---
The ship bumped against the old wooden dock with a heavy groan. The journey from the ship to the shore was short, but for the Uzumaki survivors, it felt like walking toward their own graves. They stepped onto the sand one by one, eyes wide, flinching at every distant scream from the burning village.
The beach was littered with bodies. Some wore Uzumaki red. Some wore the grey of Kirigakure. A dead Mist-nin lay face-down in the wet sand, a kunai still in his hand. A Uzumaki woman nearby had fallen clutching a child — both still, both cold. The smell of smoke and blood hung thick in the air.
Honoka covered her mouth. The young boy who had fetched the sake turned away and threw up into a bush.
Indra walked past them all. Bare feet on the blood-soaked sand. He didn't look at the bodies. He didn't look at the burning rooftops in the distance. He just walked until he stood on solid ground, away from the water.
Then he slammed his palm flat on the earth.
A massive cloud of smoke exploded outward — so big it covered the whole beach. The Uzumaki staggered backward, coughing. When the smoke cleared, they screamed.
Manda towered above them. Not rising from the sea — coiled on the land, his scales dark green and wet, his head high above the treeline. His shadow swallowed the beach. One massive yellow eye turned downward, staring at the tiny humans below.
A low hiss rolled across the sand, shaking pebbles loose from the ground.
"What... what is that?!"
"That's not a snake — that's a mountain!"
"Uzumaki save us..."
Honoka grabbed the boy and pulled him back. Two elders fell to their knees. One young kunoichi drew a kunai, her hands trembling so hard she nearly dropped it.
Indra didn't even glance at them. He looked up at the giant serpent.
"Manda. You've grown arrogant after so much time. Is this how you greet your master?"
The huge snake froze. His slit pupils widened.
"What? Who? No... wait... how are you still alive?..."
Manda's voice boomed like a storm. Birds scattered from the forest miles away. Then his whole massive body trembled, and he slammed his head down to the ground. The impact cracked the earth. Sand and stones flew up. A palm tree toppled over.
"...Ah... my tongue slipped! Master! You are here! I was waiting for your arrival!"
The great serpent pressed his chin into the dirt so low that his scales scraped the ground. His tail curled inward, knocking over a small fishing hut like it was made of paper.
Indra walked up Manda's snout and stood on top of his head, arms crossed.
"Better. Now, summon the three snake princesses."
Manda hissed — a long, pleased sound — and three more clouds of smoke erupted on the beach, one after another.
When the smoke cleared, the three princesses lay coiled in the sand. Their scales were deep green, black, and dark blue. Each body was thicker than a house. Their tongues flicked out, tasting the smoke and blood on the wind. Their yellow eyes locked onto the burning village.
All three bowed low, pressing their snouts into the dirt.
"Master, congratulations on your awakening," they said together.
Indra looked down at them from Manda's head. "Good. These Uzumaki freed me again. Today is your lucky day — you get to feast."
The smallest princess, the one with deep blue scales, let out a happy hiss. Her tail wagged once, cracking a large rock in half and sending chips flying into the sea.
Indra glanced back at Honoka and the other survivors, still huddled near the dock.
"Stay here until I call. Or don't. If you die, it's your own fault."
He turned forward. Manda rose higher, and together they moved toward the burning village. The three princesses slithered behind, their huge bellies leaving deep grooves in the sand.
---
Manda's head rose above the rooftops like a bad dream someone forgot to wake up from.
Indra sat cross-legged on top of the great serpent's skull, one hand propping his chin. He watched the battle below with the face of a man bored by a bad play.
"So. The ninja world has grown weak," he muttered. "What are they even doing? Uzumaki people — do they even know how to fight?"
Below, the village was chaos. Buildings burned. Bodies lay in the streets — Uzumaki civilians, mostly. A few Kirigakure ninja moved through the smoke, dragging prisoners, looting homes.
Then one of them looked up.
"Wh-What is that?!"
Manda's shadow fell over the entire street. The great serpent's head lowered, and his jaws opened wide. Hot breath steamed out, stinking of rot and old meat.
Three Kirigakure ninja ran. They didn't make it. Manda's head snapped down, and two of them vanished into his mouth. One crunch. Then another. The third ninja screamed as the tip of Manda's tail slapped him into a stone wall so hard his body burst apart like an overripe fruit.
"Messy," Indra said. "Save some for the princesses."
Manda swallowed. "Apologies, Master."
---
A squad of seven Mist-nin had cornered a group of Uzumaki civilians near a fallen gate. The ninjas' swords were drawn. The civilians were crying — an old woman, two children, a young mother holding a baby.
"Please, don't—" the mother started.
