White Wax Island

East Blue, White Wax Island.

This island did not even have its own marker on nautical charts. It was too small; unless someone specifically looked for it, no one would ever find it.

But the people living on the island did not care.

White Wax Island was named for the white wax trees covering its hills and fields. Every autumn, their leaves changed from deep green to pale gold, then silver-white. When the wind blew, white leaves drifted across the whole island like falling snow.

The old people on the island said white wax wood had a fine grain, suitable for furniture and shipbuilding alike.

The island was small. It took only half a day to walk from south to north. The town sat on the island's eastern side, stretching along the coast, with fewer than forty households in all.

Most of the houses were built from white wax wood. After years of sea wind, the wood's surface had taken on a faint silvery-gray hue, just like the island's leaves.

The town had no official name. Outsiders called it "White Wax Town," while locals simply called it "town."

A dirt road ran from the town entrance to the docks. A blacksmith's shop, general store, tavern, and a small market that smelled of fish year-round were scattered along both sides.

Seven or eight fishing boats were moored at the docks, mostly small single-masted sailboats that only needed to go a short distance offshore before casting their nets.

Everyone in town knew one another.

If a family had a child, an elder passed away, or someone's boat broke down, the news would spread through the whole town before morning was over.

There was little excitement in such a life, but there was nothing wrong with it either.

Except "nothing wrong" did not mean "good."

White Wax Town was so remote that Navy patrol ships came only once a month, so remote that even pirates passing by could not be bothered to dock, so remote that the World Government probably did not remember the name at all.

And because it was remote, there was no garrison and no law. There were only a few respected elders to mediate disputes.

The townspeople knew almost nothing about "the outside world."

They occasionally heard news from passing merchant ships: some important figure who had died at sea, some pirate crew whose bounty had risen again, some king who had been driven from his throne.

But that news passed like the sea breeze. They heard it, then it scattered. The people of White Wax Town cared only about the catch and the weather.

Of course, not everyone was like that.

Roy's house stood at the westernmost edge of town, near the edge of the White Wax Forest.

It was a small two-story building made of white wax wood. The first floor held the workshop and kitchen, while the second had been divided into several cramped bedrooms.

Several logs awaiting drying were piled behind the house. Saws and planes hung beneath the eaves, while wood shavings and sawdust lay scattered across the yard, soft underfoot and fragrant with fresh timber.

Roy's father was named Marcus.

He was the island's only shipwright.

Calling him a shipwright was a bit generous. He could not build large ships. His daily work consisted of repairing fishing boat hulls, replacing rotten planks, reinforcing mast joints, and occasionally carving a simple figurehead onto a bow.

His craftsmanship was the best in town, though only in town.

Marcus's luck was not very good today.

While repairing a boat in the afternoon, a warped iron plate on the hull suddenly sprang up and sliced open his left palm.

The wound was not deep, but it left a long gash running diagonally from the base of his thumb to his wrist. He rinsed it with water, sprinkled some plant ash over it to stop the bleeding, then casually wrapped it a few times with a scrap of cloth.

Such things happened often. No shipwright's hands were without scars.

He sat on a wooden stool in the workshop, staring blankly at his bandaged left hand for a while.

Outside, the sky was beginning to darken.

By the time Roy pushed open the front door, the kitchen was already filled with the scent of grilled fish and boiled potatoes.

"I'm back!"

He set his bamboo basket by the door and poked his head toward the kitchen as he took off his shoes.

Two people stood by the stove. Barlow, the second eldest, was scaling fish with a small knife, his movements fast and steady. Scales flew everywhere, yet not one stuck to his hands. Their little sister Mila stood on a small stool, just tall enough to reach the stove, sprinkling salt into the pot.

"Third Brother, how much did you pick up today?" Mila asked without turning around.

"Enough for one plate." Roy brought over the bamboo basket. "Shellfish, conches, and..."

He rummaged in his pocket and took out the Tomoe. "This."

Barlow glanced up at it without speaking, then lowered his head and continued scaling the fish. He had always been a man of few words, but his eyes were sharp. When he saw the jade in Roy's hand, his knife paused for an instant.

Mila jumped down from the stool and came over to look.

"What is that?"

"No idea. Found it on the beach." Roy held the Tomoe beneath the oil lamp.

Mila poked it with a finger and curled her lips. "Isn't it just a rock?"

Barlow set down his knife, wiped his hands on his apron, and took the Tomoe from Roy.

He turned it over several times, his thumb rubbing along the jade's curve before stopping on the thin crack across its middle.

A thread of dark red was embedded in the crack, like dried blood.

"Put it away." Barlow handed the Tomoe back to Roy, his voice low.

