The hours dragged in silence.
The basin pulsed faintly, its black surface swallowing the faint shimmer of Nagato's chakra little by little.
The sound of his breathing grew slower, quieter, until it was barely there.
The pool had begun digesting him.
What once shimmered with resistance now yielded completely.
His skin peeled and reformed in cycles that grew shorter each time, his chakra flow thinning to near nothing.
Katsuyu's massive eye rippled open, its surface glinting with faint blue light.
"He's slipping," she murmured, voice steady and almost bored, yet carrying that quiet finality that made every word sound like judgment.
"Another few breaths, and the forest will claim what's left of him."
Ryusei stood at the edge, silent.
The Byakugan beneath the patch flared, recording every detail: chakra compression rate, frequency shift, the ratio between spiritual energy decay and physical reconstruction.
His mind moved faster than his pulse.
Pulling him out would waste the data.
Leaving him in would end the experiment.
He waited.
Nagato's head tilted back slightly.
The water reached his lips.
For a second, it looked like surrender.
Even Katsuyu's feelers drooped, as if she had already marked him as another failure.
Then the forest reacted.
The water stilled.
The air tightened.
A light formed inside the hollow sockets where eyes had been, faint at first, then bright enough to cut through the mist.
The glow deepened, rings of gold forming in perfect symmetry.
Ryusei blinked once, speechless. 'Black Zetsu took those eyes. They were gone. So how—'
The answer assembled itself in his head even as he watched.
The years Nagato spent bound to the Rinnegan, since youth, had carved the pattern into him: the nerves, the chakra pathways, and even the soul had grown around that power.
The special forest and black pools, merging and rewriting every cell, had only followed that blueprint.
The body remembered what it once held.
The natural energy gave it back, in its own image.
But this wasn't the same.
The purple hue was gone.
The golden rings pulsed softly, heavy with gravity itself.
Natural energy bent around them like a tide reversing.
Nagato wasn't just alive; he was anchoring the entire basin.
The black pool recoiled, folding inward as if dragged by an unseen pull.
Every ripple spiraled toward him, the forest's corrosive energy now orbiting his form like slow, molten light.
Katsuyu's voice rolled through the clearing, lower than before, completely thoughtful and surprised for the first time in centuries.
"Not regeneration," she said slowly. "Reconfiguration. The forest rebuilt what it remembered and gave it new laws. That sight can weigh nature itself."
Nagato's body steadied. The corrosion stopped.
The black water slid away, hissing and shrinking until only shallow ripples remained.
His skin carried a faint inner radiance now, veins glowing with dull gold beneath the surface.
He exhaled, steam curling from his lips.
Ryusei didn't move, but his mind was already measuring the implications. 'He adapted mid-process. Absorbed the forest's essence successfully. The body didn't reject it, it rewrote itself.'
Early Six Paths level, maybe just one step below himself, but close enough to make him useful and dangerous both.
Katsuyu hummed again, the sound like a slow heartbeat through the soil. "He didn't become another Hashirama. He became a bridge. The forest hasn't seen one like him."
Ryusei's smirk was faint but real. He hadn't expected success, yet he'd gained far more than one.
A subordinate reborn through the strongest sage source in existence.
And the insights, every fluctuation, every timing, were now his.
Even if the process had perhaps stripped away the old seal he'd placed on Nagato, it didn't matter.
He had another insurance.
'Konan still carries the mark,' he thought calmly. 'If he ever turns, she answers for it. He perhaps already knows that.'
Nagato rose fully from the basin, black water sliding off him like shadow melting from light.
The gold Rinnegan gleamed faintly through the mist, steady, unblinking.
"I see it now," he said quietly. "The world's flow. The weight of everything."
Ryusei gave a small nod. "Good. Keep it under control. The last thing we need is this place deciding to take back its gift."
A faint tremor rolled through the ground, followed by a low, amused hum.
Katsuyu's voice vibrated through the mist, calm yet edged with dry amusement.
"He's part of it now. Whether it keeps him or lets him walk away is no longer my concern."
Ryusei exhaled slowly, the faintest trace of a grin touching his lips.
He hadn't expected such a 'success'.
He looked once more at Nagato standing amid the dissolving mist. 'So this is what real change looks like,' he thought. 'Not learned, not stolen—grown.'
Nagato's voice was low, steady, as his gaze lifted toward the mist. "It feels… clearer now," he said. "It's not chakra anymore. It's the pattern underneath it."
He slowly extended his palm toward the distance.
The mist quivered. For an instant, something invisible ruptured far away, a silent burst that folded the air itself before fading.
Katsuyu's massive eye flickered once. "You disturbed the flow itself," she murmured. "Impressive. Or suicidal. Possibly both."
Ryusei's eyes narrowed faintly, the Byakugan behind the patch pulsing as he analyzed the reaction.
'So that's it,' he thought. 'His old gravitational Deva Path ability mutated, shifted from physical gravity to natural energy itself. The rest of the old Six Paths functions are completely gone, overwritten by whatever this new code is.'
A small grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. 'Fitting, really. The original Rinnegan's essence was stolen, so you can't expect it all back, but some of the blueprint in his body remained. This forest only gave it back, in its own way.'
Ryusei glanced toward Katsuyu, his tone mild but curious. "So, can he actually enter the Sage Mode now, as you said?"
The great slug's eyes blinked slowly, her voice echoing with that familiar calm detachment. "Yes. This process doesn't just teach. It remakes. His body is now tuned for it, absorbable, if you will. The moment he draws in nature, it answers. No waiting, no meditation, and preparation like with other Sage Regions. It's already part of him the moment he survived that."
Ryusei's brow rose faintly. Internally, he couldn't help comparing. 'Just like Hashirama, then. The state became uniquely instinctive and automatic.'
He tilted his head toward Nagato. "Try it. Let's see what it looks like."
Nagato said nothing, only closed his eyes and inhaled deeply.
The air shifted. Moisture condensed faintly around him.
Faint lines of bioluminescent chakra flickered beneath his skin, a pale cyan glow shimmering softly like moonlight reflected on shallow water.
His eyes took on a glassy sheen, reflecting the world as if through water.
No fangs, no scales, no horns, only that calm, fluid radiance that made everything around him seem to breathe with him.
Katsuyu studied him, her massive form stirring faintly in thought.
Ryusei also watched in silence, his eye narrowing slightly. Internally, he couldn't help but note the difference soon.
'It doesn't look like Hashirama's at all… and he had those distinct facial markings, unlike Nagato now too.'
So, he glanced at Katsuyu, keeping his tone neutral. "Tell me something. Nagato's Sage Mode now and Hashirama's back then, are they the same?"
Katsuyu's gaze shifted slightly, her massive form stilling as if sifting through memory. "No," she said after a pause.
"Hashirama's was different. His merged with something older already inside him. When he absorbed nature, it didn't remake him; it expanded what was already there. What this one achieved is closer to what the original Sage transformation of Shikkotsu was meant to be in the first place. Pure dissolution and rebirth, not mutation."
Her feelers twitched faintly, a thoughtful hum running through the ground. "Hashirama's energy took the shape of trees and plant life because it bent to his true nature for some reason. This place didn't change him; he changed it."
'So he really is a God Tree personified atavism...' Ryusei thought, a faint grin tugging at his lips. 'Guess I'm not ninety-five percent sure anymore, make that a hundred. For a while, I almost thought someone was pulling one over on me.'