Wave was awake before dawn.
Foghorns answered each other across the harbor while stevedores rolled barrels down planks still slick from night mist. In the courtyard of Eclipse headquarters, boots thudded in tempo as the Sun Guard formed ranks and shouldered shields. The building breathed—ink in ledgers, steel on whetstones, murmurs in stairwells as runners carried orders that had to be obeyed and forgotten at the same time.
Ren stood in the map room, alone at first.
He'd grown again—still compact, but no longer slight. The boy softness had thinned from his face; the eyes had not. Three tomoe sat in each Sharingan like coals banked in a brazier, never cold, never careless. He traced a finger along Fire Country's borders to the leaf-shaped symbol stamped into the parchment.
Konoha.
Orochimaru will strike during the Chūnin Exam finals. Hiruzen will die unless someone changes the script. And if that happens… every decision squeezes the village from a different direction. Danzo. The council. The clans. The civilians with empty pantries and a full list of enemies to blame.
Ren didn't want Konoha in ashes. Ashes didn't obey. He wanted a village that could be steered—through law, habit, and quiet debts.
Footsteps in the hall. The door opened.
Gojo entered like he owned the air, hands in pockets, blindfold tilted just enough to be smug. Zabuza came behind him, a block of shadow and iron, the Kubikiribōchō riding his shoulder. Haku glided last, a rolled dossier tucked under his arm. Escanor paused at the threshold—a mountain politely trying not to be a mountain—and shut the door gently behind him.
Ren didn't waste words. "The Exams are our stage, but not our banner. We won't march on Konoha. We'll be inside it before the first bell rings."
Zabuza's bandages wrinkled with a grin. "Infiltration, not invasion. Better sport."
Gojo rocked back on his heels. "And kinder to their paint."
Ren nodded at Haku. "Report."
Haku set the dossier on the table and unrolled a set of clean profiles. "Kirigakure has agreed to register my squad as official Kiri genin. The paperwork is stamped, the itinerary filed. Two Eclipse-trained companions will move as my teammates. We'll enter Konoha through the north gate with the Mist delegation."
He tapped three names: neutral covers, clean backgrounds, fake parents in merchant ledgers that could survive a basic check.
Ren continued, "You lead as Mist. You listen as Eclipse. Your priorities: map routes, pattern guard rotations, locate non-public supply caches, and put eyes on council couriers. If the invasion starts, you protect civilians first and our own second. You do not engage Konoha forces unless they strike at you directly."
Zabuza snorted. "You're sending scouts into a knife fight and telling them to keep their hands in their pockets."
"I'm telling them to leave Konoha with a debt," Ren said. "They'll remember who pulled their children out of burning stands. They'll remember who re-opened a blocked stairwell. Those memories outlast threats."
Escanor folded his arms, voice even. "And when the smoke clears?"
Ren moved a wooden pin from Wave to an empty corner of Konoha's map, then to the markets, the guild hall, the neighborhood watch office. "We attach help where help is needed. Supplies from Wave. Coin through Tea. A promise to stabilize food prices while other villages rebuild their pride. We make the choice between chaos and us easy."
"Soft conquest," Gojo said, amused. "Your favorite."
Ren didn't disagree. He looked each of them in the eye. "And if Hiruzen falls, our window opens. The village will be angry and afraid. Danzo will push. The clans will pull. That's when we offer a steady hand with no flag attached."
Haku's brow knit. "Do we… let the Hokage die?"
The room went quiet.
Ren's jaw worked once before he answered. He didn't hide the truth. "If I intervene and fail, we fight both Orochimaru and Konoha. If I intervene and succeed, Danzo will call us thieves of glory and demand our heads for stepping into their fight. If I wait, a great man dies and a great machine breaks. And I can put my gears in the gaps."
Gojo's head tipped, the amusement gone. "You're not wrong."
Zabuza's voice was gravel. "War doesn't reward pretty choices."
Escanor's eyes were sad and steady. "Then make sure the choice serves more than yourself."
Ren nodded once. "It will. A more stable Konoha means fewer orphans who grow into weapon fodder. Fewer Narutos needing to scream to be seen. Fewer clans pushed into corners until they break."
Zabuza grunted. He didn't argue.
Ren's hand flattened over the leaf on the map. "Besides… Konoha already owes us. On the Nine-Tails night, a blindfolded man carried a baby through fire and told a monster to stop." He flicked a glance at Gojo. "We collect that debt by paying a new one. We protect their people during the attack. Quietly. Efficiently. When they trace the net that caught them, they'll find our lines woven through it."
"Very sentimental," Gojo said dryly. "I like it better than 'burn it down.'"
Haku bowed his head a fraction. "I'll make it so."
"Good," Ren said. "Now—training."
—
They took it outside.
By midmorning the training grounds thrummed with ordered impact. The Sun Guard ran shield drills under Escanor's noon presence, lines braced and moving like a wall that had learned to walk. At his shout, the front rank shifted into a V that swallowed a target and smothered it with wood and will. At his finger, the rear rank surged forward, replacing a broken line with one that didn't break.
