The silence that followed Jiraiya's arrival was a fragile thing, broken only by the whisper of the wind through the long grass and the distant, rhythmic cadence of the camp. The red-haired boy—no, the young man—did not turn. His eyes remained fixed on the indifferent stars, as if he could still decipher their secrets through sheer force of will.
"Is there anything I can help you with?" Renjiro's voice was flat, devoid of its usual undercurrent of sharp-witted energy. It was the voice of someone conserving strength, both physical and emotional.
Jiraiya chuckled, a low, rumbling sound as he lowered his considerable frame to sit on the grass beside the boy. The earth felt cool and damp through his trousers.
"I see you're still cranky. Some things never change, even when you're laid up."
"Maybe we should exchange places," Renjiro retorted, the barest hint of a bite returning to his tone.
"Then you'll see if you too wouldn't be cranky."
Jiraiya's chuckle deepened at the casual use of the word 'see'. It was a bold, almost defiant choice of vocabulary from someone who currently could not.
Renjiro's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly; he'd caught the nuance in the Sannin's laugh but chose to ignore it, a silent act of pride in the face of his new reality.
The moment was interrupted by the soft creak of a door hinge from a small, earth-reinforced hut behind them. Footsteps, light and precise, approached. Another Renjiro emerged, a shadow clone, holding a stack of papers that seemed too large for its slender hands.
Its eyes were open, but they were a cloudy, lifeless grey, reflecting the moonlight like dull river stones. The clone walked with an unnerving accuracy, its path unwavering despite its blindness, a testament to Renjiro's mastery of his chakra sense. It stopped beside its creator, who still lay 'gazing' at the sky.
"Thwap!"
Then, with a passive-aggressive flick of its wrist, the clone simply let the stack of papers go. They fell in a fluttering cascade, the corners brushing against the real Renjiro's face and chest before scattering across the grass.
"Poof."
The clone dispelled in a cloud of white smoke, leaving behind only the scent of ozone and a palpable wave of frustration.
Jiraiya raised an eyebrow, a wry smile touching his lips. "It looks like your clones are also not in a particularly good mood."
Renjiro sighed, a sound of profound weariness, as he began to slowly, methodically, gather the papers, his fingers deftly sorting them by touch and the faint chakra impressions he'd left on them.
"I can't blame them," he murmured. "Solely relying on your chakra field to perceive the world, to mould seals without the visual feedback… with my visual feedback. It's like trying to paint a masterpiece while wearing thick gloves in a pitch-black room. It's far worse than just being 'uncomfortable'. It's… demeaning. Every simple task becomes a monumental effort of concentration."
A loud silence descended between them, thicker and heavier than before. The cheerful cacophony of the insects seemed to mock them. Jiraiya watched the boy, this brilliant, broken weapon that Konoha had forged and then nearly shattered. He took a breath, diving into the dangerous waters he'd come to navigate.
"Renjiro," he began, his voice uncharacteristically gentle. "Do you think… you'll ever get your eyes back?"
The question hung in the air, a spectre at the feast. Renjiro's hands stilled, a report on supply allocations clutched tightly in his fingers. For a long moment, he was silent, his mind a whirlwind of calculated secrets and cold, hard truth.
'Getting them back is the easy part,' he thought, the inner monologue a sharp contrast to his placid exterior.
'I still have pairs of Sharingans tucked away. I always intended them for Izanagi, or the Izunami. The Mangekyo, the Sharingan, he had sacrificed had been his last connection to Renjiro, no, his mother. To simply replace them felt… quite sacrilegious. And would they even work? Would the new Mangekyo function the same? With the same abilities? There were a lot of variables to be considered since he had not awakened a Mangekyo; he made it. He was walking a path no one had charted.
And then there was the bigger hurdle, the one that required a different kind of strength.
'How would I explain it?' he pondered, a cold knot forming in his stomach. 'Hello, Hokage-sama, Danzo, clan elders. My eyes have miraculously grown back. No, don't worry about the how.'
The clan, the village, the world, would want answers. Answers he could not give without revealing the depth of his own chakra seinou. It would brand him a bigger target than he already had. If he were to be an endless stock of Sharingans or even Mangekyos, who's to say he wouldn't be hunted? Danzo, he could handle, but what about Madara?
He let out a slow, controlled breath, masking the turmoil within. "How do you expect me to answer that question, Jiraiya-sama?" he said, his voice carefully neutral.
"I taught myself how to handle the Mangekyo. I stumbled through its power in the dark, figuring out its cost as I paid it. What makes you think I have any medical knowledge on ocular regeneration or… replacement?"
Jiraiya inwardly conceded the point. He was looking for hope from a fifteen-year-old boy who had already shouldered burdens that would break most grown men. The boy was right; he was asking the impossible.
"Maybe Tsunade could…" Jiraiya started, voicing the only thread of hope he could genuinely offer.
"Don't," Renjiro cut him off, his voice sharp, final. "Don't give me false hope. She's the best, not a miracle worker. This… this is beyond even her."
Renjiro was lying; he knew Tsunade had access to some of her Grandfather's cells, which he really needed, but using them would be a whole other issue. Renjiro would be indebted to the Village, and he was sure he would not like it when the Village tried to cash in the debt, especially with Danzo still around.
A fresh, heavier silence fell. Renjiro's hands moved again, not to the seals, but to his own neck. His fingers found the cold, hard metal of his Konoha forehead protector, which was tied snugly around his neck, a common practice for those who found the forehead binding uncomfortable during intense activity.
With a quiet click, he undid the clasp. He held the metal plate in his palm, his thumb tracing the familiar spiral of the leaf symbol. He wasn't seeing it; he was feeling it, remembering it.
"You know, Jiraiya-sama," he began, his voice so quiet it was almost carried away by the wind. "I really have a difficult relationship with these Great Shinobi Wars."
He paused, his thumb stopping its motion over the engraved symbol. "In the last one… the Second… I lost my parents. I lost my people. Uzushiogakure was destroyed, and I was left with nothing but this hair and a name that feels more like a tombstone." His grip on the headband tightened.
"And now, in this one… this Third war… I've lost my Eyes. The Mangekyo. The only thing I had left that truly reminded me of my mother. The last piece of her, a part of me I could actually see."
He let the words hang in the air, a confession of loss so profound it seemed to suck the sound from the night. Jiraiya said nothing, allowing the boy his grief.
Renjiro finally turned his head, his sightless eyes aiming in Jiraiya's general direction. The emptiness in them was more devastating than any tears.
"Maybe," he said, the words final and heavy with resignation, "it's right that I put my shinobi days behind me."