"I can use both of them now. Fully." Renjiro's voice was calm in the warm, cluttered comfort of Kushina's kitchen.
The late afternoon sun streamed through the window, illuminating dancing dust motes and glinting off the glass of a preserving jar he held delicately in his palm—the Hashirama cells.
Across the small, scarred wooden table, Kushina watched him. She was not in her usual whirlwind of motion. Instead, she sat perfectly still, her vibrant red hair a cascade over her shoulders, her eyes fixed on the jar with a deep, contemplative intensity.
After leaving Miwa to process the storm of revelation, Renjiro's path didn't lead home. It led here, to the one person who held the other half of his grim equation. The training had been for understanding. This visit was for procurement.
He rarely brought Kushina and Miwa together. Internally, he knew why with crystal clarity. Kushina was a force of nature, a grounding wire to his Uzumaki heritage and a source of fierce, paternalistic protection. She was the wild shore he could always return to.
Miwa was the deep, analytical forest of the Uchiha, a maternal strategist who dissected his soul and his techniques with equal precision. They represented two different kinds of sanctuary, two different kinds of truth. Blending them felt like mixing fire and water in a sealed container—potentially explosive, and ultimately diluting them both.
'Can't have the Dad side and Mom side of the family mix,' he thought with a wry, internal humour that masked a genuine protective instinct. He compartmentalised not out of deceit, but out of a desire to preserve the unique strength each woman offered him.
Kushina's eyes finally lifted from the jar to meet his. "That's good. Great, even. But what's the point of having two fancy pairs of eyes if you can only use one set at a time?"
Renjiro answered by lightly tossing the heavy jar a few inches into the air and catching it with a soft clink.
"That's why I need these. I want to experiment. Grafting. Using the cells as a medium to host the second pair externally. A secondary… system."
Kushina's contemplative stillness hardened into something sharper. "Grafting," she repeated, "is that even possible?"
An Image of a bandaged arm hiding a collection of stolen eyes flashed in Renjiro's mind.
"The principle isn't impossible," he said carefully, setting the jar down on the table with a definitive thud.
"Lord First's cells are uniquely compatible, regenerative. But his method… the execution was monstrous. I'm not talking about sewing eyes into my arm, Kushina. I'm talking about creating a stabilized, chakra-conductive medium—a vessel—that can act as a remote focal point. A way to access both eyes simultaneously without…" he trailed off, gesturing vaguely at his own eye sockets.
"Without having to dig around in your own head every time?" Kushina finished, her voice low.
"And what then? You grow a new eye, pluck it out, grow another as you experiment?" The horror at the concept was plain on her face, not for the gore, but for the violation of the self it represented.
"No," Renjiro said firmly, shaking his head. "That's a line I won't cross. I won't damage my soul any further." The admission was stark, an acknowledgement of the metaphysical cost he'd already paid.
He nodded toward the jar. "The cells are a finite resource. If grafting fails, they become the fuel for the other option. The traditional one." The Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. The sentence didn't need to be spoken aloud; it hummed in the space between them.
Kushina was silent for a long moment, her gaze drilling into him. Finally, she let out a short, sharp breath. "It's… cold. But it's sound logic. I hate that it's sound logic."
She conceded the point, her shoulders slumping slightly. Her approval was reluctant, rooted in a brutal understanding of the world, but it was approval nonetheless.
A flicker of something else crossed Renjiro's face then—not cold calculation, but heated frustration. He leaned back in his chair, which creaked in protest.
"It's just… the timing mocks me. To have this clarity, this access now, when the war is over. I could have…" He cut himself off, but the sentiment was clear.
'I could have saved more. I could have changed more.'
"Now, I'm just… itching. The power is there, settled, and all I can do is test it in controlled environments. I want to use it."
Kushina's expression shifted from concerned confidante to stern instructor in a heartbeat. She pointed a finger at him, her voice firm, brooking no argument.
"You listen to me. That 'itch' is what gets shinobi killed before they become legends. You have new tools. Good. You are not ready to go pick a fight with a Kage to test them."
Renjiro blinked, genuinely taken aback. A flicker of incredulity passed through him. 'Doesn't she know I fought the Third Raikage?'
The memory was a point of pride, a testament to his survival against an apex predator. He wondered for a second if she was joking, but her face was utterly serious, her eyes holding a warning that was almost maternal.
In that moment, he realised with a slight jolt that perhaps Kushina, for all her love and blunt wisdom, didn't fully grasp the depth of the precipice he'd already stared into. She saw the powerful nephew, the brilliant student. She might not see the veteran who had already danced with the kind of power that defined nations.
It was a subtle, lonely realisation.
He let the comment pass, filing it away. Instead, he pivoted, a sly, familiar grin replacing his frustrated expression. It was a shift back to a dynamic they both understood.
"Speaking of fights… I'm cashing in that old promise."
Kushina stared, then let out a loud, surprised bark of laughter. "What, now? The 'when you're ready, we'll have a real spar' promise? Are you serious?"
"Deadly," Renjiro said, the grin not fading but taking on a competitive edge. "You just said I'm not Kage-level. Fine. Let's see what level I am. You're the best barometer I've got."
He could see the consideration in her eyes, the eager gleam of a warrior being challenged. But before she could answer, a firm, polite knock sounded at the front door*.
The tension in the kitchen dissolved, replaced by mundane surprise. Kushina pushed back from the table, "That'll be Sama. She said she'd stop by."
She headed for the door.
A moment later, she returned with Sama. The young Kunoichi had her brother's kind eyes and bright blond hair, but where Minato's demeanour was serene intensity, Sama's was warm, open warmth. She offered Renjiro a polite smile and a nod.
"Renjiro, good to see you."
"Same here," he returned politely.
"Is Minato here?" she asked, turning to Kushina. "I have some news from the clan I wanted to share."
"He's out training," Kushina said, waving a hand. "But you can wait if you like. I'm just trying to talk some sense into this one about not blowing himself up with ancient DNA." She shot a mock-stern look at Renjiro.
Sama's smile widened. "I'll wait a little while, thank you." Her gaze then drifted to Renjiro, and a thoughtful look crossed her face. "Actually, since you're here, Renjiro-san… have you thought about a wedding present yet? Or is it too early?"
The question was so casual, so utterly mundane, it took a full second to register. Renjiro's head snapped toward Kushina so fast his neck cricked. His eyes were wide, a silent, demanding question in them.
Kushina had the decency to look sheepish. She scratched her cheek, a faint blush visible even on her normally fearless face.
"Ah. Right. That. I, uh… might have forgotten to mention it. With all the… eye stuff." She gestured vaguely at the jar on the table.
"Minato and I are getting married. In a few months. After the summit."
A whirlwind of emotions tore through Renjiro—surprise, genuine happiness for them, and a sheer, overwhelming sense of how did I miss this? It was swiftly followed by a wave of amusement at Kushina's classic, chaotic prioritisation. World-ending cell experiments? Top of the list. Her own wedding? Slips her mind.
He leaned back, the initial shock melting into a slow, deliberate smirk. He rolled his shoulders and cracked his neck, the audible pop sounding in the suddenly domestic silence. He looked from Kushina's embarrassed face to Sama's gently amused one, then back to Kushina.
"Nah," he said, his voice dripping with playful menace, the frustration of earlier channeled into this new, delightful leverage. "Now you definitely have to make it up to me. That spar just became a prerequisite for any present I even think about getting."