Then a shadow fell over them all.
The Mist-nin turned. Their faces went white.
The blue princess rose behind them, her body blocking out the whole sky. Her tongue flicked out. Her eyes were hungry.
"Wh-What the hell is that?!"
"Run!"
The first ninja didn't even get a step. The princess's jaws opened — wide, wider than a door — and closed over him with a wet crunch. His legs kicked once outside her lips, then went still. She tilted her head back and swallowed.
The second ninja tried to throw a kunai. It bounced off her scales like a toothpick off a wall. Her tail whipped around, caught his waist, and squeezed. His spine snapped with a sound like a dry branch breaking. She tossed him up and caught him in her mouth.
The third and fourth ran in opposite directions. The princess moved fast — faster than something that big should be able to move. She grabbed one in her teeth and the other with her tail, pulling them both in. Their screams mixed together, then stopped at the same time.
The fifth ninja dropped his sword and fell to his knees. Piss ran down his leg.
"Please... please, I have a family..."
The princess ate him anyway.
The sixth and seventh tried to hide behind a cart. The princess knocked the cart aside with her snout and ate both at once. One of them screamed for a full two seconds inside her mouth before the crunch came.
The Uzumaki civilians had pressed themselves against the gate, too scared to move. The old woman was whispering a prayer. The children were crying into her clothes.
The blue princess turned her huge head toward them. Her tongue flicked out, almost touching the baby.
Then she paused. Her eyes shifted upward.
Indra, still sitting on Manda's head, looked down at her. "Those are mine. Find your own."
The princess let out a small, disappointed hiss but slithered away.
The mother burst into sobs. The old woman collapsed to her knees, shaking hard. None of them knew whether to thank Indra or scream at him.
---
Across the village, the second princess had found the enemy's supply tent.
A Cloud jōnin had been guarding the rations. He watched in horror as a thirty-foot snake poked her nose through crates of dried mackerel, her tail wagging like a happy dog's. She tipped a crate over and swallowed half the fish in one gulp.
The jōnin did not move.
Then she noticed him.
He didn't even have time to pull his sword. Her head snapped sideways and caught him between her jaws. His legs kicked twice. Then a sharp crack, and his legs stopped kicking. She tipped her head back and swallowed.
A Chūnin hiding behind a barrel let out a small whimper.
"Can we stop her? Where is Raikage-sama?" he whispered to no one.
"She just ate the jōnin," another voice whispered back. " As they ran from battle forl snake princess.
---
Back on the main street, Indra's two senjutsu clones had finished their work.
One sat on a pile of broken stones, spinning a tiny Rasengan on its fingertip like a toy. At its feet lay a Kirigakure ninja. His chest was hollowed out in a perfect spiral. The body still smoked.
A wounded Mist-nin tried to crawl toward an alley. His leg was crushed, and he left a red trail on the stones. The clone didn't even look. It lazily flicked the spinning ball of chakra. The ball flew, hit the crawling man in the back, and erased his whole body in a burst of wind and red mist. Nothing was left but a wet smear on the ground.
The other clone was calmly wiping blood off its Chidori hand with a torn enemy cloak. Behind it, four bodies lay against a wall. Each had a clean hole through the chest. Their eyes were still open. None of them had seen the strike coming.
A young Mist genin — maybe fourteen — stumbled out of a burning house, clutching his arm. He saw the clone and froze.
"P-Please... I'm just a genin... I didn't..."
The clone looked at him. Then at the bodies. Then at the Rasengan clone.
"Want this one?" the Chidori clone asked.
The Rasengan clone shrugged. "I'm full."
The Chidori clone walked past the boy without a word. The boy collapsed to his knees, crying hard.
Indra, from his seat on Manda's head, watched the whole thing. He didn't stop the clone. He didn't tell it to kill the boy, either.
"Soft," he muttered. But he didn't seem angry.
---
The allied command tent at the docks was in chaos.
Three jōnin commanders stood around a map that no one was reading. The screaming from the upper village had stopped twenty minutes ago. The silence was worse than the screams.
"Report from the east flank?" the Kirigakure commander asked.
"Dead."
"West?"
"Also dead."
"Central square?"
"Giant snakes are eating everyone. Three of them. And there's a man riding the biggest one."
The commander's face went pale. "Are these the summoned beasts of the three immortals?"
"Maybe. Who is the man? Can you identify him"
Before anyone could answer, the tent's roof tore open.
A scaled tail, thick as a tree trunk, dropped through. It wrapped around the Kirigakure commander's ankle. He screamed — a short, sharp sound — and was yanked upward so fast his neck snapped from the force alone. His body shot through the hole in the roof.
