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Chapter 1: Rebirth on the Thousand Sunny
"No matter what path you choose to follow from now on... I will love you always."
These were the final words Itachi spoke to Sasuke after defeating Kabuto Yakushi and releasing the Impure World Reincarnation.
As his soul prepared to return to the Pure Land, Itachi gazed at his younger brother with eyes full of contentment.
Sasuke... you foolish little brother.
From this point forward, the future of the Uchiha clan rests in your hands.
As his spirit ascended, Itachi's consciousness grew progressively weaker. He thought he could glimpse the heavens above the clouds.
He had no more regrets.
A peaceful smile settled upon his features.
After what felt like an eternity—though it could have been moments or millennia—Itachi's eyes suddenly snapped open.
The first thing that registered was a hazy, distorted sunlight filtering through something vast and organic. Above him stretched enormous, intertwining tree roots that twisted and spiraled toward an unseen surface. Through gaps in the roots and the rippling water, countless fish of every imaginable color and shape swam freely, unhurried, as if the roots themselves were part of their natural habitat.
It took Itachi only a heartbeat to realize this place was not the Pure Land.
The scene before him suggested he was beneath the sea.
During his first true death—when he had exhausted his chakra and succumbed to illness after fighting Sasuke—his soul had journeyed to the Pure Land. He remembered that realm clearly, and it bore no resemblance to this underwater world.
"Then... where is this?" Itachi murmured, his voice emerging before he consciously decided to speak.
He attempted to sit up, and that was when he felt it—a steady, powerful rhythm thrumming beneath his ribs.
Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.
His heartbeat.
Itachi clenched his fists tightly, feeling the solidity of muscle and bone. His hand rose to his cheek, fingers tracing the familiar lines of the tear troughs that marked his face—a trait inherited from his father. Slowly, he rose to his feet, astonishment coursing through him.
He was not a soul. He was not a reincarnated body controlled by Edo Tensei. This was flesh. Living, breathing, beating flesh.
Itachi moved cautiously, taking in his surroundings. He appeared to be on some kind of vessel—a ship, he realized—and the ship was encased in a strange, bubble-like substance. Through this transparent membrane, he could see that they were sinking deeper into the ocean's abyss.
Catching his reflection in the bubble's surface, Itachi confirmed what he already knew: this was his physical body, whole and alive.
How is this possible?
A sound interrupted his thoughts—voices carrying from somewhere ahead, near what he assumed was the front of the ship.
On the deck of the Thousand Sunny, the atmosphere was considerably lighter.
After hearing Franky and Zoro recount what had happened, Sanji slowly opened his eyes, blinking against the light filtering through the ocean above.
"Sanji! You're awake!" Chopper exclaimed, rushing to the cook's side with tears already forming in his eyes.
Luffy grinned widely and thrust a bento box toward his crewmate. "Here! Eat this! It's a bento from Amazon Lily!"
"Amazon Lily..." Sanji's eye twitched. "So that bear guy... he really was..."
"Do you have any idea where I've been for the past two years!?" Sanji's composure finally cracked. "What kind of training involves being trapped on an island full of women! LUFFY!" The memory of his two-year nightmare on Momoiro Island—courtesy of Bartholomew Kuma's intervention—erupted from him in a roar of indignation.
"Ah, there, there, Sanji-san," Brook interjected, producing his violin with skeletal grace. "Although I cannot claim to understand your suffering, let us celebrate our new journey together! May I suggest a song to commemorate our reunion after two years apart? Music has a wonderful way of healing wounded hearts, you know!"
"Stop trying to cheer me up! It only makes it worse!"
Sanji's face had paled to an alarming degree.
From his position near the main mast, Itachi listened to these exchanges with a slight frown.
A crew. This must be their ship.
He still couldn't comprehend why his soul had been returned to his body and deposited in such an unlikely place. The possibility of reincarnation crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it—this was too specific, too deliberate. He found himself checking instinctively for Kabuto's presence, or anyone wielding Rinnegan.
Or perhaps... Sasuke found a way to bring me back?
The more he pondered, the less sense it made.
Meanwhile, Usopp had raised a pair of binoculars to his eyes, scanning the deep-sea surroundings with visible anxiety. "Hey! I don't know how you all can be so calm watching whales! Nami said that ninety percent of ships heading to Fishman Island never make it! Ninety percent! We can't afford to be this relaxed!"
As he spoke, Usopp climbed the stairs leading to the secondary mast of the Thousand Sunny. He lifted the binoculars—and froze.
There, standing on the deck as casually as if he'd always been there, was a stranger in dark clothing with strange markings on his face.
"WHOA!"
Usopp's scream sent him tumbling backward down the stairs. The commotion brought Luffy, Zoro, and the others rushing toward him.
"Usopp! What happened?!"
"There's an enemy on the ship!" Usopp stammered, pointing frantically.
