Zabuza lay on the hotel bed, his mind working overtime to process the information he'd gathered from the tavern owner.

The flickering candlelight cast eerie shadows on the walls, matching the turmoil in his head.

As a seasoned ninja, the so-called sea demon didn't impress him. He knew how easily people could be fooled into believing what they wanted to see.

What really caught his attention was the connection to Kojiro, the rogue ninja who'd fled Kiri for the Land of Waves.

If the Mizukage's intel was right, and Kojiro was hiding on the island, it would be easy for him to create a fake threat to keep people away.

The more he considered the details, the more they fell into place. The sea demon had conveniently left the merchant caravans alone, which seemed strange.

These caravans might look like ordinary trading groups, but he knew they were actually part of Kiri's spy network.

Their routes were carefully planned to gather information from the surrounding island nations.

This system allowed Kiri to keep tabs on its neighbors without arousing suspicion. The caravans were staffed by civilians, even allowing outsiders to join, but their loyalty was always to the village.

Every piece of information they collected would find its way back to Kiri, funneled through a network of spies and informants.

Zabuza's lips curled into a humorless smile. The irony wasn't lost on him - he, a Kiri ninja, was using the same system he knew to infiltrate and gather information.

It was a strange reversal, like the hunter becoming the hunted.

Kojiro, as a former elite Jonin of the village, would have been well aware of this arrangement.

Attacking the caravans would have been a surefire way to draw Kiri's attention, the last thing a missing-nin on the run would want.

Instead, he had opted for a subtler approach, using the legend of the demon to scare off any local boatmen who might stumble upon his hiding place.

"Clever bastard," Zabuza muttered to himself. Kojiro's tactical mind was still sharp, even in exile.

As for the missing sailors, he had little doubt that Kojiro was behind their disappearance.

A few well-placed rumors, a handful of mysterious vanishings, and the local populace would be too terrified to even approach the island, let alone investigate.

It was a good plan, he admitted. But there were still pieces of the puzzle that didn't quite fit.

The sudden wealth of the island's inhabitants, the tavern owner's cryptic warning about their strange behavior... these details couldn't be explained away by a simple ghost story.

Zabuza sat up, his eyes narrowing as he stared out the window at the mist-shrouded town. No, there was something more at play here, something he will uncover.

And the only way to do that was to set foot on the island himself, to see the Land of Waves and its mysteries with his own eyes.

As he prepared for bed, his mind turned to the Mizukage's strange behavior, the whispered conversations he'd overheard in Kiri.

Could there be a connection between the events here and the changes in his home village? It seemed unlikely, but in the world of shinobi, coincidences were rare and often deadly.

With these thoughts weighing on his mind, Zabuza drifted into a fitful sleep, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his massive sword.

----------

The next morning, Zabuza stood at the port, watching as the first light of dawn crept over the horizon.

The docks were deserted, the usual fleet of fishing boats nowhere to be seen.

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It seemed the local boatmen had decided to give the port a wide berth, as if even being near the island was enough to invite disaster.

A chill wind blew in from the sea, carrying the tang of salt and a hint of something else - something old and alien, that made the hairs on the back of Zabuza's neck stand on end.

He shook off the feeling, attributing it to lack of sleep and the town's weird atmosphere.

Zabuza stood alone at the water's edge, his gaze fixed on the thick blanket of fog that obscured the sea.

For a long moment, there was nothing, just the gentle lap of waves against the shore and the distant cry of gulls. The silence was oppressive, heavy with a sense of foreboding.

Then, like a ghost materializing from the mist, a boat emerged from the fog.

The vessel was larger than the ones favored by the local fishermen, its hull long and sleek, with a waterproof canopy stretched over the top.

As it drew closer, Zabuza could make out the shapes of six figures seated beneath the canopy, their forms still and silent.

The boat glided to a stop at the dock with barely a sound, as if it were floating on air rather than water.

As one, the six passengers rose to their feet. They were young men, their skin dark and their upper bodies bare, their faces twisted into expressions of anger and disgust.

