The blue eyed reaper

The land of whirlpool

Bolt groaned as his eyes fluttered open. The first thing he saw was a tiny crab staring him down, clicking his pincers menacingly. Laughing and shooing away the offending crustacean, he sat up and looked around. I made it! "I made it!" Bolt exclaimed.

"Congratulations," a voice said. Bolt turned around. A young man with striking crimson hair and piercing amber eyes was sitting on the log next to him. He wore a dull green jacket and a black headband around his neck. In the center of the silver plate was a stylized emblem, some sort swirling pattern. It was the same one he had seen on the jōnin jackets that the Hidden Leaf wore.

No sooner had he finished the thought did the man punch him square in the jaw, and then Bolt returned to his dreams.

Blinking away the blackness, Bolt woke up with a feeling of soreness in his jaw that made him wince. He was strung over someone's shoulder like a sack of potatoes. Said person was currently jogging through a sparse forest. "Struggle and I'll knock you back out, kid," the voice, a man, instructed.

Bolt scowled as memories of what happened came rushing back to him. Realizing now that the man was a ninja, Bolt reluctantly obeyed. His mind whirring as he began to imagine all sorts of horrible things these ninja could do to him. He was a foreign combatant on their soil. He just didn't know which village used the spiraling symbol as their crest.

Bolt raised his head and glanced around, hoping the redheaded man wouldn't take offense. Just as he did, the two of them broke through the forest and out onto a hill that overlooked a sprawling, grassy valley with a wide river running through the middle. The valley was surrounded by hills on all sides, and the sun just barely crested the peaks, painting the landscape in beautiful hues of oranges and yellows. It was breathtaking.

Then Bolt noticed the ruins. In the middle of the valley, built around the river, was a sprawling metropolis of ruins. All crumbled stone and rotting wood, it was the corpse of a forgotten city. In the very center, much smaller than the ruins, stood a good number of buildings. They were tall and they were dignified. Each one crafted with meticulous care, swirling emblems—the same as his captor's headband—adorned the stone pillars that held the buildings off the ground and out of the reach of the raging river. It was like small city within the city. "Welcome to the Hidden Eddy, kid. For your sake, I hope you have a good excuse for being here," the ninja said, readjusting and tightening his grip on Bolt.

Bolt swallowed. His tongue was suddenly dry. As they neared the center of the ruins, and closer to the village proper, he could see other people milling around. There were a few down by the riverbank, hoisting great nets across it. A few stray, unlucky fish were caught and pulled in. More were scattered through the ruins, though at seeing the man and Bolt, they began to return to the tiny village. A handful of women and children gazed down at Bolt from the windows of their home, looks of suspicion and curiosity adorning their features.

And they all had the same striking crimson hair as his captor, Bolt noted. There were a few heads of black here and there, even another blonde, like him. But the overwhelming majority were redheads.

Bolt let out a groan as he was roughly deposited on the ground. Looking up, an older woman loomed over him. She had a strange hue of pink hair, almost like it was the faded crimson that the others had. Though the lines of her face spoke age, the strength of her posture spoke power. Around her neck was a white length of cloth with a silver plaque attached; it had the same whirling symbol the other ninja had. Her eyes were her most striking feature. They were a deep, fierce crimson, even more so than the hair of those around her. They seemed to see through him. It was unnerving.

"Uh, hi," Bolt said with a nervous chuckle, scratching at the back of his head.

The old woman turned to the ninja who had brought him to the village and nodded once, a quick, birdlike motion. Bolt didn't even see the man weave the hand seals, he was so fast. The earth below him opened up and swallowed him whole before spitting him back up, allowing his head to rest above the stone. Bolt yelped in fear and discomfort as his prison held him in its grasp, his heart fluttering again. The same painful pressure in his eyes returned in full as tears threatened to spill.