Akainu's Fury

He dared not stop.

He was afraid that if he stopped, everything he had painstakingly held onto would slip through his fingers like sand.

But now, it seems we can take a short break.

The sunlight on Fish-Man Island is soft.

It wasn't the intense sunlight that could burn your skin on the sea, but rather the soft light filtered through thousands of meters of seawater and falling from the bubble dome.

Natsu leaned back on a bench at the stern of the White Dragon, with Quan sitting next to him, greeting each of the dolphins that passed by the ship every evening.

Quan named each one and solemnly introduced them to Natsu: the one with a slightly crooked nose was called Crooked, the one that always swam in the lead was called Chongfenghao, and the one with a small notch on its tail was called Notchy.

Natsu closed her eyes, a slight smile playing on her lips, as she listened to the dolphins chattering away, explaining the Ryugu Palace Cafeteria's menu to a group of dolphins who couldn't understand human language. Suddenly, she realized that this way of wasting time wasn't so bad after all.

They sat on the steps of the Coral Hill for most of the afternoon, watching the sunlight shine through the coral reef from different angles, turning the entire bay into varying shades of blue.

They strolled along the boardwalk at the edge of the Sea Forest. Izumi picked up several oddly shaped seashells, saying she would take them back to Origin Island as gifts for Sasuke and Elder Setsuna.

They stayed at the open-air teahouse in Mermaid Bay until late at night. Quan fell asleep on his shoulder, and Natsu did not wake her. He simply carried her gently on his back as the teahouse closed and slowly walked back to their room in the Ryugu Palace along the Coral Corridor.

For more than a month, they explored every corner of Fish-Man Island.

I visited some places several times, and each time I discovered something new—a new little coral sprouting in the Starfish Forest, a newly opened dessert shop in Mermaid Bay, and an Uchiha Gunbai flag that had somehow appeared on the tower of the Ryugu Palace.

The flag was hung up by Neptune. When Natsu first saw it, she paused for a moment, said nothing, just glanced at Neptune and nodded slightly.

Neptune drank several extra glasses of wine at the dinner that night.

When the news reached Origin Island, Elder Setsuna was reviewing the expansion application of the Earthly Chief Guard.

He opened the briefing, read it once, then again, before leaning back in his chair and finally chuckling after a long while.

"This kid is finally acting like a fifteen-year-old." He put the briefing on the table, picked up his pen and continued reviewing documents, but stopped halfway through and rubbed his eyes.

He was an old man who had survived from the Sengoku period, and he had seen too many Uchiha children whose edges had been worn away by war at Natsu's age.

Natsu is now able to watch dolphins with the girl he likes in the deep sea, which is great.

It's really good.

Natsu pushed the fifteenth briefing to Quan, saying Setsuna Elder was urging him to go back again.

Izumi took the briefing, glanced at it, and chuckled to himself. He said Setsuna Elder said that if he didn't go back soon, his uncle Fugaku would personally come to Fish-Man Island to arrest him.

She folded the briefing and put it back on the table, stood up, stretched, and walked to the ship's side to wave goodbye to the dolphins.

The bugle leaped out of the water, splashing her with water. She laughed and dodged it, then turned back and reached out her hand to Natsu.

Natsu paused, then stood up and took her hand.

It's time to go home.

In the main hall of the Ryugu Palace, Neptune sat on the coral throne, holding the twelfth patrol report that had just arrived that day.