"Eh? You say some… what, Gatō Company?"
The drunk in front of him squinted blearily at Amamiya Kenichi, breath reeking of cheap alcohol.
"Yes," Kenichi repeated, leaning back a little from the smell. "Gatō Company. Where is it based?"
He'd already arrived in the Land of Waves.
What surprised him was that… there was no Gatō office here. No branch, no base, not even a rumor. That threw him off more than he expected.
Don't tell me… he hasn't expanded here yet?
"Never… hic… heard of 'em…" the man mumbled, then flopped face-first onto the table and began snoring.
Kenichi rubbed his forehead.
Right. Timeline.
Naruto had been twelve when he first came to the Land of Waves for that bridge mission. Naruto had just been born recently in Kenichi's current time.
That meant they were more than eleven years away from canon Wave Arc.
Eleven years was easily enough time for landscapes to change and companies to rise or fall.
"I miscalculated," Kenichi sighed.
In a world with no internet, no registries, nothing you could look up in five seconds… just figuring out who the richest guy in a small country was could be a multi-week job.
"Forget it. I'll search and gather intel at the same time."
He pricked the drunk's finger with a fine needle, collecting a small vial of blood before he left.
Might as well farm DNA along the way.
In the distant past—before chakra—this world had supposedly already had "gods" and other strange beings.
Like the so-called "Evil God" Hidan worshipped.
Or the Shinigami tied to the Uzumaki's Reaper Death Seal.
If the world had that kind of weirdness even before chakra, who knew what kind of genetic leftovers were scattered in normal people's bloodlines?
"These plants too…" Kenichi plucked a fruit from a nearby tree.
A man rushed out, face twisted in anger—until Kenichi casually tossed him a few coins. The man's expression flipped instantly into a greasy, flattered smile.
Kenichi briefly considered just throwing the man into a Sharingan genjutsu.
Then he thought of how stupidly overkill that was and let the money do the job instead.
He walked slowly through the streets of the Land of Waves, watching people move under heavy clouds.
No merchants in fine clothes. No shinobi presence. Just fish-smelling villagers in patched outfits, fighting to survive another day.
The kind of poverty that seeped into the wood of the houses and the rhythm of their steps.
This country lived and died by fishing. No ninja village. No famous clans. Just waves, boats, and hunger.
"If I wanted to, I could build my own ninja village here," Kenichi mused. "But… what would be the point?"
Have the locals fish for him? Declare himself the "Kage" of a fishing island?
The Fish Kage of the Hidden Wave Village.
Just thinking it made him want to die of secondhand embarrassment.
They didn't even have their own daimyo. That disappointed him most of all; a daimyo's finances would've made the search way easier.
"Whatever. I'll check the harbor. If there's nothing there…"
He touched his chin thoughtfully.
"…then I'll just go shake cash out of some rich Fire Country nobles instead. Plenty of wallets to pick there."
As it turned out, luck owed him a favor.
He had barely reached the harbor when he saw it: a ship anchored at the docks, with bold letters on the side:
[Gatō Company]
Workers hauled cargo up and down the ramp, while a man on deck shouted orders like he owned the ocean.
"—Careful, you idiots! That shipment is for the big shots in the Land of Water!"
Thunder cracked overhead.
A jagged bolt flashed through the clouds, and one worker flinched so hard he almost dropped the crate. The man on deck exploded in curses.
Kenichi's smile slowly widened.
"So that's you… Gatō."
He stepped forward.
"Gatō?" he called casually.
The man turned, half-annoyed, half-curious—
—and looked straight into a pair of scarlet eyes, three tomoe spinning lazily in each.
Putting an ordinary civilian under Sharingan genjutsu was child's play.
Gatō's mind sank without resistance.
But he was not completely unprotected.
Four figures sprung out from the shadows, landing around Kenichi in a practiced formation.
Bodyguards.
"Water Style: Great Waterfall Technique!"
A torrent roared toward him, a crashing wall of water big enough to sweep a house away.
Kenichi clicked his tongue.
"Why do so many of you shout the jutsu name out loud? Is it a compulsion disorder or what?"
If you could already weave the seals and mold the chakra, why announce your move to the enemy?
"Kenichi," he remembered Orochimaru telling him once, "any shinobi who calls out their jutsu name in battle is usually third-rate. The strong ones cast in silence."
Then he remembered all the times Orochimaru had shouted his own jutsu names in the anime.
"…Yeah. Third-rate confirmed," he thought dryly.
Of course, in reality, that was just so the audience could understand what was going on.
Kenichi clapped his hands together in a seal and slammed them onto the ground.
"Earth Style: Earth Wall."
Stone surged up in front of him, forming a solid wall that took the full brunt of the raging water.
"Someone's killing people!!"
The dockworkers screamed and bolted in every direction. That suited Kenichi just fine.
The fewer witnesses, the fewer "test subjects" he'd have to quietly process later.
Using the brief cover of the water impact, he opened himself up fully to the flow of natural energy.
Black-gold lightning-like markings spread around his eyes.
Sage Mode.
"Good thing it's a stormy day," he murmured, glancing up at the sky.
The thunderclouds above were thick and heavy, flickering with caged lightning. With his three-tomoe Sharingan activated, he could see every detail in sharp clarity—electric veins crawling through the sky.
Mist began to roll in.
Dense, chilly fog spread fast, swallowing ships, dock, and sea alike, until visibility dropped to nearly nothing.
"Hidden Mist Technique, huh?"
Kenichi almost laughed.
Fun fact: mist conducts electricity.
In theory, pure water vapor doesn't conduct. But real-world mist? It's packed with dust, salt, and all kinds of tiny impurities.
Which means: one giant, conductive medium spread neatly across the battlefield.
"Fall…"
Kenichi raised one hand to the storm, feeling the Sage chakra surge through his system, his senses sharpening to an almost painful edge.
"…Thunder Dragon."
Lightning answered.
************
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