The forest floor was uneven, cluttered with roots that looked like gnarled fingers reaching for my ankles. I stumbled, but caught myself. I couldn't fall behind. Not now.
Ahead of me walked Shanks.
He carried Naruto over his shoulder effortlessly, as if the idiot weighed nothing more than a feather. The black cloak Shanks wore—the one that looked like it had been dragged through a dozen battlefields—didn't sway with the wind. It moved with him, a heavy, dark extension of his presence.
I stared at his back.
My Sharingan was deactivated, aching from overuse, but the image of what had just happened was burned into my retina brighter than any flame jutsu.
Orochimaru. The Sannin. A monster from the stories my father used to tell—cautionary tales of rogue ninja who transcended humanity. I had felt his killing intent. It was a cold, slimy thing that wrapped around my throat and squeezed until I saw my own death a thousand times. I had frozen. I, an Uchiha, had been reduced to prey.
And then, he arrived.
Shanks didn't use a jutsu. He didn't weave signs. He didn't summon a giant toad or snake.
He just stood there.
I replayed the moment in my mind. The sword—Gryphon—gleaming black. Not painted black, but turned black. The air cracking. Red lightning that wasn't lightning at all, but pure, condensed domination.
Orochimaru hadn't just retreated. He had fled. He had looked at Shanks and decided that fighting him was a death sentence.
"Sasuke-kun?"
Sakura's voice broke my trance. She was walking beside me, looking pale and shaken. She kept glancing at Shanks too, but her look was one of relief. Mine was... different.
"I'm fine," I muttered, wiping a smudge of dirt from my cheek.
I wasn't fine. I was angry. And I was hungry.
For years, my life had been defined by one goal: Kill Itachi. To do that, I needed power. I thought power meant Ninjutsu. I thought it meant mastering the Sharingan, learning the Chidori, becoming an elite Shinobi of the Leaf.
But watching Shanks... I realized I had been thinking too small.
Shanks didn't have chakra. Kakashi had confirmed it. I had confirmed it with my own eyes. His pathways were empty. By all laws of the ninja world, he should be a civilian. He should be weak.
Yet, he made a Sannin kneel.
How?
I looked at his single arm. The muscle was dense, ropy, scarred. It wasn't the bulky muscle of the Raikage. It was... condensed. Like steel cable wrapped in skin.
Willpower, he had said. Haki.
The power to impose your reality on others. The power to say "I am stronger," and have the universe agree.
If I had that power...
If I could look Itachi in the eye and crush him with just my presence...
"Hey, kid."
Shanks stopped. He didn't turn around.
"You're thinking too loud," he said. His voice was calm, deep. "I can hear the gears grinding."
I stiffened. "I'm just walking."
"You're analyzing," Shanks corrected. He turned his head slightly, looking at me over his shoulder. His red hair fell over his scarred eye. "You're wondering if you can learn what I did back there."
I didn't lie. There was no point lying to him. "Can I?"
Shanks shifted Naruto's weight. "Maybe. But not the way you are now."
"What's wrong with the way I am?" I demanded, my frustration leaking out. "I trained! I learned the moves! I climbed the trees!"
"You're still looking for a weapon," Shanks said. "You think Haki is a sword you pick up. It's not. It's the hand that holds the sword."
He turned fully now, facing me. The forest seemed to darken around him.
"Orochimaru offered you power, didn't he?"
I froze. "How did you..."
"I saw the look in his eyes. He deals in shortcuts. Cursed seals. Genetic experiments. Gifts."
Shanks took a step toward me. I fought the urge to step back.
"Shortcuts are for weak men, Sasuke. They give you power today, but they exact a price tomorrow. They make you a slave to the source."
He tapped his chest, right over his heart.
"My power? It comes from here. It's mine. Nobody gave it to me. Nobody can take it away. And it doesn't run out."
He leaned in close.
"If you want to kill your brother... do it with your own strength. Not a borrowed snake's, and not mine."
He turned back around and kept walking.
"But," he added casually, "if you survive this exam... maybe I'll teach you how to harden that sword of yours. It breaks too easily."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Hardening... Armament Haki. The black armor. The power to cut steel.
I looked at my hands. They were trembling, but not from fear anymore.
I clenched them into fists.
"I will survive," I whispered to his back. "And I will learn it."
We reached the edge of the forest clearing. In the distance, the central tower loomed.
Shanks stopped again.
"Looks like your taxi is here," he said.
Zabuza Momochi stepped out of the shadows of a massive tree. He looked bored, leaning on his executioner's blade. Beside him, the weird doctor in the green jumpsuit was doing squats.
"Captain," Zabuza nodded. "You picked up strays."
"Found them playing with snakes," Shanks said, dumping Naruto onto the grass gently. "The Blonde One needs a medic. His seal is messed up."
"I SHALL EXAMINE HIM WITH THE STETHOSCOPE OF YOUTH!" Dr. Bushy Brow shouted, rushing over to Naruto.
I watched them. A missing-nin, a lunatic doctor, and a pirate Emperor. They were a circus. A joke.
But as I watched Shanks joke with Zabuza, laughing as if he hadn't just stared down a legendary monster... I realized they were the most dangerous group of people on the planet.
And for the first time since the massacre... I felt like I was standing in the shadow of something that could actually protect me.
I'm not going to Orochimaru, I decided, the thought crystallizing in my mind like ice. I'm staying right here.
Because the Snake fears the Emperor.
And I want to be the one who makes them fear.