Chapter 262: The Eye of the Sage
"The Rinnegan!"
Kokuō's voice cracked like a whip through the quiet cabin. She stared at Nagato as if she had seen a ghost—a spirit from an age long buried.
The Rinnegan. Here. In a child.
How was this possible? In all the long centuries of her existence, only one being had ever possessed those eyes. The old man. The Sage of Six Paths. And he was dust now. He had to be.
No... wait.
Kokuō studied Nagato more carefully. Her round, luminous eyes fixed on the ripple-patterned irises with an intensity that made the boy shift uncomfortably.
"The Sage's Rinnegan had nine tomoe," she murmured, almost to herself. "This child has no tomoe. And his aura... it's different from the old man's. But... he carries the Sage's blood. He must be a descendant of the Six Paths lineage."
Her mind spun in circles. She could not calm herself. The shock of seeing those eyes—those divine eyes—was simply too great.
"Little White, what's wrong?" Yahiko leaned forward, his brow furrowed with innocent curiosity. "Why is the legendary Tailed Beast so surprised?"
Nagato said nothing, but his expression tightened almost imperceptibly. So. The Tailed Beast had recognized his eyes after all.
"She just realized," Ragnar answered in Kokuō's stead, "that Nagato's eyes are the same as those of a certain ancient being."
"The Sage of Six Paths?" Konan ventured.
Ragnar nodded once.
"Haha! Nagato is seriously amazing!" Yahiko beamed with uncomplicated pride, genuinely delighted for his friend.
But Kokuō remained silent, her thoughts churning like a storm-tossed sea.
The Rinnegan... has appeared again. Could this be the hand of fate moving in the shadows? And this boy—he is the student of Rakshasa. Is that truly a coincidence?
As a Tailed Beast who had wandered this world for millennia, Kokuō understood things that mortals had long forgotten. She was sensitive to the subtle currents of destiny, the invisible threads that wove through time. The Sage of Six Paths had died, yes. But sometimes, it felt as though he had never truly left this world.
Seeing the Rinnegan now, after so many years, Kokuō could not shake the thought: was this the Sage's reincarnation? A vessel chosen to carry on his will?
Whatever the truth, the appearance of these eyes was no small matter. They heralded change—great and terrible change.
"Nagato. Yahiko. Konan."
Ragnar's voice cut through the tension, redirecting the room's attention.
"I will remain here for a few more days. After that, I depart for Konohagakure. We may be apart for some time."
The words landed like stones dropped into still water.
The lively atmosphere that Kokuō's arrival had sparked evaporated in an instant. Silence rushed in to fill the void. All three orphans wore the same expression: reluctance. Loss. They had always known that Ragnar's departure was inevitable. But knowing did not make the reality any easier to bear.
In their hearts, Ragnar was no longer just a teacher. He was family. The kind of family you couldn't bear to be separated from.
"Can't you stay, Teacher?" Yahiko's voice was smaller now, stripped of its usual bluster.
Nagato and Konan said nothing, but their eyes spoke volumes. They looked at Ragnar with silent, desperate hope—willing him to change his mind.
Ragnar looked at them. Then, unexpectedly, he smiled.
"Heh. It's not a life-or-death parting. Does leaving me mean you can't survive anymore?"
The three flinched at the gentle mockery.
"I'm not much older than you. I can survive on my own. So why can't you?" Ragnar continued, his voice firm but not unkind. "A young eagle must eventually leave the nest and fly on its own wings. You must grow. Yahiko—didn't you say you wanted to change this world? Can you do that while clinging to your teacher's sleeve like a child?"
Yahiko's face flushed crimson. Embarrassment flooded through him.
But beneath the embarrassment lay understanding.
The teacher was right. He couldn't ask Ragnar to stay in the Rain Country out of selfishness. He needed to grow. He couldn't remain a child forever, sheltered under the teacher's shadow. The world was waiting for him to change it. He had a dream—a grand, impossible dream—and standing still was not an option.
Kokuō watched the exchange in silence. She did not fully grasp the complexities of human emotion, but even she could feel the bittersweet ache that filled the room. As a beast, her instincts were sharp—sharper than any human's. The bond between these three children and the man they called teacher was something rare. Something precious.
And it was about to be tested.
The days that followed passed in a blur of focused intensity.
