The twin spectres of emerald and silver dissolved not with a bang, but with two simultaneous, sighing detonations of displaced chakra—a deep whumpf from the green and a sharper crack-zing from the silver.
As the Shadow Clones dispersed, their experiences—the strain of maintaining the colossal constructs, the unique sensory feedback from each Mangekyo—slammed back into Renjiro's mind and body like a tidal wave.
He stumbled, a sharp gasp tearing from his throat. The world tilted; the star-dusted sky swirled above him. His knees buckled, and he threw out a hand, palm scraping against the rough, cold bedrock to steady himself.
A fierce, throbbing ache bloomed behind his eyes, a familiar companion from overuse, but deeper now, laced with the strange dissonance of having wielded two fundamentally different powers at once.
His chakra pathways felt scorched, stretched thin. From his kneeling position, a weak, breathy laugh escaped him, the sound thin and stolen by the wind.
'Always pushing too far. Always dancing right on the edge of the cliff.'
The self-reproach was there, but so was a thread of grim satisfaction. He had seen them. He had commanded them.
He stayed there for a long minute, head bowed, listening to the hammering of his own heart gradually slow to match the rhythm of the eternal wind.
Finally, he pushed himself upright, his body feeling both heavy and hollow. He looked at the empty space where the Susanoo had stood, the plateau now scarred with fresh, radiating cracks from their manifestation.
"The Perfect Form is still… a mountain away," he admitted aloud, his voice raspy.
The words were for no one but the stars and the drifting silence. Internally, his assessment was more clinical.
'The Eternal Mangekyo is the key. This chakra reservoir, even with the Uzumaki vitality, isn't bottomless. It's not… tailed-beast level.'
The thought intrigued him, shifting from limitation to measurement. How far was he from that legendary tier of endurance? How many of him would it take to equal the raging sea of chakra contained within a single Bijuu? It was a dangerous line of thought, the kind that led to arrogance or despair.
He gave voice to the curiosity, the words barely a whisper. "I need a reference point."
To compare his chakra to a tempest made flesh. To stand near a Jinchuriki and feel the oceanic pressure of their sealed tenant, not as a threat, but as a metric.
The casual nature of the thought gave him a moment's pause, a flicker of unease. Since when did he think of apocalyptic entities as measuring sticks? He filed the notion away, a problem for another, even more perilous day.
The immediate problem was more mundane. With a sigh that misted in the freezing air, he formed the hand seal once more.
"Puff."
A final Shadow Clone materialised, its features etched with a shared weariness. No words were needed. Renjiro sat back on the cold stone, tilting his head back.
The clone's hands, glowing with precise medical chakra, approached his face. The process of reversing the transplant was just as clinical, but now underscored by a deep, bone-tired fatigue.
The cool, foreign pressure of the six-pointed star eyes was removed; the familiar, almost organic warmth of his original tri-wheel Mangekyo was restored.
As the connection re-seated, a wave of profound exhaustion washed over him, deeper than any physical training. It was a neural, spiritual drain.
The clone dispelled, its brief existence ending. Renjiro remained seated, muttering to the emptiness, "This is becoming… unsustainable."
The back-and-forth, the jar, the delicate surgery on himself—it was a stopgap, a crutch. His mind, seeking any escape from the tedious, exhausting solution, danced briefly down a darker, more efficient path.
He imagined it: the pale, potent cells of the First Hokage, entrusted to Kushina for safekeeping. The forbidden research of Danzo Shimura. A graft, not a transplant.
Implanting the spare eyes into a prepared, external medium—an arm, a separate construct—linked directly to his chakra system via Hashirama's vitality. He could have them active, on call, without ever opening his own sockets.
The image was clear, technically plausible, and utterly revolting.
A full-body shudder, unrelated to the cold, wracked him. "No," he said, the word firm. "Too grotesque."
A darker, more flippant reason followed, masking the deep-seated horror. "It would ruin my aesthetics."
He wasn't Danzo. He wouldn't become a patchwork monster of stolen power. The path might be longer, but he would walk it in his own skin.
With deliberate care, he placed the six-pointed Mangekyo eyes back into their preservative fluid, sealed the ceramic jar, and then sealed the jar itself into a complex storage scroll on his forearm. The past was once more secured. The clone was gone. He was, finally and completely, alone.
The wind bit at him, a reminder that this was a place for action, not rest. But action had reached its limit. Force had revealed form, but not function. Now came the harder work.
Renjiro shifted into the lotus position, his back straight, palms resting on his knees. He closed his eyes, shutting out the breathtaking, distracting vista of the floating islands and the infinite starfield. His breathing deepened, slowed, each inhalation a conscious draw of the thin, cold air, each exhalation a release of tension. He focused inward, past the ache in his muscles, past the lingering buzz in his chakra network.
Behind his closed eyelids, he activated his Mangekyo Sharingan. Not for sight, but for connection. A faint, crimson glow seeped through his eyelids, painting his focused face in a soft, bloody light. His intent was a blade, sharp and clear:
'Break the block. Understand the silence. What are you?'
Meditation, the true, deep kind, had never truly been his forte. He was a creature of motion, of calculation, of applied force. Stillness was a battleground. Immediately, his mind rebelled. It was a cacophony of echoes: the screaming chaos of the war, the visceral thrill of the Susanoo's power, the hollow ache of Hiro's absence, Fugaku's politically charged offer, the green fire of Jaaku no Jōmetsu, the cold weight of the jar. Each thought was a hook, dragging him back to the surface of his own consciousness.
'I should be able to see it. I should be able to command it. What is the second pair's purpose? Why won't you show me?'
Frustration, hot and sharp, boiled up. His breath hitched. The crimson glow behind his eyelids flickered. He was trying to batter down a mental wall with the same force he used to summon a Susanoo, and it was just as ineffective. He needed a different approach. Not a battering ram, but a key.
Gritting his teeth, he reached into his pouch. His fingers closed around a small, hard pellet—a standard soldier pill. He placed it on his tongue. He swallowed.
The effect was instantaneous and violent. A furnace ignited in his gut. Raw, unfiltered chakra flooded his system, a scalding river through his already stressed pathways. It was power, a jolt that made his nerves scream.
But he didn't channel it outward. He didn't move a muscle. Instead, he used the surge as an anchor, a brilliant, painful lighthouse in the storm of his own thoughts. He focused every ounce of his will on containing it, on cycling the violent energy not into jutsu, but into a controlled, deliberate loop within his core.
The pain was a focusing lens. The chaotic mental noise was drowned out by the very real, physical imperative to control the eruption inside him. His breathing, which had grown ragged, forcibly evened out. In. Out. Each cycle pulled the wild chakra into the rhythm. The heat spread, but it was a contained heat now, a forge-fire rather than a wildfire.
Slowly, the world outside—the feel of the rock, the sound of the wind, the chill of the air—began to fade. The intrusive thoughts lost their sharp edges, becoming distant, wispy things, like clouds seen from a great height.
The brilliant, painful anchor of the soldier pill's chakra smoothed into a steady, thrumming glow at his centre. His own chakra stabilised around it, a calm sea surrounding a powerful, dormant engine.
His breathing became so slow, so shallow, it was nearly undetectable. The faint crimson glow from behind his eyelids winked out. His posture remained perfect, but all conscious tension left him.
He hovered on a knife's edge—not asleep, not truly unconscious, but submerged in a deep, chakra-fed trance so profound it was indistinguishable from oblivion.
The analytical mind was quiet. The frustrated shinobi was absent. Only the raw, seeking consciousness remained, adrift in the inner space where his Mangekyo's secrets were locked away.
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