This is another story. A finished story. I will continue the other story later. I haven't dropped it or anything. Just taking a rest from it.
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Chapter 1: The Tides of Judgment
— in which legends walk, and destinies awaken —
If one were to say the wind mourned that day, few would have dared disagree. It swept across the barren land like a phantom, carrying with it the scent of blood and scorched earth. The sky, a bruised and weeping thing, hung low over the battlefield, clouds swollen with the kind of sorrow that had no words—only thunder.
At the heart of the devastation stood a lone figure, haloed in the soft orange of dying light and dying hope. Naruto Uzumaki—child of prophecy, once hailed as the world's bright tomorrow—now wore the heavy cloak of infamy like a second skin. His hair, usually like sunshine trapped in strands, was dulled by sweat, soot, and blood. His eyes, those defiant pools of cerulean blue, burned still, not with hope—but with a conviction so intense it bordered on madness.
Behind him, the ground was cracked and cratered, a tapestry of ruin painted by chakra and grief. Bones jutted from the earth like broken promises, and the earth itself seemed to groan beneath the weight of the sins committed upon it.
In a staggered line before him, five great shadows stood. The Kages—guardians of the villages, symbols of power, unity, and compromise—wore no smiles. Their faces were carved from stone and sorrow. None more so than Uchiha Sasuke.
Hokage.
Friend.
Executioner.
His blade shimmered with an unspoken question, and in his eyes spun galaxies of pain and understanding—Sharingan and Rinnegan both burning as he beheld the man who once saved them all.
"Naruto," Sasuke said at last, his voice rasping like parchment scorched too many times, "this… isn't the way. You can still stop this madness. The world doesn't work like that—you know this better than anyone."
But Naruto only chuckled. A raw, humourless thing that caught in his throat and came out sounding more like grief than laughter. "You're right," he murmured. "It doesn't work like that. That's the problem."
He turned his gaze, sharp as kunai, to the others. Gaara, who once knew loneliness as intimately as breathing. Chōjūrō, reluctant but resolved. Kurotsuchi, the Tsuchikage, her hands trembling despite her iron facade. And Darui, haunted by the ghost of the man whose blood started it all—A.
"Do you remember, Sasuke? When Hinata died?" Naruto asked, soft as snowfall. "Do you remember how they called it a mistake? Collateral damage. She wasn't even a shinobi anymore. She was just… my wife."
Sasuke's jaw tightened, the storm behind his eyes flickering.
Naruto's voice rose, and with it, the wind. "I gave this world everything. Everything. And when they killed her, I begged—begged—for justice. But the courts were silent. The elders turned away. So I gave them what they would not give me: retribution."
A silence heavier than stone fell. Even the wind paused, breath held in suspense.
"You killed the Raikage," Gaara said quietly, almost like a prayer. "And twenty-four nobles. You burned the Daimyo palace to ash."
"They built it on bones," Naruto snapped. "And they dared to act surprised when the dead clawed their way up through the floor."
His chakra flared—less brilliant than before, yet far more dangerous. Unanchored by Kurama, he had become something different. Something unchained.
"You want to kill me?" he said, spreading his arms as though to embrace the storm. "Then do it. But know this—what I started won't end with me. I planted something. Something the wind cannot blow away."
Sasuke raised his blade.
The others followed suit.
And then the world screamed.
Lightning cracked open the sky as chakra collided in a blinding crescendo. Flames licked the clouds. The earth split. Screams—human and otherwise—echoed through the smoke-choked valley. Every Kage gave everything, and Naruto gave more. Bones broke. Time blurred. The sun sank behind bloodied mountains.
And when it was over, when the light finally faded and the chakra dust settled…
Naruto Uzumaki lay still.
A man not slain by power—but by pain. His smile lingered, ghostlike, on his lips, like a message left behind for those with hearts still whole enough to understand.
It was Sasuke who knelt first. Not as a victor, but as a mourner. He took Naruto's hand—calloused, burned, human—and bowed his head.
"He's gone," someone whispered. Perhaps Gaara. Perhaps the wind.
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At the heart of Marineford, far from the thunder of cannons or the politics of Admirals, the clamor of youth echoed across the grounds with the energy of a hundred dreams trying desperately to be forged into something real. Recruits—some wide-eyed, others already hardened—moved in military rhythm, their bodies pushed by barked commands and the ever-watchful gaze of instructors. The sun beat down mercilessly upon them, gilding sweat-slicked brows and clanging swords with a cruel sort of brilliance.
But beyond that square, behind the southern barracks and past a quiet garden where even senior officers seldom tread, a different rhythm pulsed—less refined, more primal. There, in a secluded courtyard where the stone tiles bore fresh cracks from constant impact, a lone boy trained with a fury that bordered on fanatical.
