Chapter 34: "Legendary Swords and Overreacting Priestesses"
A Totally Not-Overhyped Curse Story, Believe It!
Okay, so here's the thing about ninja:
You never—and I mean never—walk up to the bad guy and say, "Hey, wanna fight?"
Even if he's clearly broadcasting low-level mini-boss energy and probably has a tragic monologue prepared, you take the long way around. Always.
Which is why we were not heading straight toward Saga, the guy guarding the possibly-cursed Seven Star Sword of Eternal Screaming Doom™.
Nope. Instead, we were taking a nice, leisurely stroll through Asuka Island's main village like a bunch of overly dramatic tourists with swords.
All for Tenten.
Who, to her credit, had only complained twelve times so far.
"I don't get it," she huffed, brushing her bangs from her face as we passed a rice field. "We know where the sword is. We know who has it. Why are we wasting time on detours?"
"Because," I said, gesturing around like a tour guide, "we are subtle, strategic ninjas who investigate before charging into cursed sword situations. Also, if we get cursed, Sakura said she's not treating us again."
Sakura nodded like she'd already started budgeting chakra for emergency exorcisms.
"This is for you," Shikamaru reminded her, sounding one minor inconvenience away from flat-out quitting life. "You wanted the sword. This is recon. Try not to explode."
Tenten crossed her arms. "I'm not saying I won't explode. I'm just saying it's a strong possibility."
As we entered the village, I noticed it was quiet. Too quiet.
Like, "our sky ship might've scared everyone into hiding" kind of quiet.
Oops.
Still, there were signs of life. Laundry hanging. Chickens strutting like they owned the place. A cat that looked suspiciously judgmental.
The village curved around a big lake, the kind of shimmering, blue-green thing you'd see in an anime right before someone falls in, gets blessed/cursed, or both.
And then—bam!
There she was.
Swimming in the lake like she belonged in a Studio Ghibli film was a girl with long, flowing blue hair, tied on either side with delicate lavender barrettes that looked like seashells. Her side-locks were decorated with big pink beads that bounced as she moved. Basically, the aesthetic of someone who definitely knows the island's secrets and also probably cries magical tears.
She swam with purpose. Graceful. Peaceful.
Tenten muttered, "That's suspicious."
Viola tilted her head. "That's aesthetic."
The girl swam to the edge of the lake and stepped onto a smooth stone path that led up to a small shrine. There, nestled between carved dragon statues and crumbling prayer boards, stood a stone altar with three ancient orbs arranged in a triangle.
We watched as she knelt before them, her lips moving in what looked like a prayer. The air shimmered faintly, and the orbs gave off a soft glow—red, blue, and gold.
A gentle wind blew, curling through the trees and ruffling our hair.
"She's activating something," Viola whispered. "It's not chakra. It's… older."
Sakura leaned forward. "Maybe she's a shrine maiden. Or the guardian of the island."
"Or the boss's little sister," Ino added. "You know how that goes."
"I bet she's got repressed magic powers she doesn't even know about," I said.
"Or a demon sealed inside her since childhood," Tenten said, hopeful.
The moment the girl spotted us—eight clearly-not-subtle ninja watching her from the treeline—her eyes went wide.
She let out the tiniest squeak of surprise, like a mouse trying to yell, and bolted.
And when I say bolted, I mean fast.
She grabbed the hem of her long robe, hiked it up just enough to run, and dashed off like she was auditioning for the next season of Ninja Warrior: Shrine Edition.
The glowing orbs faded. The lake rippled. And we were left staring after her like—
"Did we just scare off a potential plot-relevant NPC?" I asked.
"Very likely," Shikamaru sighed.
Tenten pointed toward the direction the girl had run, eyes gleaming with sudden fire.
"She knows something. And I bet it has to do with the sword!"
I shrugged. "Or maybe she just really doesn't like ninja creeping on her lakeside rituals."
"She activated ancient orbs with a prayer," Tenten insisted. "That's like… red flag number awesome."
Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose. Again. "We need to talk to her. Calmly. Without causing a panic."
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So, picture this:
You're a peaceful island girl named Maya, you just finished doing some sort of mystical orb-powered ritual by a lake, and suddenly—bam!—a gang of ninja tourists show up like they're here for a photo op.
