The silence that followed Renjiro's declaration was not the stunned, brittle quiet of shock, but something deeper and more desolate—the sound of a final door closing, of a path chosen that could not be unchosen.
To Miwa's own surprise, she found she could not even muster shock. The numbness that settled over her was a protective shroud, woven from the sheer, relentless weight of the early morning's revelations: the dual eyes, the named abilities born of profound trauma, and now this, the calm, almost casual statement of intent to pursue the clan's most forbidden legend. It was too much. Her emotional capacity, stretched taut over years of loss and vigilance, simply… ceased to register.
She watched him as he held her gaze, his expression one of calm resolve. The boy she had helped raise was gone.
In his place was a man, a shinobi of formidable and terrifying power, who had seen the machinery of the world from the inside and had decided to grasp its levers.
'He has truly grown up,' the thought came, not with pride, but with a pang of irrevocable loss. 'He is far beyond me now.'
Her three-tomoe Sharingan, once a symbol of elite prowess within the clan, now felt like a child's toy compared to the cosmic, cursed weight he carried behind his own eyes.
Yet, the ancient, stubborn instinct—the one that had made her check on him—thrashed against this rational assessment. He was her last, her only family.
The conflict was a dull ache in her chest: the analytical mind acknowledging his strength and autonomy, the heart's core refusing to stop its futile, desperate worry.
"Are you really sure about this?" Her voice, when it finally came, was raspy, worn thin by the internal storm.
"It is… probably the only logical step left." She conceded the point even as she asked the question, the strategist in her overriding the protector. Denying the logic would be an insult to both of their intellects.
Renjiro leaned forward slightly, "I have already paid the price."
He gestured vaguely towards his own eyes. "To use this power is to spend a finite resource—my sight. The Eternal Mangekyo is the only method known to restore that resource indefinitely."
His eyes, now plain and dark, held a distant, haunted look. "You were not there at the end of the war. When the blindness began to creep in. It was like a fog over the world, dulling edges, stealing colour, distancing me from everything. I was helpless. I will not be helpless again. Not when there is a known solution."
Miwa listened; his reasoning was flawless. It terrified her.
"Your logic is sound," she admitted, "But Renjiro, you must promise me you will stay grounded. This power… it is a current that can sweep you away. It can distort you, make you see people not as people, but as obstacles or resources. The history of our clan is written in that distortion."
A spark, fierce and hot, flashed in Renjiro's eyes then. It was the first crack in his calm façade.
"Power should change a person, Aunt Miwa," he countered, his voice low but intense. "Complacency is a luxury paid for with other people's blood. If I had been stronger, if I had understood my potential sooner, Hiro would still be alive."
Miwa held his gaze for a long, long moment, her dark eyes searching his for any sign of the boy she knew. She saw only the man. Finally, she let out a slow, surrendered breath.
"I cannot stop you," she said. "But know this… I will always, always want what is best for you. Even if what is best for you is something I cannot comprehend, and fear." The unspoken words hung between them, as clear as if shouted:
'I fear losing you to this. I fear the man you might become on this path.'
The conversation had reached its natural, painful end. Wordlessly, Renjiro rose to his feet. He picked up the jar, with a practised motion, he pressed his palm against the jar, and in a swirl, it vanished into a storage seal in his hands.
"I have errands to run," he said, his voice returning to a neutral, almost gentle tone. He hesitated at the doorway, looking back at her, a flicker of the nephew she knew breaking through. "And… I am sorry. For not telling you any of this sooner."
Miwa managed a small, fragile smile. It didn't reach her eyes, but it was genuine. "I understand." She also stood, "Keep working to understand your eyes, Renjiro. Not just their power, but their… language. What they are trying to tell you about yourself."
It was the last advice she could give, the only gift she could offer.
She saw him to the exit and, without further ceremony, opened the door. The cool morning air of the compound rushed in, carrying the scent of damp earth and pine. Renjiro was gone, pulling the door shut behind him with a solid, final thud.
Miwa stood in the sudden, overwhelming silence of her home, the ghost of his presence already fading. The only evidence of the conversation was two cold cups of tea and the profound, unsettling emptiness in her heart.
With each step away from Miwa's house, a curious sensation unfolded within Renjiro. It was not happiness, nor excitement, but a profound, settling relief.
The colossal weight of his secrets, which he had carried alone for so long, had been shared.
The burden was not halved—if anything, the concern in Miwa's eyes had shown him its true contours more clearly—but it was acknowledged. It was real outside of his own skull. The constant, low hum of anxiety that had been his baseline since the awakening began to dull, replaced by a cold, sharp, and singular resolve.
The path was clear. The objective was set. The moral and physical costs were tallied and accepted. There was a brutal clarity in purpose that was almost peaceful.
He was midway through the quiet residential lanes when a figure detached itself from a shadow of a large cryptomeria tree.
"Renjiro-sama."
The voice was young, male, and carefully respectful. Renjiro stopped, his instincts instantly on alert, though his posture remained relaxed. The man who approached was in his early twenties, dressed in the standard garb of an Uchiha clansman.
The faint, familiar lines of his face triggered Renjiro's excellent memory: he had served a rotation in the Konoha Military Police under Daichi, and later, during the war, had been a reliable chunin in the Second Division's logistics corps.
A solid, unremarkable, but trustworthy clansman.
He was also way older than Renjiro, so the latter felt strange hearing the man greet him so respectfully.
"Morning," Renjiro acknowledged, his voice neutral.
The man gave a shallow, polite bow. "Apologies for interrupting your return home. I was asked to find you."
A summon. This was entirely unexpected, but Renjiro gave a slight nod.
"Daichi-sama is looking for me?" he assumed, already mentally rearranging his planned 'errands'.
The messenger shook his head, a single, swift motion.
"No, Renjiro-sama," the young man said, his voice dropping a fraction, carrying a new weight.
"Fugaku-sama wants to see you."
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