The Land of Waves.
A brand-new circular plaza lay under a ceiling of heavy clouds. The overcast sky split open in a narrow seam, and thin strands of golden light poured through, landing perfectly on the center of the square.
There, where a bridge-shaped memorial model should have stood as decoration, a crude, hastily built tribunal platform had been erected instead.
Kurosuki Raiga sat upright on the chair atop the platform, dressed in a formal black kimono. His twin blades were planted on either side of his seat. In the shifting light, the jagged edge of his sharklike teeth flickered in and out of view, and his eyes carried a madness that looked almost like excitement.
At his side stood Ranmaru, a bandage-wrapped boy with only a pair of eerie red eyes exposed. He swept his gaze across the terrified crowd below.
Behind the civilians, the Kurosuki gang, dressed in identical black uniforms, held steel blades and formed a ring around the plaza, like a curved wall of murder ready to collapse inward at any moment.
"Is it really necessary to make this so grand, Raiga?" Ranmaru glanced at the man seated above, a little helpless. He still couldn't understand his companion's obsession with holding funerals.
"Of course it's necessary. I've never held a funeral this magnificent before." Raiga's eyes glistened as if moved to tears. He stared wide-eyed, his expression a sick blend of grief and delirious joy. "Just thinking about it makes this a memory I'll never forget!"
"Do whatever makes you happy." Ranmaru couldn't stop him, and he didn't want to ruin his friend's mood, so he shut his mouth.
Standing nearby, having earned the privilege of serving at Raiga's side by capturing Tazuna, Moton secretly curled his lip.
He had already seen through Kurosuki Raiga's truth.
A lunatic.
But Raiga possessed power like a god. No one could stop him. The only way to survive was to submit, to join, to beg for a sliver of mercy, and maybe, just maybe, gain the method to become a shinobi himself.
Boom.
Boom.
In the blink of an eye, another squad of Kurosuki men marched slowly into the center of the plaza, carrying crude, oversized wooden coffins on their shoulders. When the coffins were set down, they struck the ground with heavy, muffled thuds that kicked up fine dust.
The people of the Land of Waves were in panic. They had no idea what was coming, and they didn't dare ask.
Deathly silence swallowed the square again. Only strained breathing remained, and the endless, mournful cry of waves in the distance.
Kurosuki Raiga's mouth split into a grin that made the spine go cold. He waved a hand lazily.
The men in black moved in perfect unison, yanking open the heavy coffin lids.
Dozens of coffins opened at once.
The watching crowd sucked in a collective breath.
Inside one coffin lay Kaiza, captain of the Land of Waves' self-defense force. He was bound in thick ropes, covered in wounds. Dark blood caked his face, but his eyes still burned with defiant fire.
In the coffin beside him
Inari, still young, bit his lip hard, trembling as he fought to keep his tears from falling.
His mother, Tsunami, was pale as paper, but she held the child tight, her fear bottomless and her hatred even deeper.
And in another coffin, the elderly bridge-builder Tazuna glared up at the tribunal platform, his white beard shaking with rage.
He had been tricked by Moton.
After canceling the Konoha mission, he had followed Moton to meet Kurosuki Raiga, only to be seized on the spot.
Tazuna had relied on the fact that the bridge couldn't be maintained without him. He thought he could negotiate, set terms.
But Raiga didn't play by anyone's rules.
"You brought Konoha shinobi here to kill my men and you still want to bargain with me?" Raiga's eyes had reddened as he spoke, tongue sliding over the corner of his mouth, not like a man preparing for solemn mourning, but like someone savoring the thought of a feast. "Throw the old man in too. The funeral will be the day after tomorrow. No. Today. I want a grand funeral."
"You… you can't kill me. The Bridge of Heroes…"
"A stupid bridge? If it's gone, it's gone." Raiga had laughed. "Whether this country becomes rich has nothing to do with me. I could even destroy it outright. Hm. Holding a funeral for an entire nation… I've never tried that before. Great idea. Then I'll need enough coffins to fit everyone."
Listening to that deranged muttering, Tazuna's confidence had shattered on the spot.
This man was insane.
There was no such thing as an exchange of benefits, national rule, wealth accumulation.
Raiga's barren mind didn't even contain those concepts.
And Tazuna, who had never dealt with a lunatic like this, didn't have the concept of how to handle one either.
He had known two kinds of shinobi.
The first was Zabuza, a man who, once he accepted a mission, would carry it through no matter what. Silent and hard to read, but at least he could be reasoned with, and he didn't slaughter civilians at random.
The second was Team 7. Aside from Konome Taketori's ruthless hand when she struck, they were bright, straightforward, even kind.
