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When the storm stopped, the world returned to quiet.
Keisuke's consciousness woke from the darkness.
By then, the sea was calm.
He painfully lifted his head.
The sky was a clear, endless blue.
The seawater constantly wore away at his body, constantly pulling away his body temperature.
Having not drunk water for a long time, his lips were purplish-blue, dry, and peeling.
As far as his eyes could see, it was a mess.
Only three rafts remained beside him.
Counting carefully, there were only about twenty survivors huddled together, most of them unconscious.
This was all of them.
From over three hundred comrades to the current twenty-odd people.
Among them, more than half were children and badly wounded people who had lost their ability to fight.
On the sea surface, some pieces of rafts floated, along with some corpses swollen and pale from being soaked in seawater.
It was impossible to tell if they were enemies or comrades.
A young shinobi slowly woke up, staring blankly at everything.
His eyes were empty, and a sad cry suddenly squeezed out of his throat.
"They're all dead..."
"They're all dead!"
He grabbed his head, curling up his entire body, shaking like a leaf.
This cry lit the emotions.
Sobbing, moaning, crying.
A child who had lost his father screamed, about to roll into the sea, but was held tightly by the person next to him.
Keisuke watched all of this, his heart suddenly tightening, the pain making it impossible for him to breathe.
Nagano's final roar still echoed in his ears.
They were the sparks.
But these sparks were now buried in the endless sea, possibly to be put out by the waves at any moment.
How were they to burn?
How should they burn?
He struggled to stand up. His weak body swayed, and he nearly fell.
"All of you, shut up!" Keisuke suddenly screamed wildly, his voice so loud it made his throat hurt.
The cries gradually stopped, and everyone looked up at him.
They were faces covered with tears, confused and helpless.
"Will crying bring Nagano and the others back to life?"
"Will crying kill that bastard Yagura Karatachi?"
Keisuke's eyes were bloodshot, his sharp gaze sweeping over everyone.
"We are the ones who survived! Every one of our lives was bought with the desperate struggles of our comrades!"
"If you want to follow them, jump in now! I won't stop you!"
Keisuke pointed at the struggling young man, his voice cold. "If you don't want to die, then hold on!"
The young man, pointed at and cursed by Keisuke, stopped struggling and lowered his head in shame.
The crying went away.
But a deeper confusion began to cover them.
Yes, they had survived.
And then what?
Food, none.
Freshwater, none.
Medicine, none.
They didn't even know where they were.
"Where... can we go?" a girl asked timidly.
Yes!
Where should they go?
Back to the Land of Water?
That would be killing themselves.
They were a group of abandoned lost souls, meant to drift without purpose on this vast ocean until they rotted.
A shinobi whose thigh was pierced by a kunai spoke bitterly, filled with self-doubt. "The resistance forces... are gone."
Hopelessness spread quickly.
Keisuke's heart also dropped.
No.
It couldn't be like this.
Keisuke forced himself to think.
There must be a way!
That's right!
Mei Terumi!
The name suddenly flashed through Keisuke's mind.
"Mei Terumi!" he blurted out. "Does anyone know the last news of Mei Terumi?"
Everyone looked confused.
Just then, an extremely weak voice spoke up.
"Go... to the Land of Fire."
Everyone looked in the direction of the voice.
It was an old shinobi who had almost become one-armed like Nagano.
He was one of the oldest seniors still alive among their group.
At this moment, his face was as pale as paper, and he looked like he was about to die.
"The Land of Fire?" Keisuke was shocked.
"That's right..." The old shinobi coughed hard, the bloody foam staining his clothes. "Mei Terumi... is in the Land of Fire."
Mei Terumi!
This name, brought up by Keisuke and then confirmed by the old shinobi.
"That's right! Mei Terumi has always been seeking aid outside!"
"I heard Nagano say that the last place she went was the Land of Fire!"
"The Land of Fire! The strongest of the Five Great Nations that defeated Kumogakure! If we can get their protection..."
The hopeless crowd finally grabbed a lifeline, and color reappeared in their gray eyes.
Keisuke's heart also beat hard.
The Land of Fire.
Their daimyo, a man who, by himself, held back thousands of Kumogakure shinobi.
And Mei Terumi!
She was also in the Land of Fire.
"But," Keisuke's excitement quickly cooled. "How are we supposed to get there?"
"On this vast ocean, we can't even tell directions!"
"And... why would the Land of Fire accept us, Kirigakure rogue shinobi?"
The old shinobi shook his head, shaking as he pulled out an oilcloth from his clothes and handed it to Keisuke.
Keisuke opened it. It was a small compass.
Its needle pointed in a certain direction.
"This is... a backup left by Master Genshi back then..." The old shinobi gasped for breath. "It points in the direction of the Land of Fire."
"As for whether the Land of Fire will accept us..."
The old shinobi's gaze fell on Keisuke, his eyes filled with hope, a trust he placed in him. "That's up to you, Keisuke."
"Mei Terumi is our hope."
"But we cannot place all our hope on her alone."
"Remember, asking for help is never as good as helping yourself."
"Once in the Land of Fire, you must use every method to show our value to that legendary man."
"Only if he sees our usefulness will he truly look at us."
The old shinobi's voice grew lower and softer.
"Our value... is our deep hatred for Yagura Karatachi, our understanding of every corner of Kirigakure..."
"We... can be a knife..."
"...that stabs into the heart of the Land of Water..."
After speaking his last words, the old shinobi's hand fell limply, completely losing all signs of life.
Keisuke held the still-warm compass, sadness tightening his fists.
He knelt on the raft, not moving.
For a very, very long time!
Then, facing the old man's corpse, he bowed three times deeply.
When he rose again, he had already raised the compass high, towards the clear blue sky.
"Everyone, use planks, use your hands, use everything you can!"
"Towards this direction!"
"Paddle!"
His voice was no longer colored with confusion, only an iron-like will.
The surviving shinobi silently began to act.
They used broken planks, their scarred hands, to strongly push the seawater.
The raft turned, slowly moving towards the distant direction shown by the compass.
Sadness and tiredness were still marked on everyone's faces.
But in their eyes, something new had appeared.
Hope!