For the next few months, Evan Kamiyo completely withdrew from the social hum of the village, immersing himself entirely in the esoteric world of Chakra Nature Transformation.
In the ninja world, learning a jutsu was a matter of memorizing signs and molding energy. But Nature Transformation was a deeper, more fundamental evolution. It wasn't about brute force or mindless repetition; it was about a ninja's conceptual understanding of their own internal energy—how it behaved, how it resonated, and how it responded to the pressure of human intent.
Wind Style demanded a specific mental frequency: sharpness. It wasn't just about making the air move fast; it was about the conceptual edge of thinness and severing. Fire Style required a mastery over thermal compression—not just creating flames, but managing the dance between temperature and atmospheric pressure.
But Lightning Style, the path Evan had prioritized, was an entirely different beast.
Lightning was not a state of flow; it was a state of conversion. Raw, neutral chakra had to be refined, compressed, and vibrated at a frequency so high it forced the energy into a violent, unstable electric state. It was an unnatural process that fought against the body's own equilibrium. It demanded a level of microscopic control that would have driven a normal genin to exhaustion within minutes.
Evan's training method was deceptively simple, bordering on the primitive. He sat in the center of Training Ground 22, circulating chakra endlessly through his tenketsu, forcing it to accelerate, compress, and spark. Again. Again. Again.
There were no shortcuts. No clever tricks to bypass the physics of energy. Just the raw, grinding discipline of a boy who knew that in the world of shinobi, a single millisecond of hesitation meant a cold grave.
With the support of his Sage Body, Evan could push himself to the absolute brink. Hours of high-frequency vibration that would have shredded the chakra pathways of an ordinary ninja barely left him with more than a slight tingle in his fingers. He could feel his affinity growing—the way the chakra now jumped to become a spark with less effort than the day before. The results were visible. Not dramatic, not yet explosive, but as undeniable as the rising tide.
October 10th
Autumn returned to Konoha with a quiet, somber grace.
The oppressive humidity of summer broke, replaced by a cooling breeze that carried the scent of woodsmoke and damp earth. Crimson and gold leaves drifted lazily through the streets like falling embers. On any other day, the village would have felt peaceful, even gentle. But today was different.
That morning, Evan dressed in a simple, charcoal-black outfit. He took a piece of dark cloth and wrapped it around his upper arm—a traditional sign of mourning. In his hands, he carried a small, modest bouquet of aster flowers. The pale violet petals swayed in the breeze, symbolizing memory, remembrance, and the bittersweet nature of reflection.
He walked out of his house, his face a mask of calm. The streets were filled with villagers and shinobi alike, all dressed in the same muted tones, all moving with a heavy, synchronized step toward the center of the village. Today was not a festival of life, but a day of communal silence.
Five years ago, on this very night, the golden era of the Fourth Hokage had been extinguished in a whirlwind of Nine-Tails' chakra and screams. Countless families had lost their loved ones to the claws of the beast. Today, the village remembered its dead.
At the memorial monument—the Great Stone that bore the names of those who fell in service of the Leaf—Evan found the section he was looking for. He scanned the neat rows of kanji until his eyes landed on the names of his parents.
He knelt, the cold stone pressing against his shins, and placed the asters gently at the base.
Since crossing into this world, Evan had never truly mourned them. There had been no time for tears. He had been too busy surviving, too busy calculating his next point of growth, too busy trying to ensure he didn't join them on that stone. But standing here, in the shadow of their names, he felt a flicker of quiet gratitude.
Without them… I wouldn't have had a beginning in this world, he thought. I am the legacy of their lives, however brief.
The sky began to bruise with purple clouds. Rain started to fall—light at first, a fine mist that turned into a steady, rhythmic downpour. Soft droplets blurred the names carved into the stone, making the granite look as though it were weeping.
Evan remained kneeling for over an hour, unmoving. He allowed the rain to soak through his clothes, using the cold to anchor his wandering thoughts.
