Waking up was a disappointment.
There was no white light. No sense of having crossed a threshold. There was only the smell of industrial bleach, the humming of a broken fluorescent light, and the stiff, scratchy texture of hospital linen.
Ren Yamanaka opened his eyes. Or rather, he opened his eye. His left eye was swollen shut, bruised purple from the impact of being thrown through three rooftops. His right eye (the stolen Byakugan) stared up at the ceiling tiles, counting the water stains.
Seventeen, the Tactician noted dryly in his mind. The infrastructure damage to the water mains must be severe.
Ren sat up. His body protested. Every muscle fiber felt like it had been soaked in acid—the aftereffect of channeling the massive, toxic chakra of the Nine-Tails through his own fragile network.
He looked at his hands. They were wrapped in bandages. He flexed his fingers. They moved. Good.
"You're awake," a nurse said, entering the room with a tray of water. She looked exhausted, her apron stained with dried blood that wasn't hers. "Captain… Chimera, is it? Lord Danzo requested to be notified immediately."
"Status report," Ren croaked. His throat felt like he had swallowed sand.
The nurse paused. Her face crumpled for a second before she smoothed it back into professional neutrality.
"The Nine-Tails has been resealed," she said softly. "The threat is neutralized."
"And the Fourth Hokage?" Ren asked.
The silence in the room was heavy enough to break bones.
"Dead," the nurse whispered. "And Lady Kushina. They… they died together to seal the beast."
Ren lay back against the pillow.
Minato Namikaze. The Yellow Flash. The man who moved faster than thought. Dead.
Kushina Uzumaki. The Red Hot Habanero. The last noble blood of the whirlpool. Dead.
Ren analyzed the information. Political vacuum imminent. Power struggle between Hiruzen and Danzo highly probable. Village morale collapse predicted at 90%.
He waited for the grief. He remembered Minato's kindness in the office just hours before. My door is open, Ren.
Ren searched his chest for a pang, a tear, a tightening of the throat.
Nothing. Just a dull, hollow echo.
It was working. The erasure of his childhood self in the Memory Palace had been effective. He was no longer encumbered by inefficient sentiment.
"Is there… a casualty list?" Ren asked.
The nurse pointed to a thick scroll on the side table. "It's being updated hourly. The Third Hokage—Lord Hiruzen—lost his wife, Lady Biwako. The Sarutobi clan took heavy losses."
Ren picked up the scroll. He unrolled it with bandaged fingers.
He scanned the names. Biwako Sarutobi.Daiki Sarutobi.Taichi Uchiha.Kenta Yamanaka.
Ren stopped.
Kenta Yamanaka.
His father. The man who liked gardening. The man who had looked at Ren with fear at the dinner table. The man who thought his son was a monster.
Ren stared at the characters of his father's name. He traced them with his finger.
"Dead," Ren murmured.
Civilian casualty, the Tactician categorized. Unfortunate.He was your blood, Goro rumbled deep in the Vault. You should mourn.
"I should," Ren agreed silently. "But I don't."
He thought about his mother, Hana. She was alone now. A widow in a broken house. The suffering wasn't for the dead—death was easy. Death was just the cessation of input. The suffering was for the living, the ones left to calculate the deficit.
Ren closed the scroll.
"I need to get up," Ren said, swinging his legs out of bed.
"Captain, your chakra network is fragile—" the nurse protested.
Ren looked at her with his mismatched eyes.
"I am fine," Ren lied. "The dead don't bury themselves."
—————
The Funeral
It rained. Of course it rained. In Konoha, grief was always wet.
Thousands of people stood in black mourning clothes before the portraits of the fallen. Minato's picture was draped in black ribbons, smiling eternally. Beside him, Kushina. Beside them, rows and rows of other photos.
Hiruzen Sarutobi stood at the podium. He looked ten years older than he had the day before. He spoke of the Will of Fire, of leaves falling to nourish the roots, of sacrifice.
Ren stood in the back, hidden in the Anbu ranks, wearing a fresh mask. He watched the crowd.
He saw Kakashi Hatake, standing alone, looking like a ghost haunting his own life. He saw Guy, weeping openly. He saw his mother, Hana. She was small, frail, clutching a photo of Kenta. She looked broken.
Ren didn't go to her. What would he say? "Father is dead, but don't worry, my career is advancing"?
He felt a profound disconnect. The village saw this as a tragedy. Ren saw it as a transaction. Minato bought the village's future with his life. It was a fair price.
As the ceremony ended, the bodies of the Hokage and his wife were prepared for final rites before interment. They were in the viewing tent.
Ren signaled his squad to disperse.
"I will stand the final guard," Ren told the other Anbu.
"Yes, Captain."
They left. Ren was alone in the tent with the two caskets.
He walked over to Minato's body. The Fourth Hokage looked peaceful, despite the violence of his end. There was a lingering static around him—the residue of the Reaper Death Seal.
Ren hesitated.
The Council in his head went silent. This was hallowed ground. This was the Hero of the Leaf.
