Time Skip.

Anyway, Seijuro woke up later that day. His sensei was worried—oh well, he was fine. With Hanzo dead, they were free to do as they wished.

Plus, Hanzo had like a 300 million-something yen bounty on his head. Actually, 600 million would be closer, since all five nations wanted him gone... including the Cloud, for some odd reason. They were really invested in this war...

Seijuro 100% had nothing to gain from this. What could he possibly gain from weakening the Cloud Village? Not like he planned to invade it and take their sacred weapon or something, and it would be much easier if they were weaker or some logical shit like that.

He was innocent. He had nothing against the Cloud...

Anyway, they were returning back to Konoha for the most part. Also, he wondered why he could feel Tsunade's tits even though she had armor to protect them. Like, how the fuck did that work?

Anyway, while returning back, Seijuro would've teleported on his own, but... didn't have the chakra for it.

That's when they found them.

Three kids. Barely more than skin and bone.

One with short blue hair and a distant, tired look. Another, orange-haired, with a stubborn glare like he wanted to bite the world back. And the third...

The third had eyes that made Seijuro's step falter for just a moment.

The Rinnegan.

He didn't show it, of course. Just blinked once, adjusted his cloak, and walked forward like he was just another tired shinobi trying to get through another godforsaken day.

Though, Seijuro felt something off. The energy of that Rinnegan did not match the boy's soul—as if those eyes were implanted or some shit. He fucking had no clue how he could see that stuff. He just tossed it up to a few quirks of his.

Inside the Rinnegan, he felt two different presences, alongside a slight alien feeling, but that was it. He'd need a test dummy for his shit to work.

Hm.

Jiraiya squatted beside them, speaking gently, voice softened by war-weariness and something else—pity, maybe. Hope. He offered his name, asked theirs.

Konan. Yahiko. Nagato.

They barely trusted anyone, but they were hungry. That broke the tension fast enough.

Seijuro crouched nearby, pulled out some wrapped bread he'd stashed from his travel pack, and handed it to Yahiko first.

"Don't eat too fast. You'll throw up," he warned.

Yahiko grunted but didn't argue.

Nagato stared at him longer than Seijuro liked. He didn't know if it was caution, curiosity, or something else. Kid had those eyes, though. As Nagato glanced at Seijuro, he felt an immense pressure. Glancing at the boy's soul, the sheer presence of it almost made the boy cry in tears. It was dangerous. It felt like a god had been tossed back to the realm of humans.

As if... he was a shinigami given human flesh.

A monster.

Seijuro would calm the boy down with a gentle smile... Nagato would snap out of it. He would stop seeing this weird version of Seijuro—crystal wings behind his back and a strange orb in his chest.

Instead, it was just Seijuro standing there, looking all friendly.

Yet, Nagato swore there was something there... oh well, maybe he saw a ghost...

"You'll get stronger," Seijuro said simply. "But don't rely on power you don't understand."

Nagato flinched a little at that. But he took the bread.

Later that evening, when most of them were resting—Jiraiya sitting by the window talking about staying back to train the kids, Tsunade and Orochimaru arguing over what counted as "nutritionally acceptable rations"—Seijuro made his move.

Also, Orochimaru didn't suggest killing the kids this time. He seemed to have other stuff on his mind.

The kids were asleep in the back.

Using Kyōka Suigetsu, everyone was under his illusion, and while his clone chatted with Tsunade—who was asking him in her own way to teach her Sage Mode (she didn't really ask, but it was implied)...

Seijuro crept into the room, silent as a whisper.

He carefully approached Nagato, gently lifting one eyelid.

He extracted a trace of blood from beneath the eye socket using a chakra needle, thin as a hair. He then went Sage Mode, and used the weird liquid his body seemed to produce into the boy's eyes. The small chunk of his eye, which was taken, would simply regenerate back brand new.

He checked for nerve damage and all—making sure everything was goochie, that his eyes were aight, still had 100/20 vision. That was good. Okay, with this, he had his sample. Just needed to find which soul made them up and he'd be fine.

Just a small sample. Just enough.

Experimentation was for later.

With this sample of Rinnegan tissue, he could... hm, he could clone Nagato and get a pair of Rinnegan that way.

Yet, his arrogance didn't let him do this. He wanted his own eyes to evolve into the Rinnegan, not take it from a random person.

So hey, he'd try this out later. With the Rinnegan, he would be much more powerful and be able to see the soul and shit. Which, while it was something he could somewhat perceive, he probably couldn't see it as well as the Rinnegan could.

A/N While writing this I realise that Madara name is the ghost of the Uchiha, and Seijuro is a Shinigami...ie ghost hunter...Hahahahahha