Sleep came, but peace did not.
That night, Akari dreamed again. Not of war, or missions, or the village he no longer felt a part of — but of the shrine. Of the voice. And her.
She stood in the black garden, where flowers bloomed without sunlight. White robes brushed against the earth as if the ground bent to her presence. Her hair spilled down like ink, long enough to tangle with the roots, and her face — sharp, beautiful, and unreadable — remained unchanged no matter how many nights she appeared.
But tonight was different.
Tonight, she spoke.
> "You are close," she said, her voice like cracked porcelain.
"Closer than anyone has come in centuries."
"Why me?" Akari asked.
"Because you were born between two worlds. Like I was."
"Are you… Kagura?"
A pause.
Then, a soft, eerie smile.
"No. Kagura was a seal. I am what it was meant to hold back."
Akari jolted awake.
---
Morning light streamed through his window. He was sweating, heart racing like he'd just run across the village. Every dream with her left him more drained, more... altered.
He sat up, rubbing his face. The whispers were getting stronger. Louder. And now, they were awake even when he wasn't sleeping.
He reached under his bed, pulling out an old scroll — one of the texts Raien had recovered from the tower. The markings matched the ones on the shrine. And yet, the language used wasn't entirely… human.
Tobirama had called it "pre-chakra script," something from before recorded shinobi history. But the scroll didn't resist Akari. In fact, as he held it, the ink shimmered faintly — as if recognizing him.
And then, he heard her voice again.
> "You are the bridge. The gate. The end."
---
By mid-afternoon, he met Raien at the cliffside near the Hokage Monument — a quiet place where words didn't have to be shouted to be heard.
"I had the dream again," Akari said.
Raien didn't ask which one.
"She called herself something before Kagura. Something ancient."
Raien crossed his arms. "And you believe her?"
Akari stared at the horizon. "I don't know what I believe anymore. But the shrine… the scroll… it's all connected. And it's waking up because of me."
Raien looked at him for a long time. "Then maybe we find the next one before it finds you."
Akari turned to him. "You'd come with me?"
A slow, tired smile. "Of course. Someone has to stop you from talking to ghosts."
---
They traveled under the cover of dusk — far beyond the border patrol lines, into forgotten lands that once belonged to neither Senju nor Uchiha. Forests where chakra still clung to the air like smoke. Where legends were buried because they were too dangerous to leave alive.
The second shrine was harder to find.
Half-collapsed under a mountain's shadow, covered in ivy and time. But the mark was unmistakable — carved into stone in a circle of obsidian black.
Akari approached slowly. No words. No movement. Only that voice—
> "Two gates remain. But only one truth."
Raien stood guard behind him, kunai drawn, but silent. He knew by now that this wasn't a fight he could help with. Not yet.
Akari stepped into the circle.
A pulse of chakra surged through him — stronger than before, more violent. The ground cracked beneath his feet, light surged from the stone, and for a split second, he saw her again —
But not in the garden.
This time, she was standing behind him.
Real. Watching.
Whispers filled the air. The seal around the shrine began to shift, like breathing. Something below the ground stirred.
Raien's voice cut through the storm: "Akari! We need to go—now!"
Akari turned. "Not yet. There's something—"
> "You've seen the second gate," the voice said.
"But do you remember what was left behind the first?"
A flash.
Blood.
A battlefield from decades ago. Senju. Uchiha. And one child standing between them, eyes glowing violet, screaming as the ground shattered.
Akari gasped. His knees hit the stone.
"I was there…" he whispered. "As a child…"
Raien pulled him back. "Enough! We can't risk another activation!"
They escaped just as the shrine began to collapse in on itself, as if trying to bury its secrets once more. But Akari now knew: these weren't just relics. They were memories, bound in chakra and stone — fragments of a truth Konoha had long forgotten.
And he was the only one who could hear them.
---
To be continued...