Chapter 85: Ten Days in a Heartbeat
Deep within the serpentine bowels of Otogakure, in the same cavernous hall where their partnership had been forged, Orochimaru sat upon his stone throne. The air was still and cold. Kabuto Yakushi stood before him, the picture of deferential efficiency.
"Hehe... Kabuto, has our esteemed guest, Ren-kun, emerged from his quarters yet?" Orochimaru's voice was a dry rasp, echoing slightly in the vast space.
"Not yet, Lord Orochimaru," Kabuto replied, adjusting his glasses. A sliver of calculated concern entered his tone. "Since he retired yesterday noon, he has not left his room. There has been no response to my knocks. We have no knowledge of his activities within. My lord, given his... value... should we perhaps take more... proactive measures to ensure his well-being?" The suggestion was veiled, a test to gauge his master's interest.
A low, humorless chuckle escaped Orochimaru's lips. "Humph~~ Unnecessary. Uchiha Ren's power is considerable. If he perceived your intrusion as a threat, dispatching you would be a trivial matter. Even I would be hard-pressed to intervene swiftly enough. And he is, for now, our honored guest. It would be... impolite to violate his privacy so brazenly. Hehehe~~~" The laugh was a threat in itself, a warning to Kabuto to curb his curiosity.
"To be that powerful?" Kabuto feigned a shiver, his performance convincing. "It is a good thing I have been nothing but courteous. I would surely be a corpse otherwise." Internally, however, his mind was racing. *The Mangekyō Sharingan. Its reputation is not exaggerated if it commands this level of caution from Lord Orochimaru himself.*
"Indeed," Orochimaru confirmed, his golden eyes narrowing slightly. "Were my arms in their original condition, my confidence would be greater. But as I am now... that is only an assessment based on his base capabilities. Should he elect to utilize the full power of his kaleidoscope..." He let the sentence hang, the unspoken conclusion more potent than any boast. "In any case, you will do nothing to provoke him. Accommodate his requests, within reason. He may yet prove to be a significant asset."
*Or a vessel,* Kabuto thought, but he merely bowed. "Understood, Lord Orochimaru."
"Hey hey~~~ Very good. You are dismissed. Attend to the village's mundane affairs. Your presence here is not required."
"Of course, my lord." Kabuto offered another shallow bow before turning and exiting the hall, his footsteps fading into the echoing silence.
Alone, Orochimaru's serpentine smile returned. "Hehe~ Sequestered in his room for an entire day... Could it be he is truly experimenting with the First's cells? To possess both the Sharingan's insight and a mind for scientific inquiry... Uchiha Ren, you continue to be a fascinating puzzle." His tongue flicked out, tasting the stale air. "And Sasuke-kun... unusually absent today. I wonder if his brother's... lesson... has given him pause."
In the cold, dark quiet of his room, Ren's body lay perfectly still on the narrow cot. His chest rose and fell with the slow, steady rhythm of deep sleep, but his mind was galaxies away.
Suddenly, without any precursor, his eyes snapped open.
He sat up in one fluid motion, a sharp intake of breath hissing through his teeth. For a moment, he just stared at the opposite wall, his gaze unfocused, as if reacquainting himself with the reality of solid matter. Then, a low, incredulous laugh escaped him, rough from disuse.
"Ha... unbelievable," he muttered, running a hand through his hair. "Even a simulation... that copy-nin is a nightmare to pin down. The number of times I had to trade a fatal blow just to land one..."
For ten full days within the compressed time of the virtual space, he had lived and died in a relentless loop of combat. His first opponent, a simulation of Kakashi calibrated to standard jōnin level, had been challenging but manageable. He had emerged victorious, though not unscathed.
His brief triumph was instantly shattered as the system generated a new opponent. This Kakashi was faster, smarter, his tactics more ruthless. An elite jōnin. The battle was a brutal slog, pushing Ren to his absolute limits. He won, but it was a pyrrhic victory, leaving him with simulated injuries that felt agonizingly real.
Then the third simulation appeared. This one radiated a palpable pressure—the calm, lethal aura of a Kage-level combatant. This was Kakashi at the peak of his prowess, a perfect fusion of millennia of copied techniques and hardened experience. The first encounter lasted less than a minute. Ren was dismantled with terrifying efficiency, his every move predicted and countered. He died feeling the cold slide of a kunai across his throat.
He was reborn into the white void and immediately thrown back into the fray. Death. Again. And again. Each defeat was a lesson written in pain. He learned to read the subtlest muscle twitches that preceded a Lightning Blade, to distinguish between a real attack and a Shadow Clone feint, to manage his chakra with a miser's precision.
He forbade himself from using the Mangekyō. This was not about overwhelming power; it was about refining the fundamentals until they were instinct. He forced himself to rely solely on taijutsu, ninjutsu, and the predictive capabilities of his three-tomoe Sharingan.
Slowly, painstakingly, the tide turned. The fights lasted longer. Thirty seconds became a minute. A minute became five. He began to land blows, to force the simulation into defensive maneuvers. The instinctual fear of death that had initially made him hesitate was burned away, replaced by a cold, analytical focus.
After what felt like an eternity of relentless combat, he finally did it. He found an opening, a microscopic flaw in the simulation's perfect defense, and exploited it without mercy. He watched as the Kage-level Kakashi dissolved into pixels of light.
A profound silence descended upon the virtual forest. No new opponent appeared. He had done it. He had conquered the highest difficulty setting.
In the real world, only twenty-four hours had passed. But in his mind, he had endured over a week of constant, life-or-death warfare. The experience had honed him, sanding away the rough edges of his technique and tempering his combat instincts into razor-sharp steel. The man who had relied on the crutch of a legendary dōjutsu against the real Kakashi was gone. Now, he was a true shinobi of the highest caliber, his own power seamlessly integrated with hard-won experience.
He was no longer just a vessel of potential; he was a weapon, sharpened and ready. The latest_epɪ_sodes are on_the novel✦fire.net
He swung his legs off the bed, his body thrumming with a new, quiet confidence. The frustration over the Hashirama cells was still there, but it was now overshadowed by a concrete sense of progress.
"Now," he said to the empty room, his voice firm. "Let's see what this new strength can really do."
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