Age Thirteen
The war continued for another year.
Uzushio held its ground, but barely. The Kiri fleet retreated after the jinchuriki was captured, but they didn't go far. They circled the horizon like sharks, waiting for a weakness.
I fought in every battle. My chains killed dozens, then hundreds. My Sharingan evolved to three tomoe in both eyes—the final stage before the Mangekyo. The elders said I was the strongest heir in a generation. The people called me the Whirlpool Prophet.
I hated it.
Tsunade visited when she could. She was thirteen now, and the war was changing her. The shadows under her eyes were permanent. Her hands never stopped shaking, even when she wasn't healing anyone. She had started drinking—not much, just a cup of sake at night, but I noticed.
"You're burning out," I told her one evening, sitting on the roof of the hospital. She had just finished a twelve-hour surgery, and she looked like death.
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine."
"I'm alive. That's more than most people can say." She stared at the stars. "Nawaki wants to join the front lines."
"He's eleven."
"I know. I told him no. He called me a coward."
"He's eleven. He doesn't know what he's saying."
"He knows. He wants to be Hokage. He wants to prove himself." She hugged her knees. "I can't lose him, Ren. He's all I have left."
"You have me."
She looked at me. For a moment, her walls came down. I saw the girl I had met on the dock two years ago—the one who bit and laughed and made my heart skip.
"Do I?" she asked.
"Always."
She leaned her head on my shoulder. We sat in silence, watching the stars.
The attack came three weeks later.
It was the middle of the night. I was asleep in my room—Kushina had her own room now, though she still snuck into mine sometimes—when the alarms went off.
I ran to the eastern wall. The Kiri fleet had returned. Fifty ships this time. And leading them was the three-tails jinchuriki—free, somehow, her chakra blazing brighter than ever.
"How did she escape?" I shouted to my father, who was already on the wall.
"Kiri sent a rescue team. They killed the guards and broke the seal."
"The seal I drew?"
"The seal you drew." He looked at me. "It wasn't strong enough."
I felt the words like a physical blow. The seal I had drawn—the Nine Spirals, the seal that was supposed to bind a tailed beast—had failed. Because I wasn't good enough. Because I was just a child playing at being a shinobi.
The jinchuriki saw me. Her eyes glowed purple.
"You," she said. "The boy with the chains. I remember you."
"I remember you too."
"You put me in a cage. Now I'm going to put you in a grave."
She attacked.
My father met her with the Susano'o. The two titans clashed—purple chakra against purple chakra—and the ground shook. I tried to help, but my chains couldn't penetrate her cloak. My Sharingan showed me her movements, but my body couldn't keep up.
And then my father fell.
The Susano'o shattered. My father crashed into the wall, his body limp, blood pouring from his mouth. The jinchuriki stood over him, her hand raised for the killing blow.
"Father!" I screamed.
I saw the thread of consequence. Her hand coming down. My father's skull caving in. Darkness.
And I refused.
Something inside me shattered. The same something that had cracked when my mother died, the same something that had been threatening to break for years. It shattered completely, and in its place was something new.
My eyes burned.
The world turned gold.
The Mangekyo awakened.
The pattern was unlike any I had seen. Not the shuriken of my father's eyes. Not the pinwheel of the Uchiha legends. This was a spiral—a golden spiral, spinning endlessly, with tomoe that curved like waves.
The Eye of Divine Judgment.
I saw everything. Every thread of consequence, stretching from every action into every possible future. I saw the jinchuriki's hand coming down. I saw my father dying. I saw a thousand other outcomes, branching and splitting like rivers.
And I chose one.
I rewrote the consequence.
The jinchuriki's hand changed course. Instead of striking my father, it hit the wall beside him. Instead of killing him, it merely grazed his shoulder. Instead of victory, she stumbled, confused.
"What—" she started.
I looked at her. My golden spiral eyes bored into hers.
"Run," I said.
She ran.
I collapsed. Blood poured from my eyes—not tears, actual blood. The Mangekyo was devouring my chakra, burning through my reserves like dry paper.
My father crawled to me. His face was pale, but he was alive.
"Ren," he said. "Your eyes."
"I know."
"The Mangekyo. You awakened it."
"I know."
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he did something I hadn't expected. He pulled me into his arms and held me.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm sorry for everything."
I didn't know what to say. So I just held onto him, and we stayed there in the rubble, father and son, while the war raged around us.