Standing on the bridge where Team 7 had first truly bonded, I found myself caught between past and present, memory and reality. The morning fog rolled off the water in sheets, transforming the familiar structure into something dreamlike and insubstantial. For a moment, I could almost see us as we'd been—three children playing at being ninjas, still innocent enough to believe that friendship could overcome any obstacle.
How wrong we were. How beautifully, tragically wrong.
The investigation had brought me here because two of the disappearances had occurred on routes leading to the bridge. Merchants traveling between the Land of Waves and Fire Country had simply vanished somewhere along this stretch of road. But standing here now, surrounded by ghosts and memories, I was finding it difficult to focus on clues and evidence.
"Excuse me, are you a ninja?"
The voice startled me from my reverie. I turned to see a boy of perhaps ten years old, his hair dark and unruly in a way that reminded me painfully of Naruto at that age. He was looking at me with the fearless curiosity of youth, apparently unbothered by my reputation or the deadly weapons I carried.
"I am," I said carefully. "Why do you ask?"
"My grandfather told me stories about ninjas who came here when he was young," the boy said, his eyes bright with excitement. "He said they saved our whole country from a bad man who wanted to keep us poor and afraid."
Gato. The name surfaced from memory like a bubble of poison gas. The corrupt businessman who'd tried to strangle the Land of Waves' economy by controlling their trade routes. We'd been so proud of defeating him, of freeing these people from his tyranny. Looking back, it seemed almost quaint—a clearly defined villain, a straightforward mission, a clean victory with minimal moral ambiguity.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Inari," the boy said proudly. "My grandfather is Tazuna. He built this bridge with his friends."
The name hit me like a physical blow. Tazuna's grandson—the same Tazuna who'd given Team 7 its first lesson in the real cost of protecting people. I remembered Inari as a small, bitter child who'd lost his father to Gato's thugs and had been convinced that heroes were just fairy tales. To see him now, bright-eyed and hopeful, was both gratifying and heartbreaking.
"Your grandfather is a good man," I said. "He taught me something important once."
"Really? What?"
That some things are worth dying for. That ordinary people can show more courage than trained killers. That bridges aren't just structures—they're symbols of connection and hope. But those lessons seemed too complex for a ten-year-old, and too painful for me to articulate without revealing how completely I'd ignored them.
"He taught me that building something is harder than destroying it," I said instead. "But more important."
Inari nodded solemnly, as if this were profound wisdom. "Grandfather says the bridge represents something special. He says it shows that even when things seem impossible, people can work together to make them possible."
Another ghost from the past—Tazuna's stubborn optimism in the face of overwhelming odds. It had seemed foolish at the time, a naive old man's refusal to accept reality. Now I wondered if perhaps Tazuna had understood something fundamental that I'd spent years trying to forget.
"Are you here about the missing people?" Inari asked, his expression growing serious. "Everyone's really scared. My friend Yuki's uncle was one of the ones who disappeared."
"I'm investigating, yes," I said. "Have you noticed anything strange lately? Anything unusual?"
The boy's face scrunched up in concentration. "Well, there's been weird fog sometimes, even on clear days. And my dog, Shiro, won't go near the old fishing spot anymore. He just whines and runs away."
Animals often sensed things humans missed, especially chakra-based phenomena. "Can you show me this fishing spot?"
"Sure!" Inari said eagerly. "It's not far. But... are you sure you're a good ninja? You look kind of scary."
Out of the mouths of babes. "I'm trying to be a good ninja," I said honestly. "I haven't always been one."
"Oh. Like a redemption story! I read about those in books. The bad guy realizes he was wrong and becomes a hero instead."
If only it were that simple. If only redemption could be achieved through a single moment of realization, a dramatic turning point where everything suddenly became clear. Reality was messier, more gradual, more uncertain. You had to choose to be good every single day, and some days that choice was harder than others.
"Something like that," I said.
Inari led me away from the bridge toward a secluded cove where fishing boats had once operated. As we walked, he chattered about his life, his friends, his dreams of becoming a builder like his grandfather. His innocence was almost painful to witness, knowing how easily the world could steal such things away.
"There," he said, pointing to a rocky outcropping that jutted into the water. "That's where the weird fog comes from sometimes. Shiro won't go within fifty feet of it."
I approached the spot carefully, all my senses alert. At first glance, it looked like any other section of coastline—weathered rocks, tide pools, scattered driftwood. But as I got closer, I could feel it: a wrongness in the air, a subtle distortion that set my teeth on edge.
The Sharingan activated automatically, revealing traces of chakra that ordinary eyes would miss. There—carved into the rock face in characters so small they were nearly invisible—was a seal of some kind. The work was precise, professional, designed to be overlooked by casual observation.
"Inari," I said, not taking my eyes off the seal. "I need you to step back. Far back."
"Is it dangerous?" he asked, but he was already moving away from the water's edge.
"I don't know yet." I studied the seal more carefully, noting its construction and the way chakra flowed through its matrix. It was sophisticated work, far beyond the abilities of a simple bandit or rogue ninja. This was the product of extensive training and experience.
A memory surfaced—another seal, another time, another mission where I'd been hunting instead of helping. The style was similar, though the purpose seemed different. Whoever had created this was skilled enough to be dangerous, and patient enough to work slowly and methodically.
"What is it?" Inari called from his position safely away from the water.
"A trap," I said, my mind already working through the implications. "A very sophisticated one."
Hidden Mist techniques combined with sealing arts. Someone was using the fog to disorient victims, then using the seal to... what? Transport them? Imprison them? Kill them? The possibilities were numerous and all of them unpleasant.
I began tracing the seal's pattern, looking for weak points or trigger conditions. Whoever had created this had covered their tracks well, but everyone made mistakes if you knew where to look. The key was understanding not just the technique, but the mind behind it.
"Are you going to stop the bad guy?" Inari asked.
I paused in my examination of the seal. The boy's question was simple, direct, innocent. He wasn't asking about complex strategies or moral ambiguities. He just wanted to know if the scary things would go away, if the people who'd disappeared would come home, if his world would be safe again.
The demon of the mist. That's what Inari had called me earlier, repeating something he'd heard from his grandfather's stories. I'd always assumed he meant Zabuza, but now I wondered if the description had become conflated over time. Perhaps in the retelling, all the dangerous figures from that old mission had blended together into a single mythical entity.
How fitting that the demon of the mist might now be hunting another demon who used mist as a weapon. The symmetry would have been poetic if it weren't so personally damning.
"I'm going to try," I told Inari. "But it might be dangerous. You should go home and stay there until this is resolved."
"Will you come tell us when it's over?"
The question surprised me. It implied faith in my ability to succeed, but more than that, it suggested that my survival mattered to someone beyond my immediate usefulness. When was the last time anyone had cared whether I made it through a mission alive?
"If I can," I promised.
As Inari ran back toward town, I returned my attention to the seal. Whoever had created this was still out there, still taking innocent people for reasons I didn't yet understand. But I had a lead now, a starting point for the hunt.
Standing on the bridge where Team 7 had first learned about bonds and sacrifice, surrounded by the echoes of simpler times, I made a silent vow. These people had welcomed us as heroes once, had believed in the possibility of salvation from outside their borders. I would not let that faith be misplaced again.
The demon of the mist was hunting. But this time, he was hunting for justice instead of revenge. It remained to be seen whether that would make any difference to his victims.