Itachi Uchiha's first thought was that the sea air felt like an attack on his senses. He'd spent years moving through forests, battlefields, even hellish illusions of his own making, but this—this was chaos, all salt and screaming gulls, waves breaking against sun-bleached wood, and the unfamiliar rhythm of a world with no chakra at all.
He didn't remember falling asleep, and certainly didn't remember waking up on a wooden dock, crows gathered around his shoulders and in his hair as if they too were lost. One pecked gently at his forehead protector, a silent question. Itachi blinked at the horizon, watching the swirl of distant sails—jolly rogers, skulls and crossbones, pirates running after screaming children in clown makeup.
"Where… am I?" he murmured, voice as low and heavy as the sea.
No chakra flow. No Konoha. No moon. Just an endless blue, a smell of grilled fish, and somewhere, someone wailing about losing their wallet to a talking lion.
He sat up, brushing salt from his cloak. People on the dock gave him a wide berth, whispering to each other in the language of superstition. "Look, mama! That man's covered in crows!" "Don't stare, child, he'll curse you!"
Itachi ignored them, analyzing his own body, running through hand seals just to be sure—chakra still flowed within, but faint and muffled, like shouting through water. He watched a band of pirates haul barrels off a ship, bickering about a "new marine admiral" and the rising price of tangerines. Nothing familiar.
A sharp laugh shattered his focus. "MAGICIAN!" The voice was nasal, gleeful, and completely deranged.
He turned to see a man with a face painted white and red, a nose like a tomato, and hair the color of the ocean. The man wore a tattered pirate coat and the kind of shoes that would get a shinobi killed in five seconds. Behind him trailed a flock of equally ridiculous cronies.
Buggy the Clown pointed a trembling finger. "You! With the crows! You some kind of wizard, huh? Necromancer? New rival for my circus of doom? Don't think you can just show up in Orange Town and steal my show!"
Itachi stared, unblinking. "I am looking for a way home," he said, calm as death.
Buggy squinted, then grinned. "Oh, a mysterious drifter, eh? No, no, I know your type. You're after my devil fruit secrets, aren't you?!"
One of Buggy's crew whispered, "Cap'n, maybe he's a bounty hunter…"
Buggy's grin grew. "Well, joke's on you! I'm not afraid! Show me your tricks, 'Crow King!'" He waggled his fingers, mocking.
Itachi's crows ruffled their feathers in annoyance. Itachi himself, profoundly unamused, took one step forward—just a single step—and let his Mangekyo Sharingan flicker to life. The world turned blood red.
For a split second, Buggy's vision swam: crows multiplying, filling the dock, the sky, the sea—hundreds, thousands, endless. Buggy screamed, tripped, and landed face-first in a bucket of shrimp.
His crew bolted in all directions, colliding with crates, shrieking, "He's cursed us! He's cursed us!"
Itachi blinked. The vision faded. The dock was silent except for the gulls and Buggy's whimpering.
A young pirate peeked out from behind a barrel. "Y-you're not gonna eat us, are you, Crow King?"
"No," Itachi sighed. "But you should eat more vegetables. Your diet is abysmal."
Buggy, head still in the bucket, muttered, "This guy's the real deal… we're doomed…"
A crowd started to gather, townsfolk murmuring as Itachi dusted off his cloak. Whispers grew—first about the "haunted magician," then about the "cursed king." Someone started drawing a wanted poster.
"Is he a Warlord?" "Maybe a new Yonko?" "He defeated Buggy without moving!"
A mother dragged her child away. "Don't look at him! He'll haunt your dreams!"
Itachi ignored them all, walking toward the heart of Orange Town, crows swirling overhead like shadows. He needed answers—a map, a clue, even just a moment's peace. But everywhere he went, doors closed and eyes widened.
He paused outside a dango shop, where a girl with orange hair and a thousand-yard-stare was yelling at a cook about overdue debts. He watched the Straw Hat skull on her shoulder bag with mild interest. More pirates? He'd need to keep his guard up.
From a rooftop above, a swordsman with green hair peered down, looking very, very lost.
Itachi exhaled, letting the sea wind play with his hair.He'd survived Madara, Obito, and the Akatsuki. Surely he could handle a world of pirates and clowns.
Then again, as a crow landed on his shoulder and started pecking his ear for attention, he muttered to himself,"This world… is stranger than Tsukuyomi."
And so, the legend of the Crow King began—with a clown, a flock of terrified pirates, and a shinobi just looking for a way home.