The silence that followed Renjiro's declaration was a physical presence, dense and suffocating. The boy's words—"put my shinobi days behind me"—hung in the night air like a final, tolling bell.
Jiraiya, the Toad Sage, found himself utterly speechless. He stared at the profile of the young man beside him, at the proud set of his jaw now undermined by the dead grey of his eyes, and felt a cold knot form in his stomach.
After a long moment that stretched like a taut wire, Jiraiya finally found his voice, rough with emotion. "Are you sure, kid?"
Renjiro didn't answer immediately. He seemed to be listening to the sounds of the camp—the faint groan of a wounded man, the crackle of the fire, the relentless rhythm of a life he felt increasingly disconnected from. Then, a sound escaped his lips that was far worse than any sob: a light, hollow chuckle, devoid of any true amusement.
"Sure?" Renjiro repeated, the word tasting like ash. "I don't believe I have an option, Jiraiya-sama. A shinobi who cannot see is a liability. A commander who cannot lead from the front is a fraud. What use is a weapon that cannot aim?"
They lapsed back into silence, but this time, the quiet was filled with the roaring torrent of Jiraiya's own thoughts.
'Has it broken him?' The question echoed in his mind, a dreadful possibility.
'Has this war finally snuffed out that brilliant, stubborn flame?' His own mind travelled back, decades into the past, to the foggy, half-remembered horrors of the First Great War.
He had been just a boy then, on the cusp of becoming a genin. He hadn't fought on the front lines, but he had seen the aftermath—the long, silent lines of corpses returning to the village, the hollow-eyed stares of shinobi, the day the news came about his own parents. That war had made him an orphan.
It had been his first, brutal lesson in the cost of the shinobi world.
But the Second Great War… that was the crucible that had forged him. He had participated fully, a young jounin soaked in the blood and mud of countless battlefields.
The death, the violence, the sheer, senseless destruction—it had been enough to break anyone. He remembered the nightmares, the moments of paralysing doubt, the tempting thought of just walking away from it all, of finding a quiet place to drink and write and forget. He hadn't broken. But it wasn't through sheer strength of will alone.
It was because of them—his comrades, his rivals, even the trio he called his students. Tsunade's fierce compassion, Orochimaru's cold, intellectual curiosity, even the Third Hokage's steady, paternal guidance. They had been his anchors in that storm. Without them, he was sure he would have left the shinobi path behind, becoming just another ghost of the conflict.
And then he looked at Renjiro, truly looked at him, and felt a wave of painful sympathy.
The boy's burden was so much heavier. He had lost his entire family, his culture, his very people in the Second War. He had come to Konoha as a refugee, a living relic of a destroyed people.
And now, in this Third War, he hadn't just been a participant; he had been a key component, shouldering responsibilities that would have taxed a seasoned jounin twice his age.
And he was only fifteen. Sixteen in a few months. Now, this. A catastrophic injury that struck at the very core of his identity as an Uchiha—for Jiraiya had his suspicions about the boy's lineage, the Mangekyo being a secret too great to hide completely—and as a shinobi. He understood the despair.
He sympathised with it deeply.
A new resolve began to crystallise within Jiraiya.
'He needs an anchor. Just like I did.'
If Renjiro went down this path of resignation, he would spiral into an oblivion far darker than any battlefield. A mind that sharp, left to fester in bitterness and helplessness, could become a threat to itself and everyone around him. He had to be for Renjiro what his friends had been for him. He had to offer hope, a reason to keep fighting.
But he also saw the tense line of Renjiro's shoulders, the way his fingers still clenched the Konoha headband as if it were a lifeline he was preparing to cut. Now was not the time for a grand speech. The wound was too fresh, the despair too acute.
His mind, ever strategising, raced ahead.
'The First Hokage's cells.'
The thought was audacious, borderline heretical. The research was forbidden, locked away by the Third himself after Orochimaru's… indiscretions. The sheer regenerative power of Hashirama Senju was legendary. If anything in the world could repair severed optic nerves and regenerate ocular tissue, it was that.
It would be a monumental task to convince Tsunade to even consider it, to sway the Hokage to authorise such a risk. But looking at the broken prodigy before him, Jiraiya knew he had to try.
'He has given enough to this village,'
Jiraiya thought with fierce conviction. 'He's a future Hokage in the making, I'd wager my life on it. The village should be bending over backwards to help him, not leaving him to rot in the dark. We must do everything possible to keep him.'
"Renjiro," Jiraiya said, his voice firm but gentle, breaking the long silence. "Don't be so rash. Don't make a decision like this in the heat of the moment, surrounded by the worst of it. Sleep on it. Live with the thought for a while. We're still in a war. Emotions are running high for everyone. Make this choice when the fighting is done, when you can think with a clear head, not a wounded heart."
Renjiro turned his head slowly. His lifeless, grey eyes, reflecting the sliver of moon, seemed to look right through Jiraiya. The effect was unnerving, as if he could see the hesitation Jiraiya was trying to mask.
"Do you think we'll win the war?" Renjiro asked, his voice flat.
"Of course we will," Jiraiya responded instantly, the automatic, patriotic response of a loyal shinobi. But the words felt hollow even to him, and he stopped short, the unspoken 'but' hanging in the air between them.
'But at what cost? But will it feel like winning when it's over?'
Before he could elaborate, a sensation like a hot needle lanced through his temporal lobe. He grunted, his hand flying to his head. A telepathic connection, brutal and urgent, forced its way into his mind, bypassing all his mental defences. It was Senju Yuki's chakra signature.
{Jiraiya!} The mental voice was a sharp, panicked shout. {You are needed. Immediately.}
Jiraiya's focus snapped back to the present crisis. {Yuki? What is it? My position here is unstable. We're getting constant attacks. I can't just abandon this post.}
{It doesn't matter!} Yuki's thought was frantic, final. {The Hokage is about to enter the battle! This takes absolute precedence! Get to the designated rally point now!}
The connection severed as abruptly as it had begun, leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Jiraiya's blood ran cold. Hiruzen was taking the field. The God of Shinobi was unsheathing his sword. The war had just escalated to its final, most dangerous stage.
He looked down at Renjiro, who had sensed the shift in his chakra, the sudden tension in his body. The conversation about retirement, about hope, about the future—it was all rendered tragically moot by the demands of the present.
"Jiraiya-sama?" Renjiro asked, his blind eyes searching the space where he sat.
"The world calls," Jiraiya said, his voice heavy with a new kind of dread as he rose to his feet. "Rest, Renjiro. We will speak of this again. I promise."