My breath came slower now—not out of peace, but preservation. The surface rippled only from the slight tremble in my fingers.
Kisame sat cross-legged on the edge of the pool, Samehada sprawled beside him like a lounging beast. He was silent for a long while, eyes half-lidded. Then he pointed toward the stone wall.
"Again. This time, reach deeper. Not for the kunai. But for what's watching you."
I didn't ask what he meant. I'd already felt it—something pressing, ancient, curious. Not hostile. Not yet.
I closed my eyes, and let myself drift—not in the pool, but inward.
Chakra flowed slow at first. Not like a river. Like a leak in a deep crack. But I focused. Let the breath settle. Let the fear go unfelt.
Then it came. A pull.
It felt like gravity in reverse. Like something was drawing my chakra downward. A pressure from below. It wasn't the Sanbi. Not yet. This was the depth Kisame spoke of. The ocean beneath the ocean.
My fingers twitched. The water pulsed. Not from above—but below.
Then I heard it. A low, groaning vibration. Felt rather than heard. Like a whale-song echoing through the base of my skull.
My eyes snapped open.
The kunai I'd dropped earlier was floating at my side, untouched. The chains in the center of the pool were rattling softly.
Kisame's eyes were fixed on them. Not me.
"You hear it?" he asked. His voice was quieter now. More serious.
I nodded.
He stood slowly. "Good. Then we can begin."
The next days passed with no rhythm. Sleep came when I collapsed. Food was shoved into my hands or left by the pool's edge. Kisame trained me with the indifference of a drill sergeant and the cruelty of a soldier who thought mercy was rust.
There were no lectures. Only tests.
Chakra shaping beneath pressure. Breath control while submerged. Tuning my awareness to vibrations. Learning to feel rather than see.
Every lesson was underwater, and every success was met with more silence. Failure meant pain—or worse, more water.
And then came the seal.
He dragged me into a smaller chamber. Octagonal. Lined with salt-streaked stone.
There, embedded in the floor, was a spiral of ancient marks. Sea-etched. Old.
"You're going to meet him," Kisame said.
My heart spiked. "The Sanbi?"
He didn't answer. He took a scroll from a container and unrolled it along the floor. Then he slammed his palm against it.
A thrum. The seal lit.
My world went blue.
Water. Not pool water. Not ocean water. Something thicker. Denser. Spiritual.
I stood—no, floated—on a vast seabed beneath a sky of dark green. Faint lights drifted above, like ghostly lanterns.
And in front of me—
A shell. Vast. Closed. Spiraled. Resting atop a mountain of barnacle-covered stone.
I felt eyes open within it. Even before the shell shifted.
Who... treads... this bedrock?
The voice didn't echo. It vibrated. My bones carried the sound.
I didn't answer.
You are not the last one. You are not the blood one.
I realized it wasn't speaking to me. It was sensing me.
You are silence. You are depth.
Then the pressure came. So sudden it felt like being crushed.
But I didn't collapse. I took it in. Let it press against my lungs, my spine. Let it flood me. And beneath it all—something loosened.
A warmth. A shape.
A sliver of chakra that wasn't mine. That welcomed me.
The shell didn't open. But it hummed. And I knew then: I hadn't been rejected.
When I woke, I was face-down on the chamber floor, nose bleeding, fingers twitching.
Kisame crouched nearby, arms crossed.
"You're not dead. That's a start."
I coughed. Blood and seawater.
He tossed a rag at me. "Clean up. You've been accepted. Doesn't mean you've earned it yet."
Outside, I could hear the ocean crashing. A sound that now seemed less alien.
I wasn't drowning anymore.
I was learning to breathe.