He saw himself—older, cloaked in a pristine white ninja robe, standing tall atop a towering cliff. His skin was pale, almost ghostlike. Below him, a legion of ninjas stretched far across the horizon, their faces turned upward, awaiting something… or someone.
The vision shifted.
Now, he was at his current age, walking barefoot through the village at night. His feet met cold stone as he moved silently, clothed in the white funeral robe meant for the dead. The Okukizi hung in his hand, its ominous presence heavier than ever.
Another glimpse—an older version of himself, falling upside down through the sky, blood soaking his robes. High above, a massive tree branched endlessly across the heavens, its limbs spreading like veins. Below, again, stood a sea of ninjas… unmoving, watching.
Then darkness.
He landed in a void, pitch black, yet before him stood a white door. He didn't step forward, but the door moved toward him. Closer… closer...
His eyes widened.
Without choice, he was drawn into it.
Inside… a lone tree. A beautiful, blooming tree with vibrant green leaves and thick branches—growing in the center of an endless desert.
There, tied to a sterile white chair, was the older version of himself. No resistance. No struggle. Only resignation.
He stared at the tree—silent, unmoving—while the wind caressed his face with a cool, haunting breeze.
"Eh…" he murmured, confused.
Then he felt it—a cold, tightening grip on his left leg. He looked down.
Chains.
They wrapped around his ankle, slithering across the sand like serpents. His eyes traced the links as they stretched endlessly across the desert… and then, like fragile glass, the world around him shattered.
He blinked.
Now standing inside a fenced-off country, the air different, unfamiliar. The villagers around him spoke a foreign language, strange and rapid. He couldn't understand a word. His heart raced.
Then—a man in his twenties approached. Calm, serious. He held up a worn paper with a sketch on it.
The man asked, "Hello. Have you seen this man? He goes by the name Iminaqo Haru."
Haru froze.
His breath caught in his throat. Time stretched. Finally, he muttered, shakily, "…N-No…"
The man smiled politely. "Thanks. If you do by any chance, report to the government."
"Government…?" Haru whispered under his breath. "What… is the government?"
Suddenly—like being pulled into a vortex—he found himself staring into a dark void.
A broken voice echoed from the figure, filled with guilt.
"I killed him… Metsubō san… I killed him."
Haru watched—speechless. Paralyzed.
Then another figure appeared.
A man with long white hair, around his thirties. Clad in a battle-worn ninja robe. He stepped forward slowly, calmly… and stood before Haru.
"Sorry," the man said, his voice heavy with inevitability. "But this is how it's supposed to be."
And just like that, Haru's mind was flooded.
Visions burst into his consciousness—flashes of death, war, and pain—people he didn't know, their faces twisted in agony, their names lost to time. Yet he felt every loss as if it were his own.
Haru's eyes shot wide open, his breath caught in his throat. A torrent of voices flooded his mind—overlapping, distant yet painfully clear.
"Good luck, Haru..."
"I love you, Haru-kun."
"AHHH, I SEE!!! KEEP TRYING... IMINAQO HARUUUU!!!"
"Haru..."
"Haru-sama."
"Haru Iminaqo..."
"Oiiiii..."
Each voice pierced deeper than the last—memories, expectations, screams, whispers. The pressure mounted like a thousand hands gripping his mind at once.
His knees buckled.
He dropped to the ground, clutching his head, nails digging into his scalp. His breathing turned ragged.
"What.. Is this?" he whispered, pain flashing across his face.
Agony surged through him—not of the body, but of a soul stretched thin. The weight of every title, every goodbye, every unseen tear—now crashing into him like waves from all of time.
And in the midst of it all… he knelt, broken, trembling, drowning in the noise.
As Haru remained on his knees, clutching his head, the chaos in his mind thick like fog, a calm and unnaturally toned voice broke through the noise—sharp, composed, and eerily close.
"You can hear it too, right?"
Haru's breath hitched.
Slowly, hesitantly, he lifted his face—his eyes still wide from the torment. And then... he saw him.
A figure stood ahead. Shrouded in darkness, his form blurred, almost like static—a glitch in reality itself. Only one detail burned vividly: glowing yellow eyes, unblinking, piercing into Haru's very soul.
Haru couldn't breathe.
His body froze, muscles tensed. He gasped, reaching forward instinctively—his hand trembling midair as if trying to grasp something unreachable. Terror and recognition clashed in his chest.
The figure tilted his head ever so slightly, his voice continuing, now laced with a twisted amusement:
"The voice that keeps whispering... devour... devour..."
A pause. Then a quiet, spine-crawling chuckle.
"Ahh… Shadow!"
As the figure laughed softly, the world around them began to distort—reality itself glitching, warping like broken glass. The trees, the shrine, the air—all crackled with impossible movement, bending unnaturally.
And then the voice turned darker—low, slow, and venomous
In the blink of an eye—he was back.
Back in the village.
Haru stood frozen, his body stiff, one foot still mid-step in the mud, right in front of Chimaru.
His chest rose and fell sharply. His eyes—wide, unfocused, trembling. Fear clung to his face, raw and real, like he'd seen something no one else could comprehend.
The others stared, stunned.
Everything had paused around him. Even Chimaru, for a brief moment, watched in silence.
"Haru-san!! What the hell are you doing?!" Hiro's voice cut through the stillness, alarmed.
But Haru didn't move.
Didn't blink.
Didn't breathe.
He was back—but something else… was still with him.
Haru snapped back, gasping faintly as Hiro's voice cut through the haze.
He blinked, realizing—he was standing right in front of Chimaru. Face-to-face.
Chimaru stared into his eyes, gaze sharp, piercing.
"You… You entered Laki?" he muttered, stepping back—one step, two, five.
His voice trembled with disbelief.
"You travelled through Laki?"
Haru's expression remained blank, but inside—he was shaken. Chimaru's reaction wasn't fear. It was recognition.
The others stood at a distance, still calling out.
"Oi!! Haru! What's happening?!" Hiro shouted again. No response.
Haru's voice returned—low, flat.
"It wasn't you…?"
Chimaru's eyes flared. "The hell it's not! You were taken! Someone used Laki as a transport portal! You were transferred—forcefully."
Haru's mind raced. That wasn't an illusion?
"It wasn't… just in my head?" he asked, still breathless.
Chimaru didn't answer.
Instead, Haru raised a hand to his ear… blood.
A slow stream trailing down his fingertips.
Chimaru finally spoke, tone grave.
"Not just your ear… Your body. You're soaked."
Haru looked down.
Drenched. Like he'd just walked out of an ocean.
The others remained frozen in place, hesitant to intervene. The atmosphere had shifted into something far beyond normal combat.
Haru steadied his breathing, shaking his head once, flinging droplets of Laki water into the dirt.
Chimaru folded his arms, his tone dark.
"Someone showed you what you were never meant to see."
"Who?" Haru asked, more demand than question.
Chimaru closed his eyes.
"Beats me."
Then, opening them again, voice calm and ominous—
"But anyone who can use Laki without triggering its spirit… is no ordinary being. That's someone outside time. Outside fate. A concept made flesh. Maybe… the one who created Laki itself."
Haru stared.
"Where was I taken?"
Chimaru smiled faintly.
"A place where impossible truths wait. A place beyond speed, beyond race, beyond everything. A world where all future plays out in front of you—"
He paused, then finished:
"—your memory."