He stood tall—unnaturally tall for his age—his limbs lean and long, built not by convenience, but by pure stubborn will. His shirt clung to his frame, soaked through with sweat, while steam curled faintly from his skin in the cool morning air. His golden hair clung to his forehead like war paint, his crimson eyes glowing faintly in the shadow of dawn.
He was Uzumaki Naruto. Or rather, he was Naruto again.
Somewhere between death and defiance, between the rebellion he bled for and the justice he never truly grasped, his soul had awakened—this time in a world built of salt, steel, and sea monsters.
The body he now wore had once belonged to a boy of the same name. An orphan, robbed of everything by pirates who had left nothing but ash and grief in their wake. That boy had been broken, frail, and forgotten.
But Naruto was not one to let broken things lie.
He had awoken in that battered vessel, disoriented by its weakness, its unfamiliarity. No chakra. No Kurama. No Rasengan. No soothing hum of nature's energy in his veins. Just flesh. Bone. Pain.
And potential.
"This world's justice smells like the old one," he had thought bitterly on his first day of consciousness. "Self-righteous. Rotten to the core. They call pirates evil, but what of the Marines who serve tyrants with clean hands and dirtied hearts?"
And so he trained—not out of nostalgia, but necessity.
He was no longer the same Naruto who had died beneath the falling Kages. He was a ghost with flesh. A man reborn. A fire reignited.
His days followed a ruthless ritual: Wake before dawn, train until collapse, eat sparingly, soak in a tub of boiling herbs, meditate, then do it all again. His hands blistered. His muscles tore. But his eyes—his eyes never lost that sharp, consuming gleam.
Even now, submerged in a tub of acrid green liquid that smelled vaguely of boiled roots and pain, Naruto's mind whirled like a storm.
Gaara… Sasuke… Did you bury me where the sun could still reach?
Did you mourn me, or the man you believed I was?
Would you recognize me now? Would you still call me brother?
He leaned back, steam curling around his face like memories. "I fell once," he whispered into the rising mist. "But I fall forward now. This world won't bury me."
His fingers, still raw from knife training, flexed beneath the water.
Justice is eternal, he had once said. But now, justice had teeth—and it wore a Marine uniform.
By the next morning, the weights were back on—two tonnes, forged by a grumbling shipwright who muttered curses about insane children and snapped anvils.
Naruto didn't care.
"4,201… 4,202…"
Each squat sent lightning bolts of pain through his legs. He welcomed it. Fed on it.
"4,353… 4,354…"
And then he fell.
His legs buckled like paper. His spine kissed stone. His lungs screamed for breath. But he smiled.
Because it hurt.
And if it hurt, it meant he was still growing.
The Marines who passed by the courtyard sometimes paused, curiosity etched on their faces. But none approached. The instructors had long since stopped asking him to join the main drills—he was too far ahead. Too strange. Too… driven.
Naruto lay sprawled across the tiles, his chest heaving, the sky an ocean above him.
"There's no such thing as enough strength," he murmured to the sun. "And I won't let this world decide my limits."
Somewhere far away, a pirate laughed as his ship set sail. Somewhere deeper still, a warlord plotted beneath the waves. But here, in a forgotten corner of Marineford, a storm was being reborn. Quiet. Relentless.
The sea would soon remember the name it had never yet learned to fear.
Uzumaki Naruto.
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The barracks of Marineford were a place of discipline, but lately, they simmered with something more volatile than sweat or fury.
Hope.
Hope—tinted with dread, laced with wild ambition—had begun to take root in the hearts of the recruits. Whispers drifted like gunpowder in the air, quick to ignite at the slightest spark.
"The combat assessment is coming."
The phrase passed from bunk to bunk, whispered in darkened hallways, shouted between training drills. It was no longer rumor—it was prophecy. For the ordinary recruits, it was more than a test. It was the moment. The gate that either opened to greatness… or slammed shut in failure.
And looming at the threshold of that gate was a legend.
"Admiral Z," they whispered, reverent, almost fearful. "The man who trained Akainu, Kizaru, and Aokiji."
His name hung in the air like thunderclouds on the horizon—heavy, waiting to break. For most, the chance to train under Z was the stuff of dreams. But for the top recruits, it was a possibility. A tantalizing maybe. And that single word was enough to drive them to madness.
The camp hierarchy was clear: ten groups of recruits, each led by seasoned Marines, all straining toward the impossible. Above them stood the elite camp, a place spoken of in tones usually reserved for Immortals and demons. Its members weren't merely strong—they were chosen. And at its apex stood Smoker, the boy cloaked in smoke, untouchable, unflinching.
A Logia user.
"He's invincible," one recruit muttered in awe. "You can't punch smoke."
