Weight of the Maelstrom.
Chapter 2: The Empty Island
Itsuki Uzumaki.
There was something strange about feeling things again after so long.
I was still unsure how much time had passed while we were sealed inside that place. Part of me wasn’t sure I even wanted to know. At least, not yet. I wasn’t sure if I could handle that knowledge right now.
However long I had spent in that suffocating space, unable to move or even rest, I had shared my consciousness with the last members of my clan. I had gotten used to it. To the constant, loud, sometimes smothering waves of their feelings crashing against my psyche.
Rage, despair, fading hope. It felt like it was the only thing I knew. The silence inside my head felt worse than anything that we saw inside the seal.
They had been my only company. And now, they were gone.
They had surrendered their very essence in a ritual that probably hadn’t been performed in the history of the elemental nations.
Calling upon the Gods was something we did not do that often. We had multiple masks created for different deities to use as catalysts, but as Kirokukami had proven, there was always a terrible price to pay.
Obviously, I didn’t know the exact mechanics. I wasn’t sure if all the elders even knew them. The dangers those jutsu represented were things a normal shinobi would never risk. The only reason I knew about them at all was my friendship with Kiyoshi.
The thought of her made me open my eyes and stare at the sky, my heart broken.
Kiyoshi. My best friend. The girl I dreamed of standing beside until we had a pair of brats to call our own.
And these ashes were everything I had left of her. I didn’t even notice when I had moved from where I woke up, my hands desperately trying to gather her ashes through blurry eyes.
The tears felt strange after probably decades of being unable to cry. The wetness on my cheeks was the only thing assuring me that this was real and not a nightmare.
They were all gone. And I didn’t know if I would be strong enough to do what they asked of me.
Feeling the tears dry, I looked up at the moon that had somehow appeared above me. I chuckled bitterly, shaking my head. My sense of time was genuinely fucked, and I wondered how long it would take to return to normal, if it ever would.
With a sharp smack to my cheeks, I broke out of my spiraling depression. Rapidly, I formed the eleven hand seals needed to pull four earth domes over each pile of ashes. I refused to leave them exposed to the wind, even if their essence was now a part of me.
They deserved to rest in peace, somewhere their remains wouldn’t be tainted by scavengers. Or worse.
The Earth Release: Practice Brick technique simply manipulated the dirt below us. It was cheap, costing barely any chakra, and almost every academy student in Uzushio had it in their repertoire.
I smiled sadly for a moment.
Then my eyes widened before looking down at my stomach, only to feel nauseous at what remained. The gaping, fatal wound was gone, but I would forever carry the thick, jagged scar tissue stretching horizontally across my navel. It would heal better eventually. I was an Uzumaki after all, but for now, it looked raw.
My fingers trembled as I traced it. Then I shook my head.
Straightening my spine and putting on my ninja face, my legs buckled from lack of use, but I couldn’t help laughing as I noticed the undeniable mark the ritual had left on my body.
My body was overflowing with energy.
I was used to having more chakra than I knew what to do with, but this time, it felt exponential.
Mashiro-sama, albeit not so willingly, had surrendered his vitality to Kirokukami. I couldn’t be sure if his reserves were simply added to mine, but I doubted that’s what the God had done.
It felt more like his life force shattered my natural limits and expanded my maximum potential far beyond what a normal Uzumaki could hold.
Not that I knew how gods actually worked.
Looking around at the ruined estate, I sighed and nodded to myself. It was time to get to work. I could focus on the changes after I did what I needed to do.
Walking into what was left of the Patriarch’s office, my lips twitched as I looked at a chamber pot sitting perfectly still among the rubble. Obviously, the mooks and even ANBU ignored where the old man supposedly took his dumps.
It would be funny later, but for now, I could only be thankful that the rest of the world didn’t understand the sheer depth of our clan's paranoia.
I bit down on my thumb, piercing the skin until it broke, and pressed it hard against the ceramic rim.
The seal recognized me instantly. The floor opened, and Kiyoshi’s father’s personal training chambers saw their first visitor in who knows how long. Again, it was only thanks to Kiyoshi that my blood signature had been added to the small group allowed to bypass the estate's internal barriers.
Considering how much time we passed inside these walls, it made sense that the old man didn’t want to be bothered every time we wanted to train.
Seeing the training ground looking exactly like the last time I visited, I smiled at the rush of memories. This was the exact spot where Kiyoshi had first impaled me with her chakra chains after getting angry at my teasing.
She was a violent brat who liked to act as a princess, but she was my best friend.
I missed her so fucking much.
Walking slowly down the steps, I grinned, shook my head, and chuckled at the different memories that passed by. I remembered the short sealing lessons from the old man when he had time. The late-night training sessions with Kiyoshi before her mother would interrupt with treats to force us to cool down. The massive assortment of weapons and sealing supplies we used in our wild attempts to invent something new.
