Kaya lowered his hands from their seal. On his weathered face, within his ancient eyes, a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan gleamed, fixed on the man before him.
Until the image overlapped with a memory from long ago.
"You are Tsunade's old teammate, Orochimaru. You bear the Nine-Tails' chakra, but it's more than that. I sense the Shinigami of the Reaper Death Seal, the chakra of my uncle Tobirama, Hiruzen's chakra, and even… Danzō's. Yet, I cannot sense your soul. What happened to you?"
"As expected of you, the perfect inheritor of Lady Mito's sensory abilities. To unearth my entire history in an instant." Orochimaru turned to face him fully.
Kaya's eyes narrowed. "Then why have you appeared before me?"
Slowly, Orochimaru raised a finger, pointing directly at Kaya's eyes. "For Uchiha Kagami's eyes," he stated plainly.
Kaya's gaze turned razor-sharp.
Adamantine Sealing Chains!
Zing! Zing! ZING!
Golden chains erupted from the water's surface, crisscrossing to bind Orochimaru's limbs and torso in a vice-like grip.
"Danzō would never have told you this. There is only one possibility. You killed him, controlled him with a genjutsu before he died, and learned the location of these eyes. Do you think I will let you succeed?"
Hokage-Style Art: Kakuan's Grasp of Enlightenment!
Following the Uzumaki's chains came the Senju's Wood Release.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Wooden pillars studded with iron spikes erupted from the water beneath Orochimaru!
"HAH—!" Kaya's left hand gripped his right wrist as the kanji for 'Throne' glowed on his palm.
CRUNCH!
Under the dual pressure of the chains and the wood, the Nine-Tails chakra cloak surrounding Orochimaru rapidly disintegrated.
On the rippling water, the wooden pillars curved inward, clamping shut. Orochimaru's body was forced down, pressed until he was sprawled flat on the surface.
Kaya's Sharingan blazed. "Your silence… I will take that as an admission."
Orochimaru chuckled, his voice strained. "Who knows…"
"It seems you won't yield until all hope is lost!"
WHOOSH!
A blinding, sun-like golden light erupted. The skeletal frame of a Susano'o materialized around Kaya. His sparse, wispy white hair, tied in a long ponytail, whipped in the golden storm.
Orochimaru's vertical pupils lifted. "Oh! So that is the color of a Susano'o symbolizing 'light,' born from the eyes that nurture the Heavenly Flame!"
FWOOM!
Muscle and sinew wrapped around the Susano'o's arm. A brilliant, blazing golden greatsword ignited in its grasp.
Divine Tool: Sword of the Majestic Sun!
"This blade absorbs the sun's radiance. Under this midday sun, its power is more than enough to annihilate you!"
The greatsword rose vertically. As the sunlight tempered it, jagged, saw-like teeth of pure energy crackled along its edge.
From within the Susano'o, his voice boomed, "Orochimaru. This is your final chance!"
"The power of Senju, Uzumaki, and Uchiha, all in one vessel… If you were twenty years younger, I might have considered you a worthy opponent for Sasuke's seventh trial…"
Fzzzt! Orochimaru tore open the front of his robe, revealing a sealing talisman on his chest.
CRACK! SNAP! CRUNCH!
Orochimaru shattered the Adamantine Sealing Chains. The surrounding wooden pillars went limp, slumping lifelessly onto the water.
VWOOOM!
The Nine-Tails cloak blazed to life once more.
"You—!"
Kaya's pupils constricted. His Susano'o swung the Sword of the Majestic Sun, cleaving down with the fury of the sun itself.
BOOOOM!
Orochimaru spread his arms. The golden form of the Nine-Tails expanded, its massive paws slamming together to catch the descending blade with a thunderous clap.
"No matter how strong that sword is, in a body as frail as yours, you cannot wield it to its full potential!"
GRRROWL…
The Nine-Tails' maw opened wide. A swirling sphere of black chakra—a Tailed Beast Bomb—condensed before it.
"You might survive this, but what about the village behind you? Those innocent people… You wouldn't want to drag them down with you, would you?"
