Back at Sunshine Peak, things had gone from "abandoned island no one's heard of" to "busiest tourist trap this side of Reverse Mountain" in about two days flat.
Credit where credit was due: Naruto's team knew how to hustle.
The old battered town was now bursting with life. New shops popped up overnight. Lanterns strung across streets like a thousand little suns. You couldn't walk ten feet without someone trying to sell you grilled sea king on a stick, handwoven bracelets, or — Naruto's personal favorite — 'authentic' Sunshine Peak T-shirts that, according to Kiba, "smelled suspiciously like barn."
They even went big with the advertising.
Real newspapers.
Actual articles.
A headline that read: "The Lost Island Found! Sunshine Peak Awaits You!"
(Neji still grumbled about the embarrassing photos they used: one where Naruto was caught mid-chew stuffing his face with barbecue.)
But that wasn't even the best part.
Somehow — and nobody was exactly sure how — they had even rigged a makeshift transport system at Reverse Mountain.
Normal people — actual civilians — could now cross the Grand Line without needing a death wish or a pirate ship the size of a castle.
They had ferries, rope bridges, and even a weird water-slide system powered by seals that Naruto personally blessed.
(Tenten said it was "creative engineering." Neji called it "a lawsuit waiting to happen.")
Still, it worked.
And people came.
Boy, did they come.
Tourists from both sides of the world, laughing, shouting, haggling, trying every local dish and buying souvenirs like the world was ending tomorrow.
It was chaos.
It was loud.
It was alive.
And as Naruto stood at the main plaza, hands on his hips, grinning like he personally built the whole place from scratch, he thought:
This... this might actually work.
------------
The sun blazed overhead.
The sea sparkled all the way to the horizon.
Music drifted from the market square — a fiddler and a drummer battling it out for tips.
Kids ran through the streets with cotton candy bigger than their heads.
Near the center of Sunshine Peak's new plaza, a crowd was starting to gather.
The reason?
Kankuro.
And his incredibly suspicious "Amazing Puppet Extravaganza."
Kankuro stood on a little wooden stage he and Tenten had hammered together overnight.
Behind him, three life-size puppets spun and twirled — one juggling flaming batons, one breakdancing badly enough to cause psychic damage, and one trying (and failing) to play a trumpet.
All without a single strand of chakra.
"Ladies and gentlemen!" Kankuro boomed, arms spread wide. His face paint made him look like some ancient warrior god who got lost and wandered into a circus. "Boys and girls of all ages! Have you ever dreamed of fighting pirates, bandits, or giant sea monsters—"
(The crowd murmured.)
"—without risking your precious little limbs?"
Somewhere in the crowd, Kiba snorted into his drink.
"Well, now you can!" Kankuro shouted. He grabbed one of the puppets — a stout, grinning one with boxing gloves — and made it punch a straw dummy across the square. The dummy's head exploded in a burst of hay.
The kids in the front row screamed.
Half in terror.
Half in excitement.
Tenten popped out from backstage, waving a scroll.
"No chakra needed!" she announced, like a magician's lovely assistant — if the magician's assistant also carried a flamethrower.
"Exactly!" Kankuro said. He looked like he was about to pass out from enthusiasm.
"These puppets are powered by mechanisms! Springs, gears, levers — genius engineering! Even a toddler could use them! Especially a toddler! Who here has younger siblings they want to teach self-defense?"
Several hands shot up.
"And for a special Sunshine Peak limited-time offer!" Kankuro added, voice dropping dramatically, "You can learn to be a Puppet Master too! Imagine the possibilities! Fighting off bandits! Performing at festivals! Winning bar fights you would absolutely lose otherwise!"
Ino, standing with Shikamaru and Choji, muttered, "I give it two weeks before we get sued."
Naruto just laughed from where he leaned against a wall.
He had to admit... it was impressive.
Crazy, sure.
But impressive.
And judging by the crowd's reaction — kids begging their parents, a merchant already offering Kankuro a whole sack of coins — Sunshine Peak's first puppet dojo might just become a reality.
Kankuro winked at the audience.
"Come on, folks! Be part of the future! Why punch someone yourself when a puppet can do it better?"
Cue another dummy getting karate-chopped into oblivion.
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With the business set up, the ads in every newspaper from here to Marineford (Kankuro's idea — and possibly a future international incident), and fresh log poses in their pockets, Naruto decided it was time for a team meeting.
He stood at the dock, looking unusually serious. The upgraded ship — their pride and joy — floated behind him like some kind of ancient sea god's toy, its chakra cannons gleaming in the sunlight and chakra barriers humming like a giant cat purring in its sleep.
Naruto rubbed the back of his head, a little awkward.
"So... uh... anyone wanna stay here? Live the quiet life? Sell hot dogs? Run a bookstore? We'll come back for you, promise."
The crew just stared at him.
Neji crossed his arms like a disappointed sensei. "We are ninja."
Tenten threw her hands in the air. "And ninja don't retire!"
Even Kiba — who would rather nap than fight 90% of the time — shook his head. "Come on, Naruto. Don't insult us."
Shikamaru yawned, but even he muttered, "Might as well stick with you troublesome people."
Naruto grinned so hard it was a miracle his face didn't fall off.
"That's what I thought!"
