The bridge was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that screams.
We arrived to find the workers on the ground. Not dead, thank god, but groaning, beaten senseless. Tazuna rushed forward, panic in his eyes, but I held him back with my single arm.
"Stay close," I murmured. My Observation Haki was screaming. The mist was rolling in again, thicker than before. It tasted like cold iron and blood.
"They're here," Kakashi said, stepping to the front. He didn't need Haki to know. The killing intent was so thick you could cut it with a knife.
"Well, well," Zabuza's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "I didn't expect you to bring the brats again, Kakashi. And... the cripple."
I sighed, adjusting the collar of my shirt. "Zabuza. I thought I told you to find a new job. Bridge demolition doesn't suit you."
"I have a score to settle," Zabuza snarled.
From the mist, two figures emerged. Zabuza, looking healed and terrifying, and a masked boy. The Hunter-Nin.
"Haku," I whispered. I remembered the name from the anime clips. The tragic boy.
"That's the guy!" Naruto pointed. "The guy with the mask!"
"Naruto, Sasuke," I said, my voice devoid of its usual humor. "You take the masked one. Don't hold back. He's strong."
"Right!" Naruto shouted.
"Sakura, guard Tazuna. Don't move from this spot," Kakashi ordered. "Shanks..."
Kakashi looked at me.
"I'll hang back," I said, leaning against the railing of the bridge casually, though my hand was resting on Gryphon. "This is your show, Scarecrow. But if things get messy..."
"They won't," Kakashi said, pulling up his headband to reveal the Sharingan.
The battle exploded.
It was chaos. Zabuza and Kakashi clashed in the center, a blur of water dragons and steel. It was high-level ninja warfare, magic vs. magic.
But my eyes were on the boys.
Sasuke and Naruto were fighting Haku. And they were... struggling. Haku was fast. Incredibly fast. He was forming hand signs with one hand—which I had to admit, was cool—and launching ice needles.
Then, Haku got serious.
"Crystal Ice Mirrors."
A dome of ice formed around the boys. Haku stepped into the reflection.
"Damn," I muttered. "That looks annoying."
I gripped my sword. I could end this. I could step in, use Soru, shatter the mirrors with a Haki-infused punch, and grab the kids. It would take me five seconds.
But I didn't move.
I watched Sasuke. He was getting cut up. He was bleeding. But he was also... looking. His eyes were darting around. He was trying to use Soru, but the ice was slippery, and the mirrors surrounded him.
"Focus, kid," I whispered. "Don't look with your eyes. Feel the intent."
It was agonizing to watch. As a modern man, I wanted to call child services. As a Pirate Emperor, I knew that stripping them of this fight would cripple their growth. They needed to bleed to understand what it meant to be strong.
Inside the dome, I saw it happen. Sasuke moved. He didn't just react; he anticipated. He grabbed Naruto and shoved him out of the way of a needle barrage.
He's waking up, I realized. The Sharingan.
Meanwhile, Kakashi was holding his own, but Zabuza was using the mist to nullify the Sharingan's advantage.
"You can't copy what you can't see!" Zabuza roared, his blade swinging for Kakashi's neck.
Kakashi ducked, using the chakra-enhanced Soru I taught him. He vanished, reappearing behind Zabuza.
"I don't need to see," Kakashi stated cold, summoning a ball of lightning in his hand. "Raikiri!"
The screech of a thousand birds filled the air. Kakashi thrust his hand forward, aiming for Zabuza's heart.
At the same moment, the ice mirrors shattered. Naruto had exploded with red chakra—the Fox—and punched Haku through the glass.
Haku was flying through the air. He saw Zabuza about to die.
I saw it coming. My Observation Haki played the scene out a second before it happened. Haku would intercept. Haku would die.
My body tensed. I took a step forward. Save him?
But Haku moved with a desperate, suicidal speed that I respected. He wasn't moving out of fear; he was moving out of love.
Don't interfere with a resolve like that, a voice inside me said. It was the voice of the original Shanks. To stop a man from sacrificing himself for his dream is an insult.
I stopped.
SPLAT.
Kakashi's lightning hand punched through Haku's chest.
The battlefield went silent. The mist began to lift.
Zabuza stood there, the boy who loved him impaled on the lightning blade meant for him.
