After that strange yet comforting conversation with Kaori's mirage—an illusion his mind had crafted to help him survive Kazeo slept soundly for the first time in days with no restlessness or heaviness but just silence.
When morning came, something felt different. For the first time in what felt like forever, Kazeo didn't rise from his bed just to go through the motions—not just to eat, breathe, or exist. He stood with purpose. To live.
But just as he took a breath of resolve—
The silence cracked and the voice returned, colder and more bitter than before.
"You think that dream meant anything? You're still weak. Still alone. You'll keep losing everything."
Kazeo didn't flinch this time. His eyes fell shut, and he whispered quietly, "Come out."
The world around him shifted. His apartment vanished. In its place—darkness.
A void.
Infinite, empty. A place he'd found himself in again and again whenever he fell asleep lately. Though he hadn't realized it, this was his mindscape. And at the center of it, he saw... himself.
But not quite.
It was a twisted reflection. Taller. Hardened. Sharper around the edges. The same face, but lined with bitterness. The same voice, but now drenched in venom.
Kazeo stood barefoot, his breath fogging in the cold void air.
"You called me," the Voice hissed, stepping out of the shadows. "Why? Think some feel-good dream fixed you?"
Kazeo stepped forward. "No, but I'm tired of hiding from you."
"You need me, more than you think." the Voice snarled.
Kazeo stared back, silent for a long beat.
Then he whispered something even he hadn't fully admitted until now.
"…Why did it hit me so hard?"
The shadow paused.
Kazeo's hands curled into fists, fingernails digging into his palms. "I've seen people die before. I lived twenty years on Earth. I've seen friends disappear. I've felt loss in a funeral. I've seen blood."
He shook his head slowly.
"But this…? This grief felt like someone reached into my chest and crushed my heart in front of me. Why?"
His voice dropped to a whisper, honest and trembling.
"I loved her, yeah. She meant something. But after talking to her yesterday, something in my mind clicked. Like it had finally started working again and when I look back, it feels like something inside me pulled me down into that grief—deep and fast. Like I couldn't even breathe through it. Was that… you?"
The Voice smirked. "I didn't cause your pain. I just gave it shape and some direction."
Silence hung thick in the void.
Then something clicked in Kazeo's memory. His eyes widened. "That first night… the moment she died. I didn't just feel grief. I felt anger, paranoia, fear and some days later, I started hearing you."
His breath caught. "Wait… from the very start—when I first came to this world, all that paranoia, all those thoughts… was it you?"
The Voice chuckled low. "I didn't create them. That fear? That paranoia? That was yours. I just amplified it."
Kazeo stared.
"And what are you? A hallucination? A ghost? What?"
"I'm you," the Voice replied. "Or rather, the version of you that was born the day you found your roommate's body swinging from the fan."
Kazeo's breath caught.
That memory, the one he had buried deeper than any other surfaced.
------------
Flashback: earth-
The rain had stopped just minutes ago, Kazeo walked under a flickering lamppost, humming the chorus of a song he'd heard too many times that night.
His voice cracked a little on the high note, but he didn't care. His hoodie clung to his damp shoulders and the plastic bag in his hand swayed with each step, filled with leftover cake he had stubbornly insisted on taking for his roommate. The party had been small, just a few coaching friends studying in this city far from home—but it was the kind of evening that made you forget about looming exams and unpaid rent.
He climbed the narrow stairs to the third floor, where the rust-colored door to their rented flat stood slightly opened.
Weird, they usually locked it.
He blinked, pausing for a second before he pushed the door open gently, stepping into the living room where their cheap couch faced a wall. A few books were scattered on the floor, and his friend's sneakers were tossed near the door.
"Yo, Lucky! I saved you a slice, bro. It's chocolate—your fav—" He called out, voice still light, still laced with leftover joy.
No reply.
He set the bag of cake down on the table, slipping off his shoes with a soft thunk. The light in Lucky's room was on, kazeo walked to it without thinking.
He should have knocked, but he didn't. He opened the door. And the world stopped.
Lucky hung there—barefoot, still, suspended by a bedsheet twisted cruelly around the ceiling fan. His head was tilted sideways, neck unnaturally stretched. His eyes were open. So wide. So still. So... wrong.
For a second—just one, it didn't register. He saw his friend's feet, dangling, then the stretched sheet. Then—
"Lucky?!"
He took a step back, then another—his spine hit the wall behind him. His hands shook violently. He reached for him, why the hell was he just hanging there?!
His throat clenched but no scream came out.
What is this?
His eyes went wide, and suddenly his chest caved in. The scream tore out of him like it had been waiting to escape.
"Lucky!!"
He bolted into the room, fumbling to grab at the sheet tied around Lucky's neck. His fingers slipped.
"NO! NO! FUCK—Lucky!"
He grabbed a chair, climbed it blindly, shaking, crying, trying to untie the knot. His hands wouldn't work. They trembled too hard.
