7 Months Passed
Seasons shifted in the Ninja World, but the weather in the Land of Rain remained unchanged. The grey skies still wept their endless drizzle over Amegakure.
Yet, that was the only thing that hadn't changed.
Seven months after joining the Alliance, the hollowed-out ghost town had transformed into a booming commercial metropolis. The starving populace had been replaced by a chaotic hum of life. Scaffolding clung to the metallic towers as shops and houses were rapidly repaired. Down on the wet pavement, the streets were packed with foreign merchants from all corners of the elemental nations, wrapped in brightly colored raincoats, eagerly buying factory goods. And wherever the merchants went, mercenary escorts from various villages followed.
High above the bustling streets, inside the dimly lit office of the village's figurehead, Konan pushed open the heavy iron doors.
Hanzō of the Salamander sat perfectly still behind his desk — a lifeless corpse maintained solely for appearances. Konan walked past the desk, carrying a container with hot food, as Nagato emerged silently from a hidden side room. He took the container from her hands, his Rinnegan catching the dim light.
"How are the repairs and factory constructions progressing?" Nagato asked, taking a calm bite of his meal.
"The factory retrofitting has been completely halted for the last five days," Konan replied, her jaw tightening. "Ren left for the Land of Rice Fields. He claimed he had an 'incredibly urgent matter' to attend to and couldn't possibly miss it."
Nagato paused, noticing the lid of the food container slowly crinkling under Konan's tightening grip. "You look troubled, Konan. What else happened?"
"They are taking too much profit," she said, her voice laced with frustration.
Nagato looked at her with the detached expression of a man who had achieved profound enlightenment. He carried his food to the window, looking down at the thriving city below.
"See, Konan, not everything can be measured in profit," Nagato reasoned mildly. "We must take into consideration how much Ren provides for this Alliance. We have absorbed the Land of Rivers, the Land of Grass, and the Land of Waterfalls. Ren provides the salaries for the shinobi guarding those borders. He supplies the raw materials. He drafts the factory blueprints. Amegakure has received a great deal from him."
Konan stared at Nagato's back as if he had just sprouted a second head.
"Have you even read the trade and profit distribution reports I leave on your desk?" Konan asked, her tone entirely flat.
"I have been quite busy," Nagato deflected smoothly. "Organizing the integration of Grass and Rivers took time. I also had to personally recruit the Land of Waterfalls. It is a highly strategic location, and Kakuzu required... convincing."
Konan frowned. "I understand the Waterfalls' strategic value, but who is Kakuzu?"
"Our newest recruit," Nagato said. "A rogue ninja from Takigakure. He fought the First Hokage and survived. He is undoubtedly Kage-level in strength."
"And?"
"And," Nagato continued, "he was the one intercepting our cargo shipments and fencing them on the black market. So, I paid him a visit. Now, he manages and maintains the circulating cargo routes between the Alliance countries."
Konan filed Kakuzu away for later. She aggressively steered the conversation back to the finances.
"Ren does not pay as many salaries as you think," Konan pointed out sharply. "Most of the Alliance's shinobi are being directly commissioned by the merchants. You and Ren made it mandatory that any merchant who declines an Alliance ninja escort faces a fifteen percent tariff markup on their goods. The merchants are paying our military for us."
She stepped closer to the window. "Furthermore, our borders are open to global trade. We only need a fraction of the shinobi force for standard patrols. And do you know what the single most exported item in the Alliance is? Healing Tags. We don't see a single Ryo of profit from those, because they are manufactured exclusively in the Land of Rice Fields."
Nagato listened to the financial breakdown without a shift in his expression. The economics simply didn't bother him.
"Let it be, Konan," Nagato said softly. "If it were not for Ren Uchiha, the Land of Rain would still be starving in the dark." He turned away from the window, his purple eyes meeting hers. "Tell me... what do you think of his solution to the cycle of hatred?"
The Land of Rice Fields
Hundreds of miles away, the "incredibly urgent matter" that had completely halted Amegakure's industrial sector was currently wearing a conical paper hat.
Inside the Daimyo's mansion, a dozen refugee children crowded around a long dining table. In the center sat a massive cake. Ren stood at the head of the table with a knife.
