Prologue: Maw of the Spiral

There was something off about this place. He had been chewing on this thought for hours now. Tenzen Daikoku wasn't normally a man to dwell on things; his occupation, both as a politician and a crime lord, had carved away such useless habits, but this place unnerved him, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Maybe it was walking on a bad leg; his calf had been cut when boarding the boat, a result of a fool being too careless and joking around while loading supplies. Originally, four had set out on this journey, but after that stunt, only three made it to the destination. Not that it mattered much; his wage was worth more than his life as far as Tenzen was concerned. Still, when he finally gets some time alone, he should look at it.

The village of Amphawa was well known in the Land of Waves as a forgotten relic from the Warring States period. A bunch of fishermen and their families had cobbled together dozens of houseboats and floating markets, all interconnected by piers or tiny bridges. The Mae Klong lake was by far the biggest in the whole Land of Water; no doubt more primitive people would have thought it an ocean. They were safe here, away from warring ninjas and their clans, living off the lake in peace.

The people of Amphawa had been known by the locals for selling fish; they knew all the best spots, breeding grounds, and baits to use, even down to the time of day for certain species. They had it all mapped out. For a small, little collection of poor fishermen trying to escape being collateral damage in ninja battles, they had made quite a name for themselves in the surrounding communities.

Then one day, they just disappeared.

After a few days of silence at markets all across the region, a collection of farmers and merchants took to the water to see what happened. What they saw was about what he was seeing now, except aged by decades. There were no signs of struggle, no imprints of battle or natural disaster. They had simply vanished, leaving only their possessions and an unsolvable mystery behind.

Unsurprisingly, this seemingly abandoned village of wood at the center of a vast lake was rumored to be haunted by locals, and their ghost stories cried in his mind, desperately trying to warn him of something and telling him to flee. Ridiculous, letting his nerves run wild for the first time in years. Tenzen turned to the people behind him.

His bodyguard was built thick with muscles, proudly displayed, but short on everything else. Mushi was the newest recruit of his, and a rising star at that. He was crouched beside the big man on the floor, the bodyguard's arms bigger than his thighs, palms held to his forehead.

"Great, you're coming down with something," Mushi stated coldly. "This is why we don't drink lake water." He was referring to the argument they had had the previous night when they were camping along the shoreline. They had arrived a bit too late and had decided to wait for today's sun before going out on the lake. People in the cities don't know what true darkness is. It was out in the woods on a moonless night, when you can't even see your own fingers held in front of your face.

"Shut up, rookie!" The brute bellowed. His face was unusually pink today. "I've swum in these waters for years; a little sip has never hurt before."

Mushi looked more annoyed than concerned. "So, if I keep throwing kunai at you and missing, then it's a safe thing to do, right?"

"Try that, and you're dead meat." His breathing sounded harsher than normal.

"Enough, you two!" Daikoku yelled. "You bicker like my women. Mushi!" He focused on the youngest one there. "We've been here for hours, and still nothing. Where are all the weapons?"

Mushi held up a finger, almost like a stern teacher talking down to a stubborn student. "I never said anything of the sort. All I said was that there were sightings of Gato's men, with weapons, moving on the lake. The men I sent to check on this area of the lake never came back; that is what I said."

"Watch that tone, boy," Tenzen warned, but he did not argue the point. He looked around them, stroking his cedar beard with absent thought. The sound of the lake lapping against wooden pillars was a constant backdrop, almost relaxing; the only thing stopping this place from being a tourist trap was the locals' ardent stories of crying voices and sinister silhouettes coupled with inhuman growling. It was almost enough to distract from the wood creaking under their weight as they went about their search.

They hadn't covered every inch of this village, but they had been close enough. Now they were on one of the bigger houseboats, sporting a wide deck under a canopy of straw. It was already sunset; their morning departure had been delayed by a thunderstorm, and it had lasted a good chunk of the day. At least it hadn't been a full day's delay, he supposed. A splash caught his attention, like a heavy brick tossed from a roof; his head subtly jerked towards the sound: a ripple on the lake.