Drake, the iron-fisted prodigy from Group Five, had once been the uncontested favorite. Rumors of his strength painted him as a beast, a natural warrior who had killed a monstrous bear with nothing but his fists. Tales said he could crush stone with a glare, uproot trees with a kick.
But now, the legend of Smoker eclipsed him.
And still—somewhere at the very edge of the camp, beyond the drills and drills and drills—another name waited.
In the neglected courtyard where no instructor tread and no curious eye lingered, Naruto Uzumaki stood alone.
He had heard it all. Every boast. Every fear. Every trembling whisper of "Logia."
And he had smiled.
A small, wolfish thing, that smile.
"Smoke?" he'd muttered, driving his spear into the earth with a crack that echoed like a gunshot. "That's all?"
His body was a mass of scars and bruises, of torn ligaments and aching joints. His blood ran hot with pain, and still, he trained. He lived in the agony. It was his forge.
No one saw the boy who woke before the sun and fell asleep only when it refused to rise again. No one watched as he carried weights beyond reason, practiced strikes until his skin split open, or crafted traps in the dead of night using nothing but broken wood and rope.
But soon, they would.
"I don't even need chakra," Naruto told the wind as he stabbed the spear through a training dummy's chest, splintering it in half.
His red eyes gleamed like coals beneath flame.
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At the edge of the world's strongest military fortress, where the ocean's breath stirred the sails of giants, ten warships carved ripples across the sea like blades across silk. Nine had already vanished beyond the horizon, carrying hundreds of recruits toward glory—or disgrace.
Only the tenth remained, moored stubbornly at the harbor, its sails slack in the wind, its recruits caught between anticipation and unease.
The ship's vast deck, once abuzz with chatter, now simmered with anxiety. Time crawled. Feet shuffled. Conversations spiraled into frustrated murmurs.
"Maybe it's engine trouble?"
"Don't be stupid. These ships are pristine."
"Then why are we still here?"
And yet, in one quiet corner of the deck—oblivious or uncaring—sat Naruto Uzumaki. His legs crossed, his breath steady, his palms resting lightly against his knees. A single droplet of sweat trailed down his temple and disappeared into the folds of his tunic.
He was still.
Composed.
Waiting.
Drake, standing a few meters away, leaned against the railing. His eyes, sharp as a hawk's, drifted toward Naruto, narrowing slightly.
A month ago, the boy had been a shadow. A quiet ghost at the edge of the training fields. Now… there was weight to him. Like a storm behind a smile. Like a predator just before the pounce.
Drake scoffed under his breath.
Confidence is fine, he thought, flexing his fingers. But let's see how long it lasts once the real fight starts.
And then—it happened.
A pressure swept over the deck—not a sound, not a blast, but something felt in the bones. The kind of pressure that made instincts scream and spines straighten.
Presence.
Not the raw fury of a brawler, nor the unrefined bloodlust of the battlefield—this was command. The quiet, suffocating weight of greatness.
Officers—grizzled men hardened by years of war—snapped to attention with a sharpness that echoed across the ship. Their voices fell silent. Their eyes locked forward.
Every recruit followed their gaze toward the dock.
Two figures approached.
The first was unmistakable: clad in a blue Marine coat draped like a cape, his white hair curled like waves and a grin etched permanently on his face.
"Vice Admiral Garp…" someone breathed, reverently.
The Hero of the Marines. The man who cornered the Pirate King. His every step was casual, almost lazy—but no one was fooled. Beneath that grin was a mountain of strength.
But beside him…
The second figure walked like thunder on two feet. Heavy black boots clanked against the stone dock. His coat was darker, lined with gold trim, and bore no sleeves—his arms thick with muscle and marred with scars that told a thousand stories.
His jaw was set like carved granite, and his sharp eyes surveyed the warship with a predator's calm.
"Z…" someone whispered.
No title. No need. Just the name.
Admiral Z—the man who had once stood at the pinnacle of Marine power, and now served as chief instructor of the elite camp.
The air itself bent around him.
Recruits who had been ready to argue, who had muttered curses under their breath, now stood frozen in place. Some with awe. Some with fear. All with respect.
Even Drake's bravado faltered.
Naruto's eyes opened, slowly.
So, he thought, rising to his feet, this is the man who trained the monsters of this world.
Z stepped onto the deck like a king returning to his court. Garp followed behind with a chuckle and a wave, completely unfazed by the reverent silence.
The vice admiral in charge strode forward and saluted.
"Recruits!" he barked. "Attention!"
Like falling dominoes, the recruits straightened. Eyes forward. Chests out.
"Today marks the beginning of your combat assessment. You will be judged—not on your grades, not on your drills—but on your ability to survive, adapt, and overcome. Vice Admiral Garp and Chief Instructor Z will oversee your performance personally."