"Zabuza..." Haku whispered, blood trickling from his mouth.
I looked away. Even for a pirate, this was heavy.
Kakashi withdrew his hand, his visible eye wide with horror. Haku collapsed.
Zabuza didn't move. He didn't cry.
"You... found a good tool, Zabuza," Kakashi said, his voice shaking.
"Shut up," Zabuza rasped. But his voice cracked.
Then, the clapping started.
Slow, rhythmic, mocking applause.
We all turned to the end of the bridge. The fog had cleared completely, revealing a sea of thugs. Hundreds of them. Men with clubs, swords, axes. And in front of them, a short man in a suit with sunglasses and a cane.
Gato.
"Bravo! Bravo!" Gato sneered. "You actually killed the kid! And look at you, Zabuza. You look like a wreck. You're fired."
"Fired?" Zabuza said, his arms hanging uselessly, damaged by his fight with Kakashi.
"I don't pay dead men," Gato laughed. "And why pay you when I can just have these fine gentlemen kill you all and take the bridge for free?"
The army of thugs cheered. There were so many of them. A wall of malice.
Gato walked forward. He walked up to Haku's corpse.
"And this freak," Gato spat. "He broke my arm a while back. I've been waiting to pay him back."
Gato raised his foot and kicked Haku's lifeless face.
Something in the air changed.
Naruto screamed, "YOU BASTARD!" and tried to charge, but Kakashi held him back.
Zabuza was trembling. "Kakashi... give me a kunai."
But before Zabuza could move, before Naruto could scream again...
I stepped forward.
The sound of my sandal hitting the stone echoed like a drumbeat.
"Hey," I said.
The single word cut through the noise of the crowd. It wasn't loud, but it vibrated in everyone's chest.
I walked past Kakashi. I walked past Zabuza. I walked past Haku's body.
I stood ten paces away from Gato and his army.
"Who the hell are you?" Gato sneered. "The one-armed wanderer? You want to die first?"
I looked down at Haku. Then I looked at Gato.
"You kicked the dead," I said softly.
"So what?" Gato laughed. "He's garbage! Just like you!"
"And," I continued, my voice dropping an octave, becoming a low rumble that shook the dust off the bridge deck. "You threatened my friends."
I reached up and adjusted my red hair.
"I can forgive a lot of things," I said. "Spilled drinks. Food thrown at me. Insults. But..."
I looked up. My eyes locked onto Gato's.
"There is one thing I never forgive."
I let go.
I stopped holding back. I stopped worrying about the kids. I stopped worrying about physics or chakra or the laws of this world.
I unleashed the Emperor.
CONQUEROR'S HAKI.
It didn't explode outward like a bomb. It expanded like a tsunami. A wave of pure, red-black pressure erupted from my body.
The air shattered. Red lightning crackled violently, tearing at the ground, sparking off the metal railings of the bridge. The sky above us turned a dark, ominous purple.
The physical force of it hit the army like a hurricane.
THOOM.
The first row of thugs didn't even scream. Their eyes rolled back into their heads instantly. They collapsed, foaming at the mouth, their minds simply shutting down under the weight of my will.
The wave continued.
The second row fell. The third. The tenth.
It was a domino effect of unconsciousness. Men who were hardened killers, mercenaries who had killed for money, dropped like puppets with their strings cut.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound of hundreds of bodies hitting the floor was the only sound in the world.
Behind me, I felt Team 7 buckle.
I had focused the blast forward, shielding them from the worst of it, but the ambient pressure was still suffocating.
"What... is... this?" Sasuke gasped, falling to one knee, clutching his chest. He felt like gravity had increased tenfold.
"The sky..." Naruto squeaked, looking up at the red lightning arcing from my shoulders. "The sky is cracking!"
Kakashi was forcing himself to stand, but he was sweating profusely. "This isn't killing intent... this is... domination. He's imposing his will on reality itself."
Zabuza, already weak, fell to his knees. He stared at my back, his eyes wide with a primal fear he had never known, not even as the Demon of the Mist.
In three seconds, it was over.
The red lightning faded. The wind died down.
I stood alone.
Behind Gato, three hundred men lay unconscious. A sea of sleeping bodies.
Gato was the only one left standing.
