"The False Jinchuriki." Renjiro didn't visibly react beyond a slight tightening of his jaw. He stood perfectly still, his dark eyes fixed on a point somewhere beyond Kushina's shoulder, the vibrant red of her hair and the intricate seals blurring into a backdrop. Internally, the name echoed, bouncing off the walls of his carefully constructed composure.
"False Jinchuriki…" he murmured again, the syllables tasting strange, foreign, yet somehow inevitable on his tongue.
Kushina watched him, her earlier amusement fading into curiosity. The playful smirk softened.
"What's the matter?" she asked, tilting her head, fiery strands escaping her messy bun.
"Don't like it? Sounds pretty impressive to me."
Renjiro's gaze snapped back to hers, sharp and intense.
"Why?" The word was clipped, edged with a rare flash of irritation. "Why in the hell would they saddle me with that name?"
Kushina couldn't help it. A bright, genuine laugh burst from her, echoing in the room, momentarily dispelling the lingering tension of their earlier conversation about her burden.
"Pfft! Hahaha!" She wiped a non-existent tear from her eye.
"Renjiro, you idiot!" She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table scattered with half-finished barrier seals.
"Let me spell it out for you, since your brain seems to be malfunctioning."
She held up a finger. "Reason one: You went toe-to-toe with two Jinchurikis and you're standing here complaining about nicknames." She raised a second finger.
"Reason two: You didn't just survive. Reports say you pressed them. You held the line against forces that level mountains."
A third finger joined the others. "And reason three, the real kicker that cemented the name: You almost killed them. Not just inconvenienced, not just held off. Shinobi coming back from that area swear they saw you moments away from landing killing blows before situations changed. You fought with the raw, devastating power they associate with a Tailed Beast, without having one sealed inside you. Hence…" She spread her hands dramatically, encompassing the absurdity.
"'The False Jinchuriki.' Because you hit like one, you take hits like one, but you're just… you. Scary, huh?"
Renjiro listened, the irritation giving way to a cold, analytical detachment. 'Surviving. Pressing. Almost killing.'
The words felt hollow, distant descriptions of events lived in a blur of adrenaline, desperation, and calculated risk. He hadn't felt like a force of nature. The power he wielded was a tool, a culmination of stolen knowledge, relentless training, and the desperate drive to not die, not some inherent demonic force.
'They see the output, not the input'
He dismissed the moniker internally. It was meaningless noise, a banner raised by spectators who didn't understand the battle. He wouldn't wear it.
"Survival isn't the same as dominance, Kushina," he stated flatly, his voice devoid of the earlier heat. "And 'almost' counts for nothing on the battlefield. It just means you failed to finish the job." He met her gaze, his expression unreadable.
"Calling it anything else is just… narrative."
Kushina rolled her eyes, the playful exasperation returning. "Oh, spare me the stoic routine! You saved dozens, maybe hundreds of Konoha shinobi pinned down in no-man's-land! Shinobi who would have been slaughtered by Kumo's forces if you hadn't stepped in. That counts for something, Renjiro, whether you want to acknowledge it or not." Her tone softened slightly, a flicker of genuine gratitude breaking through.
"People are alive because of you. Their families… would soon know that."
'Saved them…' Kushina's words triggered a sudden, sharp memory.
'I forgot about that.'
He shook his head slightly, pushing the thought aside. Dwelling on individual lives saved was a path to paralysis in a war defined by mass casualties.
He needed focus. He needed to steer the conversation away from titles and gratitude, back to something tangible, controllable.
"Speaking of stepping in," he said, his voice regaining its usual calm neutrality, "the reason I came by, before the nickname interrogation…" He gestured towards his bō staff, leaning against the wall near the door. "I wanted to show you something. The size-shift seal I mentioned working on? I finally got the matrix and engraved it."
Kushina's eyes lit up instantly, the Jinchuriki and the nickname forgotten in the face of advanced fuinjutsu. "Engraved? Directly? Show me!"
She practically bounced over to where the staff rested, her earlier fatigue and emotional weight seemingly shed. The Uzumaki seal master was fully present now.
Renjiro picked up the staff. Under Kushina's intense scrutiny, he pointed to the intricate, blood-dark pattern near the centre. "Here. The core spatial manipulation matrix is compressed by nearly 75%. Nested redundancies here and here," he traced the complex lines with a fingertip, "to handle stress fractures during rapid extension and retraction. The chakra conversion efficiency is around 92%, minimal bleed-off."
They fell into a deeply technical discussion. Kushina fired questions, her mind racing through the implications of the technique, suggesting potential applications beyond weapon enhancement – barrier deployment, rapid shelter construction, and even medical uses for precise internal manipulation.
Renjiro countered with limitations, chakra cost analyses, and material stress tolerances. The shared language of ink, chakra pathways, and spatial theory created a bubble of intense focus, a welcome respite from the weight of war and titles. For a while, there was only the intricate dance of formulae and possibility.
Kushina leaned back from examining the staff, "That compression… it's genius, Renjiro. Truly. The Hokage needs to see this for the armoury division."
Renjiro gave a noncommittal nod. "Perhaps. Once it's fully tested in live combat." He took the staff back, feeling its familiar weight.
"I should go." He moved towards the door.
Kushina's expression shifted, "Go? Where? Back to the front already?" She gestured at the dim room. "It's practically night. Stay, have some tea. I could use the distraction."
Her offer held a note of loneliness beneath the casualness, a reminder of the isolation her duty enforced.
Renjiro paused at the threshold. He half-turned, "My break," he said, his voice quiet but firm, "is over."
Kushina watched him, the playful Uzumaki momentarily stilled. She saw the tension return to his shoulders, the shadowed determination in his eyes that hadn't been there before he arrived.
She didn't press. She simply nodded, a silent understanding passing between them. "Alright. Just… be careful, False Jinchuriki," she added, the name now spoken without mockery, but with a strange blend of respect and concern.
Renjiro didn't acknowledge the name this time. He offered a curt nod, a silent farewell, and stepped out into the corridor, closing the door softly behind him with a final click. He didn't head home. He moved with purpose towards the village's eastern gate flickering out of the village.
Renjiro stopped in the middle of an open field, tall grasses whispering around his knees.
Looking down at his right hand, Renjiro raised it to his mouth. Without hesitation, his teeth bit down hard on the pad of his thumb. A sharp, metallic tang flooded his mouth – blood.
He focused his chakra, drawing it from his core, and swirling it down his arm and into the bleeding thumb. He slammed his bloodied palm flat onto the earth.
"KA-THOOM!"
The sound wasn't a poof; it was a localized thunderclap, a shockwave of displaced air and chakra that flattened the grass in a ten-meter radius around him. Dust and loose earth billowed outwards.
The ground trembled beneath his feet. A complex, sprawling fuinjutsu array, unseen but deeply felt, flared beneath his palm, a network of light and power burning crimson for a split second before vanishing into the soil.
Renjiro straightened up, wiping his thumb on his pants, his eyes fixed on the swirling dust cloud before him.