Kaya's toothless, wrinkled lips pressed into a tight line. Finally, he let out a long, weary sigh. The Susano'o vanished. He sank to his knees, his head bowing in supplication.
"Take my life. Take my eyes. Do as you wish," he pleaded. "Just… please, do not harm the innocent people of this village."
Orochimaru dismissed the Nine-Tails form and looked down at the kneeling elder. "Lord Kaya, I believe you have misunderstood from the very beginning. I came for Kagami's eyes, but I never intended to take them by force."
Kaya looked up, suspicion etched on his face. "…What did you say?"
"I know the reason you betrayed Danzō and left Konoha," Orochimaru began, his voice turning conversational.
"After Lord Hashirama and Lord Tobirama passed, you, as Hashirama's only son, naturally became head of the Senju clan. Everyone believed a seat among the Hokage was your destiny. Yet, to everyone's shock, you joined the Root that Danzō founded and became its second-in-command."
Orochimaru walked closer, stopping before Kaya, his gaze calm and analytical.
"You were running away, weren't you?"
"As the son of the First Hokage, you bore the weight of countless expectations. The pressure suffocated you. Over time, you grew afraid of the sunlight, afraid of facing what everyone wanted you to be. Danzō was the first to sense this change in you. He found you. He extended an invitation…"
Kaya's ancient eyes grew distant, lost in deep memory.
It was back when Tsunade had just become a ninja.
He was standing before the Memorial Stone at sunset—a place the taciturn Kaya frequented most. That day, Danzō came up behind him and spoke.
"Not every tree is meant to live in the sunlight. Some, like the maidenhair fern, can only take root in dark, damp places. Join Root, Kaya. There, you will never have to answer to those hopeful eyes again. The darkness… that is the soil truly suited for you."
And so, Kaya joined Root. He smoothly withdrew from the line of Hokage successors. An unprecedented sense of liberation made him believe, for a time, that Root was his true home.
The Uchiha clan head at the time, Uchiha Kagami, was Kaya's closest friend.
Kagami sought him out, saying he had sensed Danzō dabbling in the forbidden technique Izanagi. He hoped Kaya could subtly persuade Danzō to stop, lest he end up harming others and himself.
Kaya did so, and Danzō seemed to relent.
But just when Kaya thought he had fulfilled his friend's request, news reached him: Danzō had launched an assassination attempt on Kagami, his former fellow student under the Second Hokage.
Kaya rushed to the rescue, but when he found his friend… he was already mortally wounded.
For the first time, Kaya felt true rage at Danzō's actions. He wanted to confront him, but Kagami stopped him.
"Danzō's ideology has become twisted. He took the ninja way we inherited from our teacher, warped it, and amplified it infinitely to create Root. His obsession with Izanagi is the ultimate inflation of his ego."
"My eyes… they nurture the 'Heavenly Flame.' They can resolve the curse of blindness that plagues the Mangekyō. From the moment I awakened them, I knew Danzō would one day cast aside our bond and come for them. If he ever obtained these eyes, he would surely usurp the Hokage's seat. His actions would become even more unrestrained…"
"Kaya, I know this is difficult to ask. Please, take my eyes. It's best if you inherit them… or simply destroy them. But never hate Danzō. Do not seek revenge for me. That would only tarnish the honor of your forefathers. I can only hope my death might reawaken some of his original intentions…"
Kagami died in his best friend's arms.
In that moment, Kaya's faith in his own ninja way shattered completely.
He could no longer face Danzō. Root was no longer his home. He deemed himself unworthy of inheriting his father's legacy or leading Konoha toward a new dawn as Hokage.
There was no place for him in the light, nor in the darkness.
Kaya had lived his whole life by the creed of escape. He made his final decision: he would take Kagami's eyes and flee Konoha forever, to live out his days as a maidenhair fern in the shadows of the shinobi world, forgotten and unknown.
If Orochimaru hadn't found him today, he would have, just as in another life, taken Kagami's eyes with him as he rotted silently into the earth.
~~~~❃❃~~~~~~~~❃❃~~~~
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