For one long second, silence.
Then a wet tearing sound came from above. Something heavy thumped onto the tent canvas — once, twice. A severed arm rolled down the slope of the roof and dropped through the tear. It landed on the map with a wet slap, fingers still twitching.
Blood dripped from the hole, splattering across the map markers.
The two remaining commanders stared at each other. Their faces were grey.
"Let's go kill this man," one said, voice thin as paper.
The other nodded slowly, but his hands were shaking as he drew his blade.
Indra stayed where he was. He watched the smoke rise into the grey sky. Manda snored. The blue princess burped — a wet, gurgling sound — and a broken sword clattered out of her mouth.
"So," Indra said to no one in particular. "This is the world I woke up to."
The ground trembled beneath the massive coils of Manda as five figures descended like thunder upon the ruined plaza. The Five Kage had come—Raikage of Lightning, Mizukage of Mist, Tsuchikage of Stone, Kazekage of Sand, and the hidden shadow of Konohagakure's silent gaze.
Raikage's eyes widened as he stared at a gargantuan serpent coiling above them—and then, to the man standing beside it. Indra wore ancient black armor that gleamed despite the battles. His muscles rippled like mountain stone polished by time.
"Even you," Raikage whispered to himself, flexing, "can't compare to that."
With a lightning-quick step, Indra disappeared, then reappeared directly before Raikage, his fist crashing into the armored chest with bone-shaking force. Raikage stumbled back, stunned — the sheer force was beyond expectation.
A crimson glow flared from Indra's eyes. The tomoe whirled, shredding into the intricate pattern of Mangekyō Sharingan.
"At last..." Indra whispered. "My power... unfolds!let's fight more ! More!!"
Raikage barely breathed before Indra's palm ignited with blue lightning.
Then, the battlefield fractured.
The Tsuchikage summoned massive floating boulders that crashed down like planets, smashing trees and rocks. Simultaneously, Kazekage's iron sand twisted, launching razor-sharp spikes and swirling storms of tiny steel.
Mizukage twisted his hands, calling forth a great poisoned waterfall that hissed malevolently. Poison mist rose to swirl around the battleground.
The Raikage charged, body engulfed in blazing thunder armor.
Then—before any of them could finish their attack—
Indra's Mangekyō flared crimson and twisted.
A sharp, clear pulse exploded—the world staggered.
In a blink, all Five Kage vanished from their attacks—the earth engulfed the places where Indra had stood seconds before.
Suddenly, the five leaders found themselves standing clustered together, trapped precisely where Indra had been.
The boulder crushes buried Mizukage under tons of earth.
Iron sand shredded the Tsuchikage's robes and armor.
The poisoned mist surrounded Kazekage, choking his lungs.
Lightning thunderclaps snapped as it hit Mizukage's face instead of Indra's.
The Raikage collided with a crashing boulder, groaning.
The battlefield was silence—but only a breath before a violent cacophony erupted.
Indra appeared twenty feet away, unscathed and calm, watching the chaos unfold.
"Too slow, too predictable," he said quietly.
The Five Kage rose, anger blazing in their eyes. "Enough."
The Raikage growled and charged again, lightning racing down his body.
At the same moment, the Kazekage's iron sand solidified into giant blades and shields with deadly precision.
Mizukage unleashed water jets infused with poison, hissing as they spread.
Tsuchikage gathered massive gravity stones and hurled them with brutal force.
Sand whirled, cutting and blinding.
Indra's eyes shifted back to normal Sharingan, but his body moved like a storm.
Each time an attack launched, Indra vanished—instant transmission twisting space—and struck from unexpected angles.
His fists crashed hammer-like into Raikage's ribs, breaking thunder armor.
With each blow, Kazekage's defenses shattered, and the poison was shrugged off by Indra's chakra shield.
Water attacks were dodged fluidly, as if the currents obeyed him.
Gravity stones crushed empty ground as Indra dodged with ease.
The battle escalated into an intense fistfight—unyielding, bloody, relentless.
War cries echoed through the destroyed streets, clashing with the crack of bones and the roar of chakra.
Indra's body moved with refined muscle and unbreakable will—each strike and dodge calculated.
The Kage fought desperately, their combined strength pushing him to the edge.
But Indra's instant transmission made them targets of their own jutsu again and again.
The island was stained red—blood mingling with dust, screaming, and the noise of shattered earth.
When the sun began to set and shadows lengthened, the Five Kage lay broken, exhausted, and defeated.
Indra stood unscathed.
"Your old powers are relics," Indra said, voice low and dangerous.
"Now, a new era begins."
The island quieted, but the war cries would echo through history.