The Land of Waves.
A little port town on the coast, where waves smashed themselves to white foam against black rock.
Tōjiki Ishi knelt respectfully on the damp sand, back straight despite the wind, head bowed.
In front of him, an old man with a small, compact frame and a head of white hair floated half a foot above the ground, hands clasped behind his back as he watched the sea.
Literally floated. His toes didn't touch the sand.
"I've had the ships prepared just as you ordered," Tōjiki reported, voice solemn. "We've also sent word ahead to Kirigakure. They'll be expecting you."
The old man didn't turn around.
His sharp eyes tracked the rolling tide, the deep line of his mouth unreadable.
"How generous of them," he said at last, tone almost lazy. "And the vessels?"
"Moored in the south harbor, Tsuchikage-sama. Ready to sail at dawn."
Tōjiki hesitated, then gritted his teeth.
"Forgive my bluntness, Lord Ōnoki, but… you should not be going personally. If this is a trap—if Konoha and Kirigakure have secretly joined hands—the danger is too great!"
The floating old man slowly turned.
A flash of pride gleamed in his eyes.
"Do you take me for a child?" he snorted. "I am Ōnoki of Both Scales."
The short old man hovering in the salty air was, of course, the Third Tsuchikage of Iwagakure—Ōnoki of the Two Scales.
Born before the Warring States era had even ended, more than sixty years alive, he was practically a walking fossil in the shinobi world—a piece of history that still moved and spoke and crushed mountains.
Say the name "Ōnoki" to the other Kage and their first reactions were always the same:
Cunning. Treacherous. Calculating. Venomous.
But under the scheming, there was the part that truly made them wary:
Dust Release.
The bloodline elimination unique to Iwagakure—praised as a power beyond ordinary bloodline limits.
And Ōnoki's mastery of Dust Release surpassed even that of his predecessor. His control was cleaner. His killing power, heavier.
On top of that, he was one of the very few shinobi alive who could fly.
A man who fought from the sky was a natural disaster to those chained to the earth—a walking, floating "dimensionality reduction" strike.
Even the fearsome Third Raikage, one of the strongest shinobi of the current era, had to give Ōnoki three parts respect when they clashed.
"Just a Mizukage and a Hokage," Ōnoki scoffed. "So what if they join forces?"
He folded his arms over his chest, chin tilting up.
"In my eyes, they're still just two snot-nosed brats."
Seeing he couldn't talk him out of it, Tōjiki could only bow his head.
"Yes, Lord Ōnoki… Then at least, please be careful. You're the pillar of Iwagakure."
"Yeah, yeah, I've heard it," Ōnoki waved him off impatiently. "Don't bother me while I'm watching the sea. Tell the captain we sail tomorrow."
"Yes, Tsuchikage-sama!"
Tōjiki rose and withdrew, footsteps light over the sand.
Ōnoki watched the sun sink, the orange disc bleeding slowly into the line of the sea.
"Shame," he muttered. "You only get a view like this in the Land of Water."
His mind flicked briefly to the Land of Earth—endless mountains, stone on stone on stone. He'd been looking at rock for decades. He was tired of it. Compared to that, Water's coasts were a rare, gentle blessing.
Unfortunately, even the most beautiful views were just that: a brief moment. A wave, and gone.
Ōnoki let out a small sigh and drifted back toward the town, hands still clasped behind him.
He flew slowly, like an elderly god taking an evening stroll through the air.
He'd decided to stay in this seaside inn overnight. Easier to enjoy the night sky. Easier to leave at dawn.
Back in his room, he floated around once, taking in the sparse furnishings and freshly swept floorboards.
"Not bad," he nodded. "Tōjiki picked a decent place. Clean."
As he turned, something in the corner caught his eye.
Half-buried in a pile of old junk, a dusty oil lamp with a yellowed shell lay on its side, forgotten.
It tugged at his attention.
As if pulled by a thin thread, Ōnoki drifted over and stooped to pick it up.
The lamp was old. Very old. Rust mottled almost every inch of its surface, but beneath the flaking iron he could just make out faint, twisting symbols carved into the metal.
The rust hid their full shape, but the hint alone was enough to stir his curiosity.
"Oh?" Ōnoki turned it in his hands, eyes narrowing in interest.
He'd always had a weakness for antiques, little relics of the past.
"This thing has at least a hundred years in it," he chuckled. "Interesting. Very interesting."
Satisfied, he set the oil lamp on the table.
Fffump.
