Chapter 77: Rough night?

Dawn crawled over Konoha, throwing pale orange light across the Hokage Monument and doing absolutely nothing to improve Ren’s mood.

The crisp morning air did absolutely nothing to wash away the lingering smell of antiseptic and stale coffee clinging to Ren’s clothes as he walked out of the hospital’s main entrance.

He paused on the concrete steps, running a hand through his dark hair to flatten it out. His silk tie was missing, two buttons had been permanently torn from his charcoal vest, and his tailored dress shirt was hopelessly wrinkled.

Standing at the bottom of the steps, holding a clipboard and looking deeply unamused, was Kakuzu.

"You are late," Kakuzu stated, his green eyes flicking up from the supply ledger to take in Ren’s disheveled state.

"I was securing our medical supply chain," Ren replied smoothly, walking down the steps.

Kakuzu flipped a page on his clipboard. "The night staff reported a localized structural failure in the Chief Medical Officer’s suite shortly after two in the morning. They heard wood splintering. I have already preemptively added the cost of a new mahogany desk to the hospital’s reconstruction tab."

Ren kept walking toward the carriage waiting at the curb. "Pragmatic as always, Kakuzu."

Kakuzu followed him, tapping a pen against the clipboard. "I need to know how to categorize the expense for the tax auditors. Should I list the broken desk under medical misconduct, or executive entertainment?"

Ren opened the carriage door, pausing for just a second.

"List it as an aggressive corporate merger," Ren said.

Kakuzu stared at him, his expression flat beneath his mask. He clicked his pen, scribbled a note on the ledger, and muttered, "I am deducting the cost of your ruined vest from your personal account."

Back inside the hospital, the Chief Medical Officer’s suite was locked tight.

Tsunade was sitting cross-legged on the leather couch, a fresh pot of black coffee resting on the small table in front of her. Her blond hair was tied up in a messy bun, and she was wearing a clean medical coat, scrubbed clean and professional once again.

The heavy oak desk in the center of the room was completely cracked down the middle, its legs visibly bowed inward.

She ignored the ruined furniture. Her focus was entirely on the black scroll spread across her lap.

In the cold light of morning, with the worst of her exhaustion beaten back by coffee and adrenaline, Tsunade’s mind was finally sharp again. Her amber eyes tracked Orochimaru’s complex formulas, dissecting the math line by line.

It was brilliant. It was revolutionary.

It was also a complete death trap.

Tsunade dragged a finger down the column detailing the optic nerve integration. Orochimaru’s solution to the Hashirama cells’ violent rejection rate was simply to overwhelm the host’s immune system with brute force, binding the regenerative tissue to the nervous system before the body could fight back.

It worked on paper. But Tsunade knew the reality of human anatomy better than anyone alive.

If she synthesized these drops directly from Orochimaru’s raw data and dropped them into Ren’s eye, the Hashirama cells wouldn’t just stabilize his Mangekyō. They would aggressively root into his brain stem, violently overtake his chakra network, and turn him into a twisted, wooden corpse within forty-eight hours.

Ren had brought her a foundation. Tsunade still had to build the damn house without letting it eat the patient.

She needed to dilute the cellular aggression. She needed to map the specific chakra pathways of the Uchiha optic nerve to create a customized buffer. She needed controlled, isolated tissue tests.

Tsunade reached for her coffee mug, taking a long, bitter sip.

"You are a lucky, arrogant idiot, Ren," she muttered to the empty room.

She rolled the scroll up, channeling a pulse of chakra to lock the coded seals back into place. It was going to take weeks of grueling, highly classified lab work to turn this poison into medicine. But for the first time since the Nine-Tails attack, Tsunade actually had a puzzle worth solving.

Ren’s private estate was quiet when he walked through the front doors.

The morning sun filtered through the large shoji screens, casting warm light across the polished wooden floors. The distinct, comforting smell of toasted rice and miso soup drifted from the kitchen.

Ren toed off his shoes and walked down the hallway.

Kushina was sitting at the kitchen island, a steaming mug of tea in her hands. Her bright red hair was tied back in a loose braid, and she was wearing an oversized sweater that looked incredibly comfortable. Naruto was fast asleep in a padded crib near the corner of the room, oblivious to the world.

She looked up when Ren walked in. Her violet eyes instantly snapped to his collar.

Kushina blinked, lowering her tea. She took in the missing tie, the torn buttons on his vest, the wrinkled shirt, and the faint, undeniable shadow of exhaustion lingering under his eyes.

"Rough night?" Kushina asked, leaning her chin on her hand, an amused smirk playing on her lips. "You look like you got ambushed."

Ren walked over to the coffee pot, pulling a mug from the cabinet. "I had a very intense meeting with hospital administration."

Kushina snorted, taking a sip of her tea. "Right. Administration. Does administration usually rip your buttons off?"

"The healthcare system in this village is highly combative," Ren replied deadpan, pouring his coffee.

Kushina laughed. It was a small, quiet sound, but it lacked the heavy, suffocating grief that usually shadowed her face. The massive house was still quiet, but this morning, it did not seem to be swallowing her whole.

"Did you win the fight at least?" she asked, watching him take a sip of his coffee.

His right eye pulsed once behind the clouded iris. Ren ignored it.

Kushina didn’t. Her smile faded for half a second before she looked back down at her tea.

"It was a mutual settlement," Ren said, placing his mug on the counter.

Kushina shook her head, smiling faintly into her cup. She didn’t push it. She simply nudged a small, covered plate across the kitchen island toward him.

"I made extra breakfast," she said casually, looking away toward the window. "Eat it before Kakuzu tries to charge me for using the stove gas."

Naruto made a tiny noise from the crib. Kushina looked over automatically, her smile softening into something entirely genuine.

Ren sat down beside her, the plate warm beneath his hand.

For once, the estate did not feel like a protected asset.

It felt occupied.

That was significantly more dangerous.

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