Minutes passed like hours, but the Takahashi family didn't move. They simply stood there, staring upwards with their blank, fish-like eyes, while Asao's belly continued its unnatural movements.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the family snapped out of their trance.

They turned and shuffled away.

'What did I just witness?' Zabuza wondered, his mind struggled to make sense of the bizarre scene.

Something was off about the Takahashi Inn, and it went beyond the family's grotesque appearance.

The silence was what bothered him most. Since being shown to his cramped room, he hadn't heard a peep from the family below. No casual chatter, no sounds of cooking, not even the creaks and groans of the old building.

'Could they have left to report my presence?' he thought while lying in his bed. He remembered Tazuna's drunken warnings about the cult of the Kojiro.

If the bridge builder was right, the Takahashi family might have gone to alert their followers.

Zabuza sat up quickly, his hand reaching for the hidden kunai. He couldn't afford to wait and find out. Silently, he moved to the window and slipped out into the courtyard below.

His eyes scanned the empty yard before he made his way to a side entrance of the main house. Inside, the corridors were dark and silent.

He moved like a ghost, his feet making no sound on the worn floors. He checked each room methodically, finding no sign of the family.

Just as he was starting to think they had indeed left to report him, he caught a faint sound. It was a light metallic tapping that seemed to come from further down the hallway.

Following the sound, he found himself outside a dressing room. The sliding door was painted with delicate ink wash scenes that seemed out of place in this building.

Silently, Zabuza used the tip of his kunai to create a small hole in the paper, just large enough to peek through.

What he saw made him puzzled.

The family sat around a low table, each hunched over some kind of carving. The metallic sound came from their tools scraping against stone as they worked.

Each family member was painstakingly carving a small statue, its form a nightmarish blend of human and sea creature. The body was grotesquely swollen, with vestigial wings sprouting from its back.

But it was the head that drew his attention – a mass of tentacles where a face should be.

Kazuya's hands were slick with blood from his clumsy efforts, but he didn't seem to notice or care. His eyes, filled with fanatical devotion, never left his work. Asao and Hiroshi were equally engrossed, their own statues in various stages of completion.

Was this the deity they worshiped?

Zabuza leaned in closer to the hole he'd made. In that instant, as if responding to some unheard signal, all three members of the Takahashi family turned their heads in perfect unison.

Their dead, fish-like eyes stared directly at the hole in the door, seeming to pierce through to where he crouched in the darkness.

'Impossible! How could they know?'

His legs, acting on pure instinct, carried him swiftly back to the loft before his mind had fully processed what had happened.

Back in his room, he pressed his ear to the floor, straining to hear any sound of pursuit or alarm. But the house remained as silent as a tomb.

Whatever the family had seen – or sensed – they weren't reacting to it. At least, not in any way Zabuza could detect.

Throughout the day, he stalked the corridors. He kept an eye on the innkeeper, who never left the building. Kazuya's movements were stiff and purposeless, like a machine.

Every now and then, he'd stop and cock his head, as if listening to a voice only he could hear, before continuing his endless patrol.

When Zabuza ventured into the village, he was met with strange scenes.

A group of kids played in a muddy yard, their laughter hollow and joyless. When one of them fell and scraped her knee, she didn't cry.

Instead, she stared at the wound with fascination, then started digging her fingers into the cut, her face twisted in a strange, almost ecstatic expression.

Down by the docks, fishermen were hauling in their catches, but the creatures in their nets looked wrong. They were too big, too long, and seemed to squirm and flail.

One of them, a sickly gray-green creature, locked eyes with him before being clubbed into stillness.

As it was getting darker, Zabuza returned to his room, his mind reeling from the disturbing images he'd seen. He heard Kazuya's shuffling footsteps outside his door, announcing the arrival of dinner.

He waited until the innkeeper was gone before retrieving the tray.

At first glance, the meal looked harmless – a bowl of steaming soup, a side of rice, and what appeared to be grilled fish.

But when he stirred the soup, the broth began to swirl in strange patterns, like dark, twisting tendrils.