With a chorus of cheers (and a few sarcastic claps from Ino), they all hopped onto their monster of a ship — now more weapon than boat — and set sail toward their next adventure.
According to the log pose, there was an island not far off. An island with giants.
Actual, honest-to-goodness, stomp-on-your-house, hurl-mountains-for-fun giants.
Everyone was buzzing with excitement.
Kiba was talking about wrestling one.
Tenten was already sketching out a puppet the size of a castle.
Naruto?
He leaned against the rail, the wind in his hair, eyes burning with that old fire.
It had been too easy so far.
Pirates, bandits, bounty hunters — they weren't even warm-ups.
He needed something more.
Something that could actually fight back.
"Come on," Naruto whispered to the waves, the sky, the world.
"Send something strong. I'm ready."
Somewhere, across the ocean, fate grinned a sharp, dangerous grin.
------------------
Sailing toward Little Garden, the wind in their hair, the world full of possibilities... and Naruto was bored out of his mind.
Everyone else had something to do.
Kiba was busy teaching Akamaru how to fetch cannonballs.
Sakura and Ino were in some kind of fierce battle over who could cook dinner without poisoning the crew.
Gaara was meditating with all the peaceful serenity of a ticking bomb.
Even Shikamaru had taken up cloud-watching like it was a serious career.
Naruto? He needed something new.
That's when he remembered something.
One time, back when he'd met the Grand Sage Toad (long story, involving way too much bug spray and a river that tried to eat him), the old amphibian had let slip that there were alternative versions of Naruto out there — Narutos who had done some seriously crazy stuff.
One of them had created something called the Spiraling Ring — basically a Rasengan the size of a village that detonated from the ground up.
Another had even used puppets to fight instead of getting his hands dirty.
Naruto thought about it.
Fighting without having to break a sweat?
Launching megaton Rasengan bombs from a distance?
Yeah, that sounded about right.
So, he went straight to the only guy on board who could teach him: Kankuro.
It... didn't go as planned.
"No way!" Kankuro cried, practically clutching his puppets like they were his children. "You're gonna steal my whole thing! What's next, you gonna start painting your face and making snarky comments too?!"
Naruto blinked. "I could totally pull off the face paint."
"Stick to Tenten's stuff!" Kankuro whined. "Make a bunch of weapons or something! Leave my art alone!"
Naruto shrugged. Fine. Plan B.
He turned to the ultimate big brother in the room: Gaara.
Gaara gave Kankuro a look — you know, the 'I could crush your bones to dust without blinking' kind of look — and said, in that deadpan, sandstorm voice:
"Teach him. Stop making excuses."
Kankuro wilted like a week-old daisy.
"Fine," he muttered. "But if he makes a puppet cooler than mine, I'm quitting the crew and becoming a professional card dealer."
Naruto grinned so hard he almost fell overboard.
"Believe it!"
And so, the training began: how to make puppets, how to control them with chakra strings, how to set traps and hide weapons inside their bodies.
Kankuro taught with the bitterness of a guy handing over his secret recipe to a guy who might win a gold medal for it.
Naruto learned with the enthusiasm of a puppy discovering a new stick.
-----------
At first, Naruto was pumped.
He had all the tools, the attitude, and a pretty sweet idea for a puppet (he was thinking something huge — like, crush-your-enemies-underfoot huge).
Kankuro reluctantly showed him how to weave chakra threads: thin, delicate lines of power, almost like spider silk.
Naruto stared at his fingers. Focused. Concentrated.
And then—
BOOM.
The deck shook. Half the ship tilted sideways. Sakura screamed from the kitchen. Kiba dropped a cannonball onto his foot.
Naruto looked up sheepishly.
Instead of delicate strings, he had blasted out chakra cables as thick as tree trunks.
Kankuro buried his face in his hands. "No. No no no. That's not how puppeteering works!"
Naruto tried again. Focus, focus, focus—
BOOM.
A chakra net this time. He almost caught Shino in it, who simply walked through it like a ghost and gave Naruto a silent look of eternal judgment.
After a few more ship-shaking disasters, Naruto slumped onto the deck.
"This is so unfair," he whined. "Why didn't anyone tell me my chakra's too crazy for this?!"
Kankuro sighed like he was explaining math to a hyperactive squirrel.
"Because everyone with eyeballs can see it, dude. You've got too much chakra. You can't control tiny threads — your chakra just explodes out. You'd need to make a puppet the size of a mountain with cables thicker than ship ropes to even use it properly."
Naruto groaned.
A giant puppet sounded cool... until you realized you'd have to build it, carry it, and not sink every island you landed on.
Kankuro patted him on the back (grudgingly).
"Stick to blowing stuff up with giant Rasengans. It's your destiny."
Naruto nodded, half-defeated, half-proud.
He could either spend the next ten years trying to whittle his chakra into dental floss...
Or — and this was the better idea —
He could go pick a fight with Kurama, the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him, win an epic duel of life and death, and claim the fox's full power.
...Yeah. Totally casual.
Naruto flopped onto his back and stared up at the clouds.
"Maybe later," he muttered.
He wasn't quite in the mood to get eaten by a chakra demon today.
For now, he'd stick with being the unstoppable human wrecking ball he already was.
And with the island of giants looming ahead, that was probably for the best.