If you like this story, check out my new one too:
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Oops, I'm Kimimaro? Guess I'll Be the Final Villain!
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(You can find the link for it on my profile page.)
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The sea wind brushed against the cliffs of the southern borderlands of the Hot Water country, carrying faint traces of salt and mist.
Near Ryusei's current main hideout, the air felt heavy with chakra, the kind that vibrated faintly in the bones.
More than half a year had passed since Ryusei first met Ashina Uzumaki, and he was now fourteen years old.
Much had changed since then.
For example, Ashina was no longer a faint soul sealed inside a pendant.
He stood before him, tall, broad-shouldered, and athletic, his red hair swaying in the wind.
His skin held color now, his breath real.
Every motion carried weight, strength, and control, nothing like the faint soul-image Ryusei had spoken to half a year ago.
And definitely not like any one hundred-year-old ever in this world.
However, the unbelievable resurrection hadn't been sudden.
After returning to the region months earlier, Ryusei had focused most on two new things right away: mastering Ashina's advanced jutsu-shiki knowledge and refining the application of his own soul-based techniques.
His control over spiritual transfer and vessel creation had advanced far beyond anything he once imagined, allowing Ashina to finally inhabit the artificial body.
He and Kanae had spent months researching the process, collecting samples, stabilizing chakra-binding formulas, and testing fragments of compatible material.
Kanae had also helped him gather enough material and data from the original vessel before they began.
By the time they were ready, they could afford to "hand it over" completely.
A month ago, they had begun the procedure in secret.
The transfer took days, the process was dangerous and exhausting even for Ryusei.
But in the end, it worked.
The vessel accepted Ashina's essence completely, its weak original soul replaced and erased in silence.
From that point on, the further integration of Ashina's soul into that body began in earnest.
Ryusei studied him quietly, his sensory field tracing the dense layers of chakra coiling inside that body.
It still wasn't like an ordinary human anymore, not entirely, but it was alive.
He'd measured that strength carefully every day, monitoring the man's energy as it continued to climb.
Now, standing a few paces away, Ryusei still couldn't help but watch him with a quiet sense of awe.
For all his experiments and theories, this was the first time Ryusei had witnessed what he could call true rebirth, a living soul restored to flesh.
It stood as the crowning achievement of his shinobi work so far, from a research point of view, the one accomplishment he took genuine pride in.
He had told Ashina little about the true origin of the body he now inhabited, only that he had found it spying nearby and captured it.
The rest didn't matter. What mattered was that the procedure had succeeded beyond expectation.
Ashina flexed his arms, testing the movement.
The sound of muscle tightening under his skin carried a weight that made Ryusei's senses stir. The man's presence had substance again. He could feel air, gravity, the pulse of life.
Ashina exhaled slowly, his expression calm, though his eyes still carried that distant wisdom that belonged to another age.
"So this is what life feels like again," he said at last, voice deep and measured. "The cold, the air, the strain in the lungs… I had almost forgotten."
Ashina flexed his hand, watching the fingers close into a fist.
"It's strange," he said, his voice deep, calm.
"To feel the air again. The weight. The cold. Even pain."
He turned his hand over slowly, as though the gesture itself fascinated him.
"This vessel… You truly reshaped it. It bends to my will as if it were my own flesh."
The soul didn't merely override the body; it restored the lost memory of flesh.
Even the chakra pathways and shinobi reflexes were adapting, forming in patterns identical to those encoded in Ashina's spirit.
Within weeks, the man had become whole again, not just alive, but vital, radiating power.
Ryusei smiled faintly. "You made that possible yourself. The soul remembers its home. I only prepared the bridge."
Ashina chuckled lowly. "A bridge, he says. You've done what even the Uzumaki never completed. Rebirth without sacrifice. Resurrection through knowledge, not desperation."
Ryusei tilted his head, studying the man's chakra flow. "Don't romanticize it too much. It took both of us. And I still don't understand how your soul reshaped the body's genetic pattern so fast. It's as if the cells obeyed memory instead of structure."
Ashina's expression softened. "It's the bond between soul and lineage. Our blood remembers more than we think. The body may die, but the pattern remains in the soul's shadow. Once it found a body with space to accept it, the rest simply… followed."
Ryusei agreed with the logic. In the original series, Nagato's soul had retained his Rinnegan abilities even when the physical eyes were no longer his, and Itachi had done the same with his Mangekyō.
The Edo Tensei itself proved the principle, souls carried the true imprint of power and form.
A small fragment of DNA was enough to anchor the ritual, yet the revived body always reshaped itself into the exact likeness and strength of the original, no matter the spread.
Although this didn't seem to apply to beings beyond the Kage level, Six Paths-tier individuals like Madara and Hashirama, it still made sense. They were simply too powerful for Edo Tensei.
After all, Ryusei knew that when resurrected through Edo Tensei, both were limited versions of themselves; Madara's Rinnegan was a suppressed "pirated version", and Hashirama was nowhere near his prime.
