While the Stone shinobi were busy arranging themselves into formation, their chakra signatures intertwined and overlapped in preparation for something grand, Ren stood amidst the chaos with an eerie calm. His breathing was steady, his gaze sweeping across every movement in his surroundings.
To anyone watching, it might've looked like he was relaxed, but internally, his thoughts were running faster than wind.
Truth be told, that first sneak attack had shaken him up more than he liked to admit. Both sides, Stone and Cloud had come at him together, in a coordinated ambush that caught even him off guard.
It had been a long, long time since that happened. Ever since he mastered Hyperfocus, there hadn't been a single moment where he was on the passive end of a battle, not once. Hyperfocus had turned every confrontation into a calculated engagement, he'd always seen the attack coming before it was even launched, felt the shift in chakra, the tension in the air, the faint disturbance in the Flow.
But this time… this time was different.
He'd been hit before he could even register the full extent of what was happening.
That was the part that unsettled him the most.
His jaw tightened as his mind retraced the sequence. After years of using his butterflies as his sensory network, spanning across nations, he'd started to think he was untouchable in terms of awareness. It wasn't arrogance, at least, not entirely, it was confidence born out of one after another success.
His network of butterflies had grown large enough that he could easily track troop movements, disturbances, and chakra clusters across wide regions. The system wasn't perfect yet, but he had at least made a footprint in every major village. The network acted as his second set of eyes, an extension of his perception, a quiet surveillance web keeping the world under watch.
And yet… no warning came this time, no signal, no message.
Nothing.
His fingers flexed slightly at the realization. That meant only one thing, someone had intercepted his network before the information could reach him. Someone capable of suppressing or outright eliminating his sensory link without leaving a trace. And in the shinobi world, there was only one entity who fit that description.
'Zetsu,' Ren had thought, his eyes narrowing faintly.
That was the only guess that made sense. That thing was the only one who could rival his information network on a global scale. The White Zetsu army, with their ability to burrow, mimic, and hide perfectly within nature, could easily wipe out his butterflies without triggering any sensory feedback.
His network relied on the assumption that he'd sense if a butterfly carrying his summoning link died but these weren't the butterflies from the summoning land. They were normal butterflies, guided through a subtle mental imprint of the butterflies from the summoning land. If they died, there'd be no ripple in his chakra sense, no alarm.
That was the hole he had overlooked.
So, when the alliance troops moved in under that silence, Ren had been blind to their approach, something he hadn't experienced in years. It was humbling, in a way. He'd grown too used to being the one in control, too confident in the reach of his own systems.
He exhaled softly, watching the Stone formation continue to build around him. He didn't need to move yet.
After the first counterattack, when he broke through their initial encirclement, he'd burned through an enormous amount of chakra, not for offense, but for clarity. He'd used his spatial sensing continuously, expanding it to its maximum range, mapping every single chakra signature in the area.
It had drained him a little too much, but it was necessary. He needed to know exactly what he was dealing with before deciding how deep to go.
When the picture finally settled in his head, he relaxed a bit. The alliance wasn't as massive as he'd initially thought. There were no hidden Kage-level monsters lurking in the shadows, no heavy hitters besides the two in front, Yugito and Kitsuchi.
Of the two, Yugito was the real problem.
Ren's eyes drifted to where she stood, her chakra flaring slightly, tailing off into traces of blue flame. The jinchuriki of the Two-Tails, he'd seen the anime and read reports, of course, but nothing ever told the full story.
He'd never actually fought a jinchuriki before and that unknown factor alone made her a risk. It wasn't her raw strength that concerned him, it was the unpredictability. A jinchuriki could shift the nature of a fight in seconds if they lost control or if the beast inside them took over. That made her a variable he couldn't fully account for yet.
Still, it wasn't fear that he felt.
It was more… curiosity.
Kitsuchi, on the other hand, was straightforward. A powerful opponent, yes, but in a very ordinary way.
A mountain of a man with refined Earth Style, durability, and one of the best commanders in the current shinobi world. The kind of shinobi who was dangerous in a prolonged battle or a team engagement, but not particularly unpredictable.
Ren had already analyzed his jutsu structure, solid defensive barriers, a few seismic attacks, and heavy-hitting area suppression. All of it could be dismantled by sheer force if applied correctly.
That was the problem with Earth style, against most Taijutsu specialist they couldn't do much, and for Ren it was even less, just one punch could solve everything and if one couldn't then he had two.
However, those weren't the only issues troubling Ren. The real problem lay deeper, quite literally in the shadows.
Zetsu and Obito were still there, hidden and watching.
Their chakra signatures were faint, masked under layers of suppression that would've fooled almost anyone else. But Ren's space-sensing had already evolved past the limits of conventional perception.
Even though it cost him a significant amount of chakra to maintain, he could still feel the faint distortions, the almost imperceptible bends in the space around them. It was enough to confirm what his instincts had been whispering since the start, they were here waiting.
Obito didn't concern him too much, not anymore.
Ren had already reached a level of mastery with Flying Thunder God that allowed him to escape or reposition himself instantly, even against spatial jutsu users like Obito. He'd run countless mental simulations of fighting the man, and while he knew he couldn't necessarily defeat Obito head-on yet, he was confident that he could at least play with him, control the pace, disrupt his rhythm, and disengage whenever he wanted. Escaping from Obito wasn't the problem.
The real issue was Zetsu.