In Tazuna's understanding of the world, the worst villain looked like Gatō, a greedy tyrant who wanted to control the Land of Waves' wealth and authority.
But a monster like Kurosuki Raiga, who didn't care about fame or profit, who only wanted violent domination and funerals for the living, was beyond comprehension.
Tazuna stared at Moton in disbelief.
Moton kept his head lowered and stayed silent.
Earlier, he had insisted he was doing it for the Land of Waves. Now that Raiga spoke of destroying everything, he simply pretended to be dead.
Moton was never doing this for the Land of Waves.
He had known what Raiga was like all along. He joined the Kurosuki gang for one reason only: survival.
Regret, hatred, rage, emotions too tangled to name brewed inside Tazuna until they nearly choked him.
He had believed the lies of traitors.
He had driven away the powerful shinobi who came from Konoha to help.
Now even his own family's lives couldn't be protected, and the Land of Waves stood on the edge of collapse.
The more he thought of the stupidity of his choices, the more tears of remorse slipped from the corners of his eyes. He lowered his head, unable to face the civilians watching.
And it wasn't only Tazuna's family.
Inside more than a dozen coffins were Gatō and his cronies, once arrogant, now ashen-faced. There were also members of the self-defense force who dared to shout for freedom, who resisted Gatō's tyranny and the Kurosuki gang's oppression.
Even a few officials of the Land of Waves were trapped among them.
Grime, exhaustion, fear, and fury layered their faces. Lines that used to separate enemies and allies blurred inside the cold coffins.
Only a shared fate remained.
A tragedy swallowed by power.
Kurosuki Raiga, in his dignified black kimono, gazed down at the upright coffins below as if admiring a work of art.
"Boss, it's about time," Moton murmured, glancing at his watch.
Raiga woke from his artistic trance. He looked at Moton, who bowed like a lapdog, and satisfaction flickered in his eyes.
"Mm. You're not bad."
"Heh heh, thank you for the praise, Boss." Moton lowered his head even further, as if crushed by the compliment, unable to hide his joy.
Ranmaru turned away in disgust. He didn't even want to look at trash that abandoned their own people.
"Spit. Traitor!"
"Garbage!"
"Your heart's darker than a stinkfish pickled for three years!"
The self-defense force members inside the coffins spat curses nonstop. Knowing they were going to die, they no longer feared the Kurosuki gang. Even among the civilians, some began to shout insults.
The dead plaza became a storm of fury.
Moton didn't respond to a single curse.
In his eyes, he had already latched onto Kurosuki Raiga. The future ruler of the Land of Waves would be him.
The harder the lowly civilians cursed, the more it proved his loyalty.
Kurosuki Raiga's brow tightened.
The funeral's quiet atmosphere had been ruined.
"Silence!"
He yanked out the Thunder Sword and pointed it at the people below. Lightning crackled, hissing in the air. The enraged crowd clenched their teeth and swallowed their words, but the self-defense force members in the coffins didn't care. They kept cursing.
Murder flooded Raiga's eyes.
He swung Kiba at the loudest voice.
Boom!
A blinding streak of electricity ripped through the air, piercing the man's body in an instant and scorching flesh into black charcoal.
"Kōhei!"
A woman below shrieked, tears streaming down her face, only to have a man behind her clamp a hand over her mouth. Her scream turned into muffled sobbing.
At last, the plaza fell silent.
Ranmaru frowned at the blackened corpse in the coffin, discomfort tightening his expression. Moton shrank back instinctively, then looked at Raiga with even more feverish worship.
His hunger for a shinobi's power was almost oozing out of him.
Tazuna's face twisted with agony.
If it weren't for his stupidity, Kōhei wouldn't have died.
This was on him.
Kurosuki Raiga looked down at the subdued crowd with satisfaction, baring a mouthful of sharp teeth.
"Good. Now everyone be quiet. We'll begin the first part of the funeral."
Then he turned suddenly, eyes landing on Moton, who was staring at the Thunder Sword with greedy fascination.
"You. Go kill all those people below."
"M-me?" Moton froze, staring at the coffins, at Tazuna, at Kaiza and the others who looked like they wanted to tear him apart. Cold crept up his spine.
"You won't go?"
"N-no! Of course not!" Moton panicked. "Boss, I'm going right now!"
He drew the short blade at his waist and hurried down toward the line of coffins.
As if to prove his loyalty, he chose his first target carefully.
Kaiza.
"Captain…"
"You traitor!" Kaiza's powerful body twisted violently, struggling against the ropes, but he couldn't break free. All he could do was watch Moton approach, blade in hand.
