The rain falls in cold, steady sheets, drumming against the slanted wooden roof of an abandoned teahouse nestled at the edge of a forgotten road. Itachi stands beneath its narrow awning, half-shrouded in shadow, the pointed straw hat dripping with silver strands of water, the white bands hanging off of it soaked through. Evening bleeds across the sky, casting the world in hues of crimson and ash as his cloak clings damply to his frame, the fabric heavy with rain.

A faint gust stirs the silence, brushing past him like a whisper. He does not move, his breath calm, barely visible in the chilled dusk, and his eyes of deep onyx remain fixed on the distance, as if watching something only he can see. The trail behind him is washed clean, no more footprints, no more blood. Just water and silence as time feels suspended beneath the steady patter.

The weight of his body is light compared to the weight he carries, and Itachi waits. Not for shelter, but for stillness—to pass, to think, to disappear again with the rain.