Night.
Rain.
Konoha's skyline blurred behind the glass of Raien's apartment window.
He hadn't moved for hours.
His left eye wouldn't stop twitching.
Cracks spread across his sclera like lightning frozen in time.
He whispered to himself:
"Who is the Keeper?"
Sorien sat on the couch.
Watching.
Arms crossed.
Silent.
Waiting.
Raien finally turned.
"Talk."
Sorien sighed.
Then stood.
"There's a place not marked on any map. A village that erases itself every time someone remembers it."
Raien frowned. "That doesn't make sense."
Sorien shrugged.
"Neither does your eye. Yet here we are."
He walked to the window.
"You'll have to find it without directions. Because the moment someone describes it… it disappears again."
Raien's hands trembled.
"So how do I find it?"
Sorien turned back to him.
"There's a boy in the Land of Iron. Born without chakra. He's the only one who ever came back from that place."
Raien narrowed his eyes.
"What's his name?"
Sorien grinned.
"No one knows. Not even him."
The next morning.
Raien stood outside the gates of Konoha.
Backpack. Mask. Blade.
Neeta approached him, confused.
"You're leaving again?"
Raien didn't answer.
Neeta scowled.
"You've changed."
Raien's voice was cold. "So have you."
She looked at him.
Then at his eye.
It was glowing again.
But this time—something was off.
Like it was fighting itself.
Neeta stepped back slightly.
"I don't think you're the same person who entered this village."
Raien looked at her for a long time.
Then walked past.
Land of Iron.
Snow.
Endless.
White.
Cold air burned his lungs.
Raien trudged through a ruined path.
No signs.
No sound.
Just the crunch of ice beneath his boots.
Then—
Footsteps behind him.
He turned.
Empty trail.
No one there.
His left eye flared up.
Red spiral twitching.
Then—
A child's laugh.
To his left.
He spun.
Nothing.
Then—
To his right—
A shadow.
Small.
Raien followed.
He reached a broken torii gate.
Half-buried in snow.
Behind it—an old shrine.
Faded. Burned.
Raien stepped inside.
The warmth of a fire greeted him.
But there was no fire.
Just a boy.
Sitting on the floor.
Blank eyes.
No chakra signature.
He smiled.
"You're here."
Raien walked closer.
"You know why?"
The boy nodded.
"You're trying to find the place you forgot."
Raien blinked.
"…What?"
The boy stood.
"You've been there before. You just don't remember."
Raien felt a stab of nausea.
The room bent.
Just slightly.
He steadied himself.
The boy's voice echoed strangely now.
"They call it The Needle. The place between lives."
Raien's eye cracked further.
It began bleeding again.
The boy continued.
"If you want to reach it, you need to sleep. But not normal sleep. You need The Threaded Dream."
Raien's vision blurred.
Snowflakes were floating inside the room.
Impossible.
He asked, "What happens if I do?"
The boy tilted his head.
"You either wake up where it begins…"
"…Or you never wake up again."
Raien didn't sleep that night.
He sat across from the boy.
Staring at the crackling air where the fire wasn't.
His hands wouldn't stop trembling.
He whispered:
"Why am I scared?"
The boy looked at him.
Because he knew.
"You've never really seen what your eye can do."
Raien clenched his teeth.
The boy leaned forward.
"Do you want to?"
Raien nodded once.
"…Yes."
The boy touched his forehead.
And everything went black.
Dream.
If it could be called that.
He stood on a bridge.
Above water.
But the water wasn't water.
It was faces.
Countless.
All of them his.
Different ages. Different versions.
Some smiling.
Some screaming.
Some dead.
Raien walked forward.
Each step echoed like thunder.
The sky above had no stars.
Just threads.
Golden. Frayed.
Tied to his spine.
Pulling him in different directions.
Then—
A figure appeared at the end of the bridge.
Black cloak.
Spindly limbs.
No face.
Just eyes.
Thousands of them.
Raien stopped.
The figure spoke in a hundred voices at once.
"You are close."
Raien asked, "Close to what?"
It whispered:
"To becoming the last version of yourself."
Raien's left eye burst into flame.
Not literal—
But it felt like it.
Agony.
He dropped to his knees.
And the bridge began collapsing beneath him.
One by one—
The faces below opened their eyes.
All of them glowing.
All of them… whispering his name.
"Raien…"
"Raien…"
"Raien…"
He woke up.
Back in the shrine.
Gasping.
Sweating.
The boy was gone.
Outside, the snow had stopped.
In the sky—
Threads.
Dozens of them.
Visible to his broken eye.
All pointing in the same direction.
Raien stood.
Walked outside.
And followed them.
Far, far away—
Inside a dark room with paper walls—
A woman stirred.
The Loom Mother.
She looked to her side.
An empty chair.
The one Kaen used to sit on.
Her hand twitched.
Thread snapped between her fingers.
She whispered:
"The Keeper is active again."
Then looked to the window.
"It's time to burn another memory."
And everything around her turned to ash.