Watching his "past self" spout such words while threatening such extreme actions, Ren Uchiha felt nothing but exasperation.
However, he wasn't truly afraid of the boy committing suicide. With his current repertoire—the Forbidden Jutsus of Body Incarnation, One's Own Life Resurrection, and Cellular Extraction—he could bring the youth back from the dead an infinite number of times even if the boy sliced his own head off right then and there.
The simplest solution to this standoff was obvious: use the Sharingan to project his experiences of the last three months as a Genjutsu. Ren believed that once his past self received those memories and saw the critical junctures where choices were made, he would inevitably choose the same path and come to an understanding.
Reconciliation with "himself" wasn't difficult.
But...
That was something Ren Uchiha was neither willing nor needed to do!
Why should he reconcile with "himself"? Why should a remnant soul, containing only a fragment of his spiritual energy and some trivial information, represent who he was?
To Ren, the memories of these past three months were far more precious than Turtle Island itself! Even if the one standing before him was "himself," there were things Ren didn't want to share. To hand over his most treasured moments just to pass through a gate? To surrender the "intel" that could practically ravish the entire Shinobi world to a fragment in this strange environment?
That would be a betrayal of the hope and dreams he had carried throughout this journey!
So—
"Do as you like. If you want to die, then die."
Ren looked up, his gaze calm. He paused for a moment before speaking softly:
"A ninja climbs over a wall because it's the easiest way. But if jumping over the wall becomes more trouble than it's worth..."
"For a ninja, smashing the wall and moving forward is also an option."
The older Ren, with the bumper blade still pressed to his throat, blinked in confusion. "What did you say..."
Ren had already tilted his head back, his scarlet Sharingan blazing as he stared at the towering waterfall and the shimmering, white-light boundaries that seemed to slice the world into pieces.
"A clever barrier technique that uses a unique formation to absorb natural energy within a thousand-meter radius, creating a space that only accommodates spiritual force."
"And this waterfall... it works on the same principle as Yagura Karatachi's secret Water Mirror Jutsu. Tsk, so the roots of Sage Arts and Ninjutsu are the same after all..."
"As I thought... this is a legacy of the Sage civilization from before the Era of Ninjas!"
Ren's expression tightened as he slowly closed his eyes. Beside him, the older Ren looked on in shock.
"What are you talking about? Didn't you come to Turtle Island to become a Perfect Jinchuriki?"
"In three months, even with your 'intel advantage,' how could you possibly have progressed this far? Ren Uchiha, what on earth—"
Ren shook his head slightly.
"Tailed Beasts? I don't need to travel this far just to enslave a few animals."
He took a step forward, standing before the Falls of Truth with his back to his past self.
"Let's just say... I am far more powerful than you can imagine!"
With those words, Ren snapped his eyes open—a pair of crimson, snake-slit Sharingan. He raised his fist, aiming it directly at the waterfall.
The veins in his right arm throbbed violently as white Sage markings erupted across his skin!
In the next instant—
Like a volcanic eruption, a brilliant yellow beam of light instantly filled the older Ren's vision, forcing his eyes wide in terror.
"Holy shit! What kind of move is that!?"
—BOOM!!
In a deafening roar, the barrier shattered!
Back in the physical world, Ren Uchiha maintained the exact same posture as his mental projection.
White Sage markings pulsed along his arm, and a wisp of smoke drifted from his knuckles. In front of him, the massive Falls of Truth had vanished.
The entire cliffside had been reduced to fine dust by a single punch, and with it, the barrier that manifested the inner darkness disappeared. Water trickled down from the edges of the newly formed crater, creating a partial curtain of mist that revealed a vast, mysterious cavern beyond.
"Whew..."
Ren opened his eyes and exhaled, shaking out his right hand. He used Sage Art: Heavenly Crown Infusion to soothe the extreme fatigue in his coiling muscles.
He looked up and stepped into the entrance. "This should be the second level of the Turtle Island training grounds."
What greeted him was a massive underground palace filled with towering Buddhist pagodas. Behind the pagodas, on a wall over six hundred meters high, was a mural depicting a giant bull-headed beast with eight octopus tails and a massive cat demon wreathed in flames with two tails.
Lining the path that stretched toward a beast-headed gate were twenty-one stone statues of headless figures sitting cross-legged. Near the gate itself sat a single statue that still possessed its head.
The statue wore monk's robes and a stone prayer bead necklace. One hand was formed into a variation of the 'Ram' sign, while the other was...
Well, it was giving a "thumbs up," as if it were liking a post.
Ren's gaze lingered on the "thumbs up" for a moment before he continued toward the end of the road, stopping before the massive beast-headed gate, whose jaws were stained with blood.
"According to Killer B," Ren surveyed the palace, narrowing his eyes. "Every statue here is a Jinchuriki who failed their training."
"But the Land of Lightning doesn't have a large monk population like the Land of Fire or Wind. They don't have temples like the Fire Temple or high monks like Bunpuku. There's no precedent for Buddhism in the Hidden Cloud. The previous Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, Blue B, looked like a normal ninja."
"So, that story was a lie—a prank meant to scare Naruto into sticking his head into the gate."
"The truth is... there's another story here."
Ren walked to the end of the path, eyeing the dark, dried blood on the beast's fangs. This was the gate to the inner sanctum where one would face their Tailed Beast and learn to siphon its chakra.
Killer B had said the condition was to stick your head in. If you had darkness in your heart, the statue would bite your head off. Only the pure of heart could open it. Naruto had eventually stuck his head in and realized it was just a prank.
But Ren looked at the dark blood in the crevices of the stone teeth. He could faintly smell the acrid, metallic scent of... snake blood?
Is this really a prank? Naruto had entered after reconciling with his darkness. But what if someone who hadn't passed the trial stuck their head in?
Ren raised an eyebrow. Then, he simply stuck his head into the beast's mouth!
He hadn't reconciled with his past self, but he had his own advantages.
Darkness enveloped him. Inside the head, Ren did not see the switch Naruto had seen. Instead, through the vision of his evolved Sharingan, he saw natural energy swirling in a strange pattern.
"This is... a visual Genjutsu driven by natural energy?"
In the next instant—as if sensing something—the eyes of the beast-head glowed red, and the jaws snapped shut!
CRACK!!
Blood sprayed. Ren's head was instantly severed from his body and fell to the ground.
Fortunately, this wasn't enough to kill him. He manipulated his body to reach out, pick up his head, and pop it back onto his neck. The massive wound healed in a heartbeat.
Ren stood back up, a look of delighted surprise on his face as if he'd found a new toy.
"Huh? A Sage Art Genjutsu... now that's the good stuff!"
But before Ren could stick his head back in to record the technique with his Sharingan, the entire underground palace suddenly began to tremble!
Rumble!
Massive chunks of stone peeled away from the six-hundred-meter wall. Behind them, a giant, lightless mural was revealed—a brilliant outline of a "solar eclipse."
Above the sun was an even larger, blood-red moon with nine black tomoe. It was connected to the sun by a tree trunk, seemingly siphoning power from one to the other.
The statues that had been sitting quietly along the path suddenly moved.
Clutching their hearts, clawing at their throats, tearing at their bellies... the twenty-one headless statues contorted in postures of extreme agony.
And at the very front, the statue with the head clutched its ears, its eyes vacant and its mouth wide in a silent scream.
Through the movement of its stone teeth, Ren could read the three words it was desperately trying to scream:
"Hungry... SO HUNGRY!!"