Causality Convergence's Rift

Deep within Angkor Fortress, the air lay still as dead water.

Sou sat cross-legged atop a stone platform, having maintained that position for an entire day and night. His breathing was so shallow and slow that his chest barely rose or fell. He seemed like a part of the ancient fortress itself—cold, silent, and fused with the darkness.

Only beneath his closed eyes did faint Chakra fluctuations flow through the depths of his sockets, like an underground river—soundless and ceaseless.

Zhi Li stood guard at the foot of the stone steps, her Kunai having been rubbed countless times, its blade polished gleaming bright beneath her thumb. Every half hour, she would look up at her teacher, confirming that he was still breathing, confirming that those eyes had not yet opened, before lowering her head and continuing to wait.

She did not understand what her teacher was waiting for. The war had already begun. The Five Kage were being crushed by the man calling himself Uchiha Madara. The Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was being sent to the battlefield. The entire shinobi world was burning—yet her teacher sat here like a Buddha statue utterly uninterested in worldly affairs.

But she did not ask.

After following Sou for more than twenty years, she had learned one thing: when her teacher chose not to speak, it meant the answer would appear when it was meant to.

And now, the answer came.

Sou opened his eyes.

It was no ordinary opening of the eyes—it was slow, like two long-sealed doors being pushed open from within. His eyelids rose, revealing the eyes beneath, and those eyes...

Zhi Li's breath caught for an instant.

They were Rinnegan.

Purple concentric circles slowly rotated within Sou's eye sockets, carrying an icy majesty that did not belong to the mortal world. They