The beach was beautiful. White sand, turquoise water, towering cliffs draped in emerald vines. It looked like paradise.
"YOUTH!" Dr. Bushy Brow screamed, leaping off the prow of The Red Potato before we even hit the sand. He landed in a perfect handstand, sand spraying everywhere. "I SHALL RUN ONE THOUSAND LAPS AROUND THIS ISLAND TO HONOR ITS BEAUTY!"
"I'll start a fire," Zabuza grunted, tossing the anchor overboard. "We need to cook that fish we caught. And I need to dry my boots."
Usually, I would be the first one off the boat. I would be yelling about adventure, looking for fruit, or threatening to nap in the sun.
But I didn't move.
I stood on the deck, my hand resting heavily on the pommel of Gryphon. The sea breeze ruffled my hair, but it felt... cold. Not the physical cold of the Land of Iron, but a spiritual chill that seeped into the bone.
"Captain?" Zabuza looked up from the sand. He paused, seeing my expression. "What's wrong?"
"Quiet," I whispered.
"It's an uninhabited island, Captain. Of course it's quiet."
"No," I shook my head. "It's too loud."
I stepped off the boat. I didn't jump. I walked down the gangplank with a slow, deliberate gait. My sandals hit the sand, but I didn't feel the warmth.
Observation Haki.
It wasn't picking up living threats. There were no ninja here. No monsters. Just birds and bugs.
But the Haki was picking up echoes.
It was a cacophony of screams. Terror. Desperation. The psychic residue of a massacre so absolute it had stained the very soil of the island.
"Doc," I said. My voice was flat. "Stop running."
Dr. Bushy Brow froze mid-lap. He looked at me, about to make a joke about the fire of youth, but the words died in his throat. He had excellent instincts. He straightened up, his goofy demeanor vanishing.
"What is it, Captain?" the Doctor asked solemnly.
"We aren't having a beach party," I said, walking past them toward the dense jungle that hid the ruins. "We're visiting a grave."
The Ruins of Uzushiogakure
We cut through the jungle. The vegetation was thick, reclaiming the stone, but the signs of civilization—and its end—were everywhere.
We passed a stone pillar toppled on its side. It was riddled with deep gouges.
"Wind Release," Zabuza analyzed, running his gloved hand over the marks. "And Earth Release. These are scorch marks from high-level Fire Jutsu. This wasn't a skirmish. This was a war."
We emerged into what used to be the city center.
It was a skeleton of a city. Massive stone towers, once painted with red swirls, now lay in heaps of rubble. Bridges that spanned the river were shattered.
I stopped in the middle of a large plaza.
The silence was deafening.
"Uzushiogakure," Zabuza explained quietly. " The Village Hidden in the Whirling Tides. The people here... the Uzumaki clan... they were masters of Sealing Jutsu. They were so strong, and their life force so potent, that the other nations grew terrified of them."
"Terrified?" I asked, looking at a rusted child's toy half-buried in the dirt.
"Yes. During the Second Great Ninja War, a coalition of nations—likely Mist, Cloud, and Stone—banded together. They didn't want to conquer this place. They wanted to erase it."
Zabuza looked around, his assassin's eyes reading the tactical history.
"They succeeded. They slaughtered everyone. Men, women, children. They burned the library. They shattered the temples. They wiped the Uzumaki off the map out of pure fear."
I closed my eyes.
Help us!
Run! Take the scroll and run!
Why? We just want to live!
Mama!
The voices washed over me. My Haki, tuned to the emotional spectrum, felt the weight of thousands of souls snuffed out in a single night of fire and blood.
"Fear," I whispered. The word tasted like ash.
I opened my eyes. The playfulness that usually danced in them was gone. In its place was the cold, steel gaze of a Yonko. The gaze that stopped wars.
"They destroyed an entire civilization because they were afraid of what they might do?"
"That is the Ninja world," Zabuza said. "The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. The Uzumaki stuck out too far."
I walked forward. I climbed the steps of a ruined temple. The symbol of the whirlpool was carved above the door, cracked down the middle.
I remembered Naruto. The symbol on the back of his jacket. The symbol on the shoulders of every Konoha Chunin vest.
Konoha wore the symbol of their allies, but they hadn't been here to save them. Or maybe they couldn't get here in time.
"Naruto," I murmured. "You have no idea what you're carrying, do you kid?"
Dr. Bushy Brow was kneeling near a patch of overgrown medicinal herbs. He wasn't harvesting them. He was bowing his head.
"These herbs..." the Doctor said softly. "They were a garden. Someone tended to them with love. They are charred."
He stood up, tears streaming down his face, but he didn't sob. He saluted.
"To destroy the healers and the scholars..." The Doctor shook his head. "There is no Youth in that. There is only cowardice."
I sat down on a piece of rubble. I pulled out the bottle of sake I had brought.
I didn't drink.
I poured the entire bottle onto the blackened earth.
"For the fallen," I said.
The liquid soaked into the dry ground, dark like blood.
"Zabuza," I said.
"Captain?"
"This world," I looked at the horizon. "It's rotten. It talks about honor. It talks about the 'Will of Fire' or the 'Mist's Blood'. But at the end of the day... it's just strong people killing weak people to feel safe."