"Well great." He played his anxiety off well. "Those reports made it sound like everything was moving during the night. Alright, we'll camp here for the night and be on the lookout for Gato's boys. We see anyone, and they die. If nothing happens, we go back in the morning."

Daikoku looked at his supposed protector. "Alright, dummy, you're on lookout duty tonight; try not to drink any more lake water; we have supplies for a reason." The buff man accepted the assignment with concealed bitterness.

Mushi stood, adjusting his circular classes. "I'll do it. He's already got a bit of a fever going; on the off chance something does happen tonight, I'd rather our muscle have some rest ahead of the battle."

Tenzen thought for a second, then shrugged his shoulders. "Whatever, knock yourself out. We'll make this the sleeping spot." He turned to the brute. "Come help with the supplies." The bodyguard heaved himself to his feet with a grunt, towering over them by more than a head. Mushi's elders both moved across an adjacent pier, heading towards their boat.

He followed his instructions dutifully. The sun was swallowed by the horizon within an hour of the conversation, and the two of them were fast asleep within the following hours, but he stood his watch. With a small flashlight, he slipped between dilapidated merchant stands and explored the rotten innards of homes left to the elements. Sure enough, just as the stories say, there was nothing to suggest any kind of struggle or even a rush. It was like the whole village just collectively decided to move one day and leave all their possessions behind. Throughout his search, only one thing stood out to him.

It was in one of the market shops, more like a conventional store than the numerous stands that seemed to be the standard. The door had been so rotten that it fell off the hinges the second he pushed it. Broken class crunched under his heel; dust fluttered about the space like ghosts haunting their earthly prison. It was so dark that only what the flashlight aimed toward existed; everything else was little more than one homogeneous smear of black. Shelves were empty or broken on the floor, along with a bunch of other rotten substances that may have once been goods for sale. As he moved the light around, Mushi spotted movement on the countertop. He walked toward it without fear.

A centipede, a dozen fidgeting needles for legs animated in perpetual motion. The thing was trying to eat its own tail, like an ouroboros from ancient myth. What odd behavior. For two minutes straight, it did this, not even stopping when Mushi nudged it with a bare finger. He went so far as to pick it up by the hind legs, but the insect kept aiming for its hind. The instant it was put back down, it resumed without delay. Thin, little scratches were the imprints of its movements, suggesting it had been at it for some time.

Something about this triggered a thought. He turned back around to the door, aiming his light through one of the holes that used to be a window, the beam cloudy with dust. This store, this village—could it be tainted by a lingering nimbus?

A nimbus was a chakra's fingerprint, carved into the physical world. Not all shinobi possess one; in fact, the few that do are almost always ninja or sages of great renown. To have a nimbus, vast quantities of chakra was not enough; one also had to have an extremely strong affinity for something. Once both things are achieved, a nimbus will slowly develop naturally. Though some ninjas could, in theory, train it like a muscle, there isn't normally much benefit to that.

In the line of five Hokages, only the first two actually had nimbuses. The first Hokage was renowned the world over as a shinobi god. Wherever he cast jutsu, life spread, flowers bloomed, and fertility swelled in humans and animals alike; birth rates rose in all mammals, and seedlings matured in hours instead of weeks or months. The second Hokage was a master of water; in the areas surrounding his battles, cloth became soaked despite being far away from any physical effects, and puddles would appear indoors, while those too close with weaker constitutions choked on phantom water. Nimbuses weren't just limited to elemental affinities, either. The current Inuzuka clan head was said to have phantom wolves stalking the periphery, while the Hyuga head radiated this distracting sense of exposure, causing people around him to feel naked and emotionally vulnerable.

This area, maybe it was tainted with a lingering nimbus. If true, then that would mean it had been recent, or whoever had cast whatever jutsu had used so much chakra that it was still imprinted on this village to this day. If he was right, he wondered how that would connect to the disappearances of long ago.

With plenty to think about now, Mushi took a seat, feet dangling off the second-floor balcony he found himself on. For the rest of the night, he stood his watch.

