The rain over Konoha did not wash away the filth of the red-light district. It only made the rot sink deeper into the wood. Inside the cramped, drafty shack, the only source of warmth came from a sputtering oil lamp sitting on a low table.
His mother sat beside it, her face illuminated by the dying orange glow. She was a woman grounded by the shinobi world, her beauty having faded into sharp angles and exhausted hollows. She smelled of stale rice wine and cheap floral perfume. With shaking hands, she counted a meager pile of copper ryo, her brow furrowed in bitter concentration.
"They treat us like stray dogs," she muttered, sweeping the coins into a small leather pouch. She took a deep drink from a chipped ceramic cup, her eyes glazing over as the alcohol warmed her blood. She looked at him sitting quietly in the corner, a frail eleven-year-old boy enveloped in shadows. A complicated emotion flickered across her worn face. It was a mixture of deep resentment for the burden he represented and a twisted, desperate sort of affection.
She reached out, her fingers clumsy as she brushed a lock of hair from his forehead. "You have my eyes. At least you have that. Maybe one of the clans will take pity on you when you are older. Then you can buy your mother a proper house away from this stench."
Ren leaned into her touch, offering her a soft, compliant smile, the exact expression she needed to see to feel like a good mother.
"Drink your tea," he said softly, nudging a steaming wooden cup toward her hand. "It will help you sleep."
She sighed, taking the cup. She drank it in three long gulps, not noticing the bitter undertaste of the crushed river-toad glands he had spent two weeks foraging and refining in secret. She set the cup down and closed her eyes, leaning back against the rotting paper wall.
It took less than thirty seconds for the world to change.
Her eyelids fluttered open. The lethargy of the alcohol vanished, replaced by a sudden, rigid terror. She tried to sit up, but her limbs refused to obey. The paralytic venom was not meant to kill her immediately, only to sever the connection between her mind and her muscles. She slumped sideways onto the tatami mat. Her breath hitched, catching in her throat as she realized she could not even move her jaw to scream. Her wide, bloodshot eyes darted wildly, finally locking onto her son.
He stood up. He did not rush. He walked over to her like a serene monk walking through a quiet garden, kneeling beside her head, and pulling a rusted scalpel from his sleeve.
"The human body is fragile," he murmured, his voice completely devoid of malice. "You spent your life selling yours to men who despised you. You traded your dignity for copper. It was a miserable existence, but tonight, your flesh will hold true value."
Her pupils dilated until they swallowed the brown of her irises. Tears of horror welled in the corners of her eyes, spilling over her cheeks. She was fully conscious. She probably understood exactly what was happening.
He needed a shred of flesh from her face, specifically the tissue beneath the eye that governed expression and perceived sincerity. He rested his small hand against her forehead to steady her skull. He pressed the cold iron of the scalpel against her cheekbone.
He cut slowly.
Ren ignored the sickening sound of parting flesh and the warm, dark blood that immediately welled up and spilled over his fingers. He carved away the necessary morsel of tissue with frightening precision. She let out a wet, suffocating gargle, her body twitching violently against the paralysis as the raw nerve endings were exposed to the cold air. He caught the bloody piece of flesh in his palm, his expression as placid as a still lake.
Closing his eyes, he let his consciousness sink into the abyss.
The stench of blood and poverty evaporated. The sound of the rain faded into an infinite, suffocating silence. He opened his eyes to stand within the boundless expanse of the Grey Fog.
It was a domain of supreme majesty and terrifying desolation. Towering pillars of mottled stone vanished upward into a canopy of swirling, heavy mist. The air here was untouched by the passage of time or the trivial wars of the shinobi world. In the center of the void stood a massive, weathered stone altar, stained with the phantom residue of forgotten sacrifices.
Ren approached the altar. The refinement of a Gu was a heaven-defying act, a manipulation of the world's most profound laws. The Tearful Visage Gu demanded five absolute conditions to manifest. This was what he had determined after trial and error
Ren placed the bloody shred of flesh upon the cold stone.
The first condition was the dying blood of kin. He squeezed the morsel of flesh, allowing his mother's warm, dark blood to drip onto the altar. It hissed faintly, curling into a crimson vapor that began to intertwine with the grey fog.
The second condition was tears shed without grief. He raised his free hand to his own face, taking hold of several hairs on his lower eyelid. He ripped them out in one sharp motion. The sudden, intense physical sting forced his glands to react. A single, perfectly clear tear rolled down his cheek and fell onto the altar, mixing with the blood. His heart remained entirely hollow, untouched by sorrow.
The third condition was a final lie spoken over a body.
Ren looked down at the swirling mixture on the altar. His voice echoed into the silent, endless fog, steady and chillingly calm.