Without warning, the lamp lit.
A pale cyan flame sprang up along the wick, burning without smoke, casting the room in an eerie green-blue glow.
"Mm?"
A wave of drowsiness hit him like a blanket.
Ōnoki rubbed his eyes.
"Strange… I'm more tired than I thought today."
Weariness crept up his spine—heavy, irresistible. He shook his head once, blamed his age, and decided to simply lie down for a short nap.
The moment he closed his eyes, darkness rushed up to meet him.
Black mist soaked into the edges of his vision, spreading like ink dropped in water. Whisper-thin murmurs lapped at his ears—faint, half-real, like the sea heard through a wall.
Weightless, his thoughts drifted.
His mind felt like a balloon bobbing on an endless ocean.
By the time Ōnoki's awareness snapped back into focus, he was standing.
Not in his inn.
Not anywhere that could possibly exist in the real world.
A colossal cathedral rose around him.
Its soaring pillars, its vast walls, its vaulted ceiling—everything was built from bones. White, yellowed, densely layered bones. The dome overhead was studded with skulls arranged in clusters, empty sockets staring down at him from a thousand angles.
The cathedral walls were lined with tall, stained-glass-like panes. But instead of colors, each pane bulged outward with a human face pressed against it from the other side—twisted, warped, silently screaming as they strained to push through.
Directly in front of him stood a long bronze table, scarred and ancient.
On the far side of it sat a figure wreathed in pale light.
It didn't have a single face. It had many.
Shadow after shadow, silhouette after silhouette, layered atop one another until they blurred into one presence, like countless people overlapping in the same chair.
Behind that presence loomed a massive white bone crucifix, its limbs spread wide, bleeding a suffocating, indescribable sense of wrongness into the air.
Ōnoki shuddered once, instincts shrieking.
"Who are you?!" he barked, wariness sharpening his voice.
He didn't know why, but the longer he looked at that layered, radiant figure, the stronger a very old, very primal fear stirred inside him.
His gaze lowered on its own.
Some quiet, sensible part of his soul whispered: Do not look directly.
"Just a spectator," the figure replied lightly.
The voice was calm, almost lazy.
A young man's outline shimmered into steadier focus for a moment—lean frame, dark hair, hands loosely laced together over his lap as he reclined in the chair.
"A spectator," he repeated. "Watching the flow of history. And what's still to come."
Uchiha Sogetsu.
He sat as if he'd been there forever, back resting against the spine of the chair, legs relaxed. His tone was so casual, it almost felt like the two of them had simply bumped into each other in a teahouse.
Spirit Vision slid quietly into place behind his eyes.
Through Ōnoki's outer "mind-phantom," Sogetsu looked deeper—into the starry structure of his soul.
Heavy, dense color. A few flares of sharp emotion. Tight strands of anxiety threaded through, with a faint flicker of fear humming at the core.
Fear wasn't surprising.
This was the Corpse Cathedral he'd built in the dream—no true kingdom of god, but it echoed one. Three parts imitation, one part threat.
Even a Kage-level veteran like Ōnoki, when first confronted with something that outright violated his understanding of reality, would feel fear.
Perfectly human.
"Spectator…" Ōnoki frowned, tasting the word.
Something about it rang wrong. It felt like the surface of a deeper meaning, like a stone hiding an abyss.
His experience kicked in.
Quietly, without changing his expression, Ōnoki tested the boundaries—probing, pushing, trying to leave this place the way he would break a genjutsu.
Disrupt the chakra flow. Twist it sideways. Force your mind back.
Nothing.
His chakra surged and stilled exactly as he commanded. But the cathedral did not ripple. The dream did not fracture. This wasn't illusion-space. Chakra wouldn't cut it.
It wasn't genjutsu.
Realizing that, his caution spiked.
This was worse than a stranger's Mangekyō. Worse than any enemy sealing technique he knew.
All the more reason not to thrash blindly.
Until he understood what this "spectator" was—what it wanted—he would not make the first reckless move.
In a negotiation you didn't go loud. You went still.
Ōnoki carefully chose his words.
"Then, Spectator," he said slowly, "for what purpose have you brought me here?"
Sogetsu shook his head slightly.
"You seem to be misunderstanding something, Ōnoki of the Two Scales."
His tone was cool, almost bored.
"I didn't bring you here. Fate did. You were… guided, let's say, to break into my god-country."
His smile sharpened just a fraction.
"And now we should talk about what that costs."
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