The mist of Kirigakure was an unnatural, almost blood-red color. Familiar streets twisted into impossible shapes, while shadows moved predatorily through the alleys. The chakra in the air was thick, corrupted, as if the city itself were bleeding.
A figure materialized in the mist: Jun'ko, her usual bright eyes now cold and distant. Her hands formed seals Ren knew all too well, but this time the genjutsu wasn't directed at an enemy.
"I'm sorry, Ren," she whispered, her voice strangely distorted. "But some secrets must remain buried."
The illusion tightened around him like a vice. Through the distortion, he saw Aoi methodically writing down his every weakness on a bloody scroll, his usual clinical precision now terrifying in its efficiency.
"The village must know," Aoi murmured, adjusting his glasses that reflected a crimson Sharingan. "Every detail, every limitation..."
The scene shifted, fluid like poisoned water. Her mother's shop was ablaze, smoke mixing with reddish fog. Shinji emerged from the shadows, his trademark sleepy smile transformed into a mask of calculated cruelty.
"The Karatachi clan serves a new master now," he said, coral crystals tinged red. "And you are a threat to the new order."
Yukiko appeared at his side, her ice no longer protecting, but trapping. "Did you really think you could change anything?" Her tone was as cold as the ice chains forming around her arms.
A hollow laugh rang out through the fog—a laugh distorted by a spiraling orange mask. And then Yuki, his mother, falling betrayed by those who had sworn to protect her, her eyes pleading with her son as...
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Ren awoke with a start, his heart pounding against his rib cage. The sun was already high in the sky, its light filtering through the window of his room as if to reassure him that it had only been a dream.
He rose slowly from the bed, his body responding with an unexpected fluidity. Where he usually felt the rigidity of his muscles under constant strain, he now felt a sort of almost forgotten lightness. His movements, normally calculated to compensate for the constant weight of his equipment, flowed with a naturalness that surprised him.
'The body is responding positively to rest,' he noted with clinical detachment, but his mind struggled to focus on the analysis. The echoes of the nightmare persisted, coloring every thought with dark hues. The images of his comrades' treacherous faces continued to overlap with reality, like a genjutsu that refused to dissolve completely.
He performed a few test movements, noting how his reflexes were sharper, more precise. But there was something wrong with the way his chakra flowed - not a physical problem, but an instability that arose from deeper within.
'The stress has been building up gradually,' he realized as he watched his hands tremble almost imperceptibly. 'Like poison in a body, so subtle that it goes unnoticed until it reaches critical levels.'
The episode the day before with Jun'ko and Aoi hadn't been a simple outburst - it had been the symptom of a deeper pressure that he had ignored for too long. His overreaction was the warning his subconscious had been trying to send him through the nightmare.
He sat in the lotus position. 'Meditation is not just a technique of concentration,' he mused, 'but a tool for maintaining balance between body and mind. I have neglected that aspect, focusing only on physical progress.'
His thoughts kept returning to Jun'ko and Aoi. The way she had reacted had been more than a simple tactical distancing - it had been a moment of true loss of control. And for someone who relied on constant control for survival, this realization was deeply disturbing.
'These are valuable resources,' he told himself, trying to analyze the situation with his usual clinical coldness, but the images of the nightmare kept intruding on his thoughts. 'Aoi's medical ninjutsu, Jun'ko's genjutsu... but they are also potential weaknesses. And in this village, weaknesses can become fatal wounds.'
The sun continued to rise in the Kirigakure sky, its light filtering through the fog like a silent warning: some decisions could not be postponed any longer. There would be no training today—his body and mind required a different kind of attention.
Takeshi's forge radiated its usual intense heat as Ren stepped through the door. The old blacksmith looked up from his work, his hammer pausing in midair, his practiced eyes studying the young visitor. "You look different today, young Mizutani," Takeshi observed, his voice rough.
Ren remained silent, but a spark of anticipation lit up in his eyes as he watched Takeshi walk toward the corner where the swords were stored. The images of the nightmare lingered in his mind, but the sight of the blades—the culmination of weeks of planning and preparation—momentarily dispelled the shadows of his fears.
"You have the enthusiasm of a cat in a fish tank," Takeshi said with a knowing smile, noting the subtle change in the boy's demeanor.
Ren approached the workbench, his control mask faltering slightly as he reached for the first sword. The weight almost took him by surprise—it was massive, challenging, perfect. For a moment, the sheer satisfaction of seeing his project materialize outweighed even the pain of the burn and the weight of his worries.
'Even heavier than I imagined,' he thought with a mixture of appreciation and excitement. His mind was already calculating the training potential as he pulled out the containment scroll.
"I'll put them away for now," he said, his tone betraying a hint of genuine appreciation as he performed the seals. The swords disappeared in a cloud of smoke, their weight temporarily dissolved but their promise fresh in his mind.
"What happened to all that excitement?" Takeshi asked, his piercing gaze trying to read past the complex interplay of emotions on his young client's face. "The other day you looked like you were ready to lift mountains."
Ren composed himself.
"I don't feel so good today," he replied in a measured voice. "I'll examine them more carefully later, at my leisure." The words were measured, but there was a spark of anticipation in his eyes that he hadn't entirely managed to hide.
Takeshi studied him in silence, his trained gaze registering every little tension, every little hesitation. A flash of understanding passed through his eyes—the kind of understanding that comes from decades of watching people struggle with weights far heavier than mere metal.
He said nothing more.
Some questions don't need to be asked, some answers don't need to be given.
Kurara watched from her seat, her eyes not missing a single detail of the scene unfolding before her. "You look weird today," she said as she walked him out the door, her voice mingling curiosity with a hint of concern.
That word—"weird"—rang in Ren's mind as he walked away into the fog. It wasn't the first time he'd heard it, but today it carried a different burden.
[ Hi there, Ito-kun here, just a few words, as I said before I want to show a more human side of the protagonist compared to other novels, and with human I also mean the three thousand thoughts that happen every day in our mind, that said, we must also consider the context in which Ren is located, that is not in the almost-peaceful village of Konoha but in one of the bloodiest villages known in the world of Naruto, among other things crossed by many tragedies, so what you are seeing is my introspection of how a normal person like me or you could feel if he lived in that village, in that timeline.]