**Amegakure – One Week After Arrival**
The abandoned textile factory creaked under the weight of the endless rain.
I pressed my back against the damp concrete wall, clutching the stolen loaf of bread to my chest. My breath came in shallow gasps—three hours of hiding from Iwa-nin patrols had left my legs numb. Across from me, Konan knelt beside a rusted pipe, her fingers deftly folding a piece of parchment into a delicate origami bird.
"You're shaking," she observed without looking up.
I gritted my teeth. The bread was stale, the factory was freezing, and the cut on my thigh from yesterday's close call with a stray kunai still burned. But worst of all was the helplessness—this body, this *child's* body, couldn't do half of what my mind remembered.
The paper bird in Konan's hands suddenly twitched to life, its wings fluttering as it took flight. My stomach dropped.
*Right. Chakra. Ninja. War.*
The bird circled once before dissolving into the downpour. Konan finally met my eyes. "You still haven't told me why you don't know basic chakra control."
---
**The Orphanage's Secret**
The factory wasn't empty.
In the back rooms, a dozen Amegakure orphans huddled around a single candle. A boy with a bandaged arm tossed me a wary glance as I entered. "He's back. And he brought *her*."
Murmurs rippled through the group. Konan ignored them, striding to the far corner where a gaunt woman lay coughing into a rag.
"Yuriko-san's worse," a girl whispered.
I watched as Konan pressed a hand to the woman's forehead—too gently for someone who'd nearly broken my nose yesterday for touching her paper stash.
*Medicine. They need medicine.*
My fingers dug into the bread. Back in my old life, I'd been a nobody. But here?
Here, I knew things.
---
**The First Gamble**
"You want to *what*?" The black-market trader's scar twisted as he laughed.
I forced my voice steady. "Information on Hanzo's supply routes. In exchange for this."
The rusted radio in my hands was the only salvage from my first life that had crossed over—a useless hunk of metal here, but the trader's eyes gleamed at the strange technology.
Konan's grip on my sleeve tightened. "This is stupid."
Maybe. But as the trader leaned in, whispering coordinates for a medic-nin convoy, I caught the flicker of something in her eyes.
Not hope. Not yet.
But the shadow of its possibility.
---