Tenzen Daikoku's castle was a gaudy structure in the middle of a forest, built for the purpose of being flamboyant in its grandeur rather than practical defense. This impracticality was why the taller-than-trees spire needed constant protection from his hundreds of mercenaries, day and night, who also doubled as personal bodyguards, professional 'fixers', and even day-to-day maintenance workers. So long as he paid them, they would do anything he asked, no matter how unsavory or mundane.

A woman stood at the crown of the gate outside, seemingly confident enough that these people wouldn't notice her in time. Sharpening her senses, she could hear the frequency of their chakra; all things possess it, even if they don't train in the ninja arts, even animals. There, within this building, are a couple hundred dull, broken notes of stangled harmony—improperly tuned instruments trying to play above their weight class.

Her husband's mark spread across her body, writhing ink forming swirling lines like living tattoos slithering across fair skin. She could feel his chakra flood her pathways. It was so different from hers; there was no fine tuning of this chakra; it was too thick, too heavy, and too dense. She felt several pounds heavier with it coursing through her system, but it wasn't uncomfortable; in fact, it was warm and comforting, as if his spirit was embracing hers.

She carried a large flute made of burnished wood, deceptively simple in appearance but no less beautiful in design. Her normal methods weren't the most optimal for this type of fight, so she was going to go with a more direct approach. The flute is raised, fingers positioned along its length like spiders' legs ready to crawl.

Wetting her lips, she kisses the lip plate.

The sound did not deserve the title music.

It was a mangled noise magnified with chakra ten thousand times over into an auditory hellscape. Radial waves of sonic energy blasted through the courtyard in under a second. Two guards became smears across annihilated wood and stone. Her fingers quickly adjusted, and she breathed again. Sonic blasts pulped nearby dirt and trees. The world's crust cracked, and the building shook as obliterated walls caved in and windows shattered.

Inside, hapless mooks groaned in pain. From their perspective, it wasn't just a series of explosives; for a few seconds, the whole world became nothing but screaming tinnitus and destructive shockwaves that knocked air from lungs and pulverized anything too close. Even those not hit directly had armor and weapons ripped clean apart or were shocked into bloody comas. Many had ruptured eyeballs or were too nauseous to even see, but some had enough mind to see the woman at their gate. Her long red hair was whipping in the wind as she played the melody of an apocalypse.

Her fingers adjusted again. A cacophonous shock ripped a path of annihilation through whatever stood in its way, mulching wood, shattering stone, bursting skulls, and spitting blood vessels. The castle caved in on itself, the damage too severe to stand defiant. Thick plumes of dust and dirt smothered gouts of fire.

Even the sound of a falling castle seemed like a whisper in comparison to her melody.

Standing on the top of the most stable roof he could find, Mushi raised his hand. A flying beetle the size of his hand was released, carrying with it a scroll clutched in its thin legs. As it flew past the horizon's line, he turned towards their boat. The morning was fresh and pink, the sun halfway to its throne. Sure enough, nothing had happened last night—not a single light or sound out of place. This farce was really starting to wear on his nerves.

Tenzen's screaming voice echoed throughout the village. "Mushi!" He screamed again, several times more. Unusually quick, Mushi jumped off the roof, landing on the dock, the weathered wood groaning under the strain. He was a smear across the village, arms angled to his back, darting between buildings, jumping gaps over water, and scaling buildings with single jumps.

"Sir!" He called out as he closed the distance. Dressed in a white robe, he was flung outside of his sleeping bag, supporting his weight with his forearms. He turned towards his approaching servant, fearful anger etched into the wrinkles of his face.

"You! Where the hell were you? You were supposed to watch over us!" He screamed, spitting everywhere. Mushi calmly disregarded the indignation. He wasn't going to bother with the hysterical fool. He walked up the three steps to the dock.

Well, that explained the screaming.

Their supposed bodyguard had obviously deteriorated over the night. His angular face was gaunt and sunken in, the flesh hanging in a disturbing mixture of age and emaciation, just like his once thickly muscled arms and neck. His expression was what haunted the men: pallid lips slightly agape in an eternal scream, thin brows raised, hollowed eyelids wide with horror; the bodyguard stared up at the sky, unable to move, rigidly clutching his sleeping bag in terror.

