There is a saying that goes like this: Be like the lotus— the deeper the mud where it is born, the more beautiful the flower that blooms.
It is a phrase meant to remind us that even if we go through terrible moments, we can still flourish; that even in desperate situations, there is hope for things to get better.
But sometimes, we don't want beauty. We don't want improvement. We don't even want to bloom.
Sometimes, we just want to go back… to when we were happy.
—
Ren stood still for far too long.
Not because his body was frozen—his body still responded, still had strength, still had technique. The problem was something else, deeper, older than any wound: the feeling that something inside him had broken, and yet the world stubbornly insisted on moving on.
He only watched.
He saw those men leave like shadows cut against the edge of the clearing, disappearing between trees and distance, as if all of it—the blood on the ground, the failing breaths, the heavy silence—were just another detail along the way. He saw the trail of dust, heard the sound of footsteps fading, and felt, deep in his chest, something he had never felt like this before.
Anger. Hatred.
Not the loud kind. Not the kind that explodes and makes someone scream. This was worse. Quiet. Dense. Compressed, like poison held under the tongue. An urge to kill, to tear apart, to destroy anything still standing just so it would match what he felt inside.
For a moment, Ren was certain that if he let it rise, he wouldn't be able to stop.
So he breathed.
Once. Twice.
And he forced that feeling down, with the same cold precision he used to control chakra. He buried the rage like mud—not because it disappeared, but because, at that moment, it was a luxury.
If he wasted time trying to destroy, he would lose the little chance he still had to save anyone.
Ren moved.
Asuma's body was there, heavy in a way that wasn't just physical. There is a specific silence in a body that no longer breathes—a silence that asks for nothing, complains about nothing, insists on nothing. It simply exists.
Ren knelt down, without haste, because running wouldn't make it any less real.
He pulled out a scroll, feeling the rough paper under his dirty fingers. The seal was familiar. The technique was familiar. The process was familiar.
And even so, his hand trembled.
Not much. Just enough for him to notice.
Ren injected chakra.
The ink on the scroll responded, alive for a brief instant, as if the writing itself had awakened. The air seemed to grow colder as the jutsu took effect. He positioned the scroll, took a deep breath, and completed the sealing carefully.
The remains of his sensei vanished into the seal.
And the emptiness left behind felt larger than before.
Ren remained kneeling for one more second, staring at the ground where Asuma had been. The world offered no explanation for this. There was no justice. No balance. Only consequence.
He wanted to say something.
He wanted to say his name. He wanted to promise something.
But his throat wouldn't obey.
So he did the only thing he could.
In the end, he bent down, picked up the extinguished cigarette—no smoke, no warmth, just a forgotten remnant—and slipped it into one of his pockets. A small gesture. Ridiculous, maybe, if someone were watching from the outside.
To Ren, it was everything that remained of a moment when the world had still felt normal.
He stood up.
Time began to exist again.
And with time came everything else.
Ino was lying a few meters ahead. Ren approached quickly, checking her breathing, pulse, signs of fractures. She had superficial wounds, impact marks, dirt on her face. Her body was heavy, but alive.
Unconscious.
Ren let out a breath he hadn't even realized he was holding, then immediately turned to Shikamaru.
His situation was far more complicated.
The opening in his abdomen was impossible to ignore, and the blood—far too much blood—stained the ground, his clothes, his skin. Shikamaru was pale to the point of gray, his breathing shallow, faltering, as if his body were trying to decide whether continuing was worth it.
Ren felt his heart pound harder, and with it, that deep hatred threatened to rise again.
Not now.
He tore Shikamaru's clothes without hesitation.
The fabric gave way between his fingers. Ren wrapped and tied it tightly around the abdomen, improvising with what he had. It wasn't a real bandage. It wasn't treatment.
It was containment.
But even something simple and improvised could still help.
And he had nothing else.
Konoha was still hours away. Too many hours.
