What surprised Hatake Kakashi was that Ren's questions were far easier to answer than he'd expected.
After confirming that the mysterious Uchiha who controlled the Third Mizukage was indeed Uchiha Madara—and asking, briefly, how Madara and his proxy amassed the strength to oppose the entire world—Ren's true focus shifted.
Most of what he asked was about the reforms Kirigakure underwent during Kakashi's tenure as the Sixth Hokage.
Watching Ren frown as he wrote down every policy and detail Kakashi described—adding annotations and marks in the margins—Kakashi's caution toward him deepened.
A powerful shinobi was terrifying.
But one who cared only for personal strength would eventually become a lone man with no bonds and no supporters.
And history had already shown what happens when a lone man tries to challenge the world—Obito, Madara, and Ōtsutsuki Kaguya had demonstrated that failure with their lives.
Ren was different.
He looked like someone who truly intended to build Kirigakure up—develop it—turn it into the engine that could carry his ambition forward.
In Kakashi's eyes, compared to Madara's shortcut—dragging the world into an eternal dream to "force" peace—Ren's method was more dangerous.
Because it could actually succeed.
"I thought you'd be the type who's more arrogant," Kakashi said after a long silence, watching Ren roll up the scroll filled with dense notes. "More proud. More obsessed with personal power. The kind of person who only believes in himself."
"If the first jutsu I ever developed had been Lightning Release: Magnetic Field Rotation," Ren said with a shrug, voice calm, "maybe I'd have become that kind of person."
"But the first jutsu I developed was Water Release: Extracted Flow—a D-rank technique that draws water from the surrounding environment to amplify later Water Release."
"So I couldn't become a shinobi who walks his chosen road without anyone's support."
Kakashi didn't understand why some unheard-of technique would make Ren into an absolute autocrat.
But in that last sentence… there wasn't even a trace of falsehood.
"For Kirigakure," Kakashi said honestly, "you'll be a Mizukage worth remembering."
"If you're not including the entire shinobi world in that praise, I don't accept it," Ren replied lightly.
They left the ruined town Ren had buried underground and returned to their companions.
"You look pleased," Nagato said, shaking his head as Ren still had the leisure to wave at the shaken Hanabi. "Did you get something valuable?"
"According to Hatake Kakashi," Ren said, patting Nagato's shoulder with satisfaction, "everyone in Akatsuki now owes me a life."
"Why the hell do all of Akatsuki suddenly owe you a life?" Nagato slapped his hand away, baffled. "Did he put you under genjutsu?"
"You'll understand later." Ren shrugged, then turned to Hanabi, eyes bright with interest. "By the way—did you ask her about what's going on with her eyes?"
"No," Nagato said. "That's an important secret—how the Byakugan evolves like the Sharingan. I'm not confident I can pry that answer out of her."
"Don't play dumb." Ren's pupils narrowed. "The Rinnegan is the Sage of Six Paths' eye. You're telling me you don't have methods for interrogating information like this?"
"If I use those methods," Nagato said coldly, "I become an S-rank target wanted by Konoha. And even if I get the method, I don't have any comrades who can actually make use of it."
He glanced at Ren, sneer sharp.
"So if you want to ask, you ask. I'll listen."
"Tch. Boring."
Ren bit his finger, summoned back the serpent that had swallowed Karasuki, then stroked its head as he spoke to Hanabi.
"From the way you panicked earlier, that turtle is probably your key to traveling between eras, isn't it, young lady of the Hyuga?"
"What are you planning?" Hanabi asked warily. "Just so we're clear—I don't know more than the Sixth Hokage, and I'm not trading Hyuga clan secrets with you."
"Is the secret of your eyes… a Hyuga clan secret?" Ren asked, meeting her gaze, his snake-like pupils fixed on her perfectly ordinary-looking Byakugan.
"M-my… eyes?" Hanabi froze, a memory from more than a decade ago surging up—hands ripping her sight away, helpless terror. She shivered, then blurted out in disbelief, "How do you even know—"
"Because in my perception," Ren said evenly, "your eyes are fundamentally different from other Hyuga Byakugan."
Nagato stepped forward, nodded once at Jiraiya, and spoke slowly.
"Before, when we stopped the Land of Earth and the Land of Fire from reigniting war, I saw Hyuga shinobi in my teacher's camp."
"Setting aside the branch family—those marked with the Caged Bird seal, their life and eyesight constrained… even the strongest Hyuga jōnin's Byakugan didn't contain anything like the vast, strange power inside your eyes."
He then nodded at Ren, indicating he should bring out the turtle treasure. Nagato placed his hand on Karasuki's shell and tried to activate it with chakra.
"Also… I noticed a special connection between your eyes and this thing. A unique link. That should be the key to why you can move between eras."
His chakra poured in.
Nothing.
"…So I can't either?"
Ren watched the unresponsive treasure, eyes narrowing thoughtfully.
The Uzumaki and Senju were close kin—both descendants of Asura's bloodline. Nagato, with Uzumaki blood and a pair of Rinnegan taken from Uchiha Madara, was—by some measure—a low-budget, bargain-bin, youth-mini version of the Sage of Six Paths himself.
And yet even he couldn't make it react.
Meaning: it required true Six Paths power—or Ōtsutsuki power—to function.
And the power required was hidden inside Hyuga Hanabi's eyes.
So the question was simple.
Where did the Hyuga clan—mediocre on the grand scale—get something like that?
As Ren's gaze sharpened, increasingly predatory, Hanabi slipped closer to Kakashi, voice trembling.
"Sixth Hokage-sama… can we say the… moon thing?"
"Say it," Kakashi answered almost immediately.
"Huh?! But—"
"Ōtsutsuki Toneri's plan to crash the moon is a crisis that threatens the entire shinobi world," Kakashi said, helplessly. "It's not like if we stay silent the moon will only land on the Land of Water and spare Konoha."
"If it's a crisis everyone must face, then it's better they're involved in handling it."
"And if we keep silent…" Kakashi's tone softened into something resigned. "I don't think Kaguya Ren would mind taking your eyes and swapping them onto himself, Hanabi."
Hanabi's vision went black.
Are my eyes some plug-and-play universal part?! Why does everyone—Toneri, Ren—want to rip them out and use them like they're swapping equipment?!
And why was the Sixth Hokage so casually fluent in this kind of cruelty?
Oh.
Right.
The Sixth Hokage is the guy who used other people's eyes.
…Never mind.
Swallowing a storm of emotions, Hanabi forced a breath, stared into Ren's terrifying, calculating gaze—like he was deciding which angle would reduce damage when he took her eyes—and spoke shakily.
"If we're talking about the secret of my eyes… then we have to start with Ōtsutsuki Hamura—the brother who sealed the Ten-Tails with the Sage of Six Paths… and the ancestor of the Hyuga clan…"
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
patreon.com/Inkveil_