Underground, Konoha didn't smell like a village.
It smelled like ink, cold stone, and something older—like secrets that had been buried so long they forgot they were still alive.
Uchiha Ren stood at the center of a circular chamber carved into bedrock. Sealing arrays spiraled across the floor like a living diagram. Chakra-suppressing pillars hummed at the edges, their faint glow washing the room in sterile light.
His wrists were bound.
Not with rope.
With seals.
Thin bands of ink-woven restraint wrapped around his arms like black metal, pulsing every few seconds as if reminding his body who was in charge.
Ren flexed his fingers once.
The restraints tightened.
He smiled faintly.
So they were reactive.
Good.
Across from him, Danzō Shimura watched without blinking. One eye visible, sharp as a knife. His cane tapped the stone once, a small sound that somehow carried authority.
"You didn't resist," Danzō said.
Ren's tone stayed calm. "You brought too many people to call it a conversation."
A Root operative stepped forward with a scroll case. Another carried a metal tray lined with needles, tags, and a small, fist-sized prism that glowed faintly with chakra.
Ren's gaze flicked over the items, then returned to Danzō.
"So this is what you do," Ren said. "When you can't understand something."
Danzō didn't react. "When the village encounters an unknown, it either studies it… or it dies to it."
Ren tilted his head. "Sounds like fear."
Danzō's visible eye narrowed slightly. "Fear is a tool. You will learn that, if you live long enough."
The Root operative unrolled a scroll and pressed it to the floor. Ink spread outward like spilled oil, forming a new seal array within the old one—layers upon layers, like a cage built inside a cage.
Ren could feel it. His elasticity dulled.
Not gone.
Suppressed.
Like his body was being forced to remember rules it no longer wanted to follow.
A different presence stepped into the chamber.
Not masked.
Not emotionless.
A man in plain shinobi attire, his posture relaxed in a way that didn't belong in Root. His eyes were steady, and the air around him felt faintly… heavy.
Natural energy.
Ren's skin tightened subtly.
His arm tried to stretch just from instinct—
and snapped back early, as if an invisible hand had grabbed it.
The man's attention sharpened immediately.
"So it's true," the man said quietly.
Danzō didn't look at him. "Report."
The man kept his gaze on Ren. "His body distorts chakra-based interaction. But natural energy interferes. It disrupts the distortion."
Ren watched him, expression unreadable.
Danzō's cane tapped again. "Then we proceed."
A Root operative approached with a tag—thin paper, black ink, dense with sealing script. He moved to slap it on Ren's chest.
Ren didn't move.
He let it happen.
The tag touched his shirt—
and the air pressure shifted.
A sharp pulse ran through Ren's body, as if the tag had pushed a hand into his chest and squeezed.
His breath caught for half a second.
The drums inside him responded.
Doom.
Not loud.
Not yet.
Just present.
The operative stepped back.
Danzō's eye stayed locked on Ren. "Do you feel it?"
Ren exhaled. "I feel you trying."
Danzō made a small hand motion.
Another tag.
Then another.
They layered tags across Ren's torso, wrists, and neck. Each one added weight. Each one tightened the suppression.
Ren felt his body resist on its own—like a living thing refusing a collar.
Natural energy pressed from the side, steady and relentless.
The Sage-affiliated shinobi's presence made the seals bite deeper.
Ren's fingers curled once.
The restraints tightened.
Danzō's gaze sharpened. "Your strength is irrelevant. The village doesn't lose control of anomalies."
Ren looked up slowly.
"Control," he repeated, tasting the word. "You love it."
Danzō didn't deny it. "Control is survival."
Ren smiled faintly. "Then you've been surviving for a long time."
The operatives began the next phase.
The chakra prism was placed on the floor in front of Ren. It pulsed like a heartbeat. A Root operative formed hand seals, and the prism's glow intensified.
Ren felt it immediately—an attempt to map him. To read the shape of his chakra. To pin down the logic behind his body.
The prism brightened.
Then flickered.
Then brightened again.
It couldn't decide what it was seeing.
Ren's chakra wasn't chaotic.
It was… wrong.
Not corrupted.
Not unstable.
Just operating under different rules.
The Sage-affiliated shinobi took one step closer, and the natural energy pressure increased.
Ren's shoulders tensed.
The prism stabilized.
