Morning rolled in heavy with fog, but the village felt different.
For the first time in years, the square wasn't watched by spearmen leaning in doorways with wolfish grins. No one extorted the fishermen as they dragged their nets from the sea. The scent of tar, salt, and damp wood was the same, but something in the air had shifted.
"Where are Gato's boys?" a fishmonger whispered, looking up and down the lane.
"Hiding," said the woman beside him. "Or gone."
A fisherman tied his skiff with shaking hands, still waiting for someone to demand a "tax." When no one came, his voice grew louder. "I saw them," he said to the nearest ears. "Three shadows. A boy with red eyes. A tall blindfolded man. And another—big as a wall, sword like a door."
"Stop," the woman hissed, glancing at the shuttered windows. "Walls have ears."
"Good," the fisherman muttered. "Let them hear."
Across the square, the boy from yesterday carried a crate of fish and did not trip. His foot caught on a stone, and for a moment he braced for the blow he always received. Instead, balance returned to him as if a hand had caught his shoulder. He turned. No one was there.
He clutched the crate tighter, smiling as he hurried on.
High above on a warehouse roof, Ren crouched with his cloak pulled close, eyes fixed on the square below. Fog clung to the roofs and softened every sound, but he could feel it—tension loosening. The villagers were moving like prisoners who'd woken to find the lock missing.
Beside him, Gojo lounged on a coil of rope, legs crossed, head tilted toward the weak sunlight. "You see it?" he asked.
Ren's eyes didn't leave the square. "They're testing hope."
"Mm. Hope's a picky eater," Gojo said. "Takes time before it decides to stay."
Heavy footsteps echoed up the alley. Zabuza appeared, his massive blade slung casually on his shoulder. His eyes scanned the square with the detached professionalism of a killer evaluating a battlefield.
"This place stinks of weak chains," Zabuza said flatly.
"Perfect," Ren murmured. "Weak chains are easy to cut."
Gojo sat up, smirking. "Translation: Boss plans to steal all the money and vanish before anyone figures out we exist."
Zabuza's eyes flicked to Ren. "Efficient."
Ren finally turned from the square, his Sharingan glowing faintly in the morning mist. "We start with the lieutenants. If we take Gato first, the dogs scatter and bite everything that moves. But if we cut the hands, the head can't even lift a cup."
"Names," Zabuza said.
Ren's voice was steady. "Toru of the West Docks. He keeps the ledgers and pays the thugs. Saji, who bleeds the farmers inland. And Riku—smuggling on the south inlet. He drinks more than he thinks."
"Quiet or loud?" Zabuza asked.
"Quiet," Ren answered. "No corpses in the streets. No speeches. We leave holes, not graves. Let the villagers wake up tomorrow and wonder why the leash feels lighter."
Zabuza gave a small grunt that might have been approval.
Gojo leaned back, hands behind his head. "You know, for a bunch of killers, we're oddly good at public relations."
The West Docks office was a squat, two-story house wedged between piles of crates and the stink of tar. Men came and went with papers and pouches, avoiding eye contact. The front door had a lock designed to impress. The back door had a latch designed to be forgotten.
Ren and Zabuza lingered in the alley's shadow while Gojo leaned against a post, watching the street with infuriating calm.
"Upstairs," Ren whispered, nodding toward a crooked window. "Toru keeps his keys where he sleeps. His sins where he thinks no one will look."
Zabuza crouched without comment, offering a knee. Ren stepped into the brace, vaulted silently to the sill, and eased the window open. It groaned softly but yielded. He slipped inside, landing like a shadow.
A man snored on a cot, arms wrapped around a leather ledger as though it were a lover. Toru: jowls, soft hands, the kind of man who bought muscle to do his bleeding.
Ren's Sharingan spun lazily. He slipped the ledger free and replaced it with a straw cushion. Toru sighed in his sleep, hugging the fake.
Columns of numbers glared back at Ren—names, payments, late "fines" that were never late, the locations of secret caches. He scanned quickly, committing patterns to memory. In the story I remember, Gato's greed crushes this land until a boy in orange teaches them courage. But that bridge doesn't need to wait. We can loosen the chains before they tighten.
A creak on the stairs. Ren closed the book and pressed into the corner shadows. The door opened. A guard poked in, candle guttering. He yawned, shut the door, and shuffled away.
Ren exhaled silently. He tore three thin sheets free, tucked them under his cloak, and slid the ledger back into Toru's arms. A small folded note rested on the man's chest: Pay what you owe.