A pause.
Then the shout.
"DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
"YES, SIR!!"
The harbor trembled with the force of their cry.
Z stepped forward, gaze sweeping across them like a blade. He spoke quietly, yet his voice carried across the deck like a cannon shot.
"There are two kinds of Marines," he said. "Those who chase titles… and those who carry the burden of justice."
He scanned the faces—hungry, terrified, hopeful.
"You will show me which you are."
He turned without another word, making his way toward the command platform.
As the engines hummed to life and the sails caught the wind, the tenth warship finally began to move, pushing off into the open sea.
The recruits exhaled together—some in relief, others in dread.
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Among the sea of wide-eyed recruits, where whispered awe danced on trembling lips and disbelief painted faces with pale astonishment, Naruto stood curiously unaffected. His arms hung loosely at his sides, fingers twitching slightly—not from nerves, but from calculation.
He was not immune to the gravity of the moment, but unlike the others, he wasn't reduced by it.
The warship loomed like a slumbering leviathan behind them, its great shadow stretching across the sand-strewn shore of the island ahead. And from the high deck, framed by the wind-tattered flag of the Navy, stood two figures that carved silence into the crowd like knives through soft bread.
"Admiral Z and Vice Admiral Garp," Naruto murmured, his crimson eyes sharpening as he studied the legendary men. There was a stillness about them—an unshakeable calm that hinted at power forged in the crucible of countless wars.
But it wasn't chakra. That was the first thing he noticed. It wasn't the brilliant storm of energy he was used to feeling from his enemies or allies back home. No, this was something else. Something heavier. Denser. Like the moment before thunder—a force unspoken yet utterly undeniable.
His lips curled in a small, amused smirk.
"So this world has monsters of its own," he thought. "Good. If they were weak, there wouldn't be any fun in surpassing them."
Where others saw the two admirals as legends, Naruto saw them as mile markers on a road that only he could walk. And if they were watching him, then so be it. Let them.
Let them see.
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As the ship's horn wailed and the deck trembled beneath them, the warship groaned into motion, slowly pulling away from the harbour. Naruto didn't move. His eyes fluttered shut for a single breath, locking his thoughts into stillness.
If they're watching, he thought, I'll make sure they don't forget me.
The warship anchored just off the jagged coast of a mist-wreathed island, its shoreline a grim tangle of black rock and coarse sand that crackled under the recruits' boots like brittle bones.
One by one, the recruits disembarked, stepping into a place that didn't welcome them—it dared them.
The air was thick with moisture, salty and hot, and carried with it the distinct scent of damp wood, mud, and something faintly coppery—blood, perhaps, or worse. Massive trees towered overhead, their roots like twisted claws gripping the island in a suffocating hold. Deep within the jungle, guttural roars echoed through the mist, answering one another in a violent, unseen orchestra of fangs and fury.
Naruto looked around, eyes moving from face to face—wide, panicked eyes; furrowed brows pretending to be brave; clenched jaws. All of them wearing different kinds of fear. Some were already huddling together, searching for the comfort of numbers. Others stood alone, rigid with pride.
He, too, stood alone. But unlike the others, he preferred it that way.
Captain Boros—a man with scars that danced like lightning across his jaw and a voice that could fell trees—stepped forward and addressed them, his words cracking the quiet like a whip.
"This is where your combat assessment begins," he bellowed, arms crossed like stone pillars. "Your mission is simple: Survive. Eliminate every monster on this island within three days."
A murmur rippled through the crowd like a breeze over a graveyard.
"You'll be scored based on the strength of the creatures you slay," he continued. "The stronger the beast, the higher the points. Work in teams if you wish. But be warned—points will be split evenly."
Immediately, pairs and trios began to form, hands grasping sleeves, voices whispering hurriedly. A few loners looked around, hesitating. Naruto didn't. He simply took a step forward, already choosing a direction in his mind.
"Firearms are allowed," the vice admiral went on. "Heavy weaponry is not. You'll be monitored by air, and if your life is in immediate danger, we may intervene."
A pause.
Then, softly—too softly—he added, "But don't count on it."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Some recruits visibly stiffened. One girl let out a shaky breath. Another boy gripped his rifle as though it were a lifeline, knuckles pale and trembling.
"Out there," the admiral said, gesturing toward the trees, "the island does not care who you are. It does not care if you're strong, or kind, or clever. It only knows hunger."
The air seemed to grow heavier with each word, as if the jungle itself was leaning in to listen.
"Your clock starts now. Regroup here in three days."
And with that, the test began.
Naruto didn't wait for the others to move. His eyes found a gap in the trees, narrow and dark, a path only the bold—or the mad—would choose. He stepped into the shadow, his form swallowed by green and gold light.