The relief in the square was short-lived.
Mei Terumi had just begun to issue orders to secure the confused Mizukage when the air above us twisted.
It wasn't a shunshin. It wasn't a puff of smoke. It was a spiral distortion in the fabric of space itself, sucking the light into a singularity directly above the mansion's archway.
From the void stepped a man in a black cloak adorned with red clouds. An orange spiral mask covered his face, revealing only a single eye hole.
The pressure he brought was different from mine. Mine was a crushing weight, like the ocean depths. His was a cold, slippery darkness. A void where hope went to die.
"Who..." the masked man's voice was deep, vibrating with suppressed rage. "Who severed the strings?"
Zabuza and Mei stiffened.
"Akatsuki," Zabuza hissed. "That cloak..."
I stood up from the steps. I let the black mourning cloak slide off my shoulders, revealing my white shirt and the empty left sleeve. My hand moved to Gryphon.
"I did," I said.
The masked man—Obito Uchiha, though I didn't know the name yet—turned his single visible eye toward me. I saw the Sharingan spinning lazily in the darkness of the mask.
"You," he said. "The anomaly. Shanks."
"You know me?" I asked. "I'm getting famous."
"You are a nuisance," Obito stated. "You broke my control over the Three-Tails. You disrupted the plan. Do you have any idea how long it took to cultivate this Blood Mist?"
"Too long," I said, my voice hard. "You tortured a child. You turned a village into a slaughterhouse. And for what? A plan?"
"For peace," Obito said. "A peace you couldn't comprehend."
"Peace built on the corpses of kids isn't peace," I retorted. "It's a graveyard."
Obito chuckled. It was a dry, humorless sound. "Then join them."
He leaped.
He didn't form hand signs. He simply materialized in front of me instantly, a heavy black chain rattling from his sleeve. He swung it, aiming to wrap around my neck and crush my windpipe.
I didn't dodge. I swung my right arm, backhanding the chain.
Whoosh.
My hand passed right through it.
My fist passed through his chest.
I stumbled slightly, the momentum carrying me forward. Obito solidified the moment I passed through him. He spun, swinging a kunai toward my back.
Observation Haki: Future Sight.
I saw it happen a second before it did.
I ducked. The kunai slashed the air where my head had been.
I spun on my heel, delivering a Haki-infused kick to his ribs.
Again, my leg passed through him like he was smoke.
I hopped back, creating distance.
"Intangibility," I noted. "Space-time ninjutsu. You exist here, but you store your body somewhere else."
"You're sharp," Obito said, standing casually. "But you can't hit a ghost. And I can hit you."
He wove signs.
"Fire Style: Blast Wave Wild Dance!"
He spat a massive vortex of spiraling fire. The flames twisted like a tornado, consuming the entire courtyard.
"Water Style: Water Wall!" Mei Terumi shouted, stepping forward to block.
"No," I ordered. "Stay back."
I stepped into the fire.
I flared my Armament Haki, coating my entire body in an invisible layer of armor. The flames washed over me, hot and angry, but they couldn't burn my skin. I walked through the inferno like a man walking through a warm breeze.
I emerged from the fire, my clothes smoking but intact.
Obito's eye widened. "He tanked an A-rank fire jutsu with his skin?"
"I told you," I said, walking up the stairs toward him. "I'm angry."
"Then die!"
Obito slammed his hand onto the ground.
"Wood Style: Cutting Sprigs Jutsu!"
Sharp wooden spikes exploded from the ground, aimed directly at my heart. It was the same technique that had killed so many ANBU in the history books.
I sidestepped the first. Shattered the second with a Haki-coated elbow.
But he kept coming. He warped appearing behind me, trying to suck me into his eye dimension.
I felt the spatial pull. It was like a vacuum cleaner trying to suck up a boulder.
I planted my feet. Conqueror's Haki burst outward, disrupting the air pressure. The sheer force of my will pushed against the vacuum, breaking the suction.
Obito jumped back to the roof.
"You are troublesome," Obito muttered. "Physical attacks pass through me. Ninjutsu is useless against you. You are a stalemate."
"Not a stalemate," I said.
I reached across my body with my right hand. I gripped the hilt of Gryphon.
For the first time since arriving in this world, I didn't just tap the guard. I didn't just hold the scabbard.
I pulled.
SHIIIIIIING.
The sound was pure. It was the song of a blade that had clashed with the strongest man in the world. A blade that had split the heavens.
Gryphon emerged. It was a long, single-edged saber, gleaming with a terrifying light.
As the blade fully cleared the scabbard, the atmosphere in the village screamed.