"Again," Escanor called, not harsh, not gentle. "If you are tired, you will become tired where you stand."
Sweat slicked faces and forearms. No one dropped a shield. Pride was a posture here, held like gear.
On the adjacent field, Zabuza's Fangs worked in the quiet: ten-man squads ghosting from shadow to shadow, knifing straw dummies in the throat and disappearing before the straw learned it was dead. Zabuza walked among them like a storm front, passing a hand over a stance, tapping a wrist, nodding once when a move finished cleaner than last time.
Haku drilled the Shadows on a low berm behind the compound—nonverbal signals, the speed of a disguise change, the body language of a clerk versus a courier versus a carpenter. He corrected hats and posture with the patience of a teacher and the precision of a surgeon.
Ren trained alone with a ring of wooden posts charred black from prior sessions. He flowed through katon sequences until the seals were muscle and breath, then overlaid his fire magic on top of them. A column of flame leapt, thinned, and braided into chains that coiled around a post without scorching it. He tightened; the wood creaked. He released; the bindings fell away in harmless sparks.
He repeated it with cursed energy in his knuckles. Strike, align, Black Flash—a clean, bright snap that cracked the post and rang in his bones like a bell. He exhaled through the ache, then sent a thin sheet of flame across the ground and raised it into a wall that was barely there at all—heat without color, ready to warp kunai and blur a Byakugan's patience.
"Your shaping's cleaner," Gojo said, suddenly there on the top rail of the fence, balanced on one foot because of course he was. "Less drama, more control."
Ren lowered his hands, breathing steady. "Escanor's been on me about waste."
Gojo grinned. "He's right. Also: your new trick with the fire threads? I can already see you ruining a jonin's day with it."
"Working on a silent weave," Ren said. "No light, only heat. Enough to make someone think they tripped until they can't stand."
Zabuza's shadow fell across them. He watched Ren's next series and nodded once. "Good. You remember you're still made of meat."
Ren blew out a breath that might have been a laugh. "I do."
"Then keep training until you forget again," Zabuza said, and moved off.
Haku finished his drills and stepped into Ren's circle as the posts were replaced. "Your fire restraints—they'll hold in rain?"
"If I lace them through wood or steel," Ren said. "On open ground? I'll switch to cursed energy threads. Less dramatic."
"Less visible," Haku corrected. "We're not trying to frighten Konoha. We're trying to make their fear find someone else."
Ren glanced toward the Sun Guard as Escanor lifted a hand and the line stopped like a single man obeying a single thought. "Right."
—
Logistics followed training. It always did.
At the long tables in the operations hall, Eclipse quartermasters stacked sealed packets: powder for smoke, pre-counted ryo for bribes, letters of passage with Kiri seals that would stand up to a jōnin's glance. Haku checked each with a palm and an eye, humming faint approval or tapping the corner for a correction.
"Three layers," Ren said, moving down the line. "Public identity for Haku's squad—Mist genin. Support identity for two more units—porters under the Kiri delegation, and a merchant caravan with Tea papers. And the mask—Shadows under no flag at all, already in Konoha. We stagger entries. No clusters."
"Rotation cadence?" Haku asked.
"Forty-eight hours," Ren said. "No one stays on a single route long enough to grow roots."
"Signal book?" Haku held up a thin ledger with meaningless recipes and, to the right eyes, anchor points for cipher phrases.
Ren tapped three lines. "Meeting, danger, extraction. If Orochimaru's curtain falls, these get used."
"Extraction to where?"
"Three options: Tea safehouse, farmer compound outside Konoha's east wall, or a warehouse in the merchant quarter. We control two of the three; the farmer thinks he works for a shipping guild."
Haku's mouth tilted. "He does."
Ren didn't smile back. "Next: money."
Gojo flopped into a chair with the enthusiasm of a cat in a sunbeam. "Finally, my favorite jutsu."
Ren slid a ledger across the table. "We've already set up a credit line through Tea Country merchants for emergency food purchases if Konoha's markets crash after the attack. We'll front the coin under a neutral company, not Wave. When the dust settles, the company will 'ask' the village to sign a supply agreement. If the council refuses, the company will quietly keep feeding the slums anyway."
Escanor's brows drew. "You're planning charity."
"I'm planning dependency," Ren said, not cruel, not gentle. "Food buys trust. Trust buys time."
Haku didn't flinch. "And time buys power."
Zabuza planted his blade against a wall, listening without pretending to understand every number. "What about Danzo?"
Ren flipped to a small page, single-spaced names in neat columns. "Root operates out of three known facilities inside the village and two suspected. We won't touch them during the attack. We mark who enters and leaves. We watch who they protect and who they let burn."
Zabuza's eyes narrowed. "Then later?"
"Later," Ren said, "we pick a thread and pull."
The next morning, the plan began to move from paper to people.
