The trek back to the Konoha forward operating base was not a march; it was a crawl through the intestines of a dying world.
Renza moved in a trance of mechanical agony. He had tied Taiga to his back with strips of his own flak jacket, the blacksmith boy's dead weight pulling at Renza's shredded shoulder muscles. Karin stumbled beside him, her hand white-knuckled around the fur of her ninken, Kiba, who acted as a living cane for the wounded girl.
Renza's snow-white hair was no longer white. It was a stiff, rusty brown, matted with the mud of the Land of Rain and the drying blood of the Chunin he had butchered. Every time he took a step, the stolen Stone trench knives clattered against his thighs—a constant, heavy reminder of the cost of his survival.
"Don't... stop... breathing," he hissed between cracked lips.
He wasn't using a "Burst" anymore. He couldn't. His lungs felt like they were filled with hot sand. Instead, he was using a desperate, shallow version of the Wind Breath just to keep his heart from stopping.
They reached the Konoha perimeter at dusk. The sentries didn't greet them with cheers; they greeted them with drawn kunai until they recognized the leaf on Renza's tilted headband.
"Medic!" one of the sentries yelled. "We've got three survivors from Squad 9!"
"Three?" Renza croaked, his knees finally giving out as he collapsed into the mud, Taiga sliding off his back. "Where... where is Kaji-sensei?"
The sentry looked at the horizon, where the distant thunder of the Jonin-level battle had finally gone silent. "We don't know, kid. Nobody goes back into that zone until the dust settles."
Renza closed his eyes, his forehead resting in the filth. He had failed. He had run. The Spear had been broken.
Two hours later, in the medical tent, the flap pushed open.
Renza sat on a cot, his chest wrapped in thick, herb-soaked bandages. He was staring at the stolen Stone knives on the table in front of him.
A shadow fell over him. It was a heavy, lopsided shadow.
Renza looked up and felt the air leave his lungs. Jonin Kaji stood there. His flak jacket was gone. His remaining arm was a mess of charred flesh and deep lacerations. His face was caked in dried grey dust—the remains of the Stone Ninja's Mountain Crushing jutsu.
But he was alive.
"You're late," Kaji rasped, his single eye scanning Renza. He looked at the stolen knives on the table. "Those aren't Konoha steel."
"The tantōs broke," Renza said, his voice trembling. "I... I had to find something else."
Kaji sat down heavily on the edge of the cot, the smell of ozone and burnt blood clinging to him. "You didn't just find them. You took them from a man who was trying to kill you. You saved your squad, Renza."
"I ran," Renza whispered.
"I told you to run," Kaji countered. "A tool that breaks when it's supposed to stay sharp is useless. You stayed sharp. You did what you had to do to survive the 'Calculus.' You're a Shinobi now. The Sage of Six Paths helped you."
------------------------------------------
Before the squads were reorganized for the next push, Renza was given one hour of "Rest." He didn't sleep. He walked to the edge of the camp, toward the logistics tents where the "support" squads were stationed.
He found Renju by the river, washing his chokutō.
The black-haired boy looked different. His eyes—those dark blue pools—seemed deeper, as if they had absorbed the shadows of the forest. He looked at Renza, and for a long moment, neither spoke.
Renju stood up, his gaze lingering on the blood-stained white hair of his friend and the brutal, blackened trench knives at his waist.
"You look like hell," Renju said quietly.
"I've been there," Renza replied. He stepped forward, his legs still shaky. "I broke my blades, Renju. The 'Burst'... it wasn't enough. The Elite Chunin... I couldn't even move him."
Renju reached out, his hand steady, and gripped Renza's shoulder. "I had to kill a man in the water. I didn't use a burst. I just held him until he stopped moving. It took forever."
Renza looked at the river. "They're sending us further in. The Whirlpool's destruction... it's turned the Stone and the Rain into animals. They aren't taking prisoners."
"I know," Renju said. He reached into his pouch and pulled out a small whetstone—one of the high-quality ones he had 'calculated' from the supply crates. He handed it to Renza. "Keep the stolen steel sharp. If the Spear breaks again, you won't get a third chance."
Renza took the stone. "And you? The Abyss? Are you drowning yet?"
Renju looked at his own reflection in the dark water. "I'm not drowning. I'm learning how to live at the bottom. The war is only getting louder, Renza. We need to be faster. We need to be heavier."
They stood back-to-back one last time, looking at the two different wars they were fighting. Renza, the boy who became a butcher to save his friends; Renju, the boy who became a stone to save the village's future.
"Six months," Renza said, his manic grin returning, though it was now edged with a jagged, weary desperation. "In six months, I'll be able to breathe through a mountain."
"In six months," Renju replied, "I'll make the ocean stand still."