Even so, their cases still proved a deeper truth: souls could influence genes to an extent, and genes could, in turn, shape souls.
That was why the Sage of Six Paths had also been able to empower Naruto and Sasuke through pure spiritual contact; his lingering soul altered their very DNA, their chakra systems, their bodies.
It was proof that the divide between spirit and flesh was never absolute, just another illusion waiting to be broken.
The same pattern held with Orochimaru; every time his soul changed bodies, the vessel gradually transformed, molding itself closer to his own original appearance and nature.
Ryusei crossed his arms, glancing at the seals etched across the cavern floor. "Then this means your power should keep rising, at least for a while. You're already radiating chakra density close to my level."
Ashina exhaled, looking toward the sea. "That's good. We'll need strength soon. You said before that your enemies in the Leaf were growing restless."
"Restless is an understatement," Ryusei replied. "Once the next front opens, they'll send people again to erase me."
Ashina smirked. "Then perhaps it's time I repay the favor. You gave me life again; I can at least help you keep yours."
Ryusei met his gaze, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly. "You'll have your chance soon enough. But first, we need to make sure your body stabilizes. No sudden chakra surges. No large-scale jutsu yet."
Ashina looked amused. "You're giving me orders now?"
Ryusei shrugged. "I'm the doctor this time. You're the patient."
A short laugh escaped the red-haired man. "Fair enough, boy. But don't think I've gone soft. When I stand at full strength again, I expect a proper spar."
Ryusei's smirk widened. "When you reach that point, I'll consider it."
Ashina's grin faded into something quieter, more solemn. "Then let's make sure the world remembers both."
The wind picked up again, rustling through the cave's entrance.
For a moment, the faint hum of seals and ocean merged, the sound of the living and the resurrected blending into one.
Then they parted ways again.
Ashina would spend the next few hours again simply walking barefoot through the soil, touching the bark of trees, pausing to watch rivers cut through the mist.
To him, every sound and scent was still a rediscovered miracle.
He always liked to walk through the cliffs and forests like a man relearning the world, quietly watching the mist and feeling the air like a monk.
Before leaving, Ryusei warned him to always keep his chakra as suppressed as possible.
There were still trackers and sensors scattered across the nations, due to the war, and all kinds of monsters secretly roamed around, as seen from that white creature, spying on Ryusei all those months ago, he mentioned, and some undoubtedly belonged to Konoha, their biggest enemy.
Ashina only gave a calm nod. "So the predators still roam the same forests, just under new names, like back during the Warring States era. Don't worry, with my level of sensory ability, I can vanish when I need to, easily."
Ryusei studied him for a second longer, sensing his sincerity, then nodded once and left.
Ryusei then returned to his main hideout in this southern hot spring region near the sea, opposite the Land of Water.
The road back to his base wound through ridged terrain lined with steaming springs and rock terraces.
The southern part of the Land of Hot Water was unlike anywhere else, lush and green, yet wrapped in drifting mist that never fully cleared.
His main hideout lay near the coastline, carved into a hollow stretch of cliff overlooking the sea.
The waves below crashed against black rock, while faint streams of vapor rose from hidden fissures around the cave mouth.
The main laboratory base was built into the cliffs, surrounded by steam vents and shallow pools that glowed faintly at night.
Inside, chakra lights hummed softly through the stone.
He had discovered that electricity here could be sustained directly through chakra flow, wireless, constant, and clean.
It still amazed him. He went deeper into the lab, where Kanae was already at work, surrounded by scrolls and sealing arrays.
Glass panels of Ryusei's own design reflected the faint light of embedded chakra lamps, casting a pale glow across shelves of scrolls and mechanical instruments.
He still felt a small thrill every time he entered it.
His laboratory was one of the few places in this world that felt familiar, like something built with logic, not superstition.
What surprised him most was how the world's chakra system could sustain electrical principles entirely differently than back on Earth.
Machines here could draw power directly from external chakra through specialized seals. wirelessly, endlessly, without the need for a grid.
Chakra itself filled the role of both current and signal. It had changed everything.
Through that system, he could power analytic scanners, Yang-infused sealing arrays, and precision microscopes, some even calibrated to link directly with Kanae's own microscopic Byakugan vision, letting her observe details no ordinary instrument could ever register.
His small underground complex now resembled a hybrid between a shinobi research station and a high-end laboratory from his old world.
When he reached the inner chamber, he found Kanae already there, standing near the main desk, surrounded by scrolls and ink patterns.
She didn't look up right away when he entered, her Byakugan already active, tracing the chakra flow through one of the arrays she had designed the night before.
The faint veins around her temples pulsed rhythmically, a sign of focus rather than fatigue.
Ryusei leaned against the doorway for a moment, watching her in silence.
"Still working?" he asked finally.
Kanae exhaled softly through her nose without turning.
"Unlike you, I didn't spend the morning playing tour guide to lingering souls," she said.