The best parts of my childhood happened inside this room.
And it was an honest gold mine for my situation. It had been left untouched. Believe me, there were a lot of things in this place.
I stripped the chamber bare. Storage scrolls swallowed everything that had survived the years sealed: jars of conductive chakra ink, bundles of ninja wire, kunai and shuriken by the rack, Fuma shuriken, senbon, the kind of tanto and chokuto that the old man only let us touch when our hands were clean and not greasy from the queen's cooking. Quality I hadn’t seen since before the attack. Empty scrolls went into the master scroll, and that went into my pouch. By the time I reached the last rack of kunai, the walls of the most secure room in Kiyoshi’s estate shone bare.
Then a single drop of blood fell from my still unhealed thumb. It hit a plain stone tile near the back wall.
And my blood disappeared inside.
A violent crimson light flared from the floor, illuminating the room with glowing kanji that made the chamber pot protections look like a child made them.
And a secondary set of stairs formed deeper underground.
I stared at the glowing letters in absolute shock. I shouldn't have been able to open this.
I didn’t even know this place existed, and I sure as fuck didn’t guess how to open the seals that the patriarch or someone even older put in here. It couldn’t be my bloodline, because I wasn’t a direct descendant like Kiyoshi.
Like Kiyoshi... Then I remembered the golden drop of blood that fused with my own. The last thing she did before apologizing for not being stronger was teasing me that her blood was purer than mine.
I carried Kiyoshi’s blood now. The purest line we ever had, and the rightful leaders of the clan.
I walked down the hidden steps. And I swallowed a gasp at what I saw. The main branch treasury.
I stood there for a long moment before I understood what I was actually looking at.
She was still helping me. After everything, after the ritual, after her last fucking apology, she was still handing me what I needed.
Stacks of Ryo notes sat perfectly preserved in glass cases. Heavy bars of solid gold, precious gems, and a massive crate filled with raw chakra metal. A fortune large enough to fund a small war or two, in fact.
I didn't hesitate, pulling out my master storage scroll and sealed absolutely everything inside it.
I hoped the old man would forgive me when we met in the pure land. Then I chuckled, already knowing that he would greet me with open arms no matter if I succeeded or not.
Crazy old fucker, I thought amusedly with a hint of pride at knowing him. It took three Jinchuriki to take him down. And the bastards had to get tricky because they were scared of him.
I pulled four high-grade ceramic ink pots from the master storage seal and carried them outside. The contents hit the floor as I looked as neutrally as I could. A waste of something precious for an Uzumaki, but the loss didn't even register in my mind. I washed each pot until it was spotless, transferred the ashes in, and painted the names across the containers.
I needed proper gear. But it wasn't all doom and gloom because the training ground had specialized combat uniforms.
I discarded my ruined clothes, put on black cargo pants and a dark, long-sleeved shirt, then strapped on a heavy, pitch-black armored vest modeled after the standard ANBU gear, but more durable. The bright red crest of the whirlpool was painted across the back. I holstered my kunai and strapped my supplies to my waist.
I covered everything with a cloak.
Before leaving the armory, I grabbed a thick silver chain from the treasury. It was strong enough to act as a weapon in a pinch, but small enough to wear around my neck.
I sat down on the floor and closed my eyes, focusing on the mental library Kirokukami had forcefully installed in my head.
The massive iron vault door loomed in my mind, covered in glowing red kanji. I marveled at the sheer quantity of knowledge I could feel radiating behind it. It was infinitely more than I had expected. If Takara-sama had known half this much, she wouldn’t have lost an arm against the dwarf.
It had everything I could think of. From the weakest of the lot, things I already knew and others I never heard about, to the deeper ones farther back, more complicated than anything I had ever seen.
Not even the seals covering the training ground or the treasury felt as complicated as some of the ones I had here.
I mentally reached out and grasped the simplest spatial storage formula I could find.
And it was different from the one I knew by memory. It was much, much simpler. Basic to the point that you wouldn’t be able to hold more than ten pounds or so. Which was more than sufficient for what I had in mind.
Channeling my chakra into the high-quality ink, my brush painted the small array directly onto the silver links of the chain. It took me around four minutes, and surprisingly enough, I felt it click with a final push of chakra.
I had never gotten a seal, no matter how simple, on my first attempt. The four ink pots were consumed by the seal, and I smiled sadly. At least this way, I could ensure that no one would ever bother them anymore.
I clasped the chain around my neck.
Then curiosity got the better of me. Or perhaps the success made me too confident.
Closing my eyes once more, I dived back into the mental void. I ‘saw’ my body standing near the metallic wall and pushed. The first attempt was successful, seeing a bunch of different seals that I could call for.
Simple ones, like the storage one I just finished. But I wanted more. I wanted something that would help me as soon as I left the island.
I pushed harder, wanting to see more. Peering through the cracks, I looked past the basic formulas into the depths of what I had available.
