A/N: The project is finishing up nicely. Expect more regular updates starting next week.
Early morning in a small village of the Land of Water.
Mist clung low along the shoreline, curling around the wooden docks and the stilted huts like a living thing. At this hour, the sea was calm. Its surface was a glassy blue-gray that caught the first pale glimmers of dawn. Gentle waves tapped against fishing boats held in place by fraying ropes.
The smell of salt and damp cedar fills the air. Farther inland, the village's narrow stone paths glisten with moisture, still slick from the night's mist. Moss-covered rooftops peek through the fog. A few early risers, mostly fishermen and elders, creep as if to avoid disturbing the serenity.
A rare peaceful morning, considering the reputation of the Hidden Mist Village as the Blood Mist Village.
One fisherman paused to check the sky, expecting the same calm. Instead, he saw black clouds rolling toward the village.
The fisherman squinted, wiping the moisture from his brow as if that would clear the view. But the clouds didn't fade with blinking.
He wasn't the only one who noticed.
A nearby elder straightened from her basket of drying kelp, her cloudy eyes narrowing.
"Storm wasn't scheduled for today," she murmured, more to herself than anyone else.
But it didn't feel like a storm.
Soon, they started hearing what seemed like music. A beat here and a beat there.
As some fishermen made their way toward the shoreline, the beats began to take on a rhythmic pattern.
Slowly, the outline of ships started to appear on the horizon. One by one, small dots get bigger as the music gets louder.
(Playing: Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Song)
A younger fisherman stepped onto the dock, craning his neck.
"Never heard anything like that," he muttered.
"Could it be the fleet that went to attack the Land of Fire?" Another youngster asked.
The elder beside him tightened her grip on her walking stick. "That's not music our people make."
A few braver souls walked closer to the water's edge. The ships continued their slow approach, cutting through the mist as though it parted willingly for them.
Each ship was completely black with no other colors visible.
The first ship breached the last veil of fog.
Gasps rippled through the small crowd as the flag came into full view—a stark white skull crowned with a thick, inky black beard that whipped in the wind like smoke.
The music surged—brass notes and pounding drums rolling over the water with theatrical boldness, utterly unlike the somber quiet of the Land of Water. It echoed between the stilted huts, bounced off the cliffs, and vibrated in the chests of everyone present.
A row of cannons lined the side of the lead ship, their iron mouths glistening with condensation. Thick black ropes hung from its masts like dangling serpents.
More ships emerged behind it—three, then five, then a full dozen. A fleet far larger than anyone in that modest fishing village had ever seen.
One of the younger fishermen nearly stumbled backward.
"That— that can't be our fleet returning."
"It isn't," the elder said.
The first ship came close enough that the villagers could make out silhouettes upon the deck.
"No… no, that… that can't—"
It wasn't the blackened figures that stole their breath.
It was the unmistakable figure hanging high from the main mast, arms bound out to the sides, body limp but unmistakably alive—or recently alive.
Short stature. Spiky pink hair. Robes tattered, torn, and soaked in sea spray.
Yagura Karatachi.
The commander of the Hidden Mist attack fleets.
Dangling like a captured trophy.
Even from the shore, they could see it clearly: a chain wrapped around his torso, suspending him like a warning banner. His head hung low, chin against his chest, his breathing too faint to spot from a distance.
The elder's walking stick slipped from her trembling hand and clattered to the stones.
"The… the commander?" someone whispered, horrified.
"But he… he left with the assault fleet…" another murmured, voice barely more than a breath.
Children clung to their parents. Adults clung to disbelief.
The massive black ship drifted to a stop, its hull dwarfing the village's fragile docks.
The darkened figures finally move as the music stops.
One of them reached up and shoved Yagura's head back by the chin, forcing his face to turn toward the village. His one visible eye, dull and half-lidded, caught the light of the rising sun.
Whether he was conscious or not, no one could tell.
A deep, booming laugh rumbled from somewhere deeper on the ship.
"People of the Mist! Your commander has fallen! Your Mizukage and the Hidden Mist Village is next!"
Panic rippled through the watchers like a shockwave.
The voice continued,
"And the era of the Mizukage ends today!"
For a heartbeat, no one moved.
Then—
A second voice echoed across the water.
"Bring him down."
A pair of shadowed figures hauled on the chain. The limp body of Yagura Karatachi was lowered, descending inch by inch, swaying like a broken pendulum. Gasps hit the air as villagers covered their mouths. Others took involuntary steps backward.
When Yagura's boots finally hit the deck, he collapsed onto his knees. A tall shadow figure stepped behind him, seized the chain, and dragged him forward as if hauling nothing more than a stray net.
The black-bearded skull of the fleet's flag seemed almost to grin above him.
The figure, Blackbeard, lifted Yagura by the collar with impossible ease and turned him toward the villagers.
"Your fleet lies beneath the waves. Your commander lies broken."
Children whimpered. Adults steadied them with shaking hands.
"Go," he commanded, looking toward the moving figures of shinobi hidden between the huts.
The shinobi hidden among the huts stiffened.
They had been ready—hands hovering over kunai, chakra pulsing at their feet, breaths held. But the moment Blackbeard's eyes raked across the village, each of them felt a pressure settle on their lungs, heavy as deep water.
"Go tell your Mizukage. Two days. Two days to kneel… or two days until Hidden Mist burns."
Blackbeard looked toward the villagers. "As for the noncombatants. My Lord does not want to see the innocent blood shed. Surrender, and stay out of the way."
Blackbeard released Yagura, letting him collapse to the deck in a heap of soaked clothes and fading breath.
Then, as if the moment weren't terrifying enough, every figure on every ship drew something at once—blades, spears, hooks, staves—and slammed them against their decks in perfect unison.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
The sound reverberated across the bay like war drums, sending seabirds scattering from distant cliffs.
The final BOOM rolled across the shoreline like a living thing, shaking the wooden stilts beneath the huts and rattling loose droplets from the rooftops.
Then, with theatrical precision, the fleet began to turn, black sails billowing as they angled toward the distant silhouette of the Hidden Mist Village.
The ANBU vanished into the fog, sprinting toward Hidden Mist Village with Yagura's fate and Blackbeard's ultimatum heavy as lead in their minds.
The villagers were left alone with the silence.
A silence that felt like the first breath before a massacre.