And there were no hospitals along the way that could handle this—not quickly, not like this, not with that amount of blood loss. The reality was blunt: if Ren tried to carry both of them on foot, Shikamaru would die before seeing the village gates.
He needed to be faster than the world.
He had no other option.
Ren closed his eyes and focused on his right eye.
He could feel the weight of that power there, like an exposed nerve inside his own head. He hated having to use it. Hated the strain. Hated the feeling that it wasn't truly "his" in the right way.
But he hated the idea of losing someone else even more.
He reached for the power that resided there.
In seconds, a black sludge—something that seemed to absorb all light—emerged from his back.
The first time he had felt it, he had thought it was a mistake. Something wrong inside his body, a formless shadow, a living fragment of something that should not exist.
Now, he had no time for fear.
The sludge moved as if alive, stretching, shrinking, reacting to chakra like muscle and liquid at the same time. Ren clenched his teeth.
Controlling it took more effort than he wanted to admit.
It wasn't just "shaping" it like a normal jutsu. It was taming it. Holding onto something that seemed to want to be anything else.
The sludge wasn't just changing shape, but also consistency.
In a short time, behind Ren's back, there were two wings resembling those of a crow.
They weren't beautiful. They were dense. Too black. The edges looked irregular, as if the matter itself hadn't yet decided whether it wanted to be feather, blade, or shadow.
Ren tested them.
Moving them was still strange.
His brain tried to send commands that didn't exist to muscles he didn't have. Chakra had to fill every part, sustain every segment, keep it from collapsing—or worse, taking a form he didn't want.
But it was enough.
Ren looked at Ino and Shikamaru.
For an instant, the world narrowed again. There were no enemies. No village. No grand plans.
There was only the short space between "now" and "too late."
"I need to hurry," he said, and his own voice sounded strange—hoarse, broken, as if it belonged to someone else.
He took a deep breath.
"Please, hold on just a little longer."
He didn't know who he was speaking to.
His friends. Himself. Or some entity in this world—something invisible that watched and decided how much suffering was "acceptable" before allowing a bit of luck.
All he wanted was to let those words out.
Whether to comfort himself, or anyone who might be watching.
Ren bent down and picked them up.
Ino first, supporting her weight carefully so her head wouldn't fall. Then Shikamaru, holding him in a way that didn't press the wound more than necessary.
He placed them over his shoulders.
His body complained immediately—not from lack of strength, but from the effort of balance. Two people hanging from him, one of them bleeding, and those shadow-made wings demanding constant control.
Ren bent his knees.
Breathed.
'Don't fail.'
And jumped.
As he leapt, the wings on his back beat, and he took flight beneath the vast sky.
The impact of the air was a shock, like diving into icy water. For a moment, he almost lost stability—the weight on his shoulders pulled him down, and his body's natural reaction was to lock up.
But Ren didn't lock up.
He adjusted his center of gravity.
Leaned his torso slightly forward.
Beat the wings again, with just enough force to sustain flight, but without wasting energy that would destroy him before the journey ended.
The ground pulled away quickly.
The trees became blurs.
The world grew far too large.
And the silence up there was worse than the silence in the clearing.
Because up there, there was nothing to distract the mind. Only wind, sky, and the sound of his own heart pounding loudly in his ears.
Ren felt his arms begin to weigh down—not from carrying them, but from the constant chakra control in those wings. It was like trying to maintain two jutsu at the same time, without letting either of them slip.
He looked ahead, searching for the path, calculating. Every second mattered. Every wingbeat was a gamble.
Ino remained limp, unconscious, but breathing.
Shikamaru… Shikamaru didn't move.
A chill ran down Ren's spine, not from the wind, but from pure fear—the kind without a name, because naming it would make it too real.
He lowered his altitude slightly, seeking speed, cutting through the air like a crooked arrow.
The world tried to resist. The wind struck his face, drying his eyes, tearing out tears he didn't even know whether came from effort or something else.
And in that vastness, only one question lingered.
Would the time he had left be enough?
(Early access chapters: see the bio.)