"I loved you, Mother."
The Grey Fog reacted instantly. The mist descended in a violent, silent vortex, crashing onto the altar with immense, unseen pressure. The blood, the tear, and the flesh dissolved into a luminous, spectral liquid. It writhed and twisted, fighting against the laws of nature, before finally solidifying into a pale, translucent centipede. Its carapace was not made of chitin. It was formed of dozens of tiny, weeping human faces, all molded together in an eternal expression of sorrow.
The Tearful Visage Gu.
He extended his hand. The creature crawled onto his fingertips, its dozens of tiny legs piercing his skin like frozen needles. It scurried up his wrist and buried itself beneath the skin of his cheek, settling comfortably right below his left eye. A subtle, melancholic coolness washed over his mind, weaving an invisible shroud of tragedy around his soul.
Ren opened his eyes. He was back in the slaughterhouse of the material world.
His mother was dead. The shock and the blood loss had finally stopped her heart. Her ruined face stared blankly at the ceiling.
Two conditions remained. He needed fire that scars but does not kill, and he needed the village to bear witness.
He stood up, walking to the low table. He kicked the oil lamp over. The glass shattered, sending pungent, flammable liquid pooling across the dry tatami mats. Grabbing a stray match, he struck it, and dropped it into the puddle.
The fire roared to life. It was greedy and vicious, climbing the paper walls in seconds and transforming the small shack into a blazing furnace. Thick black smoke billowed toward the ceiling, turning the air into poison. The heat became unbearable, blistering the paint on the doorframe.
Ren waited. He watched the flames lick closer to his mother's corpse. When the wooden support beams above began to groan and splinter, he reached down and picked up a piece of a shattered wooden chair that had caught fire. The jagged edge glowed a bright, angry orange.
He pressed the burning wood directly against his left forearm.
The smell of roasting meat instantly filled his nostrils. Searing, blinding agony shot through his body, causing his frail body to convulse. His skin blistered, melted, and peeled away in a gruesome display of self-mutilation. He bit his own lip until it split, forcing himself to endure the raw torture without making a single sound. The fire scarred him deeply, anchoring the Tearful Visage Gu to his physical suffering.
He dropped the wood. His mind was swimming in pain, but his will remained as cold as glacial ice. The boy grabbed his mother by her charred wrists.
She was incredibly heavy. To his malnourished, eleven-year-old body, she felt like a boulder. The roof began to collapse, showering them both in a rain of red sparks and burning ash. Her kimono caught fire. The flames licked at his own clothes, singing his hair and scorching his back. He strained with every ounce of his strength, his burned muscles screaming in protest as he dragged her across the blazing floor. The smoke seared his lungs, forcing violent, bloody coughs from his throat.
It was a horrifying image. A tiny boy, himself burning alive, stubbornly refusing to let go of a blistering, ruined corpse as the world collapsed around them.
Reaching the doorway just as the back half of the shack caved in with a deafening roar. He dragged her out into the cold, pouring rain, collapsing into the mud of the alleyway.
The commotion had already drawn the village. Neighbors had rushed out of the surrounding slums, their faces painted in terrified hues of orange by the inferno. Three Konoha shinobi dropped heavily from the nearby rooftops, having spotted the smoke from their patrol routes.
They all froze.
The boy lay in the mud, covered in horrific burns, his flesh bubbling and oozing blood. He was violently choking on soot, yet his small, trembling hands were still desperately clutching the charred kimono of his dead mother.
Beneath his left eye, the Tearful Visage Gu pulsed silently. It sent an invisible, overwhelming ripple through the air, warping the perceptions of every living soul in the alley.
The seasoned shinobi and the hardened slum dwellers did not see a monster. The Gu amplified the boy's pathetic state, invading their minds with an overwhelming, suffocating sense of pity. They saw the most devoted, tragic child in the entire village. They saw a boy so pure and so full of love that he had willingly thrown himself into a raging inferno, suffering unimaginable agony in a futile attempt to save his only family.
Several women in the crowd burst into loud sobs, covering their mouths in horror. One of the Konoha shinobi rushed forward, his eyes softening with profound sorrow. He knelt in the mud, gently prying the boy's burned fingers away from the corpse, pulling the fragile child into his chest to shield him from the sight of the body.
The boy buried his tear-streaked, soot-covered face into the shinobi's flak jacket. His small shoulders shook with what appeared to be uncontrollable, devastating grief.
In the absolute darkness of his own mind, enveloped by the comforting hum of the Gu and the endless expanse of the Grey Fog, he smiled.
"Just as a phoenix rebirths from fire, this shall be the beginning of my new life."