Haku's squad reported to the armory for their Kiri-issued gear: standard vests with hidden reinforcement seams Eclipse tailors had sewn overnight; canteens with false bottoms; boots with code sewn under the heel stitching. Their headbands were real; Mei's signature saw to that. Their masks were practice and patience.
Ren met them at the gate. He didn't make a speech. He fastened the last strap on Haku's pack himself, a gesture that said what he didn't.
"Remember the three priorities," Ren said. "Civilians. Our people. Information. In that order."
Haku's answer was crisp. "Yes, sir."
Zabuza grunted. "If any Konoha jōnin asks who trained you, tell them your mother."
Haku's eyes smiled. "Yes, Zabuza-sama."
Gojo draped an easy arm around Haku's shoulders and stage-whispered, "If a pink-haired genin tries to punch you, dodge and compliment her teamwork."
Haku blinked. "Should I be expecting that?"
Ren's mouth curved. "Probably."
Escanor approached with a wooden crate balanced on one hand like it weighed nothing. He opened it to reveal sealed packets marked with simple symbols. "Rations. Water purifiers. Bandages oiled against flame. Give them away before you use them. People remember who handed them a second breath."
Haku bowed his thanks. "We'll return alive."
Ren stepped back as the gate winches turned and the doors opened to the coast road. Haku's squad slipped out with the other travelers—their pace unremarkable, their gear clean, their purpose concealed by the oldest trick of all: looking like they belonged.
They did.
—
The rest of the day was lists.
Ren approved training rotations for the Sun Guard that emphasized nonlethal control: shield shelters, staggered corridors, moving wounded without causing new injuries. Escanor rewrote the drill cadence to build calm under pressure—breathing counts built into the step, call-and-response commands that sounded like ritual and felt like certainty.
Zabuza took a team to the outskirts to map choke points along roads civilians would use to flee if panic spread. He marked trees that could be dropped to divert crowds, fences that could be kicked in to open new exits, cisterns that could be tapped for water to douse fires. He came back scowling, which meant he'd found good options.
Haku's Shadows—the ones staying—began their pre-exam work: friendly letters to Konoha guilds offering discounts on rope and pitch; a crate of good tea sent to a retired jōnin's widow with a note that said from old friends of your husband; a simple reward posted for any Wave merchant who recorded a Konoha food stall that gouged prices the day after the finals.
Ren approved each with a short line and a shorter nod. Nets, everywhere nets, not to strangle but to hold.
By evening, he allowed himself an hour alone.
He went to the quiet room—a small space with a window that looked only at the sea. The desk there had nothing on it but a single candle, a clean sheet of paper, and an unused brush. He sat and let the silence fill his lungs until his heartbeat made sense again.
Hiruzen will stand on a roof and pull a demon down by the neck one last time. He will stand in front of a door that opens into the past and refuse to move. He will die for a village that forgot how to thank him without asking what he wants in return.
Ren closed his eyes.
If I save him, I make an enemy of the men who want his chair. If I let him die, I make a hole I can fill. The right choice isn't kind. It's useful.
He opened his eyes and lit the candle.
"Forgive me," he said to no one. "I'll build something that outlasts this."
The flame steadied.
A soft knock. "Enter," Ren called.
Gojo leaned in, less flippant than usual. "You look like you just argued with a ghost."
"I did."
"Did you win?"
Ren considered. "Ask me when the Exams end."
Gojo stepped inside and leaned against the far wall. "For what it's worth, he would rather die for a village with a future than live to watch it rot by committee. If you're going to let a legend fall, make sure what you build doesn't insult him."
Ren huffed a breath that might have been a laugh. "That's the plan."
Gojo pushed off the wall. "Then sleep. Tomorrow we make more boring rules and sharper knives."
—
The week before departure moved like a metronome. Every day had its cadence: Escanor's noon drills, Zabuza's night maps, Haku's courier nets, Ren's signatures on things designed to look like they didn't need his signature.
On the last evening, the inner circle gathered one more time around the map. The parchment was the same; the pins had shifted. One now sat squarely on Konoha's stadium. Another on a warehouse near the merchant quarter. A third on a tea house a few streets from the academy.
Ren looked at each in turn. "We're ready."
Zabuza grunted. "Ready is a strong word."
"Ready enough," Ren corrected.
Escanor's smile was small and proud. "Then let the Exams come."
Haku rested his fingertips on the edge of the table—one heartbeat, two—and then withdrew them. "We move at dawn."
Gojo flapped a hand. "Try not to start a war unless you can finish it in ten minutes."
Haku's eyes warmed. "Yes."
Ren blew out the candles one by one, leaving only the last to gutter on its own. He didn't watch it die.
On the balcony, the night smelled like salt and iron and plans.
Konoha's lights were very far away. The path between was already walked on paper. The next steps would be taken by people who trusted a boy with red eyes and a calm voice more than they trusted the world they were born into.
Ren closed his fingers in the air and felt the shape of a chain that didn't yet exist.
"After the storm," he said quietly, "we build."
No one argued.