Two days later, the store bell rang just before dawn. Yuki rushed toward the door, while Ren became alert, sensing soon after a familiar Chakra...
"Toshiro!"
Ren ran downstairs, finding his father supported by a teammate. A bloody bandage wrapped around his abdomen, but he was alive. He was back.
"I'm sorry to have worried you", Toshiro said with a tired smile as they helped him sit up.
"You were lucky," said his teammate. "Others didn't make it."
As his mother tended to his wounds, Ren stood beside them, a strange feeling in his chest. It was no longer the detachment of the early days, when he saw them as mere characters in a story. In some moments, without his realizing it, these "strangers" were becoming his family.
'How ironic,' he thought, observing his mother gently scolding his father as she changed his bandages. 'I have been reincarnated in the most ruthless village in the big five countries, and instead of getting tougher, I find myself ... feeling affection.'
"Hey, little champion," his father's voice brought him back to the present. "They've given me two weeks of enforced rest. Looks like I'll be able to accompany you on your first day at the academy after all."
That night, as everyone slept, Ren got up to drink water. Muted voices came from the kitchen.
"...The War is becoming serious," his father was saying.
"What about the council?" His mother's voice was strained.
"Divided. Some want to keep fighting, but..." A pause. "There is talk of possible peace talks. With the Yellow Lightning out there, nobody would expected another genius like this in Konoha "
Ren clutched his glass of water. Events were moving quickly. The incident of Rin, the rise of Yagura, the impending end of the war... everything was converging toward that turning point that would turn Kirigakure into the Bloody Mist.
'But this time,' he thought as he returned to his room, 'I am not just an observer. This time I have a family to protect.'
He paused in front of the window, watching the fog enveloping the village. It was strange how fate had a sense of humor all its own: sending him right here, right now, to this family. And instead of hardening him, it was making him more human.
'Maybe,' he reflected as he went back to bed, 'that's the whole point.
The days that separated him from the start of the academy now seemed more meaningful than ever. He wasn't just preparing to become a ninja - he was preparing to protect something precious.