"Enemy?! Where?! Where?!" Chopper's voice pitched higher with each word, his small form trembling even as he adopted a battle stance.
Zoro's hand had already moved to his swords, his single eye锁定 on the figure Usopp had spotted. Itachi, noting the movement, instinctively reached for his own weapons—only to find his ninjato pouch absent. No weapons. No tools. Nothing but the clothes on his back.
Luffy studied the stranger with open curiosity. The man wore a dark, mesh-patterned shirt beneath a high-collared jacket, black pants with armored kneepads, and open-toed boots. His face was marked by deep lines running from his eyes downward, and his long dark hair was pulled back from features that revealed nothing.
"WOW!" Luffy's eyes sparkled. "That enemy's clothes are SO cool!"
The entire Straw Hat crew turned to stare at their captain.
"Luffy... after two years, your priorities are still completely backwards," Nami sighed.
"More importantly, we need to figure out where he came from," Franky said, his massive fists clenching as he assessed the intruder. "I've been with the Sunny since the Sabaody Archipelago. I checked the ship before we submerged. There was NO ONE hiding aboard."
Robin studied the stranger with cautious interest. "Could he be an assassin sent by the Marines? Someone with a Devil Fruit ability that allows concealment?"
"That's a terrifying thought, Robin!" Chopper yelped.
"Hey, Tear-Stripe Guy!" Sanji called out, his earlier distress momentarily forgotten. "Where the hell did you come from?!"
"Tear stripes... Speaking of which, do I have tear stripes? Ah, but I'm a skeleton, so I suppose not," Brook mused, touching his empty eye sockets mournfully.
"Stop messing with Brook!" Nami punched the skeleton across the deck.
Itachi regarded the bizarre group before him, cataloging each individual. They moved and spoke nothing like the shinobi of any hidden village he knew. The green-haired man with three swords at his hip resembled a samurai, perhaps, but the others defied easy classification. A reindeer that walked on two legs. A skeleton in formal wear. A man in a speedo with an afro. A girl with orange hair who seemed to be the voice of reason—always a rare commodity, in his experience.
"Hey, Tear-Stripe Guy!" Luffy called out, hands clasped behind his head in a posture of complete relaxation. "Tell us how you got on our ship, shishishishi!"
Itachi noted that their language was identical to his own—a small mercy, perhaps, or another piece of this puzzle.
"If I told you that I myself do not know why I am here," Itachi said quietly, his voice as calm and measured as it had always been, "would you believe me?"
"Then we'll just cut off your arms and legs and ask again later!"
In the space between heartbeats, Zoro was already moving. His blade flashed through the air, closing the distance between them in an instant.
"Zoro! Don't be so impulsive!" Nami's protest came too late.
The sword cleaved clean through Itachi's torso.
"AHH!"
The crew's collective gasp hung in the air—but there was no blood. No cry of pain. The figure Zoro had cut simply dissolved into a swirling mass of black crows, their wings beating against the strange bubble that protected the ship from the crushing depths.
The crows scattered in all directions, their calls echoing weirdly through the underwater silence.
"Devil Fruit ability?" Zoro immediately began channeling Haki through his blade, as Mihawk had taught him during their two years together. If this was a Devil Fruit user, armament Haki would allow him to strike the true body—
But before Zoro could complete the thought, the world around him twisted.
His vision spun wildly. When his eyes finally focused, he found himself standing in a nightmarish landscape—a world painted entirely in shades of red and black, where the sky churned with malevolent energy and the ground beneath his feet felt like congealed blood.
What the—
He tried to move, but his body refused to respond. He was frozen, a prisoner in his own flesh.
"Zoro! What's wrong with you!"
Luffy's voice reached him from somewhere impossibly distant, but Zoro couldn't answer. He couldn't do anything.
On the deck of the Thousand Sunny, Luffy watched in confusion as Zoro remained frozen mid-swing, his body completely immobile. The Tear-Stripe Man had vanished entirely.
Then, slowly, crows began to gather on the secondary mast. They materialized from nowhere, streaming together until they formed the stranger once more, now perched above them like some dark guardian spirit.
"There! On the mast!" Usopp pointed.
Every eye turned upward.
"Hey, Tear-Stripe Man!" Luffy's voice carried genuine concern now, mixed with frustration. "What did you do to Zoro?!"
"Calm yourself," Itachi replied. "He is unharmed."
His eyes shifted almost imperceptibly. The crimson of his Sharingan faded, and on the deck below, Zoro collapsed bonelessly.
"Zoro!" Chopper rushed to his side, checking vitals frantically.
Itachi regarded them from his elevated position. "First, allow me to clarify something. I am not here to be your enemy."
His gaze settled on the boy in the straw hat—the one who wore his authority so casually, who had rushed to his crewmate's side without hesitation despite the potential threat.
This captain, Itachi realized, was the one who mattered.
(End of Chapter)
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