Age Sixteen (continued)
The water was cold enough to stop my heart.
I surfaced, gasping, my lungs burning. The sea churned around me, waves crashing over my head, salt water stinging my eyes—my one good eye, the right one, the left still wrapped in bandages from the Mangekyo overuse.
"Tsunade!" I shouted.
"Here!" Her voice came from my left. I turned, blinking against the spray, and saw her dark hair plastered to her face. She was treading water, her medical pack somehow still strapped to her back.
"Kushina!"
"Here!" My sister surfaced ten meters away, coughing but alive. Her red hair was a tangled mess, but her blue eyes were wide and fierce.
"Father!"
No answer.
I spun in the water, my heart pounding. The prison was gone—collapsed into the sea, chunks of stone and steel sinking beneath the waves. The jinchuriki stood on the remaining cliff edge, her purple chakra blazing, but she wasn't following. The tailed beast bomb had taken too much out of her.
"Father!" I screamed again.
"Ren." Tsunade grabbed my arm. "Look."
I looked.
My father was floating face-down in the water, twenty meters away. His tattered clothes were tangled around his thin body. His red hair spread around his head like a halo of blood.
I swam to him. I turned him over. His face was pale, his lips blue, his eyes closed.
"Father. Father, wake up."
No response.
I pressed my ear to his chest. His heart was beating—weak, irregular, but beating.
"He's alive," I said. "He's alive. We need to get him out of the water."
Tsunade was beside me in an instant. Her hands glowed green, pressing against my father's chest, drawing out the water that had filled his lungs. He coughed, sputtered, and his eyes fluttered open.
"Ren?"
"I'm here. I've got you."
"The bomb..."
"It missed us. We're alive."
He looked at me with his clouded, nearly blind eyes. "You should have let me die."
"No. I shouldn't have."
I pulled him onto my back and started swimming. The boat was hidden in a cove a mile down the coast. A mile of cold, choppy water, with a half-drowned man on my back and two women swimming beside me.
We made it in forty-five minutes.
---
The boat was small—a fishing vessel we had stolen from a Kiri port. It had a single sail, a small cabin, and enough supplies for a week.
I laid my father on the deck. Tsunade immediately went to work, her hands glowing green, her face set in concentration.
"Hypothermia. Dehydration. Malnutrition. Multiple fractures that healed wrong. Internal bleeding. And his eyes..." She trailed off.
"His eyes what?"
"The Mangekyo has consumed them. He's almost completely blind. There's nothing I can do about that."
"Can you save his life?"
She looked at me. "I can try. But he's weak, Ren. He's been tortured for months. His body is shutting down."
"Do whatever you can."
She nodded and turned back to her work.
Kushina sat beside me, her hand in mine. She was shivering, her lips blue, but she didn't complain.
"We did it," she said. "We got him out."
"We did."
"He's going to live, right?"
I looked at my father's pale face. At Tsunade's grim expression. At the blood seeping through the bandages on his chest.
"I don't know," I said. "But we're not going to give up."
---
The journey back to Konoha took seven days.
My father drifted in and out of consciousness. When he was awake, he spoke in fragments—about the torture, about the things he had told Kiri, about the sealing bomb they were building.
"They want to destroy Konoha," he said one night, his voice a whisper. "The bomb is powered by the three-tails' chakra. It can level a city. They're going to use it at the next full moon."
"When is that?" I asked.
"Three weeks."
"We need to warn the Hokage."
"He won't believe you."
"Then we make him believe."
My father grabbed my wrist. His grip was surprisingly strong. "Ren. The Uchiha. They're involved."
"What do you mean?"
"The Kiri weapon. It uses Uchiha sealing techniques. Someone in Konoha sold them the designs."
"Who?"
"I don't know. But you need to find out. Before it's too late."
---
We arrived in Konoha on a gray afternoon.
The village gates loomed ahead, tall and imposing. The guards recognized me and let us pass without question. I carried my father through the streets, past the shops and the homes and the children playing in the parks.
He was lighter than I remembered. The man who had trained me, who had broken my ribs, who had held me in the rubble—he was a shadow of himself.
Tsunade led us to the hospital. Within minutes, my father was in a private room, hooked up to monitors and IV drips. Doctors and nurses swarmed around him.
"He needs rest," Tsunade said. "And surgery. His internal injuries are worse than I thought."
"How long?"
"A few weeks. Maybe longer."
"Will he survive?"
She didn't answer. That was answer enough.
---
I sat in the waiting room, staring at the wall. Kushina was beside me, her head on my shoulder, asleep. She had barely slept during the journey.
The door opened. The Hokage walked in, flanked by his advisors.
"Heir Ren," Hiruzen said. "I heard you returned. And that you brought your father."
"Yes."
"We need to talk."
"I know."
He sat down across from me. "Tell me everything."
I told him about the prison, the jinchuriki, the sealing bomb. I told him about my father's claim that someone in Konoha had sold the designs to Kiri.
Hiruzen's face grew darker with each word.
"The Uchiha," Homura said. "It has to be the Uchiha."
"We don't know that," Koharu said. "It could be anyone."
"The sealing techniques are Uchiha. Only they would have access."
"Enough." Hiruzen held up his hand. "We will investigate. Quietly. If there is a traitor, we will find them."
"And the bomb?"
"We will prepare. Increase patrols. Strengthen the barriers." He looked at me. "You've done well, Ren. Rest now. You've earned it."
"Thank you, Lord Hokage."
He left. I sat in the silence, watching the sun set through the window.
Kushina stirred. "Is it over?"
"No," I said. "It's just beginning."