For a moment, he could've sworn he saw faces in the liquid – twisted, agonized faces that silently screamed.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Disturbed, Zabuza jerked back, spilling the bowl across the floor. As the liquid splattered, he blinked, and suddenly it was just ordinary soup again, no faces, no unnatural movements.

Had he imagined it all?

Almost immediately, a knock came at the door. "Is everything alright, sir?" Kazuya's voice, for the first time, held a note of emotion – curiosity?

Zabuza composed himself. "Just a small accident. No need to trouble yourself."

But Kazuya was already entering, a rag in his gnarled hands. As he bent to clean the spill, his eyes fixed on the puddle with an expression of deep contemplation.

"Such a waste," Kazuya murmured, his voice taking on a rhythmic, almost chant-like quality. "In the depths, nothing is wasted. Every morsel, every drop is consumed, transformed, repurposed."

Zabuza's hand inched towards his concealed blade. "Nature can be efficient."

Kazuya looked up. "Efficient? Oh, it's so much more than that, Taro-san."

"Consider the octopus. Did you know that it can change not just its color, but its very texture to blend with its surroundings?"

"An impressive trick," Zabuza replied cautiously.

"A trick?" Kazuya's smile stretched unnaturally wide.

"No, it's survival. Adaptation. In the unforgiving depths, one must change or perish. The octopus goes further still. It can solve puzzles, use tools. Some species can even detach a limb to distract a predator, then regrow it later."

Zabuza's eyes narrowed. "Seems like a high price to pay for survival."

"Is it?" Kazuya countered.

"In the food chain, the weak must adapt or be consumed. But the octopus? It turns the tables. There are species that hunt sharks, Taro-san. Imagine that – a soft, boneless creature taking down the ocean's apex predator."

"Nature is full of surprises," Zabuza said neutrally.

Kazuya nodded enthusiastically. "Indeed! And the deeper you go, the more wondrous it becomes."

"In the lightless abysses, creatures have evolved beyond our wildest imaginations. Some generate their own light, others have become living traps."

He then whispered. "And who knows what still remains undiscovered in the deepest trenches? What ancient beings might dwell where no light has ever penetrated?"

Zabuza remarked as he narrowed his brows. "You seem to have given this a lot of thought."

"Oh, we all have," Kazuya said, his gaze seeming to look through Zabuza. "The sea is the cradle of life, Taro-san."

"All things came from it, and to it, all things must return. Those who embrace this truth, who are willing to... adapt, they will thrive."

"And those who don't?" Zabuza's words escaping before he could stop them.

Kazuya's smile widened impossibly further. "They become food for those who do. It's the way of nature, of the deep. To resist change is to ensure one's own obsolescence."

Kazuya slowly got to his feet, his movements strangely fluid. "Don't let this meal go to waste, honored guest. Every morsel is a gift, a chance to grow, to change."

"In the end, we all must decide: will we be the predator, or the prey?"

When Kazuya went out, Zabuza stared at the remains of his meal, his appetite gone. The ordinary-looking food now seemed sinister, an unspoken invitation to horrors beyond imagining.

As night fell, he found himself unable to relax.

'The Land of Waves is wrong,' Zabuza thought, not for the first time. He recalled the tavern owner's theory about the missing ferrymen, how they might have seen the country's wealth and decided to stay.

He almost laughed at the absurdity of it. No sane person would choose to remain in this place.

Yet here he was, planning to venture deeper into the heart of the mystery tomorrow. Tazuna's ramblings about the Kojiro hiding near the central chimney nagged at him. It was as good a lead as any in this maze of horrors.

----------

Sleep, when it finally came, was fitful and plagued by disturbing dreams.

He found himself swimming in a dark, endless ocean.

The water was eerily still, like black glass reflecting a starless sky. The air was heavy with the smell of salt and iron, and the only sound was the soft lapping of waves against his body.

As he treaded water, shapes began to emerge from the darkness. Dozens of bodies floated nearby, their lifeless faces turned towards the sky, bearing the unmistakable marks of a blade - his blade.

