Konoha, Year 16 of the Ren Era.
The village had grown vertically. Where once there were sprawling wooden estates of the feudal era, now stood towers of reinforced steel and glass, glinting under the harsh midday sun like the scales of a dragon. Sky-bridges connected the Anbu headquarters to the administrative districts, creating a multi-tiered labyrinth of defense. The Great Wall of Konoha—a monolithic barrier of sensory-threaded stone—was visible from ten miles away, hummed with a low-frequency chakra current that vibrated in the teeth of anyone who approached with hostile intent.
The village did not hum with the gentle buzz of daily life. It vibrated with the low, consistent frequency of a reactor core.
Ren Yamanaka sat in his office, suspended a hundred feet above the village in the redesigned Hokage Tower. He was thirty-eight. His hair, once kept in a loose ponytail, was now cropped short, military style, graying slightly at the temples—a side effect of the constant chakra strain. He no longer wore the pirate-like eyepatch. He wore a VISOR—a piece of custom chakra-tech developed by the Science Division (fueled by Orochimaru's stolen notes and the Puppet Master's engineering)—that suppressed the visual output of his Dojutsu when not in combat. To the naked eye, his irises were featureless gray glass.
Inside the Memory Palace, the Council Table had become an arena of debate. The noise level was disciplined, but intense.
Goro (Defense): Perimeter breach in Sector 7 is unlikely. The new barrier seals hold against S-rank stress tests. Tactician (Logistics): Trade routes with the former Land of Wind (now the Konoha Protectorate of Sand) are yielding a 200% surplus in rare ores. The Daimyo is pleased, but wary. He asks why we need so much iron. Isamu (Surveillance): Because the shadows move. Black cloaks with red clouds. We have lost contact with two listening posts in the Land of Rivers.
Ren stood up, walking to the panoramic window. His reflection ghosted over the view of his empire.
"The clouds are gathering," he murmured, his voice echoing with the stolen timbre of Hashirama's baritone. "And they bleed."
—————
The Hunters Hunted
The Akatsuki came not as an army, but as a scalpel. They believed they were cutting into a soft peach. They did not know they were striking a stone.
Their objective: The Nine-Tails. Their mistake: Assuming Konoha was still the village Hiruzen had built—a village of hearts and wills. Ren had built a village of nerves and reflexes.
The assault team consisted of Deidara (Explosion Release), Sasori (Master Puppeteer), Hidan (Immortal Cultist), Kakuzu (The Banker), and the shadow orchestrator, Tobi (Obito Uchiha).
They infiltrated at dusk.
Zone 1: The Gate of Blood
Hidan and Kakuzu attacked the East Gate. It was intended to be a loud, bloody distraction.
Hidan laughed maniacally, swinging his triple-bladed scythe, expecting terrified Chunin guards. "Lord Jashin demands a sacrifice! Let's paint the walls red!"
He charged the guard post. But instead of flesh, his scythe hit a wall of hardened chakra.
From the guard post emerged not terrified teenagers, but Squad Zero. This was Ren's pet project—Anbu trained using the memories of the Cloud Tactician to fight specifically as anti-immortal units.
"Target identified," the squad leader, an Aburame clansman, droned. "Subject utilizes blood-ritual damage reflection. Do not draw blood. Do not engage in Taijutsu."
Hidan swung. The Aburame released a cloud of nano-sized beetles that didn't bite—they clogged Hidan's joints.
Kakuzu unleashed his elemental masks. Fire and Wind combined into a devastating inferno.
But Ren was watching. From the Tower, he accessed the Hyuga Defense Grid.
"Sector 4. Activate Counter-Measure Alpha," Ren commanded via telepathy link.
The automated defense towers lining the walls spun. They didn't fire arrows; they fired sealing tags propelled by wind bursts.
Kakuzu's masks were pinned to the wall by a barrage of a thousand tags.
Kakuzu grunted, his hearts thudding. "This… this is not ninja warfare. This is industrial slaughter."
"Welcome to the modern era," the Aburame said.
—————
Zone 2: The Art of the Fall
Deidara soared high above the village on a white clay dragon, the wind whipping his blond ponytail. He looked down at the sprawling metropolis with disdain.
"Too ordered. Too static. Art is an explosion! Hmn!"
He opened his palms. Mouths on his hands chewed clay. He dropped C3 clay spiders onto the rooftops, aiming for the Hokage Tower.
Usually, these would detonate and cause panic.
But the rooftops of Konoha were lined with Automated Chakra Cannons—localized versions of Kumo's Chakra Cannon, reverse-engineered by Ren's R&D using the brain of the Kumo ambassador Ren had eaten years ago.
Streams of concentrated lightning chakra—the natural counter to Earth-based clay—shot into the sky.
The lightning beams hit the falling spiders. They didn't explode; they fizzled and turned into useless lumps of mud.
Deidara swerved wildly on his dragon. "What the—? Lightning batteries? In a ninja village? Since when do leaves spark?"
Before he could regain altitude, a blur of motion distorted the air above him.
