Chapter 170: White Lights

- - - Continuing Two Years Ago - - -

The operating room was cloaked in an unnatural silence.Despite the constant hum of instruments, the rhythmic breath of the respirator, and the frenzied murmuring of the medical team, it felt as if time itself had paused.

White light. Everywhere.Sterile, impersonal, omnipresent.

At the center, stretched across the cold steel table, Ren lay motionless.His body wrapped in bandages soaked in medicinal chakra, and where his skin remained uncovered—the damage was devastating.

Deep burns.Lacerations stitched in emergency.Charred patches with no follicles, no dermis.

And among it all—a constellation of scars in perfectly linear patterns.

As if someone had run lightning through his bones.Over and over again.

This wasn't an explosion.Not a blade wound.This was torture.

Dr. Imizu stood beside the table, hands immersed in chakra, his face locked in a mask of unyielding focus.His breath was short, but controlled.His sweat-beaded forehead—steady.

Around him, the team moved fast but precisely—scalpels, forceps, drainage tubes, seals activating in sequence.

One medic was channeling healing chakra into the spine, while another tried to isolate damaged nerves to prevent permanent damage.

One assistant, her face pale, muttered through clenched teeth:"It's a miracle he's still alive…"

Another doctor nodded, voice hoarse."The skin is necrotic in several areas. The nerve endings are… compromised."

He scanned the data on a chakra-infused medical panel."The central nervous system took multiple direct shocks. But his heartbeat is... still steady. Still strong."

He paused.

"His body... refuses to die."

Imizu said nothing at first.He was staring at a section of the left chest, where they had expected complete lung collapse.

But instead…The tissue was slowly regenerating.

Responding to healing chakra with a vitality that no one in the room had anticipated.

"It's not just luck," he murmured at last."It's… willpower."

He motioned toward the treated area.

"Where nothing should remain… it's fighting to recover. As if every cell is resisting, inch by inch."

He glanced toward the brain scan.

His eyes darkened.

Anomalies.Electric flashes in the brain.Areas where chakra moved unstably.

One of the younger doctors dared to ask:

"But... Doctor... do you think he'll ever live a normal life again?"

The question hung there—heavier than any scalpel.

Imizu didn't respond immediately.

He looked at the boy's hand on the table.

One hand was clenched—as if still holding something.

Or someone.

After a long pause, he answered.

"I don't know."

His tone was neutral.Direct.Raw.Like truth.

Then, he looked back at the brain scan.

Irregular waves.

"But I do know this…"

He looked down at the boy's battered face.

"Tonight… he has no intention of dying."

And then he returned to work.

As if those words had already passed.As if the miracle was just another procedure to complete.

- - - Present - - -

The sky over Kirigakure was painted in hues of blue and gold.The last light of evening reflected against the wooden walls of the room, casting long, melancholic shadows.

Sitting in the center, legs folded beneath her, Kurara slowly turned the pages of a worn notebook.Her hands moved gently, almost cautiously.

That notebook wasn't a memory.It was a gift.A manual.

A guide written for one person only: her.

Ren had written it.Page after page.Technique after technique.

° ° °

But he'd never given it to her in person.

° ° °

Every page was precise.No dramatic lines.No dedication.No confession.

Just knowledge.

Written in reversed order.

Every hand position, every chakra flow, every seal combination—all adapted to her body.

To that body that, since childhood, had never been able to channel chakra the normal way.

To that clinical condition she wouldn't have even known she had…if it hadn't been for Ren.

She flipped another page.

There was a section divided by elements.

Katon (火遁): Notes on channeling chakra starting from the right plexus instead of the left.

Suiton (水遁): Notes on chakra flow circulating in the opposite direction.

Seals: Mirror-image movements with precise corrections.

And at the end of each group, a piece of advice.Not poetic.Practical.

"Always practice in front of a mirror. Learn the reflection, then do them with your eyes closed."

Kurara bit her lip.

It was a guide.But also an act of trust.

Ren wasn't just teaching her to fight.

He was telling her she could do it.Even without him.Even if everything else seemed to say otherwise.

She closed the notebook slowly.Set it on her lap.

Her hands stayed there—still, resting on the rough cover.

She didn't cry.She didn't speak.

But in her heart, one question echoed like a bell:

Where are you, Ren?

- - -

The room was dark.The only source of light came from a frosted window, slashed by thin beams of moonlight.

The walls were bare.No paintings, no photos.Only shelves.And vials.And instruments.

It smelled of metal and ink, of chakra dust and unfinished seals.An old laboratory, repurposed into a personal refuge.

In the center, standing before a cracked mirror, was Borei.Or rather…

Ren.

He was removing the mask.

He set it on the table slowly, as if it weighed too much to be handled carelessly.The dim light caught its edges, revealing the sharply carved features of a boy still far too young for all he carried.

His eyes were steady.Too steady.

With slow movements, he began to unfasten his uniform.

The jacket fell to the floor with a muffled swish.Then the shirt followed.

The body underneath was wrapped in bandages.

Old.Clean, but worn.Layer after layer—hiding deep scars, marks that would never truly fade.

He twisted slightly.A silent hiss of pain ran through his side.But no sound escaped his lips.

He approached one of the side walls.

There was a vial.

It contained a pale, milky liquid, which seemed to swirl on its own.

He examined it.Tilted it in the light.

Then took a syringe.

Without hesitation, he injected it into his left shoulder.

The muscle twitched slightly.Then relaxed.

On the table next to the vial, there were handwritten notes.

Annotations on chakra, conductivity, regeneration.

Another notebook—but this one was his.His alone.

On one of the pages, circled three times:

"Do not exceed dosage. Once every 72 hours."

Borei sat down on the stool.His hands still gloved.His gaze resting on the mask across the table.

He stayed there.In silence.For long minutes.

Then he closed his eyes.

And in that moment,he was not a shinobi.Not an ANBU.Not a weapon.

He was just a boy,alone,sitting in the dark,trying to remember who he had once been.

[Thanks Everyone for your support, specially:

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Sorry if i forgot someone, and Enjoy! ^.^

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