A face drifted past.

Zabuza's jaw clenched as he recognized the boy who used to sit next to him in class, always quick with a joke. Another body bumped against him, a girl who had once shared her lunch with him when he had none.

One by one, the faces of his former classmates emerged from the darkness, each one a painful reminder of that bloody day when he had turned the graduation exam into a massacre.

His eyes narrowed, his expression hardening into a familiar mask of indifference. But deep down, an old ache stirred.

Among the sea of familiar faces, two stood out.

Mangetsu drifted past, his usually fluid body now stiff and still. Nearby floated Akane, her fierce eyes now lifeless. These two had been the closest thing to friends he had known.

A sneer twisted his lips, a reflexive defense against the guilt and regret that threatened to surface. Weakness had no place in a shinobi's heart, especially not his.

But then, one of the corpses twitched. Milky eyes snapped open, fixing Zabuza with a hungry stare. It lunged, jaw open wide to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth.

His body reacted on instinct, tensing to evade, but the water seemed to thicken around him, slowing his movements.

Teeth sank into his shoulder, tearing flesh. Pain exploded through his body, but no blood flowed. Instead, the water darkened, as if absorbing his essence. More corpses stirred, their dead eyes opening one by one.

His former classmates attacked with mindless fury. Mangetsu's liquefied arm stretched unnaturally, wrapping around Zabuza's leg. Akane's reanimated body clawed at his face, her expression as lively in death as it had been in life.

Zabuza fought back, but for every attacker he defeated, two more took its place.

As the horde threatened to overwhelm him, a part of him wondered if this was justice – the Demon of the Mist finally facing judgment for the lives he had taken.

Just as the thought crossed his mind, a massive tentacle burst from the water, sweeping aside the attacking dead. Then, it wrapped around him, its suckers latching onto his skin.

With terrifying speed, he was dragged underwater, pulled deeper into the abyss. The pressure should have crushed him, but somehow he could still breathe the heavy, alien water.

As he was dragged deeper into the darkness, it gave way to a dazzling array of bioluminescent wonders - colors and life forms he'd never seen before.

Rising before him like a mountain thrust up from the ocean floor, he saw a city of impossible geometry. And behind the city, a colossal creature loomed, its massive form casting a long shadow.

A voice then echoed in his mind, bypassing his ears:

"Embrace the change."

As the tentacle drew him closer to a maw large enough to swallow a country, he saw faces in the creature's flesh - the Takahashi family, the villagers of the Land of Waves, and at the center, a twisted face that might once have been Kojiro.

They all wore expressions of rapture, as if they'd found an escape from the cruel world above.

For a moment, Zabuza felt a pull to join them. To finally lay down the burden he'd carried since that bloody graduation day.

But the moment passed. his eyes hardened, his will reasserting itself.

He was Zabuza of the Mist, the demon who'd carved his own path.

No god or monster would decide his fate.

Just as the maw was about to engulf him, he jolted awake.

For a moment, he lay still, trying to figure out what had woken him. Then he heard it – the unmistakable sound of a door opening downstairs, followed by soft footsteps in the corridor.

Zabuza sprang into action, kunai in hand, pressing himself against the wall beside the door. Part of him almost hoped for a confrontation, a chance to take out these strange people and put an end to the constant feeling of being watched.

But the footsteps didn't come closer. Instead, he heard three sets of feet moving in unison, heading towards the front of the house.

Curiosity got the better of him, and he crept to the hole in the floor, peering down into the darkened hallway below.

The Takahashi family, draped in black cloaks and each carrying a lit candle, were making their way out of the house. Their movements were eerily synchronized, like puppets controlled by a single invisible hand.

'Where are they going at this hour?' he wondered. Without hesitation, he slipped out the window and onto the roof, his dark clothing blending into the shadows.

From his perch, he watched the family exit the courtyard and make their way down the street.

As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed flickering lights in other parts of the village, suggesting that the Takahashi family weren't the only ones sneaking out late at night.