He wasn't standing because he was strong. He was standing because he was frozen stiff. His sunglasses had fallen off. His eyes were bulging. A dark stain was spreading rapidly across the front of his expensive pants.
He was hyperventilating. "Hhh... hhh... w-what...?"
I took one step toward him.
Gato shrieked. It was a high, pathetic sound.
"My army..." Gato gibbered. "Where... what did you do?!"
"They're sleeping," I said, walking closer. My face was shadowed. "They decided they didn't want to fight anymore."
I stopped right in front of him. I towered over him.
"You have two choices," I said calmly.
Gato couldn't speak. He just shook.
"Choice one," I said. "You apologize to the boy you kicked. Then you get on a boat, you leave this country, and you never, ever come back. If I hear your name whispered in the wind, I will come for you. And next time, I won't just put you to sleep."
I rested my hand on Gryphon's hilt. I didn't draw it. I just clicked the guard against the scabbard. Click.
Gato flinched so hard he fell over backward.
"Choice two," I said cold. "You stay here."
Gato scrambled backward on his hands and heels, crab-walking over the unconscious bodies of his mercenaries.
"I'm going! I'm going!" he screamed. "I'm leaving! Take the bridge! Take it all! Just don't kill me! MONSTER!"
He scrambled to the edge of the bridge, jumped into a small boat, and rowed. He rowed like the devil himself was snapping at his heels.
I watched him go.
I turned around.
The sight that greeted me was... interesting.
Naruto was jaw-dropped. Sasuke looked like he was having a religious experience. Sakura had fainted (again). Kakashi was leaning on the railing, looking at me as if I was an alien.
Zabuza was looking at me. Then he looked at Haku.
"You..." Zabuza croaked. "You could have done that from the start."
"Maybe," I said. "But it wasn't my fight."
I walked over to Zabuza. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small bottle of sake I'd brought for a victory drink.
I popped the cork with my teeth and poured a little onto the ground next to Haku's head.
"For the kid," I said. "He had guts."
Zabuza stared at the wet spot on the concrete. Tears finally mixed with the blood on his face.
"Yeah," Zabuza whispered. "He did."
Zabuza looked up at me. The "Demon" was gone. Only a broken man remained.
"Hey, Red Hair," Zabuza said. "Finish me. I have nowhere to go. My tool is broken. My employer is gone."
I looked at him. I looked at the giant sword. I looked at the fierce loyalty buried under the cruelty.
"Nah," I said, taking a swig of the sake. "I think you've bled enough today."
I turned to Team 7.
"Alright, kids!" I clapped my hand against my leg. "Class dismissed! Who wants lunch? I'm starving. Using that Haki makes me hungry."
Naruto slowly stood up. He walked over to one of the unconscious mercenaries and poked him. The guy snored.
Naruto looked at me. His eyes were shining brighter than the sun.
"Shanks-sensei..." Naruto whispered. "That was... THAT WAS THE COOLEST THING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD!"
He tackled my leg, hugging it. "TEACH ME! TEACH ME THE SUPREME KING THINGY!"
"Get off me, snot-nosed brat!" I laughed, shaking my leg.
Sasuke stood up. He didn't say anything. He just stared at the pile of bodies. Three hundred men. Defeated without a single blow.
He looked at his own hands. Then he looked at me. The hunger for power in his eyes had changed. It wasn't just hunger anymore. It was understanding.
That, Sasuke thought, is what true power looks like.
Kakashi walked over, limping slightly.
"You know," Kakashi said, looking at the sleeping army. "I'm going to have a hell of a time explaining this in my report to the Hokage."
"Just tell him they all took a nap," I winked.
"Right," Kakashi sighed. "A collective nap induced by a one-armed pirate. He'll love that."
As we began to walk back toward Tazuna's house, leaving the villagers to tie up the sleeping thugs, I looked back one last time.
Zabuza was still kneeling by Haku.
"Hey, Demon!" I called out.
Zabuza didn't look up.
"If you need a job," I shouted. "Pirates are always recruiting! The pay is terrible, but the freedom is great!"
Zabuza didn't answer. But as the mist finally vanished completely, letting the sun shine down on the Great Naruto Bridge, I saw his shoulders relax.
I smiled.
Mission accomplished.
Now, seriously. I needed meat. And maybe a nap. Being an Emperor was exhausting.