Fear was etched into every twisted crevice of the man's face—every wrinkle and every outline of bone gave an inkling of his last moments. Only his eyes were alive, bloodshot and irritated as they were. They had sunk deep into his aged skull and looked to be only a fraction of their original size, but somehow they still reflected a light that had since passed. It was as if he were still in this husk, waiting for help. Maybe, Mushi wondered with morbid thought, he was still suffering in his dreams, unaware of his own passing.

Mush gently placed fingers upon his neck, confirming to himself what they already knew. He saw a mark towards the back of his neck, and his breath stalled. A spiral scar of nine dimensions, like a fresh burn, carved into his tan flesh.

"Get me out of here!" Tenzen scrambled to his feet, gripped by a fierce panic attack. "Now! Now!" He stumbled to the floor, groaning in pain and clutching his leg. The edge of the cloth had ridden up enough to reveal the gash on his calf caused by what had been their fourth member yesterday. The whole leg was an infectious red, and the actual wound was black with weeping blood and other fluids.

Mushi was stumped. Even if the wound had been infected, it shouldn't be fully necrotic so soon, nor should it be draining that much. "What the hell?" he muttered under his breath.

"Are you deaf? Get me out of here now!" He demanded it again. Mushi cursed but complied. Supporting his weight by slinging an arm over his shoulder, Mushi began the process of walking him to their boat, which, mercifully, had been within sight of their camp.

They didn't make it far. Down the steps, over a short bridge connecting this boathouse to the main complex, and then straight down the pier, water to the right side and shops along the left. The air suddenly changed. It was thick, almost tangible; the cold weight of the sea pressed heavily against the mind and body. Something in Mushi's instincts told him to look up.

Up in the air, a figure floats. The light of the sun shimmered and distorted, wavering like a hazy mirage over hot steel. A pressure in a non-literal sense; it was a heaviness smothering their thoughts, a hollowness in their emotions. Was this the helplessness people felt when drowning—the fear of being dragged down into an endless, unknowable pit?

His clothing was in contrast to his overbearing presence: a loose jacket a size too big, similar-sized shorts, and flip-flops, of all things. If the hair wasn't a giveaway, then the whisker marks on his round cheeks were.

Mushi's eyes narrowed. So the intelligence had been right after all. He had been fearing another dead end, but now another question was raised: why were Naruto and Tayuya connected to Amphawa, some decades-old abandoned village in the middle of nowhere?

Gently, the man stepped onto the center of the pier, halfway between them and their boat. "Hello, gentlemen." He looked at them with eyes of blue so deep you could drown in them. "Care to explain why you're poking your nose where it doesn't belong?"

"Who the hell are you?" Daikoku stuttered out. Mushi wondered if the fool had even the ability to feel the presence bearing down on them.

"I'm a man who doesn't like nosey pests." He took a step. His eyes seemed to glow with an inner fire.

"Wait!" He pleaded. "I'm a powerful man, you see. Money, women, men, drugs—I'll give them to you if you let me leave!"

"Men?" Naruto tilted his head to the side. "Sorry, but my wife headed over to your castle during the storm yesterday. A woman of her power, your men are all mist by now."

Tenzen was too shocked to speak. Mushi had enough of the facade. His employer was dropped without care, though he did manage to catch himself on a wooden rail. He closed the distance between the two of them by a few steps. With every step, he felt heavier and a tiny bit slower. A single bead of sweat ran from his temple. This odd feeling—was it Naruto's nimbus? If it was, then he had to be consciously thickening the air with his chakra.

"I've been looking for you," Mushi said, adjusting his glasses.

"You," Naruto mumbled, fingers to his chin. "You…aren't you… Torune, from the Aburame, right?"

"Correct," was his curt reply.

Ah, things are starting to make sense now. "So, was it Grandma or that one-eyed snake that sent you?"

He didn't answer that. "I'm here to insist that you return home. Tensions with the other nations are strained, the worst in generations. The Leaf will need your skills in the future."

Naruto shrugged. "Not really my problem anymore. I gave up the ninja life."

"You do not get to decide. Shinobi are tools; it is not our place to dictate when our village does and does not need us."

Naruto rolled his eyes. "You Root—all the same: a perfect example of why we left the ninja system." He shooed him away. "Bye."

