Autumn in Konoha was usually a season of burning colors. The maples turned crimson, the ginkgo trees showered the streets in gold, and the air held a crisp, nostalgic sweetness. But for Ren Yamanaka, this autumn tasted like rust.
He sat on a rooftop gargoyle overlooking the Naka River, near the borders of the Uchiha district. The clan was not yet segregated to the outskirts, but the atmosphere was suffocating. Since the end of the war, the Uchiha Police Force had grown restless. They felt their contributions to the victory had been glossed over, their brilliance overshadowed by the rise of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, and the political maneuvering of the elders.
Danzo Shimura's paranoia was bleeding into the village's foundations. He whispered that the Uchiha were hiding something, that their dissatisfaction was the precursor to treason.
Ren adjusted his porcelain mask. Beneath it, his right eye was covered by a black eyepatch. His left eye, still his natural teal, stared coldly at the river below.
"One red leaf falls," Ren whispered, quoting a poem from a dead poet whose soul was moldering in his mental library. "And the whole forest knows winter is coming."
His mission dossier was burned into his mind.
Target: Ryuichi Uchiha. Special Jonin. Crime: Intent to sell Konoha patrol routes to Kumo to settle gambling debts. Order: Absolute erasure. No body to be found.
Ren dropped into the darkness.
The Duel in the Warehouse
The interception happened in an abandoned supply warehouse in the industrial sector. Ryuichi Uchiha was waiting for his contact. Instead, he got Ren.
Ryuichi was elite. A three-tomoe Sharingan user with a mastery of Fire Style that turned the damp warehouse into an inferno within seconds.
"Root dog!" Ryuichi screamed, weaving signs with blinding speed. "Fire Style: Dragon Flame Song!"
Three massive dragon heads of fire roared toward Ren, scorching the wooden crates.
Ren didn't dodge. He moved through the gaps.
His movements were a terrifying hybrid. He activated the Byakugan beneath his eyepatch, seeing the chakra buildup of the dragons before they fully formed. He used the Mist Assassin's fluid footwork to slide under the heat, twisting his body like water. He used the Magnet Release to pull a sheet of scrap metal from the floor, bending it into a curved shield to deflect the blast.
But Ryuichi was fast.
Slash.
A kunai, guided by Sharingan prediction, caught Ren in the side. Ren grunted, blood spraying against the warehouse wall.
"I see your moves!" Ryuichi gloated, his red eyes spinning wildly. "You're a patchwork doll! A thief of styles! I can see the dissonance in your chakra!"
"And you are a traitor," Ren rasped. "You sell your kin for coin."
Ren switched tactics. He needed to be unpredictable. The Sharingan read muscle tension and chakra flow to predict the next move.
So, Ren stopped moving his muscles normally.
"Puppet Art: Self-Manipulation."
Ren attached invisible chakra threads to his own limbs. He surrendered control of his body to the Puppet Master's persona in his mind. His body jerked and moved with unnatural, erratic angles—impossible for a human skeleton to perform comfortably, and therefore impossible for a Sharingan to predict.
He flew at Ryuichi like a broken marionette, limbs snapping forward.
Ryuichi's eyes widened. "What the—"
Ren's foot connected with Ryuichi's jaw, shattering bone. Ryuichi flew back, crashing into a stack of steel beams.
Ren landed, panting. His side was burning. He was bleeding heavily. But he didn't stop. He needed to end this before Ryuichi could regroup.
Ryuichi struggled up, blood blinding one eye. He prepared a final, desperate Genjutsu.
"Demonic Illusion: Mirror Heaven and Earth Change!"
Ren felt his mind being pulled. The Sharingan genjutsu was potent.
But Ren's mind was a fortress occupied by an army.
Ryuichi's consciousness tried to enter Ren's mind to plant the illusion. Instead of a blank canvas, Ryuichi found himself standing in the Vault. He saw the iron cages. He saw Goro the Earth Commander pounding on the bars. He saw the Mist Assassin sharpening a spectral knife. He saw hundreds of screaming faces.
Ryuichi screamed in the real world. "Get out! Get out of my head! It's full! It's too full!"
Ren lunged. His hand clamped over Ryuichi's face.
"No," Ren whispered. "You get in."
THE GATE OPENS.
The consumption was violent. The Uchiha bloodline was potent, volatile, and filled with a hereditary intensity that felt like swallowing liquid fire.
Ren absorbed the Fire Style mastery. He absorbed the Shurikenjutsu reflexes.
And then, he absorbed the genetic data of the eyes.
Ren felt the agonizing rewire again, just as he had with the Byakugan. His left eye—his natural teal eye—burned as if he had rubbed chili powder into it. The optic nerve spliced, mutated, and evolved, flooded with the Uchiha's potent spiritual energy.
When Ren pulled his hand away, Ryuichi was a husk.
Ren fell back against a crate, clutching his face. The pain was absolute.
He opened his left eye.
Everything slowed down.
He saw the dust motes dancing in the firelight. He saw the trajectory of a falling drop of blood. He saw the flow of chakra in the air itself, painted in vivid detail.
Red. Everything was tinted red.
He looked at his reflection in a shard of broken glass on the floor.
Right Eye: Byakugan (White). Left Eye: Sharingan (Red).
Heterochromia of the gods.
"Beautiful," Ren whispered, terrified by his own reflection. "And monstrous."
The Hospital and the Shattering
Ren spent three days in the hospital. The physical wounds from the fight healed, but the integration of the Sharingan was taxing. It drained his chakra constantly. Unlike a natural Uchiha, he couldn't deactivate it easily. It was always hungry, always watching.
