Behind the pair, hidden on a nearby rooftop, two Root operatives watched the pair with the particular stillness of those trained to observe without being seen. One of them, younger and less experienced, reached for his mask, preparing to follow.
The senior operative immediately stopped him with a sharp gesture.
"Don't."
Confusion flickered across the younger operative's face.
"If the Hokage's wife is willingly walking somewhere with Uzumaki Renjiro…" The senior operative paused, his voice dropping to a barely audible murmur. "…whatever they're discussing is above our clearance."
The younger operative hesitated, his hand hovering near his mask.
"Shouldn't we report it?"
The senior operative's response was flat, almost tired.
"Report that the Hokage's wife took a walk?" He shook his head slowly. "You don't survive in Root by being curious."
He glanced toward the retreating figures, his expression unreadable.
"And you certainly don't survive by spying on Renjiro Uzumaki."
They disappeared into the shadows, their presence erased as if they had never been there.
The journey back to Renjiro's house was silent, the weight of unspoken words pressing between them. Kushina walked beside him, her hand occasionally brushing his arm to guide him around obstacles he might not detect. She noticed the strain in his posture; the way his shoulders were tense, the way his head moved slightly, constantly tracking sounds and scents and chakra signatures.
He was navigating entirely through chakra sensing; every step was a conscious effort, every movement a calculation. The mental exhaustion was visible in the lines of his face, in the tightness around his mouth, in the way his hands remained slightly open and ready.
He really is blind, she thought, her internal voice heavy with the weight of the realisation. No exaggeration. No pretending. Just… blind.
They reached the house, and Renjiro fumbled for the doorknob; his hand missed it on the first attempt, grazing the wood before finding the metal. Kushina said nothing, simply watching, her expression carefully neutral.
The door opened, and they stepped inside, heading towards the laboratory.
It was a disaster. Kushina stepped through the threshold and immediately went still, her gaze sweeping across the space with the particular intensity of someone who had seen many laboratories and knew exactly what she was looking at. Dried blood stained the floor, its dark brown patches forming irregular patterns across the stone. Broken brushes lay scattered among burned sealing papers, their bristles singed and blackened. Shattered preservation containers had left glass fragments everywhere, their contents long since dried or evaporated. Discarded prototypes were piled in corners, their surfaces cracked and damaged. Chakra conductors had been damaged, their intricate patterns disrupted by energy surges. Cracked examination tables bore the marks of repeated, desperate experimentation.
The laboratory looked less like a research facility and more like someone had barely survived a war inside it.
"Renjiro…" Kushina said, her voice trailing off as she took in the scene. She paused, her hand resting on a shattered container. "…how long have you been doing this?"
Renjiro's answer was simple, matter-of-fact.
"Several days."
No drama. No embellishment. Which somehow made it worse.
Kushina turned away from the destruction, her gaze finding his sightless eyes.
"Several days," she repeated, her voice carrying the weight of quiet horror. "You've been working like this for several days?"
"I had to finish," he said. "The eyes were losing their chakra signature. If I waited any longer…"
He did not finish the sentence. He did not need to.
Kushina activated her chakra sensing and began examining his chakra network; she moved slowly, methodically, one seal at a time. Her fingers brushed against his skin, her chakra probing the intricate patterns embedded in his coils.
Renjiro explained each seal as she encountered it.
Seal One: Prevent rejection. Harmonise chakra signatures. Synchronise ocular chakra.
Kushina nodded. Reasonable. Standard fuinjutsu application.
Seal Two: Continuous microscopic regeneration. Repair retinal tissue, blood vessels, optic muscles, microscopic nerve tears.
She nodded again. Still logical. A natural extension of his regeneration ability.
Seal Three: Optic regulation. Control chakra entering the optic nerves. Maintain pressure balance.
Again, good design. Practical. Effective.
Seal Four: Emergency shutdown. Suppress Sharingan activation if rejection begins, chakra overloads, or blindness threatens.
She paused. Read it again. Long silence.
"You expected something to go catastrophically wrong," she said, her voice flat.
Renjiro answered honestly.
"Yes."
She continued inspecting, her chakra probing deeper, and she realised the truth: every seal existed because Renjiro assumed failure, not success. He had fully expected optic rupture, chakra overload, spiritual rejection, nervous system collapse; he had built contingency plans for all of them.
Instead of admiration, she became more frightened. He had never believed this ritual was safe.
He never believed this ritual was safe, she thought, her internal voice cold. He knew the risks. He knew the dangers. And he did it anyway. But why?
While walking around the laboratory, Kushina suddenly stopped. She frowned, her head tilting slightly as if listening to something only she could hear. Something felt innately familiar; not Renjiro, not the laboratory, something deeper, ancient, old, immense.
Inside her, Kurama stirred.
For the first time in many days, the Nine-Tails' consciousness flickered to life, its attention sharpening with a particular intensity.
"…"
Kushina blinked.
"That scent…"
Another pause.
"Why is that old bastard's chakra here?"
Kushina's brow furrowed.
"…Kurama?"
Silence. Kurama did not elaborate, its presence retreating into the depths of her consciousness.
"Forget it," the beast muttered, its voice carrying a note of irritation. "It's faint. Maybe I imagined it."
Unknown to Renjiro, the hidden cache of tailed beast chakra elsewhere in the house was what Kurama had sensed; the purification seal, the carefully preserved energy of the Six-Tails, had briefly disturbed the ancient beast's awareness.
Kushina dismissed the thought, returning her attention to the task at hand.
She turned to examine the eyes. Renjiro retrieved the shattered ritual remains, the preserved empty eyes, and the mysterious new pair. Kushina began inspecting the old eyes first, her movements methodical, her chakra probing the tissues with the precision of a trained medic.
Long silence.
Then:
"Hm."
Renjiro immediately asked:
"What?"
She kept looking, her expression unreadable.
Then she answered, her voice carrying the weight of discovery.
"The Mangekyō are gone. The evolved chakra patterns have completely disappeared."
Renjiro's heart sank.
"However…" Kushina continued, her tone shifting. "…the eyes themselves are still alive."
She continued inspecting, her chakra probing deeper.
"The tomoe are still there. Normal Sharingan. Not Mangekyō. Just Sharingan."
She paused, letting the implications settle.
"Meaning: the ritual consumed only the Mangekyō evolution, not the ocular tissue. The eyes survived. They're still viable."
Renjiro felt a wave of relief wash over him; it was not celebration, not joy, just simple relief. Years of preparation had not been completely wasted. Those eyes still possessed Sharingan, viable tissue, transplant compatibility. They remained valuable; they could be used for research, forbidden techniques, Izanagi, future experiments.
His sacrifices had not been completely erased.
A small smile crossed his face; it was one of the first genuine expressions he had shown in several chapters.
"So the ritual worked," he said quietly. "It just… didn't work the way I expected."
"It worked better than you expected," Kushina corrected, her voice carrying a note of grudging admiration. "You managed to extract the Mangekyō evolution without destroying the eyes themselves. That's… unprecedented."
She turned toward the new eyes, her expression shifting from admiration to concentration.
She studied them, said nothing yet, simply observing with the particular intensity of someone who had seen many impossible things and was not about to be surprised by another.
Then she rolled up her sleeves, her movements efficient, professional. She pulled over equipment, prepared tools, arranged the instruments with the precision of a medic preparing for surgery.
She looked directly at Renjiro, her expression serious.
"All right," she said. "Tell me exactly how you expect me to transplant these."
=====
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