As Torune Aburame spoke those words to Ren, they stood in the middle of the bustling main camp, yet the world around them suddenly felt void of sound.
The rhythmic pounding of hammers, the chatter of shinobi, the heavy trudge of supply carts—it was as if all noise had been vacuumed away. Only after a long silence did the auditory world rush back to fill Ren's ears.
Ren's brow furrowed as his thoughts raced.
Orochimaru... restarted the Wood Style experiments? To save me?
He tightened his fists. Despite a lingering sense of exhaustion, he could feel a vibrant surge of physical energy within his muscles. If he willed it, that energy could be converted into a massive reservoir of chakra!
But he quickly noticed a strange anomaly. This vast chakra wasn't automatically flowing into his forbidden jutsu, Body Incarnation, to heal his weakened state.
Instead, he felt intricate, black ink-like lines woven into the very fibers of his muscles, interfering with the flow of his chakra. These lines were interlaced like a massive web, culminating in two spiraling, high-density seals over his stomach and heart.
They looked remarkably similar to the Eight Trigrams Seal that would one day hold the Nine-Tails within Naruto.
This sealing jutsu isolated his passive use of Body Incarnation and cut off his connection to the Zero-Tails within him. However, it wasn't a total lock; Ren could sense that if he truly desired to force it, he could still tap into that sequestered power.
"That is the Eight Trigrams Seal Minato placed on you at Orochimaru's request," Torune said, patting Ren's shoulder to keep him moving.
"Don't worry, it's not a bad thing. On the contrary, it will help you better regulate and control the power of that tailless beast inside you."
Torune led him further into the camp. "I know your mind is a mess right now, but it's fine. You'll have plenty of time to figure it out. Before that... go say goodbye to your friends."
They returned to the medical camp. Torune pulled back the flap of a quiet tent, revealing a row of beds covered in white sheets.
A small figure in Uchiha attire stood silently before one of the beds, clutching a kodachi.
"Shisui...?"
Seeing the solemn atmosphere and the row of white sheets, Ren's heart skipped a beat. "Wait, are these...?"
Ren slowed his pace, stepping forward cautiously. Sensing his approach, Shisui Uchiha looked up. His eyes were red—his Sharingan active—with three tomoe slowly rotating around his pupils, though his gaze was clouded with grief.
"Ren, you're here."
Shisui was battered; bandages were wrapped around his head, and one arm was in a sling, the white cloth stained with dried blood. Compared to the deathly stillness of the row of beds, he looked like a miracle.
"Why are you here? And who are..." Ren swallowed hard, his eyes darting to the bed Shisui was guarding. Usually, when a sheet covers the head...
Shisui remained silent for a moment, his head lowering. His voice was thick with exhaustion and sorrow. "As you can see... the members of the Konoha Raid Squad... are all here."
"What did you say?!"
Ren's voice failed him. He watched as Shisui, with his one good hand, slowly gripped the edge of the white sheet covering the body before him. He began to pull it back.
A familiar face appeared.
It was Shinichi Uchiha.
Ren's mind flashed back to the moment Shinichi had leaped forward to hold off Ebizo's elite guards for him. His heart sank, and his own Sharingan flared to life in response.
However...
In the next instant, the "corpse" of Shinichi Uchiha suddenly snapped his eyes open!
A mischievous glint danced in his pupils as he took in Ren's expression of grief and shock. Shinichi's face then mock-hardened; he reached up, grabbed Ren by the collar, and flipped him onto the bed with a sudden burst of strength.
"You brat! You love playing the hero so much, don't you?!"
Suddenly, white sheets were tossed into the air all across the room! One by one, "corpses" sat up—the entire Konoha Raid Squad, every last one of them, was staring at Ren with less-than-friendly eyes.
"Did you ever stop to think about how we felt?!"
Ren realized in horror that these people had recruited the innocent, naive Shisui into a massive fraud!
He looked at the menacing group, especially Shisui, who was now staring at him with a gaze so deep and "dark" it looked like his eyes contained black holes. Ren swallowed hard, scooting back on the bed.
"Wait! What are you doing?!"
"Shinichi, you're despicable! Using Shisui to trick me like that!"
Shinichi grinned, his eyes gleaming. "What are we doing?"
"Heh, we're celebrating our commander's promotion to Jōnin, of course!" He turned to Shisui, who had proposed the plan. "Shisui, what's the verdict? You call it!"
Shisui tilted his head, a demonic smile playing on his lips. "Let's start by stripping him bare..."
The Next Day.
At the gates of the Konoha Main Camp, a small team was assembling for the journey back to the village. A young, masked boy with silver hair was boredly feeding grass to the horse pulling their carriage.
Kakashi Hatake frowned and looked back at the camp. He turned to the blonde man sitting on the carriage, who seemed lost in thought.
"Sensei Minato, Obito is late again! He can't possibly find an old lady to help across the street inside a military camp, can he?"
Rin Nohara chuckled softly. "I think I saw him helping some of the wounded write letters home. He should be here soon."
Just then, Obito came sprinting out of the camp, carrying a massive sack of letters and waving frantically. "I'm late! Sorry, sorry!~"
Minato snapped out of his trance and smiled at the sack. "I asked him to do that, Kakashi. We're the last group approved to return; the rest have to stay for at least six months. I figured we could carry everyone's letters back to their families. Sorry for the delay."
"No need to apologize, Sensei," Kakashi said. He watched Obito climb onto the carriage, but noticed Minato wasn't moving to leave yet. "Since Obito is here, why aren't we going?"
"Well," Minato tilted his head toward the camp. "We're waiting for one more person. Ah, here he comes!"
The three students turned in unison.
They saw a boy slightly taller than them, dressed in a loose-collared black kimono with the Uchiha crest and long pants tied with a purple shimenawa rope.
He walked over expressionlessly.
He climbed onto the carriage expressionlessly.
He looked back at them expressionlessly.
Yesterday, courtesy of Shisui and the rest of the Raid Squad, Ren's entire face, neck, and even the skin below his collarbones had been covered in "little turtles" drawn in permanent ink.
Meeting the four pairs of eyes that were currently struggling—and failing—not to burst into laughter, Ren snapped irritably:
"What are you looking at?!"
"This stuff won't wash off! I tried really hard, okay?!"
"Let's just go!"
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