Recently, a significant event occurred in the Land of Waves.
A ship loaded with corpses ran aground on the southeastern shore of the island. All the deceased were subordinates of the wealthy merchant Gato.
Among the dead were two rogue ninjas from Kirigakure!
Gato hired these rogue ninjas to help him complete his violent monopoly over the Land of Waves’ maritime routes. They had thought they were only bullying ordinary people, but they hadn’t expected to die silently aboard Gato’s ship.
Undoubtedly, this was the work of other ninjas.
Even though the victims were Gato’s unscrupulous thugs, such a bloody and violent massacre was enough to terrify the entire population of the Land of Waves.
It’s rare for ninjas to engage in such indiscriminate slaughter against ordinary people. When the islanders were cleaning the corpses from the ship, they could sense the terror and fear of the crew during the massacre.
The inside of the portholes was smeared with varying shades of bloody handprints—evidence of someone who had fallen in the cabin and, with hands covered in their comrades’ blood, tried to break the windows to escape.
There were bodies kneeling on the ground as if begging for mercy, but the killer had used some method that left these corpses without any visible blood or external wounds.
Some had tried to fight back with axes, but they seemed to have been snapped by a great force, decapitating their wielders. The headless bodies holding axe handles were a testament to their futile bravery.
Some tried to jump into the sea, but most were shot through the head with kunai from behind while their legs dangled over the rail, dying in gruesome poses. Whether anyone managed to escape the slaughter and the waves remains unknown.
Even after a week, no survivors revealed what happened on the ship.
Regardless, the bodies still needed to be dealt with.
Tazuna, highly respected in the Land of Waves, organized the registration and burial of all the dead. Some of the deceased were local youths who had gone to work for Gato, and their families on the island handled their funerals.
However, many others were ordinary people from all over with unclear backgrounds.
In the hot and humid June weather, the bodies decayed quickly. With Gato refusing to claim the bodies, they could only be burned, leaving behind photos and ashes for potential claimants.
“Alright, it’s over now. Boys have to be brave and strong, Inari!” Kaiza encouraged the tearful Inari.
After the old fisherman’s boat was destroyed, Kaiza returned late to a friend’s fishing boat.
Little Inari had been the first to witness the death ship. After seeing the mass of bodies, he feared that his stepfather Kaiza was among them and bravely searched through the corpses while crying until the psychological pressure became too much. He ran home to tell his grandfather, Tazuna.
Even now, with Kaiza back, Inari remained haunted by nightmares and a lingering sense of dread.
“The world is getting crazier,” Tazuna sighed, scratching his head.
The ghost ship was just a tale used to scare children. He never imagined Inari would encounter something more terrifying than the ghost ship—a ship filled with death. Seeing his grandson so frightened made him feel both guilty and sorrowful.
Why couldn’t he hold his tongue after drinking?
Kaiza remained silent.
He hadn’t found the bodies of the boy and the girl from that day on the death ship, so they must have disembarked earlier or escaped by jumping into the sea. After all, neither a blind boy nor a little girl seemed like the kind to be a vicious killer.
In such chaotic times, perhaps this could be considered good news.
“Inari, didn’t you make a new friend recently? If you keep crying, your friend might not want to play with you,” Tsunami reminded him.
Inari immediately quieted down.
Seeing the remarkable effect, Kaiza grew curious. “A new friend?”
“Yes, a child from the estate to the north. The girl is quite cute,” Tsunami praised.
“That estate has been abandoned for a long time,” Kaiza said, surprised. He then teased his son, “Is that right, Inari? Is the girl from the estate really cute?”
Inari remained silent.
If he were to judge based on looks alone, then yes, she was cute.
However…
“Those were all scum.”
“Do you know what scum is, Inari?”
“It’s useless people who deserve to be chopped up and buried under trees!”
“Why would you pity such scum?”
“Did you see my eyes? You don’t know what they wanted to do when they saw my eyes!”
“They got what they deserved… huh? You’re asking me what ‘deserved’ means? I… I heard it from my brother. It means something similar!”
Inari didn’t understand why the girl with beautiful white eyes said such harsh and strange things. Her rhetoric about “scum” made him instinctively fearful.
Although a year younger, she spoke as if she had killed many and understood many truths, making her tone exceptionally confident.
He felt something was wrong, but having lived on the island all his life, he couldn’t refute her.
He didn’t tell Kaiza about it.
Just like how the girl only acted obediently in front of her brother.
Their interactions were more like children showing off; clearly, Inari was on the losing side.
“Inari, should we invite your friend over for dinner?” Tsunami suggested, having prepared a sumptuous meal to make up for Inari’s birthday.
“No, she’s probably training now,” Inari quickly said.
“Training for what?” Kaiza asked curiously.
“Training to plant trees,” Inari replied honestly.
The adults exchanged glances.
It seemed the kid had been fooled.
“Compensation? Not a chance!”
“Get rid of her!”
After ordering his men to chase away the elderly woman at his door, Gato crawled out from under his bed.
Since the death ship incident, the wealthy merchant had been paranoid about any movement around him.
He ordered all company ships to sail aimlessly at sea, hoping potential killers wouldn’t find him.
He hid near one of his company’s docks in the Land of Waves.
“Did you find any strong ninja to protect me?”
“What?”
“You did? Let me see!”
His men brought him a stack of bounty posters, which he began to flip through.
Bounty amounts are the hard currency for rogue ninjas. Generally, the higher the bounty, the stronger the rogue ninja, and the higher the commission for tasks.
Depending on the specific mission, commissions usually range from 10% to 1% of the bounty, with protection missions often priced at the highest rate.
“Tsk tsk, Neji, 60 million. Too bad you’re all useless and can’t find him to protect me,” Gato said, pretending.
Despite valuing his life, Gato wasn’t willing to pay such a high commission, even if his men could find Neji.
In reality, the greedy merchant never intended to pay the commission.
He couldn’t skim off the top if the hired ninja were too strong.
He flipped to the next page.
“Fifteen million for Zabuza Momochi… hmm.”
At sunset, the death ship that had caused all this still lay on the distant beach, like a drifting bottle accidentally washed ashore in the Land of Waves, wrapped in blood and terror.
The cork remained, but the message inside was lost.
No one knew what the message said.
Just as no one knew, the death ship heralded a beginning.
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