And it was terrifying. Ancient, clearly non-Kanji-based seals flashed before my mind’s eye.
A language I couldn’t understand, but felt the absurdly overpowered results if I ever managed to create them.
Barriers that could trap things reminded me of the tailed beasts, seals that would have turned back time and allowed me to interact with the world, seals that would make gravity my bitch, and many more.
But that wouldn’t work for me. I didn’t have a single idea how to even start writing those, and obviously, not even the ink I had taken was powerful enough to create them.
I looked back a bit because I was getting a headache, and I noticed something curious.
A seal called the Yin Seal. Wasn’t that the jutsu the traitorous hag used to store the funneled chakra of the nine tails?
Excitement flooded my veins. My arm stretched to ‘pull’ the knowledge to me. There would be nothing better than to show the Leaf how much better an Uzumaki was at using the jutsu Mito called her own.
And I pulled harder, seeing how to start writing it.
Before something unexpected happened. A spike of pure agony drove straight from my brain toward my whole body. It wasn’t a mere headache. It felt like I was getting stabbed repeatedly by someone with a white-hot knife before rubbing my brain directly with some kind of acid.
I let go of the knowledge, and it retreated back into where it used to be.
What didn't retreat was the fucking pain behind my eyes. My lungs felt empty, and they refused to expand inside my chest.
Falling onto the stone floor, I couldn’t even move my arms to lessen the impact. The world was spinning in front of me.
And a thick, hot drop of liquid splashed in front of me. Directly onto the floor.
As red as my hair, blood started flowing out of my body in copious amounts. The burning crawled up the inside of my skull until everything behind my eyes felt like it was melting.
At least until my vision narrowed into a tiny, dark point.
And I felt myself closing my eyes until I knew no more.
One day later.
Itsuki Uzumaki.
Fuck Kirokukami's entire bloodline with a rusty knife if it were possible.
My brain throbbed inside my skull, and my eyes were blurry after waking up.
The sun was up, so at least that was good. Navigating through the whirlpools at night was just asking for death, even for me. It felt like forever since I last did so, but it was one of those things you never forget because your life depended on it.
Which was a bit too literal in this case.
My hand snapped toward my neck. I breathed a sigh of relief, feeling the chain firmly pressed against my skin.
Groaning, I stood up, my knees wobbling for a second before my gaze cleared.
Kirokukami had said I would have to earn it. I just didn’t expect to be physically reminded that I wasn’t ready for some knowledge yet. I didn’t even know what I needed to change to access it.
My stomach burned, and it wasn’t until that moment that I realized how parched my throat felt.
Fuck. I needed to leave. And soon. I didn’t trust any of the water available here, and I was terrible with water jutsu.
I just needed to decide where to go.
Walking toward the old man's office, I smiled tightly, seeing the map of the elemental nations still pinned to his table. I believed the elders used it often when they reunited here rather than in the official chambers.
Which was pretty common during the last couple of months before the attack. Everyone knew a war was brewing.
The closest landmass was the Mist. But those fuckers always gave me the creeps. And they had been one of the three main attackers here. I didn’t know if I could control myself enough not to slit their throats if I ever saw them.
They were out.
Cloud was the same. I simply couldn’t.
And Earth. No. I would get myself killed for calling Onoki a dwarf the very first time I saw him. I had zero respect for the stone fucker after seeing him blindside Takara-sama while she was busy hiding us.
All that was left was Wave. The Land of Waves was small. It was close to Konoha, which I wasn’t exactly happy about, but the Leaf didn’t care much for places outside the Land of Fire.
And I doubted Orochimaru or the blank-masked ANBU traveled to such small place.
At least until I decided what my next move would be, that should be the most secure place for someone like me. They didn’t even have their own hidden village. They used to have a good relationship with us, given that we were a fishing territory and all that.
I could work with that.
With my next move planned, I nodded to myself. Checking I had everything valuable secured, I bowed sharply in the direction of the ruined village.
The hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up. It felt like someone was watching me.
But there was no one apart from me in Uzushio.
It was subtle, almost creepy. And I knew who it belonged to. Because of how vast the pressure on my shoulders was. I finished my bow in silence, feeling the metaphysical weight of my clan's souls resting alongside the divine gaze.
Kirokukami wanted me to remember why I was alive.
The God of Knowledge. The observer, some called. Others, the Scribe.
He had admitted how amusing mortals were to his kind, and he even said that it was the main reason why he decided to waive the missing part of the ritual.
I was his investment. For whatever was coming in the future.
The ruins of the village disappeared behind me as I began to run at a sedate pace, carefully managing my newly adjusted body as I headed for the coast.
Investment? Entertainment? I didn’t care. He gave me a second chance, and I would not squander it.
So what if he watched? He would get his fun, and I would make sure I was ready for whatever the future held.
He and everyone else would know why exactly the Uzumaki struck fear into the world.