Zabuza didn't answer. He knew it was true. He had been part of that rot. He had killed his own classmates to graduate.
"I don't like it," I said.
My voice dropped. The air pressure on the island plummeted. The birds in the jungle went silent. The wind stopped blowing.
Red lightning flickered around my body. Not the playful sparks from before. These were jagged, dark tears in reality.
"I really, really don't like it."
I stood up. The sheer force of my anger caused the loose pebbles around me to float into the air, vibrating.
"Captain," Zabuza stepped back, sweat beading on his forehead. "Calm down. You'll sink the island."
I took a deep breath. I reined it in. The pebbles fell. The lightning faded.
But the look in my eye didn't change.
"Zabuza. Doc."
"Yes, Captain!" they both answered.
"We're looting this place," I said.
They blinked. "What?"
"The nations destroyed this place to erase its history," I said, adjusting my sash. "To erase the knowledge of the Uzumaki. So, we're going to do the most pirate thing possible."
I pointed Gryphon at the ruined temple.
"We're going to steal their history back. We're going to find whatever scrolls, whatever seals, whatever knowledge survived this fire. And we're going to keep it safe."
I looked at the whirlpool symbol.
"One day, a loud-mouthed kid is going to need to know who he is. And when that day comes, I want to have the answers ready for him."
Zabuza stared at me. Then, a slow, jagged grin spread beneath his bandages.
"Stealing from the dead to spite the living," Zabuza chuckled. "Now that... that is a mission I can respect."
"I SHALL USE MY ARCHEOLOGICAL DIGGING MUSCLES!" The Doctor shouted, though his voice was thick with emotion. "I WILL LEAVE NO STONE UNTURNED! I WILL FIND THE TRUTH WITH THE SHOVEL OF JUSTICE!"
"Get to it," I ordered.
I walked into the dark mouth of the temple.
It was damp and smelled of mold. Skeletal remains were scattered in the hallways—defenders who had died holding the line.
I walked past them with my head bowed in respect.
Deep inside, I found a chamber that had collapsed, but a small alcove remained intact. Inside were shelves. Most of the scrolls were ash. But a few... a few were sealed in metal canisters that had survived the heat.
I picked one up. It was heavy. It pulsated with a faint, dying chakra.
I didn't open it. I wasn't a ninja. I couldn't use it.
But I tucked it into my sash.
"I got you," I whispered to the ghosts of Uzushio. "I'll hold onto this."
I walked back out into the sunlight.
The mood on the island was still heavy, but it felt different now. It wasn't just a graveyard anymore. It was a treasure chest.
"Find anything?" I asked.
Zabuza held up a mask. It was terrifying—a white, horned face with gnashing teeth. The mask of the Shinigami.
"Found this in a shrine," Zabuza said. "It feels... cursed. Just holding it makes my skin crawl."
"Keep it," I said. "If it creeps you out, imagine what it'll do to our enemies."
We spent the rest of the day scouring the ruins. We didn't find gold. We didn't find jewels. We found dusty scrolls, broken masks, and rusted hilts.
As the sun began to set, casting long, blood-red shadows across the ruins, we loaded The Red Potato.
I stood on the deck as we pushed off.
I looked back at the island.
"Rest easy," I said softly. "Your story isn't over."
I turned to the open sea.
"Set a course, Zabuza."
"Where to, Captain?"
I looked at the map Zabuza had laid out. To the south lay the Land of Water—Zabuza's home, and a place steeped in blood.
"The Mist," I said.
Zabuza froze. "You want to go to Kirigakure? That is a death sentence. The Mizukage... Yagura... he is a monster. He controls the Three-Tails. The village is in a civil war."
"Civil war means instability," I said, my eyes hard. "And you said the Mist was part of the coalition that destroyed this place, right?"
"They led it," Zabuza confirmed.
I gripped the railing. The wood creaked under my fingers.
"Then I think it's time we paid the Mizukage a visit. I want to ask him a few questions about history."
"You want to invade a Great Ninja Village? Again?" Zabuza asked, exasperated.
"Not invade," I grinned, but there was no humor in it. "Liberate."
"Liberate?"
"That Ninja we fought on the mountain," I said. "Ao. He had a Byakugan, right? He said the Mizukage was acting strange. Controlled."
I tapped my temple.
"My Haki senses lies. And the Land of Mist smells like one big, fat lie. Let's go break it."
Dr. Bushy Brow struck a pose on the bowsprit. "TO THE LAND OF MIST! WE SHALL BRING THE SUNSHINE OF YOUTH TO THE FOGGY DESPAIR!"
Zabuza looked at the ruins of Uzushio, then at me. He saw the anger I was hiding under the pirate swagger.
He sighed, but he spun the wheel.
"To the Mist," Zabuza agreed. "Let's go kill a Kage."
"I didn't say kill," I corrected. "I said ask questions. But if he doesn't answer..."
I let the sentence hang in the air.
The Red Potato turned south, sailing away from the silent ruins and toward a new war. The Emperor of the Sea was done being a tourist. Now, he was on a warpath.