Naturally, you scream a little and bolt home.
Totally fair.
Maya reached her village—panting, wild-eyed, basically one "They're coming!" away from starting a panic—and boom, she starts telling everyone that pirates are on their way.
Not "maybe pirates."
Not "cool visitors with big hair."
Full-on, movie villain pirates.
To be fair, our ship does kinda look like a giant floating fortress that could fire laser beams and cook ramen at the same time, but still.
"They're huge! And blond! And they SMILED!" Maya shouted.
Which, honestly, rude. My smile's like, my second best feature.
Cue the village scrambling like cats during a thunderstorm. People were tripping over baskets of fish, dropping laundry, shouting things like "Hide the ceremonial pots!" and "Call Izaya!"
(Still not sure what a ceremonial pot is, but I want one.)
That's when Lacos stepped in.
Imagine if a tank got a gym membership and a sense of fashion—that was Lacos. He was yelling orders, flexing unintentionally, and trying to keep people from jumping into barrels to hide.
"Maya," he said, voice calm but firm, "stay with your grandmother. Protect her."
Which sounded like good advice, until grandma herself decided she was having none of it.
Enter: Izaya, the most terrifyingly tiny, deceptively tall elder I've ever met.
This woman was wrapped in enough jewelry to drown a small animal and wore a ceremonial orange robe so bright it could blind a Hyūga. She had pink hair tied in side-locks (matching the beads in Maya's, weirdly enough), and her eyes squinted like she was always judging you, which, spoiler: she was.
Izaya leaned on a crooked old staff, hunched like a question mark. But you could feel it—if she stood up straight, she'd probably tower over Kakashi and lecture him about posture.
Lacos tried to speak, and she cut him off with a single thump of her staff.
"I don't need protecting, boy." Her voice had that crisp edge, like she'd once yelled at a tsunami until it turned around. "They come, they go. Let them explain themselves before we decide to explode."
Everyone stopped.
Because when Izaya says "don't explode yet," you listen.
That's when we showed up.
And let me just say, walking casually into a village that thinks you're here to sack their homes is… awkward.
Tenten was already rolling her eyes like this again?
Shikamaru looked like he'd rather be cleaning storm drains.
I held up my hands, bright smile in place. "Hey hey! No need to panic. We're not pirates. Just friendly travelers passing through."
The crowd did not buy it.
Probably because behind us was a flying ship the size of a fortress with gold trim and dragon motifs.
One old guy squinted at me. "Are you sure you're not pirates?"
"Pretty sure," I said. "Unless looking this good counts as robbery."
Crickets.
Yeah, tough crowd.
Izaya narrowed her eyes at me and took one careful step forward.
She was still shorter than me, but somehow I felt like she was staring down at me.
"You expect us to believe you're friendly? You arrive uninvited. You bring a warship. You have warriors with unnatural hair colors and suspiciously well-toned muscles."
"That's just Rock Lee," I said.
"Quiet, suspiciously polite one," she barked at Lee, who was trying to bow his way into her good graces. "Speak, blondie."
So I did what any mature, responsible adult ninja would do.
I made twenty shadow clones, and they all appeared behind every villager like ghosts at a haunted house birthday party.
Some villagers screamed.
Others fainted.
Maya gasped.
Izaya didn't even flinch.
"Now," I said calmly, "if we were here to cause trouble, this would be over already. But we're not. We came because we heard rumors of a cursed sword, and we thought... maybe we could help."
Izaya thumped her staff. "Help? You want to help with that thing?"
"Yeah," I said with a shrug. "We're curious. Maybe it's not as dangerous as people say."
That did it.
Izaya's eyes flared like chakra lamps, and she pointed a ring-laden finger at me.
"You are insane. That blade corrupts everything it touches. It whispers. It feeds. It turns the strongest into puppets and the weak into ash. It is a world-ending blade!"
I paused. "Right. Okay. Noted. Pretty bad, then."
Tenten leaned over and whispered, "This sounds even cooler than I thought."
Shikamaru groaned.
"Look," I said, holding up my hands again. "We're not here to steal it or break anything. Just let us take a look, hear your side of the story, and then we'll figure things out together."
