Ronin reappeared on the rooftop of a residential building.
Snap.
The lightning crackling around his body shattered and vanished into thin air. His breathing was heavy and ragged.
Omokage really had set a massive trap. However, during the brief skirmish, Ronin realized something important: there were no other Phantom Troupe members around.
Was Omokage working alone?
Ronin pulled the jar containing the Scarlet Eyes from his backpack.
He carefully removed the eyes he had taken from the Nobunaga puppet. He could feel a distinct pull—a sensation of absorption. That confirmed it: these were real. They weren't fakes created by Kortopi.
Ronin cast a Transformation Jutsu to conceal the jar on his back, climbed down from the roof, and headed back to the hotel. Only once he was inside did he finally let out a breath of relief.
He filled Kurapika in on the situation and placed the jar on the table.
When Kurapika saw the eyes floating in the preservative fluid, he froze. His own eyes instantly turned the same shade of scarlet as the ones in the jar.
Ronin sighed. He didn't absorb them immediately. Instead, he gave Kurapika some space to be with his kin's remains.
Ronin sat down and entered a state of Zetsu to rapidly recover his stamina, his mind already working on how to handle the church.
Kurapika didn't stay inside the room for too long. Ronin had barely closed his eyes when the door opened. Kurapika stepped out, carrying the jar.
His eyes were still slightly red—not the scarlet of his ability, but the natural redness that comes after crying.
"Here, Ronin," Kurapika said, handing the jar over with a serious expression. "We have more important things to do. You need to get stronger fast. That's the only way we can guarantee our revenge."
Ronin took the jar. He didn't go off to absorb it in private; instead, he held the container right there in front of Kurapika and infused his aura into it.
The moment Ronin's aura touched the Scarlet Eyes, they reacted as if summoned. Slowly, they dissolved into a warm, crimson stream of energy visible even to someone without Nen.
The red energy flowed along Ronin's aura, merging into his body and converging toward his eyes.
As Ronin's aura settled, the red warmth continued to circulate through him. Unknowingly, his pitch-black eyes began to change.
They turned a deep crimson. Two black tomoe spun, and then, under Kurapika's watchful gaze, a third tomoe slowly formed.
When the red stream finally faded, Ronin's eyes had fully evolved into the three-tomoe Sharingan.
Kurapika watched the entire process in awe. Ronin hadn't lied to him. Perhaps because Ronin was there during the massacre, the spirits of the clan had entrusted their hopes to him.
Kurapika didn't cry this time. He just looked at Ronin with a complicated mix of emotions.
---
The boost in aura capacity didn't double his total this time.
According to Millia's calculations, fusing with this pair of eyes increased his capacity by about 5,000 units.
It seemed 5,000 was the max yield per pair. Subsequent fusions likely wouldn't trigger a multiplier effect anymore.
Excluding his and Kurapika's own eyes, there were 32 pairs left. If each gave him 5,000 units, the total potential gain was 160,000.
And that was just from the eyes.
Ronin was still training daily, and he was currently in a rapid growth phase. He couldn't help but wonder just how high his ceiling would go.
For now, with the new fusion, his reserves were hovering around 15,000.
B-Rank Jutsu felt much easier to handle now. As for A-Rank...
Ronin kept his Sharingan active. He raised his hands and wove a sequence of signs. Immediately, a green glow of chakra coated his palms.
The Mystical Palm Technique.
It was an A-Rank medical ninjutsu—high cost, high difficulty, but incredible healing power for both internal and external injuries.
And yet, with the third pair of eyes, he had executed it effortlessly.
It felt almost too easy, giving Ronin a sense of unreality.
If the third pair unlocked A-Rank, would the fourth unlock S-Rank? And what came after S-Rank?
Ronin couldn't imagine it yet, but as long as he kept collecting the eyes, he'd find out eventually.
Right now, he needed to focus on his A-Rank arsenal.
The most useful one for their current situation was a sensory jutsu he had been thinking about for a while.
The Telescope Technique—the same one the Third Hokage used to spy on Naruto.
To use it, he needed a crystal ball, which he could buy at a department store.
The second condition was that he needed to know the target's chakra signature.
Luckily, Ronin had already made contact with Omokage's aura when he handled the Nobunaga puppet's head.
Ronin told Kurapika he was heading out, transformed his appearance, and left the hotel again.
Combat-oriented ninjutsu consumed more energy as the complexity increased.
Even if Ronin had "unlocked" permission to use A-Rank Jutsu, executing them was still difficult. Without enough power, the result might be weak or totally ineffective.
It all came down to aura.
Always aura.
If I can unlock S-Rank, Ronin thought, I can access Tsunade's Yin Seal.
A technique that allowed him to store chakra over time and release it when needed would be a godsend. It was practically a cheat code.
Especially if he could eventually master the Strength of a Hundred Seal and Creation Rebirth. Those were S-Rank forbidden techniques. Paired with the Yin Seal, they were the perfect combination.
After buying a crystal ball from the department store, Ronin hurried back to the hotel.
He set up the ball and activated the Telescope Technique. Images flickered rapidly across the glass surface.
Ronin manipulated the view, scrolling inch by inch until he found the puppet's trail near the location of their earlier fight.
However, as he tried to track the puppet further, he hit a wall. The Telescope Technique currently only had a range of about half a mile (1 kilometer).
The church was roughly two miles (3 kilometers) from their hotel.
"Looks like we need to move," Ronin said, packing up the crystal ball.
Kurapika grabbed Neon, who had just woken up and looked completely out of it.
The three of them went downstairs and piled into a used sedan Ronin had bought. They began driving slowly toward the church.
Neon stared out the window. She had completely lost the will to escape.
Earlier that morning, she'd seen a news report involving her.
It covered her kidnapping by Ronin, but the focus was on her father, Light Nostrade. He didn't seem to care at all. He was busy attending social galas.
The photo in the paper showed him arm-in-arm with a woman barely older than Neon, laughing and drinking at a high-end club.
It was obvious. Her father had abandoned her. She was a liability.
If that was the case, she might as well stick with Ronin and Kurapika. If she died because of her own prophecy, well... maybe leaving this world alongside them wasn't the worst way to go.
Besides, Ronin had given her a pretty interesting collectible to hold onto.