Despair seeped into Kaiza's eyes.
Raiga was too strong. Zabuza had vanished without explanation. Ordinary people like them couldn't resist at all.
Now even Tazuna had been captured.
That meant the last thread of hope had snapped.
The Land of Waves was finished.
"Don't blame me, Kaiza." Moton raised the blade, staring at his former captain. The coffin's shape made it awkward to swing, so he aimed the tip straight at Kaiza's chest.
"Dad!"
"Kaiza!"
Inari screamed wildly. Tsunami clutched him tight, pressing his face into her chest. Tazuna, drowning in remorse, turned red-eyed and tried to surge out of his coffin, but the Kurosuki men pinned him down by the shoulders. He couldn't move.
Kaiza's reputation in the Land of Waves was immense. Seeing him about to be executed by Moton, civilians below began to stir, unable to suppress their panic.
But they couldn't stop it.
The blade's tip drove mercilessly toward Kaiza's heart.
Some timid women shut their eyes, too terrified to watch.
Pinned in place, Tazuna stared at the scene in complete despair. Rage and regret consumed him until there was nothing left inside but emptiness.
Tears poured down his face. Everything blurred.
Then he heard a familiar sound.
A harsh buzzing, like a swarm of wild bees.
In the next instant, a distorted ripple sliced through the air in front of him.
It struck Moton with perfect precision, then didn't slow at all as it continued onward, cutting toward the tribunal platform where Kurosuki Raiga sat.
"Raiga!"
The red-eyed boy's scream was sharp as a whistle.
Raiga's body flew backward like a cannonball.
A thin crimson line appeared down Moton's face, as if an artist had dragged a brush from his forehead to his chin, or a master tailor had cut cleanly along a marked seam.
Rip.
Blood spilled from the line in delicate threads, and the smooth, exposed plane of flesh, along with organs that still twitched, opened to the air.
"Naruto, Sasuke, deal with the Kurosuki men!" Kakashi's voice, usually lazy, turned crisp and commanding. "Konome and I will handle Raiga!"
Tazuna stared blankly at the black heart that had stopped beating inside Moton's chest.
That jutsu, the one that used to terrify him, now felt… reassuring.
"Multi Shadow Clone Jutsu!"
Naruto roared, hands forming a seal as chakra exploded outward.
In an instant, hundreds, then thousands, of orange-clad Narutos flooded the once-empty plaza, swinging fists and crashing into the Kurosuki gang.
The Kurosuki men hadn't even processed what happened.
All they saw was their boss blasted off the platform by an invisible strike.
Then an ocean of enemies poured in.
They were ordinary men. Against this charge, they had no ability to resist. In one clash, the so-called vicious Kurosuki gang was thrown into chaos, bodies flying and screaming.
Some of the Kurosuki men who had fought Team 7 on the bridge recognized Naruto. One grabbed a child, trying to use him as a hostage.
He didn't even get a word out.
Sasuke's Sharingan locked on from within the crowd, and one clean stab from behind left the man collapsing with a hole straight through him.
Screams erupted everywhere.
Yet not a single civilian of the Land of Waves was harmed.
"W-who are you?" people cried, staring at the identical boys, dazzled and confused.
"We're the Konoha shinobi Tazuna hired!" Naruto shouted, knocking a Kurosuki man flat. When the man still tried to swing his blade from the ground, Naruto kicked hard.
Crack.
The man's leg snapped. He howled, clutching it, unable to speak properly anymore.
Naruto had once hesitated to hit ordinary people too hard.
But Moton had taught him a brutal lesson.
Bad people were just bad people. Strength didn't change that.
The right way to fight was to make sure the enemy lost all ability to resist, even the ability to speak.
"Konoha shinobi…"
"It's Konoha! Konoha came to save us!"
Those who knew Tazuna had gone to the Land of Fire for help finally understood. They shouted explanations to the others, spreading hope through the crowd.
"Thank you!"
A sobbing woman grabbed her rescued child and bowed deeply to Sasuke. Sasuke waved it off awkwardly, face stiff, then fled like he couldn't stand the gratitude and plunged back into the fight.
On the other side.
Ranmaru, eyes blazing red, clung to Kurosuki Raiga's back. Raiga crossed his twin blades in front of his chest, his arms and torso covered in countless thin cuts, wounds left behind when he shattered the wind blades and the scattered Wind Release chakra sliced him.
There was no time to care about such minor injuries.
Raiga and Ranmaru stared at the two figures walking toward them.
Silver-white hair.
Faces covered, eyes hidden.
As they approached, the sense of fear felt like a blade pressed to the throat, swelling and swelling until it became unbearable.
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