Age Eleven
The year after Tsunade left was the longest of my life.
Not because anything particularly terrible happened. The opposite, actually. Things were quiet. The Kiri spies had been chased off after the attack on the delegation, and the village returned to its usual rhythm of fishing, sealing, and pretending the rest of the world didn't exist. My father retreated further into his silence, but he didn't hurt me or threaten Kushina again. The elders stopped hovering quite so much. Even Kushina was behaving herself—mostly.
But I was restless.
I found myself standing on the dock every morning, watching the horizon, as if I might see the Konoha battleship returning. I knew it wouldn't. The delegation had completed its mission. There was no reason for them to come back. But I kept looking anyway.
"You're doing it again," Kushina said one afternoon, plopping down beside me on the dock. She was six now, her red hair a wild mess, her blue eyes sharp and knowing. "Staring at the ocean like a lovesick puppy."
"I'm not lovesick."
"You wrote her another letter this morning. I saw you."
"I write her letters because she's my friend."
"Friends don't write each other every day."
"Friends do when they live in different villages and have messenger seals that make letters instant."
Kushina kicked her legs over the edge of the dock, splashing her sandals in the water. "You're weird, big brother."
"You're weird too."
"I know." She grinned. "That's why we're family."
I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her close. She smelled like salt and sunshine and the sweet rice balls she'd been eating for lunch. "Yeah," I said. "That's why we're family."
The letters continued, of course. Tsunade and I wrote to each other every few days, sometimes more. She told me about her training—she was learning new medical techniques from a healer named Chiyo who had come from Suna for a diplomatic visit. She told me about Jiraiya's latest antics (he had written a book, which she described as "garbage" and "probably illegal"). She told me about Orochimaru's experiments (she didn't go into detail, which made me suspect the details were horrifying).
And sometimes, in the margins of her letters, she wrote things that made my heart stop.
I dreamed about you last night. We were sitting on that roof again, watching the stars. You were explaining the chains to me. I wasn't listening. I was just watching your face.
Don't be a hero, Ren. Heroes die young. I need you to live.
I think I'm falling in love with you. Is that crazy? We're eleven years old. But I don't care. I've never felt this way about anyone.
Forget I said that.
I didn't forget. I wrote back:
I'm not a hero. I'm just a boy with strange eyes and a sister who eats all the mochi. But if you're falling, I'll catch you. I promise.
I think I'm falling too.
---
The training sessions with my father grew harder as I grew older.
By eleven, I could match his speed for short bursts—not because I was faster than him, but because my Sharingan allowed me to anticipate his movements. I would see the shift in his weight, the tension in his muscles, the direction of his gaze, and I would move before he did.
"Cheating," he said, after I dodged a strike that should have landed.
"Using my abilities," I replied.
"Your abilities will not always be available. What happens when your chakra runs dry? What happens when your eyes are covered? What happens when you face an opponent who can move faster than your Sharingan can track?"
"I'll adapt."
"You'll die." He attacked again—faster this time, too fast for my eleven-year-old reflexes. His fist connected with my shoulder, sending me spinning to the floor. "The Sharingan is a tool, not a crutch. You must learn to fight without it. You must learn to fight as if you were blind."
"I'm not blind."
"Not yet." His voice was flat, emotionless. "But the Mangekyo has a cost. If you awaken it—and you will, someday—it will take your sight. Slowly at first. Then all at once. You will be blind before you are thirty."
I pushed myself to my feet. My shoulder ached. "How do you know?"
"Because it happened to me." He touched his eyes—his Sharingan eyes, still bright, still spinning. "The Mangekyo gives great power. But it takes everything in return. Your sight. Your peace. Your humanity. I have lost all three."
"Then why do you still use it?"
He was silent for a long time. When he spoke, his voice was barely a whisper.
"Because I have nothing left to lose."
That night, I couldn't sleep. I lay on my futon in Kushina's room—I still slept there, even though I was getting too big for it—and stared at the ceiling. My Sharingan was active, as it often was when I was thinking hard. Two tomoe in my left eye. One in my right. The asymmetry still bothered the elders, but it didn't bother me. I had bigger things to worry about.
Like my father's eyes.
I had seen the Mangekyo a few times. It was beautiful in a terrible way—the three tomoe connected by thin black lines, forming a shape like a shuriken. When he activated it, his chakra changed. Became darker. More intense. Like a storm gathering on the horizon.
He said it had cost him his peace. His humanity. I didn't fully understand what that meant, but I saw the evidence every day. The man who had once smiled at my mother over the dinner table was gone. In his place was a stranger who looked at me like I was a project to be completed.
I didn't want to become that.
But I didn't know how to stop it.
---
The evolution came on a Tuesday.
I was in the dojo, training alone, when my father walked in. He didn't say anything. He just stood there, watching me with his one uncovered eye, the bandage over the other making him look like a pirate in a bad story.
"Your form is sloppy," he said.
"I'm doing exactly what you taught me."
"Then what I taught you wasn't good enough." He walked to the center of the dojo and turned to face me. "Come at me. Full speed. Don't hold back."
I hesitated. The last time he'd said that, I'd ended up with three broken ribs.
"Now," he said.
I attacked.
He was faster than I remembered. Or maybe I was slower. His palm struck my chest, sending me flying across the dojo. I hit the wall and slid to the floor, gasping for breath.
"Get up."
I got up. I attacked again. He knocked me down again.
"Get up."
Again. Again. Again.
By the tenth time, I could barely stand. My Sharingan was active, but it wasn't helping. He was too fast, too strong, too experienced. Every move I made, he countered. Every strike I threw, he dodged.
"You're relying on your eyes too much," he said. "You see my movements, but you don't understand them. Seeing is not understanding."
"Then help me understand!"
"I am helping you." He struck me again—a blow to the stomach that doubled me over. "Pain is a teacher. Remember this feeling. Remember how useless your eyes are when your body can't keep up."
I fell to my knees. Blood dripped from my lip onto the wooden floor.
"Get up."
I couldn't. My body wouldn't move.
"Get. Up."
I pushed myself to my feet. My legs were shaking. My vision was blurry—not from the Sharingan, but from exhaustion and pain. I could barely see my father standing across from me.
"I said come at me," he said.
I took a step. Then another. My right eye burned—a hot, sharp pain that made me gasp. The world shifted. The blurriness cleared. And I saw something I hadn't seen before.
My father's chakra. It was always visible to the Sharingan, but now it was different. I could see the flow of it, the way it moved through his tenketsu, the patterns of his breathing, the tension in his muscles before he even thought about moving.
I could see his intention before he formed it.
I moved.
He threw a punch. I ducked under it. He kicked. I jumped over it. He tried to grab me. I slipped through his fingers like water.
For the first time in my life, I landed a hit on my father. My fist connected with his chest—not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to make him stumble back half a step.
He stared at me. Then he looked at my eyes.
"Two tomoe," he said. "In both eyes."
I touched my face. My Sharingan was still active, but the pattern had changed. Two tomoe in each eye, spinning slowly. The asymmetry was gone.
"The evolution came from exhaustion," my father said. "Not from loss. Interesting." He studied me for a long moment. "Perhaps you are different from the rest of our bloodline."
"Maybe I'm just stubborn."
"Maybe." He turned and walked toward the door. "Train harder. The next evolution will not come so easily."
He left. I stood in the dojo, alone, my two-tomoe Sharingan showing me the world in sharper detail than ever before.
I wondered what it would cost me to get the third.