Danzō's eye narrowed with satisfaction. "There. Now you can be measured."
Ren's smile didn't change.
But his heartbeat did.
Doom.
The sound grew closer, like a drum rolling down a hallway toward a closed door.
The prism's light trembled.
A Root operative frowned. "Lord Danzō… the reading is spiking."
Danzō didn't move. "Continue."
The operative hesitated.
Danzō's cane tapped once.
The hesitation vanished.
The sealing tags flared.
A pulse hit Ren's chest, hard enough that his spine pressed into the air behind him.
Pain sparked—sharp, clean, deliberate.
Not to injure.
To provoke.
To force a reaction.
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly.
"So that's the game," he murmured. "You poke until something bites."
The Sage-affiliated shinobi's gaze sharpened, as if he could feel it too.
Something coiling.
Something waking.
Ren's heartbeat climbed.
Doom. Doom.
The chamber's sealing arrays flickered.
For a brief moment, the lines on the floor looked less like ink and more like veins.
The prism's light surged.
A Root operative stepped back involuntarily.
Danzō leaned forward a fraction. "Show me."
Ren looked at him.
And for the first time since entering this chamber, Ren's expression carried something sharper than calm.
Not rage.
Not hatred.
A quiet, dangerous clarity.
"You want to see it?" Ren asked softly. "Fine."
The drums hit like thunder.
DOOM.
Ren's body compressed inward—shoulders drawing slightly, muscles tightening, as if he were becoming smaller just to store something inside.
The suppression tags flared violently.
Natural energy pressed down like a mountain.
Ren's skin turned faintly pale for a split second.
His hair lifted slightly as if charged.
The prism screamed with light.
The Root operatives froze.
Ren exhaled.
And released.
The chamber didn't explode with chakra.
It exploded with recoil.
A wave of pure elastic force burst outward. The sealing tags didn't tear like paper—they stretched, ink lines distorting like rubber bands pulled too far.
The suppression pillars groaned.
Stone cracked.
The prism shot across the floor and shattered against the wall.
Root operatives were thrown backward like dolls, slamming into the chamber walls with brutal impact.
The Sage-affiliated shinobi dug his feet in, natural energy flaring around him as he resisted the shockwave—his eyes widening as the force still pushed him back a full step.
Danzō didn't fall.
His cane dug into the floor, and his cloak snapped in the wind of the recoil.
But his eye—
his eye changed.
For the first time, it wasn't calculation.
It was recognition.
Not of an Uchiha bloodline.
Not of a technique.
But of something that didn't belong in the normal order of the world.
Ren straightened slowly, breath steadying.
The pale tint faded.
The drums lowered to a simmer.
His restraints still existed—warped, stretched, barely holding—but they had not broken completely.
Not with natural energy pressing on him.
Ren glanced at his wrists, then at the Sage-affiliated shinobi.
So that was the anchor.
Interesting.
Danzō's voice cut through the chaos, calm as ever. "Again."
Several Root operatives forced themselves upright, shaking.
One of them coughed blood.
Yet they moved to re-form the seal array.
Because Root didn't retreat.
Root obeyed.
Ren's smile returned—small, almost amused.
"You're persistent."
Danzō's visible eye stayed locked on him. "You're valuable."
Ren took one slow step forward.
The warped restraint bands tightened.
He didn't fight them.
He just tested their limits with a single inch of movement.
The bands stretched… and held.
Ren's gaze shifted to the chamber's exit corridor—two sealed doors, reinforced.
Then back to Danzō.
"I came here to learn," Ren said softly. "And I did."
Danzō's grip on his cane tightened. "You learned nothing."
Ren's eyes narrowed slightly.
"I learned you're afraid of what you can't cage," he said. "And I learned what you're using to hold me."
He looked at the Sage-affiliated shinobi.
Then he smiled wider.
"And now I know what to break first."
The drums answered—quiet, eager.
Doom.
The chamber lights flickered.
Outside the sealed doors, alarms began to ring deeper in the underground facility—distant, urgent, multiplying.
Danzō raised a hand.
"Seal the exits," he ordered.
Ren's smile didn't fade.
He leaned forward slightly, as if listening to something only he could hear.
Then he whispered, almost kindly:
"Tell your men to hold tight."
The drums rolled once more, closer than ever.
DOOM.