"Those are Mist bastards!"
"They're after the same prize we are."
"But that big fish is ours. We spotted it first. It belongs to the Sunagakure Navigation Group!"
On the other side, the Mist shinobi looked equally pissed when they saw who they were facing.
"Shit luck."
"Absolute shit luck."
"Ran straight into those Sand dogs out here?"
"But we're not backing down. We can't beat Sunagakure proper, but some half-assed navigation crew? We're not scared of them."
Two fleets faced off on the open sea, tension thick enough to cut with a kunai.
The massive fish below sensed the danger and started diving, trying to escape both groups.
"Fire!"
Both sides opened up at once.
Harpoons slammed into the creature's body. It thrashed and bled, painting the water red. The coppery smell only made everyone crazier.
"This fish is ours!"
"Bullshit, it's ours!"
"Kill these Sand scum!"
"Mist trash deserves to die!"
A full fight was seconds away.
Then the Mist shinobi saw something that made their blood run cold.
Two Sunagakure fighters who had been losing suddenly roared.
"Inu Inu no Mi, Gray Wolf form!"
"Tori Tori no Mi, Crow form!"
Their bodies exploded outward. One sprouted thick gray fur, claws, and a snout full of fangs, turning into a half-wolf monster. The other grew black feathers, wings replacing arms, and launched into the air like a living crow.
The Mist shinobi's eyes went wide.
"What the hell?!"
"Monsters!"
"Those Sand bastards turned into monsters!"
The transformations didn't just change their looks. Their power spiked hard. The two transformed fighters tore through the Mist team like paper, turning a slight advantage into a complete rout.
A random miner with zero ninja training had reached chunin level after eating one of these. These two were already chunin before. Stacking the fruit on top pushed them into a completely different league.
The Mist shinobi panicked.
The Sunagakure fighters grinned like madmen.
"This is the power of a Devil Fruit!"
One of them shouted it loud enough for everyone to hear.
The Mist team's minds went into overdrive.
"Devil Fruit?"
"Those things are real?"
"I thought they were just made up in that Sand novel!"
"But the way those two changed… it's exactly like the Zoan fruits described in One Piece."
"Did Sunagakure actually create them?"
"How many does Sand have?"
Fear hit the Mist shinobi like a wave. Sunagakure was already strong enough to crush them. If they had a stockpile of these Devil Fruits on top of everything else…
The news that Devil Fruits were real exploded across the entire ninja world within hours.
"Devil Fruits actually exist?!"
"Does that mean One Piece is real too?!"
People couldn't stop talking.
"One Piece hasn't been confirmed yet, but the Devil Fruits are one hundred percent real. Sunagakure has them."
"Two of their shinobi ate them and their strength jumped massively."
"One's called the Inu Inu no Mi, Gray Wolf form."
"The other's the Tori Tori no Mi, Crow form."
"People saw it with their own eyes. Bodies changed, wolf and crow features appeared. It's exactly like the animal-type fruits in the story."
Some shinobi were already fired up.
"If they're real, where do we find one?"
"I'd kill for a Devil Fruit. Imagine having powers like that…"
Rasa read the latest intelligence report with a satisfied smirk. The reaction was exactly what he'd wanted.
Without One Piece already burning through the ninja world, the Grell Stones probably wouldn't have caused this much chaos. But the story had given everyone massive expectations. Now reality had delivered.
He set the report down.
"Not yet. No need to rush."
"Ebizo still needs time to process the rest anyway."
"Before that, let's check this week's Ninja World Big Events Weekly."
Last issue's bounty contest for "What Is the Will of Fire?" had pulled in thousands of submissions. The newspaper staff sorted them first, then sent the best ones to Rasa.
He'd picked the top three.
Core ideas: The older generation sacrifices first. Village benefit above all. The young are the future.
Put Hiruzen and Minato's names on those ideas and the message was crystal clear—Hiruzen should have been the one to die, not Minato.
"Start the presses."
The puppet workers moved fast. Fresh copies rolled out by the thousands.
Merchants who'd been waiting outside lit up the second they saw the new issue.
"What is the Will of Fire?"
"This is the Will of Fire!"
"Damn, this one's perfect. Matches exactly how I see it. If I'd submitted, that hundred thousand ryō could've been mine. Sand actually paid up too."
Inside the Hokage Tower, Hiruzen's face went black the moment he read the winning entries.
The same whispers he'd heard before echoed in his head.
Why did the younger Minato have to die instead of you, Hiruzen?
"Rasa, you little bastard. I'll make you pay for this."
Rasa didn't care.
All he cared about was the points flooding in as the new issue spread. They rocketed straight past three thousand again.
No hesitation.
"Thirty consecutive draws. Start."
The invisible wheel spun.
[Congratulations, Host. You have obtained an F-rank item: one tael of gold.]