"Don't let outsiders see it."

"Why?"

"I don't know." Barlow turned back toward the stove and picked up his knife again.

"But it doesn't look like an ordinary stone."

His tone was flat, but both Roy and Mila knew that when their second brother said something did not look ordinary, it usually meant it was either valuable or troublesome.

Just then, footsteps sounded outside.

Damian, the eldest, pushed open the door carrying two buckets of water on a shoulder pole. The buckets landed steadily on the ground without spilling a single drop.

He was the tallest and broadest-shouldered of them all. The pole across his shoulders seemed weightless.

"Where's Dad?" He set down the buckets and wiped the sweat from his forehead.

"The workshop," Barlow replied without looking up.

Damian walked to the workshop door and saw Marcus sitting on a wooden stool, his left hand wrapped in cloth stained with a small patch of dark-red blood.

"What happened to your hand?"

"It's nothing." Marcus rose to his feet and brushed wood chips from his trousers. "Let's eat."

The family gathered around the wooden table in the kitchen.

The dim oil lamp cast its light over the table, illuminating the fragrant charred fish, steaming boiled potatoes, and the small plate of stir-fried shellfish Roy had brought home.

Marcus sat at the head of the table, his left hand resting on the edge, while his four children sat in order around him.

"A merchant ship came to town today," Barlow said as he broke open a potato. "It came from West Blue. The captain said there was a country in West Blue where the king had all the people on an entire island slaughtered because someone there stole a chest of pearls from him."

"More nonsense." Mila spoke through a mouthful of fish. "Merchant sailors love bragging. Last time, they even said they'd seen people with fish heads."

"Fish-Men really do exist."

Barlow's tone was calm.

"Beyond East Blue, there are Fish-Men, Giants, Longarms, and Minks. The Grand Line has more countries than all the islands in East Blue combined. Marine Headquarters' influence covers the Four Seas, but the real power lies in Holy Land Mary Geoise, where the Celestial Dragons live."

"Where did you learn all that?" Damian stopped eating.

"Newspapers," Barlow said. "Old newspapers brought by merchant ships. I read every issue."

Mila curled her lips. "That doesn't mean everything in the papers is true."

"Yeah, it might not be true." Barlow did not argue. He lowered his head and continued eating his potato.

But his eyes flashed beneath the oil lamp for an instant, carrying the certain silence of someone whose beliefs had been confirmed many times over.

Damian noticed Barlow's look and fell silent for a moment as well.

"Then why... don't those people fight back?" he suddenly asked.

"How would they fight back?" Barlow countered. "The Navy enforces the law on the seas, but the Navy obeys the World Government, and the World Government obeys the Celestial Dragons. From the lowest level to the highest, every link is locked tight. What do ordinary people have to fight with? Fishing spears?"

"That isn't justice." Damian's voice was low, but heavy. "The Navy should protect civilians."

"The Navy protects order." Barlow pushed the potato skins aside. "Order and justice are not the same thing."

The brothers' gazes met beneath the oil lamp for an instant.

Damian did not argue, but there was something different in his eyes from Barlow's. Barlow's gaze was like a frozen winter sea—calm and clear, with hidden undercurrents beneath. Damian's was like a reef warmed by sunlight—steadfast, stubborn, unwilling to believe the sea could be cold.

Roy did not join the conversation.

He took the Tomoe from his pocket, placed it on the table, and pushed it toward his father.

"Dad, take a look at this."

Marcus put down his chopsticks and picked up the Tomoe with his right hand. His palm was broad and rough, with wood chips embedded beneath his nails that never washed out. The Tomoe looked especially delicate in his hand.

"Where did you get it?"

"Found it on the beach. At low tide."

Marcus held the Tomoe close to the oil lamp. The white jade glowed softly in the light, and the dark red within the crack across its middle shone through like a congealed line of blood.

"Looks old," Marcus muttered.

Out of habit, he rubbed the jade's surface with his thumb, the way he usually checked the grain of timber. The cloth around his left hand had loosened, and the blood seeping from the wound stained the Tomoe.

The instant the blood touched the jade, the dark red inside the Tomoe lit up.

Before Marcus could react, an intense heat surged from the Tomoe into his palm and shot up his arm straight into his head. He gave a muffled groan and tried to let go, but his fingers seemed glued to the jade and would not move.

The bloody color inside the Tomoe began to spread as if it had come alive, flowing along the jade's patterns and changing from a single crack into a cloud of blood-red mist. The mist spilled out of the Tomoe, condensing into faint red specks of light in the air before drifting apart.

Damian was the first to feel it.

He shot to his feet, sending his chair crashing backward.

