Chapter 2: The Cursed Inheritance**
Ren groaned. Pain throbbed behind his eyes, sharp and insistent. His throat felt like sandpaper. The familiar smells of antiseptic and old tatami mats filled his nose, cruelly confirming he wasn't dreaming. Rough bandages covered his face. He remembered the agony, the blood, the impossible crimson light. Panic surged, cold and sharp. He *had* to see.
Fingers trembling, weak from exhaustion and shock, he clawed at the bandages. They peeled away, sticky with dried blood and tears. Pushing himself up sent the room spinning. He felt hollow, scraped raw by grief and the trauma of waking up in another life, another body. Leaning heavily against the wall, he stumbled the few steps to the small, tarnished mirror on the low table. He gripped the table's edge, knuckles white, and forced himself to look.
A pale, youthful face stared back. Dark circles bruised the skin beneath wild, unruly black hair. But it was the eyes that froze him. Gone was the deep brown of the boy he'd replaced. Now they burned with an unnatural, deep crimson. Instead of the spinning tomoe he expected, intricate, impossible black patterns radiated from the pupils – sharp shards connected by flowing lines of pure darkness that seemed to writhe even as he watched. Terrifying. Beautiful. Alien. Power hummed from them, unsettling and profound.
**Mangekyo Sharingan.**
The name slammed into his mind, bringing a wave of icy dread. He knew the legends – the Curse of Hatred, the price of blindness, the monstrous abilities. *What* abilities?
As the question formed, a new kind of agony exploded, not just in his head, but deep in his soul. It wasn't memory. It was raw, alien *understanding*. It crashed into him like a collapsing star, searing itself onto his very being – the inherent knowledge of his Mangekyo's power.
He gasped, staggering back, clutching his temples. The information wasn't learned; it was *known*, as fundamental as breathing. One overwhelming concept drowned out all others:
* **Reality Manipulation: This wasn't two powers, but one terrifying force flowing through *both* eyes. He could *see* the fabric of reality – not as solid laws, but as malleable threads, vibrant energy, and shifting possibilities. And with focused will and chakra, channeled through these cursed eyes… **he could reshape it.**
The sheer scope left him breathless. His knees trembled. *Reality Manipulation.* On a scale he couldn't grasp.
The knowledge unfolded:
* **Transmutation:** Change matter. Stone to water, air to crystal, flesh to smoke. The limits felt vast, tied only to his imagination and the immense chakra it would drain.
* **Illusion Made Real:** Craft illusions so potent they became tangible. A phantom blade could cut; a conjured wall could block. Genjutsu and physical law blurred.
* **Environmental Warping:** Bend space. Twist corridors, raise barriers of solid air, alter gravity. Make the battlefield itself his weapon.
* **Energy Manipulation:** Redirect or reshape existing energies – chakra blasts, elemental jutsu, even force itself – bending them to his will.
* **Limited Creation/Destruction:** Will simple objects into being from raw energy, or break matter down to its base components. Creating life or true nothingness felt impossible, but summoning a kunai or dissolving a lock? That hummed with potential.
It was power bordering on godhood. A cheat code to the universe, burning through his eyes even as he used them.
The shock receded, replaced by a terror colder than grief. He stared at his reflection – the boy with eyes that could warp existence. The intricate patterns pulsed with chaotic energy.
Tentatively, he reached out a hand, not towards the mirror, but towards the plain wooden wall beside it. He focused, pouring a sliver of his will, his fear, his desperate need to *know*, into the Mangekyo. The patterns in his eyes flared brighter, the black shards deepening. Instantly, the dull ache sharpened into a hot spike of pain behind his eyes.
But his vision… *changed*.
He no longer saw just wood. He saw the *threads* of its existence – the vibrating energy of its molecules, the potential locked inside, the faint ambient chakra it had absorbed. It looked… fluid. Like a tapestry of possibilities. With a simple, terrifying thought – *'soften'* – he pushed.
The solid wood beneath his fingertips rippled like water. A small patch, no larger than his palm, lost its rigid structure, becoming pliant and yielding under his touch before slowly firming back to normal. The spike of pain intensified, a warning flare.
Ren snatched his hand back, staring at the now ordinary wall, then at his reflection. The impossible patterns still blazed crimson. The echo of the wall's unnatural softness lingered on his skin. Cold dread settled deep in his gut, heavier than before. This wasn't just power. It was a curse. And he had no idea how to control it, or
what it would cost him next.