight on his chest slightly easier to carry.
"I… I couldn't protect them," he whispered, voice cracking. "I thought I was supposed to be strong. I thought…"
He trailed off. No one filled the silence.
On the farthest bed, Dazuro stirred.
He didn't jolt up. Didn't gasp.
He just blinked slowly and stared at the ceiling like he was still dreaming. Then, with a groan that might've been from the bed or his back, he rolled over.
"…Okay," he muttered. "That was new."
Yuni turned to look at him, exasperated.
"New?! That's your reaction? I watched my family burn. I screamed myself raw. What the hell did you see?"
Dazuro scratched his head.
"…A lot of myself," he said after a pause. "I think I yelled at a clone for ten minutes. Might've cried too."
Yuni blinked. "Wait. You cried?"
"I said might've," he muttered, lying back down with an arm over his eyes. "Probably deserved it."
Rei looked at each of them. Then down at his own hands.
"So it was real," he said softly. "The pain. The fear. It was real, wasn't it?"
Kagerō nodded again. "As real as it needed to be."
Silence fell once more.
The room was sparse, with six beds, one window, a crooked chair, and a wooden bucket in the corner. The only sound was their breathing and, somewhere, the steady drip of water from a pipe above.
No shinobi greeted their return to the mortal world.
Not that the dreams left them without any horrors.
Just four children who had died in a hundred different ways and somehow still woke up.
Yuni wiped her face on her sleeve. Then, with effort, she forced her legs off the side of the bed and stood up.
"Well," she said, voice still scratchy, "if this is what becoming a shinobi means, I want hazard pay."
Dazuro gave a weak snort from under his arm.
Rei looked like he wanted to say something noble. Something weighty. But all that came out was, "I was useless."
Kagerō finally spoke aloud.
"We all were."
Rei flinched.
"But we're still here," Kagerō continued. "That means we weren't nothing."
Yuni walked over and flopped onto the bed beside his. She leaned her head against the wall and sighed.
"I don't know whether to hug you or hit you for that."
Kagerō gave a tired smile. "Maybe both?"
She let out a tiny laugh.
And just like that, something softened in the room.
Not healed. Not forgiven. Not fixed.
But softened.
For a while, none of them moved. They sat together, breathing in sync with the silence. As if daring the world to break it again.
Eventually, footsteps echoed outside.
Manju's voice, calm and sharp, came in clutch to break the tense silence, "You're alive. Good. Get ready."
Yuni groaned.
Rei stood slowly.
Dazuro muttered, "Five more minutes," before sitting up.
Kagerō tied his shoes without a word.
None of them said it out loud.
But they all understood.
Whatever came next… would never be harder than what they just survived.
And maybe, just maybe, that meant they were ready.
Chapter: When the Rain Divides
The hall Manju led them into was dim, like everything else in this place. But it was wide and filled with bodies.
Not corpses this time.
Children.
Dozens of them, many older than Kagerō's group. Some sat quietly, heads lowered, while others whispered with their teammates. But all wore the same look, a dull awareness in their eyes. The illusion had marked them. It had left something in each of them, just behind the pupils.
Kagerō's boots clicked softly as he entered with Dazuro, Yuni, and Rei close behind. There were faint murmurs when they appeared, some surprised at their survival, others seemingly amused that they had made it this far.
Manju's steps echoed louder than theirs. He stopped near the center of the room and turned slowly.
"Quiet."
Silence.
He looked over the assembled children as if he were counting potential corpses.
"You survived," Manju said. "That doesn't make you special. It makes you salvageable."
No one moved.
He continued.
"The Rain has no time for ceremonies. You are not a genin. You are not soldiers. You are, at best, knives we haven't yet sharpened. The only thing proven by your survival is that you may one day run away fast enough to live."
A pause.
"Which is enough."
Manju reached into a pouch and tossed something onto the table beside him, four bands of coloured cloth; each dyed a different tone.
He raised one. "These represent your squads."
He pointed at the first band, deep crimson.
"Squad Lacerate," he said. "Chosen for raw offensive potential. If a mission needs something broken, they go first. Kana, Riku, Saji, and Yurei."
Kagerō recognized them immediately.
Kana—the girl who sleepwalked and whispered prophecies.
Riku and Saji—the twins, always lingering near shadows and knives.
Yurei—the watchful one, the boy who always sat near exits, whose gaze never rested.
"Next," Manju said, lifting a slate-gray band. "Squad Shroud. Specialists in stealth and illusion potential. Observation and subterfuge."
He tossed it toward a thin boy with wide eyes and a hood pulled too low.
"Sho, Misaki, Kaoru, Nene."
Sho had once stared at Kagerō too long in the lunch hall. Kaoru was always sharpening her nails for no reason. Nene rarely spoke but never missed a treat when offered. She was the foodie, with her fat friend Misaki. He was evidently more inclined to be with Nene, if only for her penchant of seeking delicious food wherever she went. These were kids who vanished even when present.
Then the ochre-brown band.
"Squad Bramble. Scouting and survival. The Rain doesn't win wars by fighting, we win by outlasting. You'll be deployed soonest."