Don't do it, Isamu whispered. It is desecration.It is pragmatic, Ryuichi argued. He doesn't need it anymore.
Ren placed his hand on Minato's cold forehead.
"You trusted me," Ren whispered. "You trusted the heavy soul."
Ren opened the Gate.
He didn't eat the soul—Minato's soul was gone, consumed by the Reaper. Ren couldn't touch that.
But the body… the body held the muscle memory. The residue. The chakra imprint.
Ren inhaled.
He absorbed the Flying Thunder God markers' residual formulas etched into Minato's nervous system. He absorbed the reflex speed. He absorbed the understanding of Sealing Jutsu that clung to the corpse like perfume.
It was faint—an echo of power compared to a living soul—but for Ren, it was a feast. He felt his understanding of space-time expand. He understood the math of teleportation now, even if he didn't have the markings to perform it yet.
He moved to Kushina.
Her chakra residue was stronger. The Uzumaki life force was stubborn; it lingered even in death.
Ren touched her hand.
He absorbed the Adamantine Sealing Chains theory. He absorbed the sheer vitality of her chakra nature.
When he was done, he stepped back.
He felt sick. Not physical nausea this time, but moral nausea.
He had just looted the corpses of the village's saviors. He was a scavenger picking the pockets of saints.
"Death is overestimated," Ren muttered to the silent coffins, rationalizing the horror. "You aren't using this. I am. I am still here."
He walked out of the tent.
Danzo was waiting for him under a dripping oak tree.
"I saw you go in," Danzo said. He didn't look angry. He looked vindicated.
"Paying my respects," Ren said.
"Is that what we call it now?" Danzo stepped closer. "You are colder than even I anticipated, Chimera. Did you take it?"
"Take what?"
"The legacy," Danzo said. "Minato was a genius. It would be a waste to let that genius rot in the ground."
Ren looked at the old warhawk. Danzo understood. Danzo was the only one who understood that honor was just a luxury for people who didn't have to make the hard choices.
"I learned… a few things," Ren admitted.
"Good," Danzo nodded. "Because Hiruzen is weak. He is grief-stricken. He will retake the hat, but he is a shadow of his former self. The village needs a spine, Ren. Not a bleeding heart."
Danzo gestured to the mourning crowd.
"Look at them. Crying. Wondering why this happened. Wondering if the sins of the past are hunting us."
"Are they?" Ren asked.
"Always," Danzo said. "Peace is an anomaly. War is the natural state. And now that Minato is gone, the wolves will come. Iwa, Kumo… they will smell blood."
"Then let them come," Ren said, his stolen eyes flashing beneath his mask. "I'm still hungry."
—————
The Widow's Visit
That evening, Ren went to his mother's house.
The azaleas in the hallway were dead.
Hana sat in the kitchen, staring at an empty teapot.
Ren stood in the doorway. He was still wearing his Anbu uniform, though he had taken off the armor. He looked out of place in the cozy, civilian kitchen—like a weapon left on a dinner table.
"Ren," Hana whispered. She didn't get up to hug him.
"I am sorry for your loss," Ren said. The words were script. Data.
"He asked for you," Hana said, not looking at him. "When the ceiling collapsed. He called your name."
Ren stood still.
"He was afraid," Hana continued. "He said… 'Ren was right. We are just pawns.' He died thinking you were right, Ren. That he didn't matter."
She looked up at him. Her eyes were red, swollen, and filled with a confusing mix of love and horror.
"Did you know?" she asked. "You're Anbu. Did you know the attack was coming?"
Ren could lie. He was an expert liar. He had the tongue of a Cloud spy.
"No," Ren said.
But his mother's intuition—that primal, non-chakra sensory ability—caught him.
She flinched. She saw the void in his eyes.
"You've gone so far away," she whispered. "My son is gone. Kenta is gone. I am the only one left."
Ren reached into his pocket. He pulled out an envelope thick with ryo—his hazard pay, his inheritance from dead enemies.
He placed it on the table.
"This will cover the repairs. And the funeral costs. And… whatever else you need."
"I don't need money, Ren! I need my family!" Hana screamed, sweeping the envelope off the table. Coins scattered across the floor, ringing like mocking laughter.
Ren looked at the scattered coins.
Inefficient, the Tactician noted. Emotional outburst yielding zero gain.Sad, the memory of Goro whispered. Just sad.
"I cannot give you what you want," Ren said. "I can only give you what I have."
He turned and walked out.
He walked through the rain-slicked streets. He walked past the academy where he used to be Ren the Battery. He walked past the park where he used to play with Kaito.
He arrived at the training ground.
He drew his tantō. He activated the Phantom Blade.
He began to train. He moved through the forms, slashing invisible enemies. He visualized the Nine-Tails. He visualized Minato. He visualized his father.
He cut them all down.
He trained until his hands bled, until his chakra drained, until the physical pain was loud enough to drown out the silence where his soul used to be.
He had gained power from the dead. But as he stood panting in the mud, alone in the dark, Ren realized the ultimate irony.
He was the strongest shinobi in his generation.
And he had never been more disposable.
End of chapter 16.