Ren's gaze flickered toward a patch of shadow at the far edge of the battlefield, just for a second, though he quickly looked away. Even with all his abilities, the Eight Gates, Hyperfocus, Flying Thunder God, and a growing arsenal of jutsu that… thing still unsettled him.
Zetsu wasn't someone you could categorize as a regular opponent. He wasn't even properly alive in the conventional sense. Semi-immortal, elusive, and ancient, it was an existence that had witnessed the world change countless times. Ren couldn't predict what techniques he possessed or what kind of abilities he could unleash if cornered.
If he was being completely honest with himself, he didn't want to fight Zetsu at all.
He had everything he needed to survive almost any situation, overpowered Taijutsu, devastating ninjutsu, Flying Thunder God, and even a newly developed prototype technique that merged Fire Style and Yang Release.
But even with all that, he wasn't sure how much of it would work on that thing. It wasn't like fighting a shinobi. It was like trying to kill a tumor that had grown sentient.
If Zetsu revealed himself… Ren had already made up his mind, he'd retreat immediately.
Even if it meant exposing his Flying Thunder God to everyone on the battlefield, to Cloud, Stone, or whoever was left it didn't matter. Showing one card was better than dying with all of them intact. He valued survival above ego.
Still, until Zetsu made a move, there was no reason to pull out.
Ren's eyes swept back toward the Stone shinobi, who were now moving through a synchronized sequence of hand seals, their chakra intertwining into a massive, structured flow.
The ground beneath them had begun to hum with tension, he could feel the weight of chakra through his feet. Kitsuchi stood at the center of the formation, chakra coursing through his arms and legs as he directed the technique.
And farther behind, Yugito was changing too.
She was almost completely transformed now, her silhouette distorting into that of a massive flaming cat, the Two-Tails, Matatabi. The blue fire rolling off her body burned the ground it touched, casting flickering lights across the battlefield. The air around her shimmered from the heat, and her chakra output spiked so high that it made even Ren's hair lift slightly from the sheer pressure.
Ren let out a low exhale, rubbing his neck with one hand. His eyes, despite the glow of the Fifth Gate still burning in them, held a faint trace of irritation mixed with a hint of madness in them.
For a moment, he just stood there, silently as he watched the two. His thoughts drifted, though his focus never wavered.
The only reason he was still bothering to fight these two was simple, he needed them alive.
Yugito and Kitsuchi were valuable. Both politically and strategically. Killing them would bring short-term relief, sure, but it would also create unnecessary complications.
Yugito was the Jinchuriki of the Two-Tails, if she died, Cloud would go berserk. The Raikage would tear through nations to avenge her. And Kitsuchi was the son of Onoki; if he fell, the Stone would retaliate instantly.
Ren didn't need that right now.
No, he had plans for both of them.
If he could capture them alive, it would give him immense leverage in the coming conflict with Danzo, or more precisely what would come after that.
The political ripples alone would shake the balance of power across multiple villages. But if either of them died… the headache would be monumental.
He was just thinking about the potential uses of both captives when something shifted in his awareness.
Ren's expression changed subtly. His muscles tensed as his eyes darted toward Kitsuchi's position.
The man was still standing in the center of the formation but the focus wasn't on him anymore. It was on the ground beneath him.
Ren could feel it now. The earth was vibrating. Not from chakra pressure but from the activation of a grand jutsu. Every grain of soil, every rock fragment, every inch of terrain within the battlefield had become part of a massive, unified chakra construct.
The Stone shinobi were feeding their chakra into it continuously, and the pattern was growing more complex with each passing second.
Ren frowned slightly.
His mastery over Earth Style was more than enough to recognize when a large-scale jutsu was being formed. This wasn't just a barrier or a trap, this was something much bigger, something that merged the battlefield itself into the technique.
He exhaled through his nose, muttering, "A full terrain-level jutsu… so that's his trump card."
Then his eyes moved to Yugito again. She had fully transformed now, the Two-Tails' form was complete, her roar echoing across the shattered field. The shockwave sent loose debris flying around, the air itself trembling from her chakra release.
Ren sighed softly and shook his head, forcing down the faint bloodlust that had begun creeping back into his mind which was the aftereffect of the continuous slaughter of the cannon fodder the cloud and stone had brought.
His body still wanted to move, to destroy, to tear through everything, but he needed clarity now, not madness.
He stretched his neck once, rolling his shoulders as a thought crossed his mind.
"Let's hope this is manageable with the remaining chakra clones," he thought. "I'd hate to leave before the fun really starts."
Then, with a flick of his fingers, he popped one of his chakra battery clones in a distant location.
Now, even if he was mentally a bit exhausted, a surge of power flooded his system instantly and his reserves refilled, his muscles reignited with heat, and the Fifth Gate flared brighter than before.
Ren took a step forward, the air around him distorting from the sheer output.
And then he moved.
~~~~~
{A bit of information from Ren's side to show the other side of the thing, if any of you are still confused then I will tell you one thing, Ren is strong enough to play with Akatsuki members like Deidara and Sasori with just Taijutsu and he has way too much chakra so you can understand his power level, right now Ren would have no problem fighting a true Kage level threat, though he couldn't win, it's still a fact.}
{I've also given a slight hint about Ren's use of Yugito and Kitsuchi but can you guys guess what it is?}
{Also, what do you think is the new technique Ren is creating? Fire and Yang? What could it be?}
{Also, someone tell me, what should I call Zetsu, he/him, it/they, or what? I'm very confused.}