The ceiling came down in sheets of stone.
Dust exploded through the chamber as support beams cracked like dry bone. Sealing arrays flared violently along the walls, fighting against structural failure as if the facility itself refused to die quietly.
Ren stood at the center of the destruction.
Fragments of rock struck his shoulders and rebounded.
The drums inside him rolled steadily.
Doom.
Across the fractured chamber, the broken experimental asset lay embedded in stone, unmoving. The carved seals across its chest had split apart, leaking faint chakra like smoke from cracked pottery.
Danzō didn't look at it.
He looked only at Ren.
"Activate Collapse Protocol," Danzō ordered.
The Sage-affiliated shinobi's eyes widened. "That will bury the entire lower level."
"Do it."
No hesitation.
No regret.
Above them, deeper seals ignited. Massive suppression arrays layered across corridors and stairways, redirecting the collapse inward rather than outward.
They weren't trying to save the facility.
They were trying to bury the anomaly with it.
Ren felt the shift immediately.
The pressure changed.
Not just weight.
Direction.
The air itself seemed to tilt toward the center of the chamber.
He glanced upward.
Stone fell in chunks the size of carts.
He didn't move.
Instead, he stepped forward.
Toward Danzō.
"You'd rather bury everything than lose control," Ren said calmly.
Danzō's cane struck the stone once.
"Control is survival."
Ren's lips curved slightly. "Then you must be very afraid."
A section of ceiling collapsed directly between them, cutting off clear line of sight. Smoke and debris swallowed the space.
Root operatives scrambled for the exit corridors, disciplined even in chaos.
The Sage formed hand seals, summoning a natural energy barrier to protect himself from falling debris.
Ren finally moved.
A slab of stone the size of a house came crashing down toward him.
He didn't dodge.
He compressed.
The impact struck—
His body absorbed—
And redirected.
The slab rebounded upward violently, smashing into the ceiling supports and accelerating the collapse instead of crushing him.
The entire chamber shuddered.
The drums pulsed louder.
DOOM.
Through the smoke, Ren's silhouette flickered faintly pale again.
Danzō saw it.
This wasn't uncontrolled rage.
It was deliberate escalation.
Ren wasn't panicking.
He was learning.
A heavy vibration rippled through the underground complex.
Far above—
On the surface—
A subtle tremor shook the Uchiha district.
At the training grounds, young Itachi paused mid-throw.
The kunai slipped from his fingers and struck wood off-center.
He frowned.
Something was wrong.
Not fire.
Not chakra clash.
Deeper.
A pressure he couldn't name.
He turned toward the Hokage Monument, eyes narrowing.
Underground—
Ren's eyes shifted to the sealed exit corridor.
If he allowed the collapse to complete, he would be buried beneath layers of reinforced stone and suppression arrays.
The Sage's voice cut through the chaos.
"You cannot outlast structural failure."
Ren glanced at him.
"I don't have to."
Another massive section of the chamber roof tore free.
This one would not rebound cleanly.
The suppression arrays were amplifying its density.
It came down with annihilating force.
Ren inhaled slowly.
The drums matched his breath.
Doom.
He stepped into the falling mass.
Compressed.
And released upward.
The rebound didn't just shatter the slab.
It tore a vertical rupture through the ceiling, blasting a tunnel of broken stone and light straight upward.
A column of dust and debris shot through the underground levels like a spear.
Root operatives were thrown sideways by the shockwave.
Danzō braced with his cane as the blast wave tore his cloak.
The Sage shielded himself barely in time.
Ren stood beneath the jagged hole he had just created.
Faint daylight filtered down through layers of shattered rock.
He looked up.
A path.
Not clean.
Not safe.
But open.
Danzō's voice was cold.
"Seal the vertical breach."
New arrays activated around the hole.
Thick bands of suppression script crawled across the exposed tunnel walls, trying to close it.
Ren crouched slightly.
The pale tint deepened for a heartbeat.
Then faded again.
He wasn't fully awakening.
Not yet.
Not here.
A Root captain lunged from behind with a reinforced chakra spear aimed at Ren's spine.
Ren didn't turn.
The spear struck.
Instead of stretching—
Ren twisted.
The spear bent ninety degrees mid-thrust and snapped from torque alone.
He grabbed the Root captain by the shoulder and threw him upward into the breach.
The man vanished into dust and falling stone.
Ren stepped back, preparing to leap.
Natural energy pressure slammed down from the Sage again.
"You won't reach it," the Sage said.
Ren's body stiffened slightly under the interference.
He felt the disruption along his elasticity like static against skin.
So that was still the problem.
Natural energy.
Good.
He smiled faintly.
He jumped anyway.
The leap wasn't normal shinobi movement.
It was explosive.
His legs compressed like loaded springs and released with violent precision.
He shot upward through the breach, tearing through loose stone and dust.
Sealing scripts flared along the walls.
The suppression tried to clamp down mid-air.
Ren's arms stretched outward—
Gripping jagged edges—
Pulling—
Rebounding—
Accelerating further.
Behind him, Danzō's voice echoed upward through the collapsing levels.
"Contain him at the surface!"
On the streets above, cracks spidered across paving stones near the Uchiha district.
Villagers shouted in confusion.
ANBU flashed into position on rooftops.
And then—
The ground exploded.
Ren burst upward through stone and dust in a plume of debris.
He landed on a rooftop in a crouch, smoke swirling around him.
The drums pulsed loudly now.
DOOM.
He rose slowly.
Below, the shattered street revealed the vertical tunnel he had created.
Root operatives began emerging from side corridors, climbing through damaged passages to pursue.
ANBU masked figures appeared along surrounding rooftops.
Not Root.
Village ANBU.
This was no longer hidden.
Ren looked around calmly.
For the first time, his escape was public.
On a distant rooftop—
Young Itachi stood still.
His Sharingan activated instinctively.
He saw Ren clearly through the settling dust.
Their eyes met again.
This time, there was no training ground between them.
No distance.
Only aftermath.
Ren gave him a faint smile.
Then he looked toward the Hokage Tower.
Toward the symbol of authority.
The drums slowed slightly.
Not rage.
Not chaos.
Direction.
Below, Root operatives began sealing the breach to prevent civilians from falling in.
Danzō emerged from a side access point moments later, cloak dusty but posture unchanged.
He looked up at Ren.
No shouting.
No visible anger.
Just a long, measuring gaze.
Ren stepped backward along the rooftop edge.
He didn't flee immediately.
He wanted Danzō to see him.
Unburied.
Uncontained.
Unowned.
"You built a deeper cage," Ren called down calmly.
He gestured lightly toward the collapsed ground.
"It broke."
The wind shifted across the rooftops.
ANBU shifted positions, ready to intercept.
Danzō's voice carried upward.
"This is not over."
Ren smiled.
"I know."
The drums echoed once more.
Doom.
And then—
He jumped.
Not toward the village.
Not toward the Uchiha district.
Toward the forest.
Elastic rebound launching him across rooftops in impossible arcs, vanishing into the treeline before ANBU could calculate his landing point.
Silence settled slowly over the damaged street.
Dust continued to fall.
Itachi watched the forest edge long after Ren disappeared.
Danzō stood unmoving.
The Sage approached quietly.
"He is evolving," the Sage said.
Danzō's eye remained fixed on the forest.
"No," he replied.
"He is accelerating."