A completely unfamiliar sensation rose from the depths of his body, leaving him visibly at a loss for the first time.

Then Barlow.

He did not stand. Both hands braced against the table's edge, his fingernails dug into the wood. His breathing became deep and slow, as though he were using all his willpower to suppress something awakening inside him.

His eyes were tightly shut. A fine layer of sweat beaded at his temples and slid down along his cheekbones.

Then Mila.

She let out a scream, but it was brief, as though something had seized her throat.

Her little hands clutched the tablecloth so tightly that her knuckles turned white, and her whole face scrunched up.

She did not cry, but her eyes were filled with fear—not because it hurt, but because she could feel something "entering" her body, and she could not stop it.

Roy's reaction was the fiercest.

His body responded to that thing more strongly than anyone else's.

He sprang out of his chair, slammed his back into the wall, then curled into a ball.

His eyes rolled violently beneath his eyelids, as if he were trapped in a nightmare he could not wake from.

Five people.

Five different degrees of abnormal sensation.

The most concentrated pain was in their eyes.

Everyone felt a burning, stabbing pain deep in their eye sockets, as though something behind their eyeballs was swelling, trying to tear through their pupils from within.

Only heavy breathing remained in the kitchen.

A few seconds.

Maybe more than ten.

Marcus was the first to recover. He suddenly flung his hand, and the Tomoe flew from his palm with a clang, landing on the table, spinning a few times, then stopping.

The light went out.

The jade returned to its soft white sheen. The dark-red crack across its middle remained, as though nothing had happened.

But the wound on his left hand no longer hurt. He looked down. The cloth was still there, as was the bloodstain, but after he unwound it, the gash on his palm had completely healed.

There was not even a scar.

"..."

Marcus stared at his left hand without saying a word.

Damian lowered the hands covering his eyes and slowly opened them. His eye sockets were red, and something seemed to have appeared deep in his pupils. It was faint, like a star that had not fully lit yet.

He looked at his hands, clenched them, released them, then clenched them again, as though confirming whether they still belonged to him.

Barlow opened his eyes.

His first reaction was not to examine himself, but to sweep his gaze over the entire table.

His father's hand, Damian's expression, Mila's pale face, Roy's curled-up posture.

Only after quickly confirming that everyone was breathing did his gaze fall upon the Tomoe.

His eyes turned cold.

"Why did the Tomoe only touch Dad, yet all four of us experienced something abnormal?"

Mila backed two steps away from the table. She rubbed her eyes hard, and when she lowered her hands, her eye sockets were red as well.

She stared at the Tomoe on the table, her lips pressed into a thin line.

Roy was the last to get up.

His hair was soaked with sweat and stuck to his forehead. His eyes held a confused feeling that even he could not explain.

It felt as if he had seen something in a dream just now, but after waking, he could not remember it no matter how hard he tried.

Marcus picked up the Tomoe from the table.

He moved slowly, as though he were picking up a red-hot piece of iron.

"This thing..." His voice was hoarse. "It's no good."

He stood and walked behind the house, pulling open the back door.

Outside lay the White Wax Forest. Moonlight fell upon the silver-white leaves, and the ground was carpeted with fallen foliage.

Marcus swung his arm and hurled the Tomoe deep into the forest.

The Tomoe traced a thin arc through the air, landing in the leaves with a faint, muffled thud.

Marcus shut the back door and turned to face his four children.

His gaze moved from Damian to Mila, then from Barlow to Roy. Every one of their eye sockets was still red.

"Forget that thing," he said. "Starting tomorrow, no one is allowed to mention it."

No one answered.

Damian lowered his head and looked at his palm. Barlow's gaze rested on the tightly shut back door, his expression revealing nothing of what he was thinking.

Mila bit her lip, her eyes still carrying traces of fear that had not faded.

Roy leaned against the wall, staring blankly in the direction where his father had thrown the Tomoe.

But they had all heard him.

In those dozen or so seconds, beyond the searing heat and stabbing pain, there had been another voice.

That voice had not spoken with a mouth.

It had appeared directly in the depths of their minds, like a brand pressed into their consciousness.

It had spoken in a language they had never heard before, yet every one of them understood it.

"Make Uchiha great again."

Barlow was the first to turn around. He picked up the chair he had knocked over and set it back in place.

His movements were as steady as ever, and the expression on his face had already returned to calm.

But the knuckles of the hand holding the chair were faintly white.

Night on White Wax Island returned to silence. The sound of waves drifted in from afar, rising and falling like the island's breath.

That Tomoe lay amid the fallen leaves of White Wax Forest. Moonlight filtered through gaps in the branches and fell upon its surface, illuminating the dark red crack running across its middle.