"Why should we trust you?" one of the warriors asked.
I grinned. "Because we brought presents!"
My clones stepped forward dramatically, each one holding a different gift like we were in a parade of kindness.
Sakura had some high-quality herbal plants from the Land of Rivers.
Tenten offered up ninja-forged sweets shaped like kunai (they tasted way better than they sounded).
Lee presented rare flowers from the Valley of Blooming Fists (yes, it's real).
And Choji brought out a crate of exotic pets—including a chicken with leopard spots. Don't ask.
The villagers stared.
Maya blinked.
Izaya… almost smiled.
(Almost.)
"Well," she said, tapping her staff once more. "Perhaps you aren't entirely useless."
I took that as a win.
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Okay, so here's the thing.
Everyone in the village was panicking over this "world-ending cursed sword" like it was going to jump out of a box and eat their souls.
But we're ninja.
More specifically, we're ninja from another world who have fought undead gods, rampaging tailed beasts, and a dude who literally ate the concept of chakra. So yeah, we weren't exactly shaking in our sandals over a rusty blade with anger issues.
While the villagers were muttering things like "It sees into your mind!" and "The blade once made a tiger eat itself!", I casually reached out with my senses.
You know, that cool sensory perception thing I learned from training with the toads, shadow clones, and raw determination (and maybe some ramen).
Result?
Nothing.
Okay, not nothing, but it didn't scream "ultimate apocalyptic doom" either. I mean, it had some dark chakra, yeah. Enough to maybe take over a weak-willed guy on a bad day, or give someone a really emo monologue arc. But threaten us? Pfft.
Maybe it could give Konohamaru a tough time if he skipped breakfast, but otherwise? Chill.
Which is why we were all hanging out, drinking some weird blue tea made from island moss (don't ask), when I noticed something totally unexpected.
Adult drama.
Like, not the yelling kind. The romantic subplot kind.
And it involved the two most emotionally constipated grown-ups in our group.
Kurenai walked up to Kakashi, who was doing his usual thing—leaning against a tree, looking bored, and pretending he wasn't 80% mystery and 20% tragic backstory.
She stood next to him like she wasn't planning to drop an emotional nuke.
"So," she said casually, "how's it going?"
Kakashi blinked. "With what?"
She tilted her head toward Viola, kind of mysterious, kind of pretty, kind of… totally his type.
"You still planning to die single and alone?" she asked.
Now that got his attention. He nearly dropped his book.
"…Excuse me?"
"It's been sixteen years, Kakashi," she said, eyes soft but voice firm. "Since the war. Since that incident. Obito, Rin, Minato—they wouldn't want you stuck in some kind of emotional purgatory forever."
I perked up. This was getting good.
Kakashi stared at her like she'd just handed him a relationship quiz. "Where's this coming from?"
"Is it because you're pregnant?" he added.
Kurenai blinked.
"…How did you know?"
Kakashi casually pointed. "X-ray eyes. Neji. Hinata. Shino probably sniffed it out. Kiba definitely knows but doesn't want to talk about it."
Kurenai rolled her eyes. "Fine. Maybe that's part of it. But come on, Kakashi. The world isn't ending. For once, we're not in some catastrophe. Maybe it's time to—what's the word—flirt."
Kakashi squinted. "That sounds like something Naruto would say."
"Thanks!" I called from the bushes. "Also, Viola's single and into poetry!"
He didn't respond.
Classic Kakashi.
Kurenai wasn't backing down, though.
"Just… explore the island with her," she said. "You don't have to fall in love. But you can't stay stuck forever. You deserve more."
Kakashi looked like someone had just asked him to write a love confession using nothing but vegetables.
"But… what if I mess it up?"
"Mess it up," Kurenai said, "and we'll mock you behind your back like good friends do."
I gave a thumbs-up. "I already have a nickname picked out! Silver Fox Fails at Flirting."
Lee yelled, "LOVE IS A BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY, KAKASHI-SENSEI!"
Sakura just sighed. "He's gonna need backup."
Kiba snorted. "If he makes it past saying 'hello' without quoting Icha Icha, I'll eat my sandals."