He managed to cut it—somehow, he didn't even know with what and Lucky's body collapsed into his arms, heavy, limp, too still.
Kazeo crumpled to the floor, holding him, sobbing so hard his lungs burned. "Wake up… please… please wake up…"
He shook him. Shouted. Slapped his cheek once—twice. "Lucky! Please, man, talk to me! I—I was just out for a few hours!"
Lucky's lips were purple, his skin cold. Kazeo froze, realizing just how cold his friend was.
He fell apart.
"Why… why didn't you say anything?" he whispered, curling around his friend's lifeless body like a child. "Why didn't you tell me you were hurting? I would've stayed. I would've…"
His voice broke.
"I would've picked up the phone."
He stayed like that for hours. He didn't know when he called the police or how many times they asked questions. His answers were garbled, automatic. Numbness had settled where his heart used to be.
That night, something inside him shattered.
--------
Present time-
"That night…" Kazeo murmured, his voice cracking.
The Voice stepped closer, its presence pulsing like poisoned chakra. "That night, something broke and something woke. You tried to move on, pretend it didn't change you, but it did. It split you from inside. I was born in that split."
Kazeo's eyes narrowed with slight anger. "I'm not broken."
"No. You're scarred and I'm the part that remembered everything you forced yourself to forget."
Kazeo's fists trembled. "Then what are you? My trauma?"
"I'm not your trauma. I was born from it. From everything you couldn't handle. And now, I'm here to help you. Help you get revenge. Help you survive. You need me."
Kazeo turned away from the shadow.
"And what if I don't want your help?"
"Then you'll stay weak. Just like you are now. And you'll keep standing still while the people you love are taken from you, in front of your eyes—again and again."
Kazeo's eyes fell shut for a moment. He breathed in. "I don't want to lose myself to revenge."
"I don't want to lose myself to revenge," he murmured. "I've seen and read how those stories end. Sasuke, Obito, Madara. You even mentioned them before, right ? They all walked this path and what did they get?"
He laughed bitterly. "Nothing. At least Sasuke had Naruto. I don't even have that."
"You're not me," he said again, softly. "You're the part of me that formed because I couldn't accept my pain and sadness. You only screamed for vengeance and amplified my grief."
The Voice's eyes narrowed. "So what? You want to just wallow in pity? Let everyone step over you?"
"No," Kazeo said firmly. "I want to heal and I can't, not while you keep turning my pain and emotions into your weapon."
The shadow surged forward, it's voice sharp, desperate. "You need me! Without me, you'll break again!"
Kazeo didn't move. "No," he whispered. "I broke because of you."
He watched as the Voice faltered.
"But you're not a monster," he added quietly. As the Voice's clawed hand passed through him like mist, he finished, "You're just... part of me. Born when I had no other way to survive."
The shadow trembled. Cracks spiderwebbed across its form.
"I'm not here to destroy you. Truth is, I don't even know how to. I'm just... here to outgrow you."
Kazeo knelt. "I don't need your help for revenge. If I go down that path, it'll be my way—not through your hate or manipulation."
The shadow let out a scream, thrashing wildly. "You need me! When they die again, when you fall again—you'll beg for me to return!"
Kazeo looked up one last time, his expression soft.
"Then I'll break again. I'll cry again but I won't let you come back."
With that… the shadow shattered and Kazeo returned.
Back in the apartment. Kazeo opened his eyes. The room was dim, a soft strip of sunlight slipped through the curtains, touching the wooden floor. There was no more voice or whispers in the dark.
The grief remained—but now, it was solely his. Heavy, yes but honest. A reflection of what he truly felt.
He didn't feel victorious, he just felt... lighter. Not because the grief had gone, but because he no longer had to carry it with a stranger's voice whispering vengeance in his ears. He took a breath before walking to the bathroom...
---------
Days passed and Kazeo's condition gradually improved after his confrontation with the dark version of himself. No one checked in on him during that period. The academy was closed for two weeks after the exams, and Kazeo spent those days under the heavy influence of darkness, lost in a haze of depression..
Unknown to him, however, an old man sat quietly in his office, watching him through his crystal ball. He observed Kazeo every day but chose not to intervene—he had set a time limit for himself before stepping in, believing that if Kazeo could overcome this alone, it would forge his spirit. And just as he had hoped, Kazeo did recover on his own. If he hadn't, the outcome might have been worse than even what the Uchiha and Kurama endures.
That old man saw it all—the way Kazeo slowly broke down day after day, how despair consumed him. He watched as, after a week, the boy reached out into the empty air on his roof and broke down in tears, crying in front of no one. It was heartbreaking to witness a child like that.
But after that night, Kazeo began to heal. That was a relief… a sign that he wouldn't need to intervene after all. It also meant that Kazeo must have found a reason to move forward—a goal to chase. Otherwise, he would have still been drowning in sorrow… or burning with hatred for the other villages ninjas.