The three orphans trained harder than ever before. They did not mention Ragnar's departure again. It was as though they had aged years overnight, the innocence of childhood shedding from them like old skin. Step by step, they walked toward maturity. This, perhaps, was the price of growth.
You gained something. But you also lost something.
Whenever the three encountered a problem they could not solve, they brought it to Ragnar. And Ragnar answered every question with the precision of a scalpel. His knowledge was deep, though his expertise lay less in traditional ninjutsu and more in the domains he had made his own—Devil Fruit abilities, taijutsu, the brutal arithmetic of survival.
Ragnar had been an orphan himself. A shinobi with no clan, no bloodline, no inherited scrolls of secret techniques. Unlike the great families of Konoha—each with their unique forbidden arts—he had started with nothing. What he taught his students was not flashy jutsu or ancestral secrets. It was something far more valuable.
Combat experience. Threat assessment. The will to survive when everything went to hell.
In a world as broken as this one, survival was the greatest power of all.
The three absorbed Ragnar's teachings like dry earth drinking rain. Under his guidance, they grew rapidly. Under equal conditions, they would one day be no weaker than the Pain of the original timeline—perhaps stronger.
But even as he taught, Ragnar did not neglect his own growth.
His first priority: mastery over the Flame-Flame Fruit and the Gravity Fruit.
The Flame-Flame Fruit was simple in concept—raw, overwhelming destructive power. But true control? That was another matter entirely. Ragnar's goal was precision. To command every flicker of flame with absolute authority, to waste not a single drop of stamina. Maximum destruction. Minimum expenditure. Efficiency was its own kind of lethality.
The Gravity Fruit, by contrast, was technical. A precision instrument. Ragnar's current command over it was still limited to the fundamentals: gravitational pull, gravitational repulsion. The basics.
But gravity's potential was astronomical.
Summoning meteorites from the upper atmosphere—he could already do that, though it was not a technique of his own creation. It was inspired by Fujitora Issho, an admiral from a world that existed only in his memories. Ragnar refused to be a mere imitator forever.
Nature's greatest disasters were all, at their core, products of gravitational imbalance.
Earthquakes. Tsunamis. Volcanic eruptions.
These would be his next step. To weaponize the fundamental force that shaped planets. A Rakshasa feared across the ninja world needed forbidden techniques that could shatter nations. What use was a demon lord who could not summon the apocalypse on a whim?
And beyond gravity alone... there was the tantalizing possibility of the electromagnetic force. Theoretically, electromagnetism and gravity were incompatible—forces of fundamentally different natures. They could not be fused. But this world did not obey the strict laws of science. Chakra defied physics daily. Biology bent to the will of chakra. In a realm of supernatural possibilities, perhaps even the barriers between fundamental forces could be broken.
Alone in a forest clearing, Ragnar sat on a moss-covered stone. The rain had paused for the moment, leaving the world damp and glistening. One thought led to another, and his mind turned to his Haki.
He had experience points. Enough, perhaps, to push one of his skills to level five.
He opened the system panel. The translucent interface materialized before his eyes:
[Host: Ragnar]
Abilities:
Haoshoku Haki (Conqueror's) — Lv. 4
Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation) — Lv. 4
Busoshoku Haki (Armament) — Lv. 4
Soru (Shave) — Lv. 3
Geppo (Moonwalk) — Lv. 3
*[Level-up cost: 1,000 EXP]*
Skills:
Tornado Tempest
Thirty-Six Calamity Winds
Seventy-Two Calamity Winds
One-Sword Style: Lion's Song
Devil Fruits:
Mera Mera no Mi (Flame-Flame) — Lv. 5
Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu — Lv. 5
Zushi Zushi no Mi (Gravity) — Lv. 4
[Next level cost: 100,000 EXP]
Experience: 82,000 / 10,000
Fifty thousand experience points to push a Devil Fruit to level 5. The Gravity Fruit, currently at level 4, was eligible. The three Haki types, all stalled at level 4, were also within range for advancement.
Ragnar weighed his options carefully.
The Devil Fruits would eventually unlock special abilities at level 5—perhaps even Awakening. That was the threshold where power ceased to be linear and became something else entirely. But Haki was the foundation. And among the three colors, one stood paramount for a Conqueror.
Haoshoku.
He made his choice.
End of Chapter
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