Four older children, all wiry and sun-worn, stepped forward. They looked more like field runners than shinobi.
Manju eyed them briefly, then held up the final band, black. Stark. Colorless. Heavy.
"This," he said, "is Squad Hollow."
The name dropped like a pebble into still water.
"Kagerō. Yuni. Dazuro. Rei."
The silence returned.
A few children muttered under their breath.
Kagerō looked at his companions.
Yuni blinked. "Hollow?"
Dazuro yawned. "Has a ring to it."
Rei frowned. "Sounds like something already buried."
Kagerō said nothing. But he felt the irony. The four of them, haphazardly stitched together by chance, or fate, had now been made a unit. He didn't know whether to feel grateful or suspicious.
Manju wasn't finished.
He turned, stepping behind the table, and pulled out a battered scroll, thin, flat, bound with rusted wire.
He unfurled it onto the table.
Kagerō's breath stilled.
Faces.
Drawings.
Some black and white. Others faded. All carried names. All carried danger.
"This," Manju said, "is your first lesson in survival."
He picked up the scroll and held it out.
"This is a Bingo Book. It's not complete. It never is. But if you see a face in here, you do not fight. You do not speak. You do not try to be clever."
His voice dropped a note lower.
"If you are lucky, you will run. If not, surrender. If neither works—"
His eyes swept over them.
"You die."
No one laughed. No one even blinked.
"Rain shinobi aren't born to be heroes," he said. "We are born to disappear before we are stepped on."
He rolled the scroll shut and tossed it toward Dazuro. The boy caught it lazily with one hand.
Manju walked away without another word.
The door creaked open behind him, a long hallway stretching into shadow. Instructors were waiting.
The sorting was done.
The survival was just beginning.
And Squad Hollow… had just been made real.
---
The chamber was dim, lit only by a low-burning brazier at its center, casting shadows like dripping ink against the stone walls. Rain beat softly on the steel ceiling above, a constant heartbeat for the hidden village beneath.
Hanzo, the Salamander, sat at the head of the table. His rebreather mask hissed faintly with every breath, but he wasn't wearing it now. The scars around his mouth twitched with rare weariness. His salamander companion rested coiled at his feet, half-asleep, unmoved by the storm outside.
Manju stood across from him, arms folded, his jaw clenched tight. His face, usually stoic, betrayed an unusual tension, like a blade honed too thin.
Beside him sat Kandachi, Hanzo's right-hand man, his single eye gleaming beneath the plate of his headband. He fidgeted with the scroll on the table, the edge of it curled and damp from being clutched too tightly.
There was silence for a while, uncomfortable, tight silence, until Hanzo finally spoke.
"It's begun," he said quietly. "The Third Great Shinobi War."
Manju exhaled slowly. "What's the reason this time?"
Kandachi snorted. "Does it ever need one?"
Hanzo's eyes flicked up. "Resources. Borders. The usual rot. Kusa's collapsing on their front with Konoha and Iwa. If we don't step in, our lines might collapse with them. Or worse, they'll push inward."
Manju's lip curled. "They always say it's politics. It's always about bodies."
Hanzo didn't deny it.
He leaned forward, fingers steepled. "But this time… this time, the meat grinder isn't ours."
Kandachi raised an eyebrow.
Hanzo continued, voice low but carrying. "The major battles are Kusa's problem now. The forests and valleys. Its their blood and not ours. That… gives us breathing room."
Manju's brow twitched. "Room to breathe means..."
"It means opportunity," Kandachi said firmly. "And leverage."
Hanzo looked toward the far wall, where a map of the Five Great Nations was marked with red pins and black thread. "It also means Squad Hollow's task is easier."
There was a pause.
Manju's head slowly turned. "Easier?" he said with a dry, incredulous breath. "They're still children."
"They're soldiers," Kandachi replied, not missing a beat.
"They're barely ready," Manju snapped, his calm finally cracking. "One of them flinches when someone raises their voice. Another only thinks in silence. One's too clever for his own good, and the last one, acts like war is a playdate. I've seen harder steel in soup."
"They survived the trial," Kandachi said coolly. "The genjutsu wasn't just to break them, it was to measure what was already there."
Manju's eyes narrowed. "And what if that's not enough?"
"Then we break them again," Kandachi said. "And rebuild them sharper."
Hanzo raised a hand, and the argument silenced instantly.
"Enough."
Both men turned to face him fully.
Hanzo's voice dropped. "They are what we have. Not what we want. Not what we dreamed of. But what we have."
He looked to Manju. "Your doubt is valid. But your hesitation isn't useful."
Manju's gaze faltered.
Hanzo's tone softened just a little, not much, but enough to feel real. "Train them. Make them worthy of the shadows they'll step into. They don't need to win battles. They need to walk away from them."
"And if they fail?" Manju asked quietly.
Kandachi answered this time. "Then they die. Just like the rest."
Hanzo leaned back, letting the firelight catch the edge of his eyes.
"Failure is the only lesson this village can't afford to teach twice," he said. "Make sure they don't disappoint."
Outside, thunder rumbled low and distant.
Inside, the room fell still, only the brazier crackling, and the Salamander's breath in the dark.