Threat? Interrogation, West Blue

"Next time, I'll kill ten."

The cold voice fell, and the pirates who had still clung to a shred of hope instantly broke down.

A huge crowd dropped to their knees in unison, trembling fingers pointing at the pale-faced Har as they cried and begged for mercy. "It was him! He's the captain! We're just lackeys! He forced us to do it! Spare us, sir! Please spare our lives!"

"You! You pack of traitors!" Har stared at the youth whose eyes were as cold as ice, his face white as paper. He barked fiercely despite his fear, but his feet kept backing away on their own.

Natsu merely looked at him coldly and said, "You. Come here."

Har's body suddenly stiffened, and the fear in his eyes was instantly replaced by a desperate viciousness.

He sprang into action, grabbing Nina, who was cowering in her mother's arms. His thick arm clamped tightly around the girl's throat, while a gleaming dagger was pressed against her delicate neck.

"Don't come any closer!" He roared with bloodshot eyes, bringing the blade even nearer. Fine beads of blood immediately seeped from the girl's neck. "Take one more step, and I'll kill her right now!"

"Nina! My child!" Nina's mother lunged forward like a madwoman, only for Har to kick her viciously in the chest. She crashed heavily onto the deck and coughed up blood, able only to watch helplessly as her daughter was taken hostage, letting out despairing sobs.

Faced with Har's twisted expression as he treated the little girl like his final lifeline, Uchiha Natsu's face did not ripple in the slightest. This hysterical farce before him seemed no different from crushing a noisy bug underfoot.

Yashiro and Yakumi exchanged a glance beside him, undisguised contempt flashing through both their eyes.

They had crawled out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood in the Ninja World. If they had not killed a thousand enemies, they had killed at least eight hundred.

Using an unarmed child as a hostage?

To them, such lowly tricks were laughably childish.

Did he really think ninja who had survived the battlefield were softhearted saints?

The people of this world took such tactics far too seriously.

When Har saw Natsu still walking toward him expressionlessly, most of his courage instantly drained away. The hand holding the knife trembled uncontrollably, yet he still craned his neck and shouted fiercely to hide his fear. "Hey! Look carefully! This is a living child! Are you really going to stand there and watch her die?! Aren't you afraid—Aah!!"

Before he could finish his threat, a flash of cold light tore through the air.

A chakra-wrapped kunai pierced his exposed eye with perfect precision, and blood immediately sprayed out.

A heart-rending scream burst from his throat. He instinctively released the girl's neck, clutching his endlessly bleeding eye socket as he rolled across the deck in agony.

Natsu did not spare even a glance for the shivering girl huddled nearby. He walked straight up to Har, bent down, and casually pulled the kunai from his eye socket.

"Argh—!! My eye! My eye!!"

The gut-wrenching pain made Har shake like a leaf. His screams grew more and more miserable as he rolled around on the bloodstained deck, splattering blood everywhere.

Natsu watched Har roll about on the ground, his brows knitting slightly as unconcealed impatience flashed through his eyes.

The next moment, the Tang Saber at his waist left its sheath. A flash of cold light pierced straight through Har's shoulder blade, pinning his entire body firmly to the deck.

"Shut up."

The icy words came down with an unquestionable pressure. The blade pressed another fraction lower, making Har's whole body jerk from the pain.

"Make one more sound, and I'll slice the flesh off your body piece by piece and throw it into the sea to feed the fish."

"Y-yes... yes... sir... Please spare my life..."

Pinned to the deck and unable to move, Har was drenched in a mixture of blood and cold sweat. He clenched his back teeth tightly to suppress the scream in his throat, his voice shaking beyond recognition. Even his pleas came out broken.

He could clearly feel the icy killing intent radiating from that blade. One wrong move, and he would be separated from his head the next second.

Natsu looked down at him, one hand resting on the hilt, his tone calm without the slightest fluctuation. "From now on, I ask and you answer. Say one word of nonsense, and I'll gouge out your other eye too. Understand?"

"U-understood! Ask whatever you want, sir! I'll tell you everything I know! Every word will be the truth!" Har nodded frantically, afraid that a half-second's delay would bring another wave of agonizing pain.

"What's your bounty? Who was the toughest person you've killed, and what was their identity?"

"Huh?"

Har was instantly dumbfounded, his pain-whitened face full of disbelief. He had imagined countless questions, but never expected the other party to ask something so irrelevant. For a moment, he simply froze.

But that half-second of hesitation had already enraged Natsu.

The youth gripped the hilt expressionlessly and mercilessly twisted his wrist more than halfway around.

"Aah—!!!"

A scream of utter agony instantly tore from his throat. The blade grinding against bone sent his entire body convulsing, and another patch of blood splattered across the deck.

"I'll talk! I'll talk!!" Har cried, tears and snot streaming down his face. "My bounty is eight million Beli! I've only killed one lieutenant from a Marine Branch! There's no one else! Spare me, sir!!"

The pressure from Natsu's fingertips eased slightly, and he did not continue torturing him.

After several seconds of silence, he threw out a string of questions, every word pounding against Har's taut nerves. "Which of the Four Seas is this? How many days' sailing to the nearest island? Where is the nearest Marine base? Who is the strongest Marine there?"

"It's the West Blue! This is the West Blue!" Har rushed to answer, terrified that a moment's delay would bring more torment.

"The nearest island is called Laskamp Island. Following the current, it takes about a month to get there!

The nearest Marine base is Marine Branch 74. A Marine colonel is in charge there, but I really don't know his name or what he can do!"

Wailing, he poured out everything he knew in one breath. "I'm just someone scraping by in the nearby waters! I've never dared touch anyone from a Marine Branch! Please spare me, sir! Have mercy and spare this worthless life of mine!"

"The West Blue, huh."

Natsu repeated it quietly, his fingers lightly stroking the cold hilt. He lowered his eyes in thought for a moment, then looked back at Har. "What year is it in the Sea Circle Calendar? What is the biggest news stirring up the seas lately?"