Ren slipped out the window.
Gojo looked up lazily. "Well?"
"Done," Ren said.
Zabuza glanced at the note. "Insurance?"
"Debt reminder," Ren replied.
Gojo grinned. "Polite terror. My favorite kind."
Saji, the tax collector, counted his coins by candlelight. His house was larger than a man of his job should afford, and too far from guards for safety.
The door whispered open.
"Who—"
Zabuza crossed the room in three steps and pressed two fingers to Saji's throat. The man froze, eyes bulging.
"Where is your list?" Zabuza asked, tone bored.
"I—I don't know what—"
Zabuza glanced at the table stacked with parchment. "There."
"Please," Saji whispered. "I have a family—"
"So do the farmers you starved," Zabuza said coldly.
Saji's lips quivered.
Ren stepped into the candlelight, Sharingan glowing faintly. "You will take every coin you stole and return it. Then disappear. If you don't, he'll take your hands."
Saji swallowed hard, trembling. "Who are you?"
Ren's voice was flat. "The reason you're still breathing."
Gojo popped his head in through the window, grinning. "Also his HR department. Hi."
They left with the names of farmers bled dry, the location of a hidden strongbox, and Saji's terror clinging to the walls like mold.
Riku was drunk. He always was. His shack on the south inlet reeked of spilled sake and bad choices. Two guards at the door laughed at their own jokes until Gojo walked through them. Their blades couldn't find him; their courage melted.
"Evening," Gojo said cheerfully, stepping over their unconscious bodies. "Love the moldy aesthetic. Very rustic."
Inside, Riku scrambled for a knife. Zabuza plucked it from his hand. Ren tapped the wall with one knuckle. "Your lockbox is here."
The floorboard lifted easily. Zabuza pulled free a tin box. Gojo already held the key, humming tunelessly. Inside: coins, notes, bribes. A letter from Gato himself, promising extra pay for "firm handling" of the countryside.
Ren folded the letter and slid it away. "You'll quit," he told Riku.
Riku sneered, still drunk. "Or what?"
Zabuza tilted his head slightly.
"Or the Demon of the Mist practices silent killing on you instead of fog."
The bravado drained from Riku's face. "Fine," he whispered.
"Good," Ren said, turning away.
They left him clutching an empty bottle, staring at the hole in his floor like it was a grave.
By dawn, Wave moved differently.
Shop doors opened early. Men walked to the bridge project without being shaken down. A woman counted her coins twice and realized no one had taken any. A fisherman, for the first time in years, hummed while he worked.
"Strange," one murmured. "Feels like breathing after a long dive."
"Don't say it," his wife warned. "You'll scare it away."
Across the square, the boy with the fish crate whispered to his sister, "I think the red-eyed boy did it. He helped me. He knew everything."
She hushed him, but her eyes flicked to the rooftops. Just once.
That night, Ren, Gojo, and Zabuza sat around a small fire on the bluff. The bridge's ribs rose from the sea below, skeletal in the mist.
"You didn't kill them," Zabuza said finally.
Ren's eyes reflected the flames. "No."
"You could have. Would have been easy."
"Easy fades," Ren said. "Fear of corpses is shallow. Fear of uncertainty lingers. Tomorrow they'll wonder where their masters went. That doubt changes them more than blood."
Zabuza studied him across the fire. "You talk like a commander."
Gojo smirked. "He talks like a tyrant with a day planner."
"I talk like someone who hates waste," Ren said.
Zabuza planted his blade point-first in the dirt. "You give me enemies worth cutting, you keep your word clean… I'll be your fang."
Ren rose, the fire throwing his shadow long. "Tomorrow, the bank. The day after, the message house. By week's end, Gato runs. Then we decide if he gets a boat."
Zabuza rolled his shoulders, satisfied. "I'll sharpen the blade."
"Sharpen two," Gojo murmured. "The scenery's going to fight back."
Ren looked down at Wave, the square where villagers whispered and the bridge that would carry more than stone. In canon, Naruto gave them courage. In mine, they'll learn obedience first. Then hope. Then order.
"Sleep," he said. "We move at dawn."
By morning, a shopkeeper found a folded note under his door, with a missing ledger page inside and neat handwriting:
Pay what you owe. Then live like you earned it.
By noon, a collector returned coin he couldn't keep and left town without farewell.
By evening, a boy carried fish across the stones and no one stepped on them.
And by the end of the week, Wave carried a new truth safer than names:
There were shadows moving on their side.