He lay in the bed, wearing a full bandage wrap around his head, covering both eyes.
The door opened.
"Ren?"
It was Kaito.
Ren felt Kaito's chakra signature instantly. It was agitated. Sharp. Angry.
"Hello, Kaito," Ren said, his voice raspy.
"I heard you took down a missing-nin near the river," Kaito said, pulling up a chair. "Rumor has it he was an Uchiha."
"Rumors are dangerous, Kaito."
"Don't play games with me," Kaito snapped, the chair scraping loudly against the floor. "I'm in the Police Force now. I saw the crime scene report before Root scrubbed it. There was a body. But the autopsy… the eyes were gone. Not burned. Removed."
Ren lay still. "Collateral damage. Fire Style creates mess."
"Don't lie to me!" Kaito stood up. "I know about Isamu. I know about the Hyuga incident. And now an Uchiha? You're collecting them, aren't you? Like… like trophies."
Ren sat up. He reached for his bandages.
"Kaito," Ren warned. "Don't ask questions you don't want answered."
"Show me," Kaito demanded, his voice trembling. "Show me your eyes."
Ren hesitated. Then, slowly, he unwound the bandages.
The cloth fell away.
Kaito gasped, stepping back as if struck.
Ren looked at him. One milky white eye. One blood-red eye with three spinning tomoe.
"You…" Kaito's face twisted in horror and revulsion. "You thief! You stole his blood! That belongs to my clan!"
"I utilized a resource," Ren said coldly. The Sharingan spun, analyzing Kaito's micro-expressions—disgust, betrayal, fear. "He was a traitor, Kaito. He was selling out the village. I saved your clan the shame of a public trial by taking his power and burying his name."
"You didn't take it to save us!" Kaito screamed. Tears welled in his eyes. "You took it because you're empty! You're just a parasite! That eye… it belongs to a brother! And you're wearing it like a medal!"
Kaito drew a kunai. His hand was shaking.
"Take it out," Kaito wept. "Take it out, Ren. Please. Be the Ren I knew. Be the Ren who was kind."
Ren looked at his friend.
With the Byakugan, he saw the hesitation in Kaito's chakra. With the Sharingan, he saw the sloppy opening in Kaito's stance. With the Puppet Master's instinct, he saw a string to pull.
Ren didn't feel fear. He felt a profound, aching disappointment.
"I can't take it out, Kaito," Ren said softly. "It's part of me now."
"Then you aren't Ren anymore," Kaito hissed. He slashed at the air, not attacking, but drawing a line between them. "Ren died in the war. You are just a corpse eater."
Kaito turned and ran out of the room.
Ren sat alone in the silence.
He touched his red eye. A tear leaked out. It was bloody.
"Goodbye, Kaito," he whispered.
The Consolidation of Style
Winter came. The snow buried Konoha in white silence.
Ren was promoted to Anbu Captain. He was given a new codename: Chimera.
But Ren knew he couldn't keep fighting like a chaotic mess. The fight with Ryuichi had been sloppy. He was relying too much on switching between stolen styles. It was inefficient.
He retreated to a private training ground deep in the forest, isolating himself from everyone.
He spent the winter months meditating. He needed to synthesize.
I have Earth. I have Water. I have Wind. I have Fire. I have Magnetism. I have Puppet threads. I have the Eye of Insight (Sharingan) and the Eye of Telescopy (Byakugan).
He couldn't be a master of everything. He needed a core style that utilized his greatest assets: Information and Control.
He began to weave the threads.
He combined the Puppet Chakra Threads with the Magnet Release. Instead of controlling wooden puppets, he would control Iron Sand or micro-filaments of metal hidden in the environment.
He combined the Byakugan's sensory range with the Sharingan's predictive reflex. He could see an attack coming from a mile away and know exactly how to counter it before the enemy even launched it.
He developed a new Jutsu style: "Phantom Blade."
He used invisible chakra threads to manipulate kunai and shuriken in a cloud around him, constantly guided by the Magnet Release. With the Byakugan, he had a 360-degree defense. With the Sharingan, he had perfect offense.
He was becoming a literal grinder. Anything that stepped into his range was shredded.
The Mask
The seasons passed.
Winter was cold, biting at his exposed skin. But not as cold as my heart, Ren thought, watching the snow fall on the training stumps.
Autumn had been full of sadness. But not as sad as the Council, he realized.
The impulses were getting worse. The Sharingan amplified negative emotions. The Byakugan made him hyper-aware of flaws.
One day, while walking through the market in civilian clothes, he saw a merchant knock over a basket of apples.
Ren's hand twitched. He almost impaled the merchant with a chakra thread. Not out of malice. Just… reflex. The Puppet Master inside him saw a "clumsy object" and wanted to fix it. The Uchiha inside him saw "weakness" and wanted to punish it.
Ren froze in the street. He sweated, forcing his hand down into his pocket.
He walked away, shaking.
He realized he could no longer trust his face. His eyes were constantly active, swirling and pulsing, draining him, showing him the world in X-ray and slow motion.
He bought a full-face mask. Not the Anbu porcelain. A simple, black cloth mask that covered his nose and mouth, paired with dark, polarized sunglasses.
He started wearing it everywhere. Even at home.
He sat in his apartment, the heating turned off. It was freezing, but Ren didn't feel it.
He looked at his "Council" in the Vault. The cells were full. The noise was constant.
He touched the window glass. His reflection was obscured by the mask he wore even to sleep.
He was a collection of stolen parts held together by fear and duty.
"I need to organize," Ren whispered to the empty room. "I need to clean house."
But deep down, he knew. You can't clean a house when the foundation is built on corpses.
End of Chapter 9.