Morning arrived with a strange stillness.
The kind that follows escalation.
The kind that comes before something worse.
Ren stood alone in Training Ground 7, arms folded loosely, eyes half-closed. The air felt different today. Denser. More attentive.
He could feel the village watching.
Not physically.
Structurally.
The drums rolled faintly.
Doom.
Hiruzen Sarutobi stepped into the clearing without ceremony. No ANBU. No Root. Just the Hokage.
"You encountered something new last night," Hiruzen said calmly.
Ren opened one eye.
"You already know."
"Yes."
A pause.
"It drained rather than struck."
Ren nodded slightly. "It wasn't built to collide."
Hiruzen studied him for a moment. "Danzō adapts quickly."
Ren's faint smile returned. "So do I."
Hiruzen exhaled softly.
"Then today, we begin."
They did not start with jutsu.
They started with breathing.
"Natural energy is not chakra," Hiruzen said, seated cross-legged across from Ren. "It does not originate inside you. It exists everywhere."
Ren listened.
"You compress force instinctively," Hiruzen continued. "But natural energy resists compression."
Ren tilted his head slightly. "Because it's not moving."
"Correct."
Hiruzen's gaze sharpened.
"You fight motion with motion. Natural energy is stillness."
The words settled.
Ren closed his eyes.
He inhaled slowly.
The forest around them breathed.
Wind moved through leaves.
Insects shifted in grass.
Ren tried to feel it.
Not chakra.
Not force.
Just presence.
The drums rolled softly.
Doom.
He exhaled.
The air felt heavy against his skin.
Like pressing against something invisible.
Hiruzen watched closely.
"Don't force it."
Ren's brow tightened slightly.
"I don't force."
"Exactly."
That caught him.
Ren exhaled again.
Slower.
The world did not bend.
It did not compress.
It simply… existed.
For the first time since eating the fruit, Ren did not try to push against something.
He simply stood inside it.
The drums softened.
Doom.
And for a split second—
His elasticity did not flare.
It did not distort.
It rested.
Hiruzen noticed immediately.
"You felt it."
Ren opened his eyes slowly.
"Yes."
Hiruzen nodded.
"That is what Danzō tried to weaponize."
Ren's faint smile returned.
"He succeeded."
"For now."
Elsewhere—
Deep beneath Root.
Project Kagebane chambers hummed.
Three shadow-forms knelt inside sealing circles, their bodies unstable flickers of condensed darkness.
Danzō stood before them.
"They were defeated by recoil," a Root analyst reported.
"Because they relied on siphoning."
Danzō's eye narrowed.
"Then they must bypass elasticity entirely."
He raised his cane slightly.
"Phase Two."
The sealing circles shifted.
The shadows convulsed.
Their forms grew sharper.
More defined.
Less fragmented.
"We do not drain him," Danzō said coldly.
"We erase the rebound."
Evening.
Ren stood alone again.
He had trained until his muscles trembled—not from strain, but from unfamiliar restraint.
Natural energy was not power.
It was resistance.
He exhaled slowly.
Doom.
The drums were steady tonight.
Not loud.
Balanced.
A shift in the trees behind him.
Ren didn't turn.
Three presences.
Different.
Sharper than last night.
He smiled faintly.
"They improved."
The first Kagebane unit emerged from shadow.
Its form was no longer unstable smoke.
It had edges now.
Solid lines.
Black armor woven from darkness.
Red seams glowing faintly along joints.
The other two flanked silently.
Ren stretched his neck once.
"Let's test Phase Two."
The shadows moved simultaneously.
Not lunging.
Not slicing.
They simply entered his space.
One touched his shoulder.
Ren felt it immediately—
His elasticity didn't trigger.
No rebound.
No compression.
His body felt… muted.
The second unit struck his side.
No distortion.
The third gripped his wrist.
No stretch.
Ren's eyes sharpened.
They weren't draining.
They were suppressing the reaction itself.
Interesting.
He allowed them to strike again.
Each blow felt real.
Solid.
Heavy.
No bounce.
No snapback.
The drums faltered briefly.
Doom…
Ren exhaled slowly.
So this was the counter.
Not force.
Not siphon.
Erasure.
He compressed instinctively—
Nothing happened.
The shadow units tightened formation.
One whispered in a distorted tone:
"Contain."
The ground beneath Ren darkened.
Shadow lattice spread outward.
The drums slowed.
Doom… Doom…
Ren closed his eyes.
He stopped trying to compress.
Stopped trying to rebound.
Instead—
He remembered the morning.
Stillness.
Natural energy wasn't motion.
It was presence.
He inhaled slowly.
The shadows tightened.
He didn't resist.
Didn't push.
Didn't stretch.
The drums softened.
Doom.
The shadow units paused slightly.
Ren opened his eyes.
"Got it."
Instead of compressing—
He redirected.
Not outward.
Not inward.
Sideways.
Elasticity twisted diagonally rather than snapping back.
The shadow suppressors expected linear reaction.
They weren't prepared for misalignment.
Ren twisted his torso slightly—
The shadow lattice distorted unevenly—
One unit slipped half an inch out of formation.
That was enough.
Ren's arm didn't stretch forward.
It rotated around the unit's suppression zone like a loop.
He yanked sideways.
The unit tore free from its synchronized pattern.
Instantly—
Rebound returned.
He compressed once—
Released.
The freed unit shattered against a tree trunk.
The remaining two adjusted instantly.
Smarter.
Faster.
They attacked from opposing angles.
Ren stepped into stillness again.
Did not compress.
Did not push.
He waited.
The moment they touched—
He twisted both arms opposite directions simultaneously.
The suppression zones collided against each other.
Their anti-rebound fields interfered.
A crack split the air.
One unit collapsed.
The other staggered.
Ren stepped forward calmly.
"You improved."
He grabbed the last unit by the head.
Elasticity flickered faintly.
"You still assume I move in straight lines."
He slammed it into the ground.
Not with recoil—
With redirection.
The shadow armor fractured.
It dissolved into smoke.
Silence returned to the forest.
Ren stood alone.
Breathing steady.
The drums rolled stronger now.
Balanced.
DOOM.
He had found something.
Not full mastery.
Not awakening.
But adaptation.
Natural energy wasn't just a weakness.
It was a key.
Behind him—
A branch shifted.
Itachi stepped into view.
"You changed," Itachi said quietly.
Ren nodded once.
"I stopped pushing."
Itachi studied the smoke fading from the destroyed units.
"They're evolving."
Ren looked toward the direction of Root territory.
"So am I."
Far beneath the village—
Danzō listened to the failure report.
"Phase Two neutralized."
His expression did not change.
"Then begin Phase Three."
The analyst hesitated.
"That requires—"
"I know what it requires."
Danzō's eye hardened.
"If elasticity adapts to suppression…"
He turned toward a sealed vault door.
"…then we remove the variable entirely."
The drums echoed faintly across Konoha.
Unheard.
Unseen.
Waiting.
Doom.