Chapter 95: The Price of a Miracle
The soft, life-giving green glow of the Mystical Palm Technique pulsed under Ren's hand, but the pallor on Inari's face remained, a death-mask painted in wax. The boy's breathing was a shallow, desperate flutter against the rising tide of shock. It was a holding action, not a cure.
[Tobirama Senju: As I said. The bucket has a hole. You can polish it all you like.]
Ren's mental voice was a cold, focused point in the psychic storm of outrage and pleading. Hashirama. The child dies. Konoha's reputation dies with him. Naruto's future is ashes. All for the sake of hoarding a technique in a realm where you have no use for it. Is that the legacy of the First Hokage? A miser of miracles?
The guilt-trip was layered, expertly applied. Konoha's honor. Minato's son. The innocent life. He wielded them like scalpels.
[Hashirama Senju: You… you manipulate with the tools of my own heart.]
I use the tools you gave me, Ren shot back. The Will of Fire isn't a museum piece. It's supposed to burn, to protect. Let it burn here. Now.
A profound, weary sigh echoed through the stream, the sound of an idealist facing a brutal pragmatist and seeing no clean way out.
[Hashirama Senju: …Very well. But know this, Ren Arakawa. 'Creation Rebirth' is not a gift. It is a covenant with life itself. It demands a price. Use it recklessly, and it will consume you from the inside out. My own cells… they burned too brightly, for too long.]
The confession was quiet, shocking in its implication. The legendary God of Shinobi hadn't fallen in battle or to betrayal. He had been eaten alive by his own healing power.
[Tobirama Senju: BROTHER!]
[Hashirama Senju: It's the truth, Tobirama. The vitality… it wasn't infinite. I traded years for moments, over and over. Remember how I aged, near the end? It wasn't just stress.]
Ren absorbed this, filing the crucial information away. A technique that traded lifespan for regeneration. A double-edged sword of the sharpest kind. Understood. Now hurry. The price is about to become permanent.
[System Alert: Donation Received! Senju Hashirama has donated 'Creation Rebirth – Kōton: Jukai Kōtan' (Wood Release: Advent of a World of Flowering Trees) – S-Rank Regenerative Kekkei Mōra! Conditional Limiter: Lifespan Expenditure on Overuse Applied.]
The knowledge flooded in, complex and profound. It wasn't just a hand seal and chakra flow; it was a philosophy of biology, a forced negotiation with the body's own cellular clock. Ren felt the staggering cost humming at the edge of the technique's pattern. He could use it, yes. But every major activation would be a withdrawal from a finite bank of his own future.
"Thank you for your generosity, First Hokage-sama," Ren murmured aloud, for Kakashi's benefit. Then he focused.
The green chakra around his hand intensified, but its nature changed. The pure, healing light of the Mystical Palm was infiltrated by something deeper, more primordial. Faint, almost imaginary motes of light—the ghostly echo of pollen, the memory of spring growth—seemed to emanate from his palm and sink into Inari's chest. It wasn't the world-shattering bloom of Hashirama's power. It was a controlled, focused infusion.
The effect was nonetheless dramatic.
The awful, draining pallor receded from Inari's face like a tide going out, replaced by a flush of healthy pink. His shallow breaths hitched, then deepened, filling his lungs with a strength that had been absent moments before. The weak, thready pulse under Ren's fingers solidified, becoming a strong, steady rhythm. The bleeding, which had been a slow seep, stopped utterly.
Chiyo-nee gasped, a hand pressed to her mouth. Tazuna slumped against the wall, tears of sheer relief carving paths through the grime on his cheeks. The oppressive dread in the room shattered.
Ren withdrew his hand, the light fading. He stood, and a subtle wave of fatigue washed over him—not just chakra depletion, but a deeper, more existential tiredness. A small price, for now. A minute of his future, perhaps, traded for a child's present.
"He needs rest. Fluids. Iron. He'll be weak, but he'll live," Ren announced, his voice calm.
The sheer force of the reprieve left everyone momentarily speechless.
Kakashi was the first to recover, his Sharingan—which had been active, recording every impossible nuance—slowly spinning down. "That was… Creation Rebirth. The First Hokage's technique. You used the Mystical Palm as a conduit, distributing the regenerative chakra systematically. A hybrid application I've never seen or even read about."
Ren offered a thin smile. "What can I say? I'm a quick study. Saw it in a scroll once."
"A scroll," Kakashi repeated, his tone flat. "The First Hokage's personal, S-rank, kekkei mōra, life-trading forbidden technique… was in a scroll you 'saw once.'"
"The Forbidden Scroll is very comprehensive," Ren said with a shrug, the picture of innocent nonchalance. "Lots of interesting things in there. You'd be surprised."
[Tobirama Senju: YOU UNREPENTANT LIAR! YOU'RE GOING TO BLAME MY BROTHER'S LIFE'S WORK ON A SCRAP OF PAPER I WROTE A THOUSAND YEARS AGO?!]
It's a convenient narrative, Ren thought back, unrepentant. No one living has read the whole scroll. It's the perfect catch-all. Learned a weird jutsu? Forbidden Scroll. Know a secret history? Forbidden Scroll. Ate the last dumpling? Probably something in the Scroll about metabolic optimization.
[Uchiha Izuna: The sheer, brazen gall of it… I'm almost impressed.]
Kakashi stared at Ren for a long moment, then shook his head, a dry chuckle escaping him. It was either that or start screaming. "Right. The Scroll. Of course." He decided to file it under 'Ren Arakawa: Unfathomable, Do Not Question Too Closely.' It was becoming a large file. "Regardless… you saved his life. And possibly our mission."
He turned to the sniffling, grateful family. "He should sleep through the night. We'll maintain a watch. The threat hasn't passed."
The reminder was necessary. The warm, life-affirming moment was just that—a moment. Outside, the mist still clung, and in it, a colder, sharper presence had witnessed everything. A team that could recover from a critical medical emergency in minutes was a different kind of problem for an assassin.
As Kakashi and Ren moved to take up positions by the windows, the Pure Land chat continued to buzz.
[Minato Namikaze: He did it! He really did it! Thank you, Ren! Thank you, Lord First!]
[Kushina Uzumaki: Sobbing but happy noises My boy isn't a murderer… thank you…]
[Hashirama Senju: Use it wisely, Ren. Remember the cost. My path… led to an early grave. Do not follow it too closely.]
[Uchiha Madara: A transaction. A life for knowledge. The world functions on such exchanges. Your sentimentality always blinded you to the simplicity of the market, Hashirama.]
[Hashirama Senju: There is no market for a child's breath, Madara. Only grace.]
Ren tuned them out. He stood at the window, looking into the featureless grey. His senses stretched out. The cold presence was still there. Closer now. Curious. Assessing the healer.
Good, Ren thought, his fingers tracing the edge of a Hiraishin kunai at his belt. Come and assess. Get a little closer. Let's see how your ice handles a surgical strike it can't predict.
The night's peace was an illusion. The real game had just entered a new, more dangerous phase. And Ren had just paid a piece of his own future for the right to keep playing.