Kaori struck a match, carefully lighting the last wick, and stepped back. "Alright, Ren. Blow them out."
Ren didn't lean forward. He counted them. Exactly sixteen.
He looked up at his mother. "Mom. Shouldn't there be twenty-four candles?"
Kaori didn't miss a beat. She stepped right up to him, grabbed both of his cheeks, and pulled hard enough to make him wince. "Look at yourself in a mirror, Ren. Do you really look like a twenty-four-year-old man?"
Without letting go of his face, she turned him toward the crowd of giggling kids. "Children. What do you think his age is?"
"No way!" the kids shouted in unison. "Big bro Ren is just a few years older than us!"
Ren wanted to point out that he was, in fact, considerably older than he looked. He stayed quiet instead — there was no version of this argument he'd ever won.
He rubbed his sore cheeks.
Satoshi simply smiled. "Ren, you better blow those candles out before they melt into the cake. I'm already hungry."
Defeated, Ren blew out the sixteen candles. The room erupted into applause, and the children rushed forward to hand him their gifts — clumsily wrapped, hand-drawn cards expressing their absolute adoration for Ren.
Hours later, the mansion finally grew quiet.
Ren lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling. In his previous life on Earth, he had never experienced anything like this. He had been alone. Now, he had everything he could have ever wished for.
He closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking down into his inner world.
The vast, ethereal space looked the same as always. Ren looked up at the Glowing Tree. The branches hadn't moved in weeks. The Quincy Branch was stuck at eighty-four percent — one measly point short of the number that actually mattered. The Hollow Branch hovered at fifty-six. The Shinigami Branch was still just a faint, pulsing glow, in no hurry to unlock anytime soon.
He had a hunch — the same one he'd been carrying for a while now — that once Quincy finally crossed eighty-five, whatever was keeping him locked out of his parents' techniques would open along with it. So far, all he'd ever managed was to analyze their eyes. Never to use what they saw.
Take his father's left eye. Ren understood the mechanics well enough — it didn't cross distance so much as erase it, folding the space between two points down to nothing. He could describe exactly how it worked. He still couldn't do it.
The right eye was worse. Even Satoshi didn't fully understand that one, not after almost nine years of carrying it. What Ren had managed to piece together was this: his father could, somehow, already know the next minute before it arrived — not predict it, know it, the way a person knows something they've already lived through. As if information were traveling backward, from a minute in the future into a present that hadn't caught up to it yet. Ren had turned the thought over more times than he cared to count and still hadn't landed anywhere solid.
His mother's pair weren't any easier. One eye let her drop someone into genjutsu without ever meeting their gaze — and not just one person at a time, either; she could hold a dozen under it at once if she felt like it. The other was the one that actually unsettled him. Somehow, impossibly, it let her take a wound and turn it into a dream. Even Kaori admitted she hadn't come close to understanding the full shape of what it could do.
My progress has flatlined, Ren thought, letting the numbers sit there in front of him. I haven't pushed myself lately. I haven't fought anyone worth the name.
He lacked the motivation to push his limits because the external pressure was gone. He genuinely didn't believe there was anyone left in the ninja world who could truly challenge him right now.
With a soft, contented exhale, Ren let his consciousness drift out of the inner space, sinking into a deep, dreamless sleep.
The Mansion Rooftop
High above Ren's bedroom, the midnight air was cool and crisp.
Satoshi sat on the roof, looking out over the sleeping city. Kaori lay quietly with her head resting in his lap, the warmth of the birthday party giving way to a heavy, solemn silence.
"Did Ren go to sleep?" Satoshi asked softly, stroking her hair.
"He's asleep," Kaori murmured.
She reached up, her fingers gripping Satoshi's hand tightly. Her dark eyes reflected the moonlight.
"The message," Kaori said, her voice dropping to a whisper. "Are you sure it was from the Uchiha clan? Could it be a trap set by Konoha?"
Satoshi looked out toward the distant, unseen borders of the Land of Fire.
"It's from the Uchiha," Satoshi confirmed, his voice grave. "I investigated, and it wasn't difficult to sneak my shadow clone into Konoha. My clone didn't meet with the Uchiha clan, but it is confirmed that their situation is dire."
"So, should we meet them?" asked Kaori.