Chapter 94: The Eye That Never Closes

Two weeks had passed since the night in Kushina’s hallway.

Since then, Kushina had joined him on the veranda several evenings after Naruto fell asleep and had stopped finding reasons to leave whenever they were alone. Neither of them had tried to take the relationship further.

The Academy’s temporary supply yard bordered one of Konoha’s designated training fields.

Ren spent the morning checking a delayed shipment of paper, ink, and practice weapons, then cut across the edge of the field on his way back to the estate.

The unmistakable, booming shout of Might Guy echoed across the grass.

Ren paused near the tree line. Guy and Kakashi were already deep into a fast spar. Guy kept driving forward without giving Kakashi room to reset. Even with the Sharingan tracking every strike, Kakashi barely had enough time to block or evade.

Kakashi had pushed his headband up, leaving the transplanted Sharingan uncovered. He moved through a quick sequence of seals and sent a short burst of fire across the grass, forcing Guy to break away.

Kakashi’s next step faltered. He dropped to one knee and pressed a hand over his left eye, his breathing suddenly rough.

Guy skidded to a stop before his next kick could land.

"Kakashi!"

"I’m fine," Kakashi said, though he made no attempt to stand.

Relief flashed across Guy’s face. It lasted less than a second before he sprang upright and struck a pose.

"Then my eternal rival requires an immediate recovery lap around the village to rebuild the flames of youth!"

"No laps," Ren said, stepping onto the field before Guy could begin planning the route.

Ren had known what the transplanted Sharingan did to Kakashi. Watching him shake from the drain was different.

"Has anyone measured how much chakra that eye takes from you even when it’s covered?" Ren asked.

Kakashi forced himself upright and pulled his headband firmly back down over the eye. His chest was still heaving.

"The transplant healed correctly."

"That wasn’t what I asked."

Kakashi’s visible eye narrowed slightly. "The drain is manageable."

Guy looked at the patch of grass where Kakashi had nearly collapsed.

"Your definition of manageable lacks the blazing optimism of youth," he declared.

Kakashi turned toward the path. "This is simply the price of carrying Obito’s gift."

Kakashi turned toward the path before Ren could point out that Obito’s gift was not supposed to leave him half-conscious after a spar.

Guy fell into step beside him, loudly announcing that he would supervise Kakashi’s recovery whether Kakashi approved or not.

By mid-afternoon, Ren was back inside the estate workshop.

Two days earlier, Ren had finally purchased the Commercial Seal Press for 60,000 BC. His balance had dropped from 429,200 BC to 369,200 BC.

The Academy’s growing supply orders had finally made hand-copying tamper seals too slow and expensive to continue at the current scale.

The System delivered an unmarked core plate and the specialized internal components. Ren presented them as parts acquired from his private supplier, then handed them to the estate workshop with the accompanying construction plans.

By the time he returned from the Academy supply yard that afternoon, the craftsmen had finished building the iron frame, rollers, and chakra feed around them.

The completed press sat on the main worktable.

The workshop foreman fed a sheet of blank parchment into the roller and channeled a small burst of chakra into the core plate. The press hummed, the heavy iron stamp pressing down with a sharp clack.

It ejected a flawless tamper-evident seal designed for Academy supply crates.

The foreman held the label up to the light.

"The press copies whatever is carved into the master plate," he said. "It won’t correct a bad formula. Give it one mistake and it will print the same mistake a thousand times."

Ren picked it up, inspecting the crisp ink lines that locked the sealing formula into the paper. The machine worked perfectly.

The door opened, and Kakuzu walked in.

The treasurer picked up the stamped label, his green eyes scanning the design, before checking the production ledger.

"The cost per unit is acceptable," Kakuzu noted, tapping a finger against the Uchiha fan crest stamped into the corner of the label. "But remove the decorative emblem from the wholesale batches. We are wasting ink."

"We’re keeping the crest for the retail versions," Ren countered.

"Wholesale buyers pay for utility. Remove it from the bulk orders."

Kakuzu placed the label beside the production ledger, gave the press one final look, and left the workshop.

Ren picked the label back up and ran his thumb over the narrow lines of ink. A seal master would need time and a steady hand to reproduce something this fine. The press had copied it without a single broken line.

It could not design a difficult seal, but once someone prepared the correct master plate, it could reproduce the result as many times as needed.

That evening, the air on the main house veranda was cool and quiet.

Ren sat in a low chair with an ordinary shipping invoice open across one knee. Hidden beneath the listed prices was Biwako’s latest update: his false trail was working. Two Root operatives had already left Konoha, following the nonexistent supplier toward the eastern coast.

He had just finished reading the hidden lines when the screen door slid open.

The screen door slid open. Kushina stepped out onto the wooden deck, carrying a sleeping Naruto wrapped in a blanket.

She walked over and sat in the chair next to Ren. She didn’t leave a polite gap between them; she sat close enough that their shoulders brushed comfortably.

Ren folded the invoice and tucked it into his inner pocket. "I saw Kakashi at the training grounds today. He collapsed from chakra exhaustion."

Kushina’s posture tightened slightly. She looked out over the darkened training yard, her hand gently rubbing Naruto’s back as he slept.

"He came to see me twice after Minato’s funeral," Kushina said quietly. "I made excuses both times. Every time I looked at him, I remembered Minato bringing him home after training."

Her hand slowed against Naruto’s back.

"After that, he stopped coming."

Ren did not tell her what she should have done.

"I need to speak to him," Kushina said after a while.

"When you’re ready."

"Not tonight."

"Then not tonight."

They remained there until the night air grew too cold for Naruto.

Kushina stood, carrying him toward the sliding door. She carried him to the edge of the veranda, pausing near the sliding door.

She leaned down and kissed him softly. The kiss lasted only a moment before she drew back, a small smile touching her lips.

"Goodnight, Ren."

Later that night, Ren sat alone in his study.

He opened the Shinobi Tycoon System and went straight to the Medical & Ocular Care section.

Several expensive eye upgrades filled the first page. Ren ignored them and searched the lower listings for anything related to transplanted tissue.

One seal blueprint appeared near the bottom.

[Foreign Chakra Compatibility Seal — 80,000 BC]

[Blueprint: Stabilizes transplanted organs and bloodline tissue inside a host with a different chakra signature. Reduces passive chakra loss caused by incompatibility.]

Ren read the description twice.

He could afford it, but eighty thousand BC was too much to spend before confirming that the seal would not damage the eye or interfere with the transplant.

The press could reproduce the seal once a correct master plate existed. It could not tell him whether the formula was safe for Kakashi.

Only Tsunade could tell him whether the seal was safe.

Ren closed the System window.

Kushina had already decided that she needed to face Kakashi.

First, Ren had to convince Kakashi that nearly collapsing every time he used Obito’s eye was not a debt he was required to keep paying.

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