Renjiro remained kneeling, his body trembling, his eyes still bleeding, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps.
He did not move. Not yet. He had learned better.
Leave, he thought, his internal voice a whisper. Go farther.
His chakra field, weakened but still functional, tracked Orochimaru's signature as it faded into the distance. The Sannin's presence was faint; damaged, depleted, but unmistakable. Renjiro followed it through the trees, across the river, into the mountains beyond. He felt it grow weaker, more distant, until finally, finally, it vanished entirely.
Only then did he believe it.
He's gone.
A pause. A breath.
I'm alive.
The collapse was not dramatic. It was not a fall, not a cry, not a surrender to unconsciousness. It was a slow, inexorable giving way—the release of tension that had been held for too long, the recognition that the danger had passed and that his body no longer needed to function at its limits.
His shoulders slumped. His chakra control weakened. The exhaustion that he had been holding at bay crashed into him like a wave, and he fell forward onto both knees, his hands sinking into the mud and ash that covered the ground.
His eyes were still bleeding—not the steady flow of moments ago, but a slow, persistent seep that stained his cheeks and dripped onto the earth. His muscles screamed, every fibre of his body protesting the abuse it had endured. His chakra reserves were nearly empty, his coils burning from the strain of manifesting abilities that should have been beyond him. He was not mortally wounded. He was simply empty.
If I had stayed with the tri-wheel pair another five minutes, he thought, his internal voice distant, almost detached, I'd be permanently blind. The six-pointed eyes came in clutch. But they're not enough. Not yet.
He knelt in the silence, his breath slowly steadying, his body gradually accepting that it was allowed to rest. The valley stretched around him—a wasteland of craters and cracks, of fallen trees and scattered serpent corpses, of green embers that still smouldered in the darkness. The battle had been devastating. The cost had been immense. But he had won.
I won.
The thought was strange, almost foreign. He had faced Orochimaru—one of the legendary Sannin, a monster of chakra and ambition, a man who had cheated death for decades—and he had won.
Now I need to understand how.
The adrenaline had faded, the fear had subsided, and the analytical part of his mind—the part that had kept him alive through war and politics and the endless complications of his second life—took over.
He replayed the battle in his mind, examining each exchange, each technique, each decision. Orochimaru had never intended to kill him initially. The Sannin's goal had been capture, study, and possession.
He had aimed for non-lethal strikes, targeted limbs, and tested defences rather than overwhelming them. He had spent half the battle gathering data, cataloguing Renjiro's abilities, searching for weaknesses to exploit.
That was a mistake, Renjiro thought. He underestimated me. He treated me as a specimen, not a threat. And by the time he realised his error, it was too late.
His Mangekyō ability; Between Selves, had been overwhelming at first—a technique that split his presence, that created multiple real bodies, that allowed him to dictate the engagement. But Orochimaru had adapted too quickly, tracking activation patterns, recognising usage windows. Against anyone else, it would have ended the fight. Against a Sannin, it was merely a tool.
Then there was the genjutsu. He had hurt Orochimaru—genuinely, deeply hurt him. The Snake Shedding of the Mind had been the Sannin's escape, a technique so disturbing that Renjiro still felt a chill when he thought about it.
He peeled away part of his own psyche, Renjiro reflected. No normal shinobi could have escaped. Only Orochimaru.
The eye swap was the turning point. Without the spare Mangekyō, he would have been defeated, captured, possessed. The spare eyes had saved him, simple as that.
The green flames were the actual kill move. The Susanoo, the chains, the battle with Manda—all of that had been secondary. The ripping apart of Orochimaru's spiritual attack forced the Sannin to retreat. That was the move Orochimaru had never anticipated.
Renjiro reached an uncomfortable truth. He had not beaten Orochimaru because he was stronger. He had beaten him because he had come prepared.
Information advantage. Massive information advantage. He had known most of Orochimaru's techniques, habits, psychology, and immortality methods. The Sannin had known almost nothing about him.
