Renjiro stood over Renmaru's corpse, shoulders rising and falling with controlled breaths. The body lay still blood seeping into the scorched and cracked earth beneath them. Ash swirled lazily in the air like the aftermath of a funeral pyre. The storm above was finally beginning to fray at the edges as if the world itself were exhaling in relief.
He sighed, the weight of the moment pressing into his lungs like stone.
'It'd be good to read his memories,' Renjiro thought, glancing down at the lifeless, Kumo jonin, his skin still marked by the burns and impaled throat that had ended him.
'I need the secrets of his Kekkei Tōta first. But not now. Before I submit his body to the village.'
Renmaru's corpse still radiated a certain tension—as though even in death, he clung to his mysteries. Whatever miracle had allowed him to fuse water, wind, and lightning into a storm-based Kekkei Tōta—Tempest Release—Renjiro would pry it out, one way or another. But intel like that couldn't be rushed, not in the middle of a still-burning battlefield.
With a final look, Renjiro crouched and unsealed a long, narrow scroll from a pouch at his waist. With practised fingers, he rolled it open across the blackened soil. The parchment shimmered faintly as he ran a small pulse of chakra through it, activating the storage seal etched in spiralling red ink. The kanji glowed—封—"seal"—and the barrier of the scroll expanded, surrounding Renmaru's corpse in a dome of transparent light.
"Fwoop!"
In an instant, the body was gone, sucked into the scroll with a flicker of chakra and a breath of displaced wind. The scroll's glow dimmed, its paper once again mundane, the only evidence of what it now contained being the faint black signature of Renmaru's chakra.
Renjiro stood, rolling the scroll back up and tucking it away. His eyes briefly scanned the field.
Then it returned—that feeling.
That gnawing, persistent pressure.
The sensation of eyes burrowing into the back of his skull.
It had been there the moment he arrived at this battlefield. Constant. Suffocating. Like a predator perched somewhere just beyond his range of vision, too cautious to strike but too hungry to leave.
His jaw tightened.
'Again with this…' he thought bitterly. 'Still watching? This is getting annoying.'
He pivoted slightly, scanning the devastation around him. Twisted, charred trees. Smouldering corpses. Shattered stone and glass from a vaporized outpost. There were no chakra signatures, not within proximity, and yet…
"You can come out now," he said aloud, voice level but laced with irritation.
Silence answered him.
Not the casual quiet of nature reclaiming a war-torn land. This was louder. Stiller. A silence so sharp it threatened to bleed.
A hawk cried somewhere in the distance, the sound distant and solitary.
Nothing stirred.
No breeze. No footstep.
Renjiro frowned, narrowing his eyes.
'What is he, shy now?'
Then he turned. Slowly. Not a spin, but a deliberate, measured turn toward the patch of shadows nestled beneath a craggy, broken cliff face. His eyes fixed on it. Unblinking. As if daring the silence to break.
A ripple moved in the air—like oil over water.
And then, with the smooth, uncanny grace of a snake sliding from its coil, a figure stepped forward.
Orochimaru.
He walked through the battlefield like it was a stage that had already finished its performance.
"How long?" Orochimaru asked his voice the familiar hiss of amusement dipped in venom.
Renjiro didn't blink. "Ever since I arrived here."
Orochimaru's eyes widened with delight, and his mouth split into that familiar smirk—stretched just slightly too far, like a puppet learning to smile.
"Kukuku... So you noticed me all along. You're a far better sensory shinobi than I gave you credit for, Renjiro-kun. And quite talented, too. Remarkably so, for your age."
There was no flattery in his tone. Only interest.
Renjiro dipped his head, modest and respectful, but his hand subtly tightened around the scroll now tucked in his belt. He'd already caught the flicker in Orochimaru's eyes as they landed on it. The Sannin's gaze didn't miss much, and he wasn't subtle about what he wanted to inspect.
Which meant Renjiro had to act first.
"Forgive me, Orochimaru-sama," Renjiro said, his voice formal but edged with steel, "but is there any particular reason you didn't handle him sooner?"
He let the words hang.
Respectful—yes. But pointed.
Orochimaru's face didn't change, but his eyes narrowed just a fraction. Then he smiled again, this one thinner. Tighter.
"I was waiting for the right moment."
Renjiro didn't show his reaction. Inwardly, he scoffed. Bullshit.
"The Kiri shinobi were already fighting him when I arrived," Renjiro said, stepping into the conversational void. "If the goal was containment, why not aid them? They're our allies, after all. They answered the call when we began this raid. Even if we did not ask."
Orochimaru chuckled again—soft, breathy, like wind over dry bones.
"Oh, Renjiro-kun... The objective of this mission was not to play hero or protect fragile alliances. It was to clear the board. Eliminate variables. Weaken Kumo and Suna, not carry Kiri on our backs."
His voice turned cold, that last word hissed like venom.
But then his expression lightened again. His tone grew colourful, almost amused.
"Besides," he continued, "you've already taken all the fun. Now I have to go play with the lesser shinobi on the other side of the battlefield. Kukuku…"
He turned on his heel, his robe fluttering lightly in the breeze.
And just like that—whoosh—his form blurred and vanished in a streak of movement, gone as if he had never stood there at all.
Renjiro stood motionless for a moment, eyes lingering on the spot where Orochimaru had disappeared. A chill crept down his spine.
He wasn't naïve.
He knew Orochimaru's kind.
Men who played long games with lives, who twisted every moment into a test, a data point, an experiment. Renjiro had read the files. The whispers among the Uchiha clan. Orochimaru's interest in bloodlines was no secret even if the Hokage tried to convince himself it wasn't—especially not when it came to the Sharingan.
And now, for the first time, Renjiro had shown some of his abilities in front of him.
'Damn it,' Renjiro thought. 'Hopefully, I didn't show too much.'
He exhaled slowly, trying to shake the heavy awareness that clung to his shoulders. His entire performance—the calm bravado, the respectful tone, the subtle submission—wasn't just for Orochimaru's amusement. It was calculated. Deliberate.
If his path ever crossed Orochimaru's again—and it would—Renjiro needed to be underestimated.
To be seen as useful... but not threatening.
Talented... but not dangerous.
It was a fine line to walk, especially when your last name carried the weight of a clan with eyes that could see through illusions, manipulate time and space, and drive gods to madness.
He closed his eyes.
The wind picked up again.
Not the storm from earlier. That had finally begun to dissipate.
He opened his eyes to see the clouds parting—slowly like curtains being drawn back by an invisible hand. Sunlight spilled through the cracks, warm and golden, falling in quiet beams across the battlefield. The light caught on the scorched stone, on the glimmering ash, and finally on him.
Alone.
At the center of it all.
Renjiro stood in silence, a lone figure amidst destruction, the distant sounds of fighting now muffled by distance or death.
But even with the storm gone...
Even with the light now falling on his skin like blessing...
He still couldn't shake the feeling.
The watching.
The weight.
Someone else.
Somewhere.
Still observing.
The air shifted around him again. Like a whisper brushing against his nape.
He turned. Slowly. Deliberately.
Nothing.
No chakra signature. No scent. No motion.
Just the light.
And yet…
He narrowed his eyes. The feeling refused to leave.
=====
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