Shisui Uchiha, Captain of the Anbu Air Division, appeared. He wasn't riding a summon; he was using Swift Release boots derived from Ren's collected tech.
Shisui hovered for a second, defying gravity. His Mangekyo Sharingan spun.
"Your art is loud," Shisui said calmly, his voice carried by the wind. "And crude."
"Crude?!" Deidara screamed, insulted. "I'll show you crude! C4 Karura!"
He tried to vomit a giant clay clone.
Shisui activated Kotoamatsukami (Short Burst).
It wasn't the full mind-control. It was a tactical genjutsu insertion. For a split second, Deidara's perception of "up" and "down" inverted. He thought the sky was the ground.
Disoriented, Deidara dove his dragon straight down, accelerating toward the pavement thinking he was escaping into the clouds.
"Wait! Wrong way, hmm!" Deidara shrieked.
CRASH.
Deidara slammed into the Containment Net Ren had erected over the commercial district—a barrier of elastic chakra that caught debris.
Deidara hung there, suspended like a fly in a web, groaning. Anbu descended instantly, sealing his chakra points with Hyuga precision.
—————
Zone 3: The Ghost and the Guardian
Ren did not engage the loud distractions. He knew they were bait. The Tactician in his mind had already run the simulation 400 times.
Tactician: The Akatsuki seek the Jinchuriki. They will send the Infiltrator to the target's last known location.
Ren waited in Naruto's empty apartment. The room was sparse—ramen cups, a dusty plant, a picture of Team 7.
Ren sat on the kitchen stool, reading a Jump magazine.
The air in the center of the room swirled. Kamui.
Tobi (Obito Uchiha) materialized. He wore his orange spiral mask. He reached for the bed where he expected Naruto to be sleeping.
"He's not here," Ren said, not looking up from the manga page. "He is in Mount Myoboku training with toads. Your intel is outdated by three weeks. My counter-espionage team fed your spy false reports."
Tobi frozen mid-reach. His single visible Sharingan widened behind the mask. He lowered his hand slowly.
"Lord Fifth," Tobi's voice was deep, dropping the goofy 'Tobi' persona immediately. "You have impressive security."
"And you have poor manners," Ren said, closing the magazine. "Breaking into a child's room."
Tobi chuckled darkly. "A child? He is a nuke, Ren. And you are just hoarding the launch codes."
Tobi attacked. He didn't use hand signs; he rushed forward, intending to phase through Ren's desk and suck Ren into the Kamui dimension.
Ren let him come.
As Tobi's hand passed through Ren's chest—the intangibility active—Ren didn't dodge.
"You can't touch me," Tobi gloated.
"But you have to solidify to grab me," Ren whispered.
Ren activated Flying Thunder God.
He didn't teleport away. He teleported closer. He flashed into the space behind Tobi the moment Tobi materialized to grip Ren's shoulder.
Ren placed a hand on Tobi's back.
"Mind Body Transmission: The Screaming Void."
Ren didn't disturb Tobi's chakra; he dumped raw data into Tobi's brain.
He uploaded the sensation of dying he had harvested from 50 different men simultaneously. The sheer agony of 50 death rattles hit Obito's nervous system like a hammer.
"ARGH!" Tobi screamed, clutching his head. For a second, his focus broke. The intangibility faltered.
Ren seized the moment.
"Soul Eater: The Sip."
He didn't try to eat the whole soul—Obito was too strong, too anchored to the Gedo Statue. But Ren ripped a fragment of memory. A loose thread.
Images flashed in Ren's mind:A boulder crushing half a body.A girl named Rin dying on Kakashi's lightning blade.A cave. An old man named Madara hooked up to tubes.The plan: Project a Genjutsu on the moon. Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Ren recoiled. The sheer nihilism of Obito's worldview was toxic. It tasted like ash, old blood, and a desperate, pathetic loneliness.
"You broken thing," Ren whispered, staring at Tobi who was on his knees, panting. "You aren't a mastermind. You are just a hole where a heart used to be."
Tobi looked up. His eye was filled with hate. "This world is hell, Chimera. I am trying to save it!"
"By putting it to sleep?" Ren scoffed. "Sleep is for the dead. I prefer my subjects awake and productive."
Tobi realized he couldn't win here. Ren was a predator who hunted predators.
"We will meet again," Tobi hissed.
Kamui. Tobi swirled away into the void, escaping before Ren could finish the meal.
Ren stood alone in the apartment.
"Infinite Tsukuyomi," Ren murmured. "A dream world to escape the pain."
Inside the Vault, the Council debated. Ryuichi: A tempting offer. Peace without effort. Tactician: It is stagnation. The extinction of free will. It is inefficient. Ren: I prefer reality messy. Because in reality, I am the King. In a dream, I am just a dreamer.
—————
The Sand and the Mother
The attempted invasion gave Ren the political capital he needed to finalize his expansion. The Sand Village, weakened and infiltrated by Sasori (whom Ren had crushed remotely via Sora in the sewers earlier), was declared a "Failed State" due to its inability to police its own missing-nin.
