Drip.Drip.
The sound of water.Soft. Unending.
Raien's eyes opened slowly.
White ceiling.A fan spinning overhead.
But no wind.
He tried to sit up—Pain screamed through his spine.
He didn't move again.
"…You're awake."
The voice came from the corner of the room.Konan.
Rain clattered softly on the window behind her.
She sat still.Paper wings folded behind her.
Raien turned his head.
"Where…?"
"Amegakure," she replied."You passed out after using a seal that shouldn't exist."
He blinked.
Memory flickered—The creature from the well.The beast bowing.Tenkai's artificial eye.
His body tensed.
"His eye… it was made."
Konan nodded."I saw it too."
She stood, walked to the window.
Rain continued falling.Unnatural. Endless.
"I've seen many things," she said quietly. "But your dojutsu… it's not of this world."
Raien gripped the sheets.
"I know."
A door creaked.
Yahiko entered.
Not alive.
But not a puppet either.
Somewhere in between.
Pain's vessel.
His presence filled the room.Sharp. Heavy.
Raien's heart slowed.
Konan stood beside Yahiko silently.
"Raien," Pain said. "What are you?"
The voice echoed.
Not human.
Raien didn't respond.
Pain stepped closer.
"We've seen many kekkei genkai… many secrets. But not even Nagato's Rinnegan responded to your eye."
Raien looked down.
"Because it's not just a kekkei genkai."
He exhaled.
"It's something else."
Pain paused.
Konan handed him a scroll.
The same one Tenkai had tried to steal from the temple.
She nodded toward Raien.
"He activated this."
Pain unrolled it.His Rinnegan scanned the markings.
Ancient symbols.Dead language.
His eyes narrowed.
"These are records from the Sage's era…"
He glanced at Raien.
"You didn't learn this. It's in your eye."
Raien nodded.
"It remembers."
Pain closed the scroll slowly.
"And that's why they're hunting you."
Raien sat up now, ignoring the pain.
"They?"
Konan answered.
"The Collectors."
The rain outside slowed.
Only for a moment.
Then picked up again.
"The Collectors," she said, "are remnants of an old war. They seek rare bloodlines… forbidden techniques… cursed bodies. Anything they believe belonged to the ancient world."
"They steal them," Pain added."Fuse them. Twist them. That man—Tenkai—is one of their earliest successes."
Raien's eyes darkened.
"And I'm their next experiment?"
"No," Konan said."You're their origin."
Silence.
Even the rain seemed to hold its breath.
Hours passed.
Raien sat, staring at his reflection in a puddle on the floor.
His eye didn't glow.Not now.
But it pulsed.Like it had a heartbeat.
Like it was waiting.
Konan returned with food. Simple rice and miso.
Raien took it. Quietly.But didn't eat.
He finally asked, "Why help me?"
Konan placed a hand on the table.
"I saw what you did. To that boy. To the creature. You didn't destroy. You didn't dominate."
She looked at him.
"You spoke."
Raien said nothing.
Because he didn't know what he'd done either.
Later that night—Thunder rolled.
Raien slept uneasily.
Sweat on his brow.
He twitched.
Dreamed.
A battlefield.
Crimson skies.White flames.
Corpses floated in the air—Motionless.
And in the center—
A figure with his face.
But not him.
Clad in white robes.Crowned with antlers.
His left eye—fully red.All three pupils spinning.
The copy looked at him.
Spoke a single word.
"Break."
The dream shattered.
Raien gasped awake.
Chest heaving.
His left eye was glowing.
He rushed to the bathroom—Flicked on the light.
Stared at himself in the mirror.
And there—
Faint letters floated in the reflection.
New ones.
Foreign words.
Shifting every second.
He focused.
The mirror cracked.
Energy surged.
His body locked.
And suddenly—
He was somewhere else.
A void.
Endless.
But not empty.
A circle of white flame.
And standing in the middle—
A boy.
No older than ten.
His face…
It was Raien's.
But younger.
Innocent.
The boy smiled.
"You're finally starting to remember."
Raien stepped forward.
"Who are you?"
The boy giggled.
"You. But not you."
He pointed to Raien's eye.
"It's broken. But I'm fixing it."
Raien reached for him—But the void shattered.
Back in the bathroom.
His body drenched in sweat.
He staggered to the wall.
Looked at his reflection again.
And whispered,
"What the hell am I?"
Meanwhile.
Elsewhere.
Deep beneath the Land of Iron—
In a lab of twisted steel and chakra smoke—
Tenkai knelt before a large sealed chamber.
A heart floated in a tank.Still beating.
He smiled.
Behind him, a girl walked in.
Face covered in bandages.But her eye glowed red.
"Update," she said.
Tenkai turned.
"He's remembering faster than expected."
"And the cracks?"
Tenkai smirked.
"Spreading. Once the third one breaks…"
He turned back to the heart.
"…he won't be Raien anymore."