Tenzen rushed forward in impotent rage, limping against the rails. "Mushi, you set us up!"

The anbu spun on his heel. A tonto severed Tenzen's neck, quick as a blink. Where had that come from, and why was it wreathed in smoke?

Tenzen dropped to his knees, blood bubbling over his mouth, desperately grasping his now open and gushing neck. He was losing color fast. Mushi turned his back to the prostrate form, not deeming him worthy of a second slash. His death would be unceremonious—hardly even a footnote. There would be no answers, no closer, no honor; his death would be as hollow as his life.

"Well, that's convenient," Naruto remarked. "He and that idiot Gato have started moving their business to the lake over the past few months; I can't count the number of men who've tried to use this village as a storage container lately."

Torune noted that. So that's why there were a dozen different sightings of him around the Land of Waves specifically, seemingly out of nowhere. Going undercover for Tenzen Diakoku had been a means to an end, using his political connections and sheer manpower to scout the area for information; no one had ever even thought that he would somehow be directly involved, even if only slightly.

"Why is this forgotten junk heap so important to you?" Torune questioned.

Naruto smirked. "Not for you to know."

The fist holding the tanto tightened. "I've already notified others of this location; if you don't comply now, more will come; attack me, and the whole of Root will drag you back after annihilating everything around here. You have no choice."

Naruto attacked suddenly and without buildup, dashing at a speed Torune had not expected. He reflexively swiped his sword, aiming at his face. Only a single strand of blond hair was cut. He was in a perfect split, hands and face flat against the ground. Seamlessly, he arched. His back bent, his legs sprung forward, and the anbu's head was trapped between tense thighs of solid muscle.

He didn't have time to stab back. Naruto grunted. With core strength beyond even him, he heaved his whole body up by the head. The crown of his skull slams against the wood, jaws snapping at the impact, teeth cracking. The rest of his body flops limply onto the deck.

Naruto rolls onto his back and then springs to his feet. He turns back to face his opponent. A fist careens towards his face. He ducks under it just in time. He spots something that chills his blood. On Torune's hand, a purple film starts covering his exposed skin.

"Rinkaichu!" Naruto stammered. A kick to the gut sends the anbu flying back. He jumps back in a hurry, tripling the distance between them. Rinkaichu; venomous, nano-sized beetles that are more like viruses than bugs. If those things infected him, he would be in a very dangerous position. Taijutsu was almost suicidal against him.

The purple film of insects writhed across Torune's arms and face. He ripped his shirt off for an extra line of defense, ensuring that even a single punch anywhere would be enough to infect him. Their eyes were locked in a battle of wills. He raised his tanto in declaration. "That whore put you on the wrong path; if we have to gut Tayuya to set things straight, then so be it!"

There was a slight pause. The air seemed to beat to the drums of hell, and an unnerving feeling cut a cold pit in Torune's gut. Naruto then jumped off the pier, straight up and up. Unbound by gravity, he floated higher than the tallest building.

"When it comes to our lives, I'm not playing around!" He decreed. His hands clapped together. They formed an odd sign, one with only the pads of his thumbs and pinkies touching, the other six interlacing tight.

Torune turned red, his eyes bulging. That hand sign—he broke the taboo! Veins in his neck bulged, and he screamed out: "You broke the decree! You traitor, you were supposed to stay away from that! You damned, cursed Uzumaki!"

Spiral Art: Whirlpool!

The world shook. It was like a meteor smashed into the planet. The lake, from horizon to horizon, frothed and foamed. Waves rippled across hundreds, if not thousands, of miles of water, from a dozen feet high to hundreds of feet into the sky. The violent water churned in a pattern, following countless miles of rushing currents: a spiral of nine concentric spheres, with the epicenter being the little fishing village. The sound was dreadful; anyone who's visited large waterfalls knows how loud rushing water can be.

Roaring waves suddenly smashed into Torune from all sides at once. He spun at the whim of herculean currents. Abandoned houses, bridges, and stores splintered into billions of pieces. Brackish water filled his lungs and burned his nose; several bones were broken by the sheer blunt force of the waves. The violent vortex hooked his body and dragged him under.