Ren didn't invade with armies. He invaded with lawyers and trade agreements.
He installed Shikaku Nara as the "Provisional Governor" of Suna. The Wind Daimyo, terrified of the Akatsuki, fled to the Fire Capital for protection. Ren effectively annexed the Land of Wind.
Konoha was now an Empire.
That evening, Ren walked through the quiet streets. The debris from Deidara's crash was already being cleared by civilian work crews (paid overtime).
He saw Sora Inuzuka at a café. She was feeding a steak to her cybernetic dog. She looked content. Stable. But her eyes were flat. Ren's psychological conditioning had worked; she no longer felt crushing grief, but she didn't feel intense joy either. She was a functional soldier. A tool that didn't cry.
Ren walked past her. She nodded respectfully. "Lord Fifth."
She didn't recognize him as Ren the friend. Just Ren the Authority.
He walked further, to the civilian district. He stopped in front of a small house with a garden of dead azaleas.
Hana Yamanaka. His mother.
Ren stood at the gate. He deactivated his VISOR. Teal and Grey stared at the old woman.
She looked up. She saw the Hokage. She trembled.
"Lord Fifth," she bowed deeply. She didn't see her son. She saw the ruler who terrified the nations.
"Your flowers are dying," Ren observed.
"Yes, my Lord," she whispered. "I… I forget to water them sometimes. My memory is fading."
Ren searched his mind. He scanned the shelves of the Library for the file marked Mother.
He found it. But the text was blurry. The image of her face in his memory was just a corrupt jpeg file—pixels without warmth.
He looked at the real woman. He tried to bridge the gap.
But he felt… annoyance. She was frail. She was a liability. In a potential siege, resources would have to be allocated to protect her.
She is data, the Logic center concluded. Non-essential personnel.
"Get a drip-feed irrigation system," Ren said coldly. "Efficiency saves lives."
He walked away.
He realized then that he had fully crossed the threshold. He hadn't just forgotten his humanity; he had evolved past the need for it.
Monster? The question floated in the Vault.
No, Ren answered himself. Optimization.
—————
The Green Menace
Ren returned to his office. But something triggered his sensory net.
Not a chakra signature. A lack of one.
Underground. Deep in the root system of the village's foundational tree.
Ren activated the Byakugan.
He saw it. A humanoid shape made of white, plant-like matter moving through the earth. White Zetsu.
It was observing the village's infrastructure. Spying on the technology. Mapping the chakra grid.
"Rats in the cellar," Ren muttered.
He didn't send a squad. This was too delicate.
Ren phased through the floor using Earth Style: Hiding like a Mole.
He intercepted the Zetsu in a subterranean cavern beneath the Academy.
The Zetsu froze, merging halfway into a rock. "Oh! The scary Hokage found us! Tobi was right, he has good eyes!"
"You are biological waste," Ren said.
He extended his hand. "Wood Style: Binding Roots."
Ren used the power of Hashirama he had absorbed from the Edo Tensei incident. The roots of the Great Tree responded to him, wrapping around the Zetsu, crushing it, pinning it to the wall.
The Zetsu squealed. "Wood Style? How do you have that? That's cheating! Only Madara should have that!"
"War is cheating," Ren said.
He walked up to the creature. It wasn't human. It was a plant. A clone.
"Can you be eaten?" Ren wondered aloud.
He placed his hand on the white, squishy face.
CONNECT.
The taste was… ancient. It tasted of dirt, time, and sunlight. It tasted of the God Tree itself.
Ren absorbed the Zetsu.
A rush of vitality flooded his system. The constant ache in his eyes—the strain of the evolving Mangekyo and Byakugan—vanished instantly.
The Hashirama cells in his body resonated with the Zetsu matter (which was essentially Hashirama cells). They stabilized.
Ren gasped, falling to his knees.
His chakra reserves, already Kage-level, doubled again. He felt like he had been plugged into the planet.
His Wood Release became effortless. He could feel every tree in the Land of Fire. He was connected to the biosphere network.
Ren stood up.
"It wasn't food," Ren whispered, looking at his glowing hands. "It was fertilizer."
He looked into the darkness of the earth with his upgraded Byakugan.
He sensed more of them. Thousands of them. A distinct, white army sleeping deep underground in a cavern far away.
"The army of the infinite dream," Ren realized, recalling Obito's memory.
Ren smiled. A terrible, hungry smile.
"Let them sleep," Ren said. "When they wake up… I won't just defeat them. I will harvest them all."
He returned to the surface.
He walked to the window of his office. He looked at the moon. It was full and beautiful.
"You want to cast a reflection on the world," Ren challenged the moon. "But reflections are just light. I am the shadow that swallows the light."
He activated his comms.
"Shikaku. Prepare the Council. We need to discuss the expansion of the sensory grid."
Ren Yamanaka was no longer just the Hokage. He was the Apex Predator of the Shinobi World. And the Akatsuki had just rung the dinner bell.
End of Chapter 23.