When he finally pushed himself up to leave, his black outfit was heavy with water. It was only then, as he turned to adjust his stance, that he realized he wasn't the only one who had lingered.
On the opposite side of the monument stood a man, silent and still as a statue. He wore the standard flak jacket of a Jonin, but he seemed to exist in a private pocket of grief.
Silver hair, matted by the rain. A forehead protector tilted to cover a single eye. A presence that was calm, yet profoundly lonely.
Hatake Kakashi.
Evan recognized him instantly. This was a younger Kakashi than the one in his memories—sharper, colder, and still carrying the raw, open wounds of a world that had collapsed in less than a year.
Kakashi didn't look at him. His lone visible eye was fixed on a specific cluster of names: Obito Uchiha. Rin Nohara. Minato Namikaze. Names of a teammate, a friend, and a teacher.
In this moment, the "Copy Ninja" looked like nothing more than a ghost wandering among the living.
Evan said nothing. There was a silent understanding between those who stood before the stone—a shared weight that transcended age or rank. Neither of them spoke. When Evan turned to walk away, he didn't look back, choosing to keep their paths parallel rather than intersecting.
Behind him, Kakashi's eye flickered for a fraction of a second, tracking the retreating figure of the boy. He felt a ripple of chakra as Evan moved—something dense, incredibly controlled, and fundamentally unfamiliar. It vanished as quickly as it had appeared, swallowed by the sound of the rain.
Strong… but burdened, Kakashi thought, before turning his gaze back to the cold, silent stone.
The Hokage's Office
While the village mourned, the shadows beneath the surface were shifting.
Shisui Uchiha knelt respectfully on the polished floor before the Third Hokage. His posture was steady, but the conflict in his heart had reached a critical mass. The tension within the Uchiha clan was no longer a matter of whispers; it was a storm cloud ready to burst.
Shisui had finally chosen to reveal his hand.
"Lord Hokage," Shisui said, his voice low and urgent. "The radicals have gained too much ground. My father-figure, Fugaku, is losing his grip on the younger generation. If we do not act, a coup is inevitable."
He proposed his secret plan: using Kotoamatsukami—the ultimate illusion of his Mangekyō Sharingan—to quietly and permanently rewrite the intent of the clan's leaders. To sacrifice his own integrity, and his life if necessary, to save the village from civil war.
Sarutobi Hiruzen listened in a heavy silence, the smoke from his pipe curling toward the ceiling. He looked at Shisui and saw a reflection of the past—a soul as pure as Kagami Uchiha. Shisui's loyalty was a beautiful thing, but his political sense was dangerously naive.
"Shisui," Hiruzen said quietly, his voice aging with every word. "I acknowledge the fire in your heart. You would give your soul for this village. But this method… it is too extreme. To manipulate the minds of your own kin is a path that rarely ends in peace."
Shisui lowered his head. He understood the Hokage's hesitation, but he did not agree with the optimism. He possessed the power of a Kage, but he lacked the ruthlessness to navigate the politics of the dark.
And in the darkness, another set of eyes was watching.
The Root Headquarters
Deep beneath the village, where the air was stagnant and the light was artificial, Danzo Shimura stood in the center of a sterile room.
He didn't need to hear the conversation in the Hokage's office to know what was happening. His spies were everywhere. Whether Shisui's plan succeeded or failed didn't matter to Danzo. In fact, failure was preferable.
As long as Shisui possessed those eyes—the Mangekyō that could command the will of others—he was a threat to the "order" Danzo envisioned. And a threat that possessed such a valuable asset was merely an opportunity in disguise.
Danzo smiled, a cold, thin line that didn't reach his eyes.
"Remembrance day," Danzo whispered to the shadows. "A fitting time for the old to make way for the new."
Author's Note:
The atmosphere in Konoha is tightening. As Evan grows stronger through his Lightning training, the Uchiha tragedy is accelerating toward its climax. Thank you for your continued support! Every Power Stone helps us dive deeper into the lore.