His vision went black. Then there was silence. Unnatural silence: the ocean was many things, but silent was never one of them. There were no sensations anymore. There was no heat or cold, no feeling of the currents or even his wet clothing; he was not even numb. Torune was dragged to the pit, where the boundary between life and death blurred to the point of nothingness—a death for someone never born.

Naruto looked at the lake from the shoreline, not quite sure how to feel. The lull of lazy waves normally relaxed him, but these recent developments were troubling. "Sounds like you had an eventful sunrise," a woman called out to him. Sandals crossed the line between sand and grass.

Her hands were lazily pocketed in the front of her sweat jacket, a single-piece pullover with strings drawn long, her sweatpants tight and pulled to mid-calf. She looked casual, like an ordinary young woman taking a stroll through the forest one chilly morning. Her hair, though, was special: flowing strings of silk reaching just past her waist, a dull shade of red, a single bang styled over her face.

"You heard that?" Naruto didn't move his gaze.

"Of course I did; I'm pretty sure the whole damn Land of Waves heard all that commotion." She chided.

"Yeah, I think I agree." He spoke with absent attention, still lost in a fog of thoughts.

Tayuya furrowed a ginger brow. "Well, why go so far against a bunch of twerp gangsters? I've had upset stomachs put up more of a fight."

He didn't mince words. "They had an anbu tagging along, undercover." He turned to face her. "He was Root. Better to sink the whole village than have them snoop around."

"Wasn't that the last settlement left?" Tayuya closed the distance between them. That was the secret only he, and by extension, she, knew about. The people of that village hadn't just been natives seeking refuge from war; they had been the last cluster of Uzumaki that had survived the destruction of their home village. Naruto and his mom were the only ones left, and the last piece of their history is gone now.

"Nothing lasts forever, and I gave it a good few years extra." He shrugged. "Besides, our life together now takes priority over the past." He turned back to the lake. In principle, he may have felt that, but it still didn't feel good to bury the last remnants of his dying clan.

Tayuya was behind him shortly, resting her chin on his shoulder. She had to extend to the tips of her toes to do that. She decided to change the subject. "By the way, I used up all your chakra."

He chuckled. "Seriously, I thought these were 'twerp gangsters', the hell did you need all that chakra for?"

She smiled. "Sometimes I'm in the mood for complex orchestras, and sometimes I just want some loud thrashing." She gave his head a few hard pats, like a pet. Then she stepped back and pinched his earlobe.

"Ow!" With surprising strength, she pulled him like a dog on a leash.

"C'mon, you big lug, we've gotta get home and pack up!" And so the couple disappeared into the trees, leaving their uncertainty for later discussions. Right now there was one thing that could be understood without comment: this area was compromised.

A centipede, its hindquarters gripped in its thick mandibles, floated in the lake where once there was a village. With a twisted determination, the thing had writhed and turned, before finally burying itself within its own skeleton. After so long, the creature was finally able to eat itself alive.

(End of prologue)

Author's Note: I think this story is actually one of the quickest turnarounds I've had; 80% of this chapter happened in one week. Originally this and Primal Spiral (which I really need to go back and rename) were one big thing, however I realized that there was a major tone conflict between the two story aspects. So, basically, I tore out several entire subplots and themes and reworked it from the ground up as its own story, so while there might be similarities if you zoom out broad enough, the relationships are different, the powers are different, and the story is different. And, funny enough, it might not seem it but this story, if/when I continue it, will be pretty laid back, with tone spikes here and there as parts of the story unfold.

Basically, I wanted to see if I could capture this chill vibe I get whenever I'm playing a base building game, lol, like Satisfactory and The Forest/Sons of the Forest or, hell, watching people play Rust. Now, obviously I can't really do that in a prologue, since it's supposed to set everything up, leaving no time to meander about, but that is one of the core ideas behind making it, I swear! I also wanted to play around with Tayuya, since she was my favorite of the Sound 4 (excluding Kimimaro, obviously), and I really like 40K noise marines lol.

Anyways, please let me know your thoughts, and whether or not you'd be interested in more.