They moved awkwardly, clumsily, as if their legs were no longer under their full control, or perhaps as if they had grown unaccustomed to the feel of solid ground beneath their feet.

When they stumbled down the gangplank and onto the shore, Zabuza observed them discreetly.

There was something about these men that didn't seem quite right, something not quite human. Their eyes were too large, too round, and they gleamed.

Their fingers were long and webbed, and as they passed, he caught a whiff of something that reminded him of rotting seaweed and dead fish.

But they were gone almost as quickly as they had appeared, vanishing down the road that led into town.

He made a mental note to investigate their destination later, if possible. Their appearance and behavior were too strange to be coincidental.

Zabuza turned his attention to the boatman, who seemed to be in a hurry to depart. He leapt aboard, his eyes immediately drawn to the wooden sign that hung beneath the canopy.

The sign read, "Fare: 500 Ryo," in simple, unadorned letters. There was no mention of round trips or multiple passengers.

It was as if the boatman simply assumed that anyone who boarded his vessel was on a one-way trip, never to return.

Zabuza just smiled, but it was hidden by his scarf, then he fished the required coin from his pouch and dropped it into the waiting box, earning barely a sideways glance from the boatman.

He settled into one of the seats recently vacated by the strange passengers, his gaze fixed on the hunched figure at the prow.

The boatman was a scrawny, wiry man with a bent back and tattered clothes.

His deep blue cap, with mold creeping along the edges, was pulled low over his face, but even from the side, Zabuza could see that something was off about his features.

His skull was narrow, his nose flat, and his ears underdeveloped. The forehead and chin sloped back sharply, giving his face a pinched, almost inhuman look.

But it was the strange indentations on the sides of his neck that really caught his attention - they looked almost like gills.

The resemblance to the Hoshigaki clan was unmistakable.

The members of that bloodline were known for their shark-like features, pale blue skin, and the slits on their necks that allowed them to breathe underwater.

But the boatman's appearance was more extreme, as if his transformation had been taken to a grotesque level.

Was this connected to the 'changes' Mangetsu had hinted at back in Kiri?

Could whatever was affecting the Hoshigaki clan have spread to the Land of Waves?

Or was this something entirely new, some local mutation caused by unknown forces?

As the boat pushed off from the dock, he kept a close eye on the water, half-expecting the sea demon to emerge at any moment.

But the sea remained eerily calm, as if even the waves were hiding the island's secrets.

The fog closed in around them, thick and oppressive, muffling all sound except for the gentle lapping of water against the hull.

The journey seemed to drag on forever, broken only by the occasional glimpse of dark shapes moving beneath the surface.

Zabuza's hand stayed close to his transformed sword on his back, which looked like a backpack, his senses on high alert for any sign of danger.

As the boat finally emerged from the thick fog, Zabuza stepped onto the rocky shore of the Land of Waves.

He was alone - no other vessels in sight.

He made his way to the nearest settlement, a small fishing village huddled against the shoreline.

The wooden houses with thatched roofs looked simple, but many showed signs of recent repairs - fresh paint, stronger walls, and even some metal fixtures that hinted at sudden wealth.

But the streets were empty, as if the entire village had vanished overnight.

But as he approached the village center, he spotted a figure in red robes, a golden crown on their head.

They were heading towards an ancient, twisted structure.

The building was like nothing he'd ever seen - a mass of stone and coral that defied architectural logic, its angles wrong in a way that made his eyes ache.

At the sound of Zabuza's approach, the figure turned, and the shinobi found himself staring into a face that made even the boatman's seem tame by comparison.

Twisted, grotesque features leered back at him, with strange eyes. The skin was a sickly green-gray, mottled with scale-like patches.

The mouth was too wide, filled with needle-sharp teeth, and instead of a nose, there were only fish-like slits.

In that moment, he knew with certainty that whatever secrets this island held, he had only scratched the surface.

This was no ordinary case of a missing ninja in hiding.

As the robed figure disappeared into the temple's darkness, Zabuza's hand instinctively reaching for his blade.

He had come seeking answers, but now he wondered if he even wanted to know them.