The sun hung low, a bruised violet stain bleeding across the teal water of the river. On the deck, the boat's engine maintained a rhythmic thrum-slosh, sending a steady vibration through the soles of Naruto's boots. Sylvie stood by the railing, staring at the vermilion bridge—a high skeleton of stone that looked like a jaw waiting to snap.
The chipped white paint of the hull felt cold beneath Naruto's hand, the wood stained with long streaks of iron rust.
SHINK—
The sound was a razor-thin whistle that sliced the air.
"DOWN!"
Kakashi's roar was a physical strike. Naruto saw the man's single eye snap open, the red iris of the Sharingan spinning. Naruto hit the deck face-first, his palms sliding in a fresh, hot smear of something wet and metallic.
High above, a web of glinting silver lines cut the twilight into geometric shards.
KRRRRRRRRRRRRRR-RACK!
The boat's bridge didn't just break; it detonated into shards. The glass-windowed cabin disintegrated as the wires tightened, the metal screeching against wood in a long, grinding agony. A chorus of wet, gurgling screams rose from the helm. Naruto watched as a guard was thrown against the dashboard, his body reduced to a ragged heap. The heavy-timbered cage lashing snapped with a BANG, the iron-bolted wood splintering into toothpicks.
Gantetsu jerked in his shackles, his breath hitching in a sudden, sharp gasp. He flinched at the structural snap of the timber, his eyes wide and vacant as a phantom alarm—thin and mechanical—screeched over the roar of the river. He clawed at the deck boards, his nostrils flaring as if he could smell the smoke of a fire that wasn't there.
Naruto scrambled to stand, but the deck was tilting. He looked to Kakashi for a lead, but the silver-haired man was staggering. Kakashi's hand went to his face, his vision clearly warping and doubling. He lunged to grab Tsuzumi's collar, but his fingers brushed empty air an inch to the left of the man's shoulder. He corrected with a frantic, jerky lurch, but the delay was a physical weight on their defense.
"Wires!" Sylvie yelled, her voice muffled as she yanked her navy gaiter higher. She was already on her feet, tracking the air with a jittery, focused intensity.
"They aren't alone," Kakashi grunted, his voice tight with the strain of his failing depth perception.
Whoosh—
A figure erupted from the treeline above. Shura plummeted toward them, silhouetted against the burnt orange sky, his umbrella gripped like a spear.
Naruto braced for the impact, his muscles coiled, but the land itself suddenly spoke.
"Crimson Earth!"
The voice belonged to Toki, echoing from the dense conifer canopy. Naruto felt a low-frequency throb that made his molars ache. The earth didn't just move; it shrieked. A massive, mechanical drill on Toki's arm tore into the riverbank.
VRRRRRRR-WHUMP.
The river erupted. The Land of Forests seemed to pivot. The land groaned as the two halves of the vermillion bridge were ground together by the shifting weight of the shore, pulverizing the stone into a cloud of shrapnel. The river's path buckled, the current forcing the boat toward a new, violent choke point. Beyond the treeline, the mist parted to reveal a sheer drop—a hidden waterfall.
From the sky, Shura's voice descended with a cold, greedy weight. He adjusted his angle as the thick mist dragged at his descent, pulling his umbrella into a tighter spin. "May Rain—"
"Off the boat! Now!" Anko's order was a snap of thunder.
"—BLOOD RIVER!"
Shura's umbrella spun—a fllp-fllp-fllp sound that turned into a deadly blur. Because of the heavy dampness in the air, the senbon rain drifted wide at the banks, concentrating into a lethal, steel cone directly over the deck.
Kakashi and Anko traded a single, jagged nod. There was no argument, only a calculation of distance. Kakashi lunged for Naruto, his hand locking onto his jacket.
"Go!" Kakashi barked, shoving Naruto toward the left bank.
Naruto hit the teal water with a bone-deep shock. The current was a violent, muscle-locking hand that tried to drag his sodden jacket under the churning foam. His boots filled with a leaden weight, pulling at his ankles as he thrashed. He clawed at the slick volcanic shelf, his lungs seizing from the cold, until he finally dragged himself onto the shore.
The mist was a freezing shroud. Naruto scrambled up the jagged rock, his orange jacket heavy and clinging. With his tabi river-slicked, the wet stone was offering no grip as the spray from the falls reduced the world to a grey blur. He slipped, barely catching himself in time against the large stones.
He turned back, expecting Kakashi to have jumped with them. For a moment, the mist blurred the world and he was alone— but the Jōnin was already pivoting out of the fog toward the right.
"Kakashi!" Naruto screamed, reaching out a hand.
Anko had grabbed the ship's captain, hauling him toward the opposite treeline. Monju's light-blue hair was a flash of color in the brush, and Toki's drill was a whirrr-thrum that led them deeper into the trees.
Naruto scrambled toward the edge of the water, his fingers closing on cold, mist-heavy air. The boat, riddled with steel needles, finally reached the lip of the falls and vanished into the white roar below. The gap between him and the silver-haired man grew until the roar of the water swallowed everything.
"Meet back at the village!" Anko's voice was a fading rasp over the falls. "Keep Sylvie safe!"
Naruto watched the treeline swallow them. He stood on the jagged, wet rock and felt the distance, his hand frozen in the air as if he could still catch the silver hair that was no longer there.