The clouds above Kirigakure, which had been gray and stagnant for years, suddenly split open. A massive fissure tore through the sky, revealing the starry night above the cloud layer.
Red lightning—thick, jagged bolts of Advanced Conqueror's Haki—began to arc from the blade. It crawled up my arm, danced across my shoulders, and cracked the stone beneath my feet.
Mei Terumi fell to her knees. Zabuza shielded his eyes. Even Yagura, barely conscious, gasped for air.
Obito froze. For the first time, the man who wanted to become a god felt the presence of a King.
"What... is that?" Obito whispered. His intangible body flickered. The sheer density of my Haki was interfering with his chakra control.
"You think you're safe in your other dimension?" I asked. My voice echoed, seemingly coming from the sky itself.
I took a stance. Sword held back, muscles coiled.
Observation Haki. I looked into the future.
I saw him try to warp away. I saw the split second he would need to solidify to activate the Kamui transport.
I didn't need to hit his body. I needed to hit his existence.
"Listen well, Ghost," I said.
I swung.
"DIVINE DEPARTURE."
( Kamusari )
It wasn't just a slash. It was a cataclysm.
A massive, horizontal wave of dark red energy erupted from Gryphon. It consumed the space between us instantly. It tore up the cobblestones, disintegrated the stone railings, and split the very air molecules.
Obito tried to phase. He tried to let it pass through him.
But Conqueror's Haki of this level doesn't just hit the physical. It hits the spirit. It hits the will. And it overwhelms spatial distortions.
The red wave slammed into him just as he tried to become intangible.
CRACK.
The sound of his mask breaking was audible even over the roar of the attack.
"ARGH!"
Obito was launched. He didn't just fly back; he was blasted off the roof, skipping across the air like a stone, blood trailing from his chest. The attack carried him clear out of the village, smashing him through a distant mountain peak three miles away.
The shockwave of the swing continued. It cleared the fog from the entire Land of Water for ten seconds. The ocean split in the distance.
Then, silence returned.
I stood there, Gryphon held out, the red lightning slowly fading from the steel.
I breathed out. A puff of steam escaped my lips.
"Run," I whispered to the distant mountain.
Three Miles Away
Obito Uchiha pulled himself out of a crater. His Akatsuki cloak was shredded. His mask was shattered on the right side, revealing his scarred, crushed face. Blood dripped from his mouth.
He was shaking.
"He hit me..." Obito gasped, clutching his chest. His heart—the one sealed with the cursed tag—was pounding erratically. "While I was phasing... he hit me."
He looked back at the village. He felt it. That monstrous, towering presence. It wasn't chakra. It was something else. Something ancient and undeniable.
"Shanks..." Obito wheezed. "He is not a variable to be calculated. He is a natural disaster."
His eye spun wildly.
"I must... retreat. Madara... never mentioned this."
With a final, agonized groan, Obito warped space and vanished into his dimension, fleeing the battlefield for the first time in years.
Kirigakure Square
I slowly sheathed Gryphon.
Click.
The sound signaled the end of the violence. The oppressive weight lifted from the village.
I turned around.
Mei Terumi was looking at me with a mix of horror and adoration. Zabuza looked like he was having a religious crisis.
"Is he dead?" Zabuza asked.
"No," I said, walking down the steps. "He's slippery. He ran away. But he won't come back for a while. He knows now."
"Knows what?" Mei asked, standing up on shaky legs.
"That this territory," I pointed my thumb at the village, "is under my protection."
I looked at Yagura, who was sitting up, rubbing his head.
"Hey, kid," I said. "You awake?"
Yagura looked at me. The glaze was gone. He looked like a confused child who had just woken up from a nightmare.
"I... I remember blood," Yagura whispered. "So much blood."
"Yeah," I sat down next to him. "But the nightmare is over."
I looked at Mei.
"You seem capable. You run the place while the kid recovers. Stop the killing. Open the borders."
Mei blinked. "You... you're giving orders to the Mist Village?"
"Consider it advice from a friendly pirate," I grinned, the tension finally leaving my body. "Now, about that drink you owe me?"
Mei stared at me for a long moment. Then, a beautiful, genuine smile broke across her face.
"We have the best sake in the world, Shanks-san. And I think... I think we're going to need a lot of it."
"Music to my ears!"
As the villagers began to emerge from their homes, realizing the oppressive chakra of the Yagura regime was gone, I leaned back on the stairs.
I had exposed my full power. The world knew now. The Akatsuki knew.
The shadow war was over. The real game had begun.
And somewhere in the back of my mind, I hoped Naruto was doing okay with his tree climbing. Because the enemies he was going to face in the future... they just got a lot more scared.