I didn't beat Orochimaru because I was stronger, Renjiro admitted. I beat him because I came prepared for him.
And now that advantage is gone.
The realisation was cold, unsettling. Orochimaru had seen everything; Between Selves, Mirror of Regret, Green Flames, the chains, the Susanoo. The Sannin was wounded, humiliated, but not broken. He would rebuild. He would adapt. And the next time they fought, he would know exactly what Renjiro was capable of.
The weight of the bargain settled over Renjiro like a shroud. He reached into his pouch and withdrew the remaining Hashirama cell vials. He had given Orochimaru a sample and not his whole collection.
He thought of the consequences. If Konoha learned what he had done—if Minato discovered that the Jonin Commander had traded Hashirama cells to a missing-nin—the accusations would be swift and severe.
Treason. Imprisonment. Execution, perhaps.
This was not a minor offence. This was the kind of decision that ended careers and lives.
But the monster already existed, Renjiro rationalised. Orochimaru was already pursuing immortality, already conducting forbidden experiments, already destroying lives in his quest for power. The cells don't create the threat. They accelerate it.
He knew the logic was thin. He knew it was a justification, not a justification. But he also knew that the alternative; refusing the bargain, sealing Orochimaru permanently, would have been a different kind of risk. The Sannin's death would have consequences, ripples across the shinobi world timeline that Renjiro could not predict.
He bargained because he feared being sealed, Renjiro realised. Not because he respected me. Not because he saw me as an equal. Because he was afraid.
Fear. That was the currency of the exchange. And fear, unlike respect, did not fade.
He'll come back, Renjiro thought. Next time he'll come prepared.
Renjiro compared the Orochimaru he had faced to the Orochimaru of the future, the man who would eventually possess Otogakure, a larger research base, improved techniques, and decades more preparation. The version he had fought was powerful, dangerous, but rebuilding. The future Orochimaru would be worse.
The Orochimaru that fought Itachi was stronger, Renjiro concluded. And I'm not Itachi. Not yet.
He evaluated himself honestly. If he fought infiltration-arc Itachi—the Itachi who had destroyed the Uchiha clan, who had awakened the Mangekyō, who had mastered techniques that transcended ordinary shinobi combat—he would lose. Not instantly. Not without a fight. But he would lose.
I'd make him work for it, Renjiro thought, a grim satisfaction in the thought. But I'd still lose.
He thought of his personal benchmark. If he could obtain the Eternal Mangekyō, if he could achieve the evolution that stopped deterioration, then maybe he could surpass that level. It was a distant goal, a dream that required months of preparation and research. But it was possible.
If Orochimaru's information is correct, Renjiro thought, I don't need Hashirama cells. My own blood becomes the catalyst. The Uzumaki vitality acts as a mediator.
He refused blind acceptance. Orochimaru was a manipulator, a liar, a man who had built his life on deception. The information could be incomplete, deliberately flawed, or designed to cause harm. He would need to verify everything—independent testing, controlled experimentation, gradual validation.
But if it's true, he thought, if it really works—
He did not finish the thought. For now, survival was the priority.
He reached into his pouch and withdrew a soldier pill and swallowed it dry, grimacing at the bitter taste.
The effect was immediate. Painful. A surge of chakra that burned through his depleted coils, forcing his body to function, pushing back the exhaustion that threatened to overwhelm him. He felt his muscles steady, his vision clear, his breathing deepen. It was not healing. It was not recovery.
It was fuel—just enough to keep him moving.
I need to get home, he thought. I need to rest. I need to plan.
He rose slowly, his body protesting, his eyes still dim. The six-pointed Mangekyō had stopped bleeding, but his vision remained blurred at the edges. He would need time to recover, to heal, or maybe switch eyes again.
He took one final look at the destroyed valley—at the craters, the corpses, the embers that still glowed in the darkness. The battle had been devastating. The cost had been immense. But he had survived.
The next time we meet, Renjiro thought, his internal voice cold with promise, neither of us will be the same men.
He raised his hand, formed the summoning seals, and prepared to leave.
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