When Damian released Gray, his son's fingers were still gripping the back of his shirt.
He crouched down and patted Gray on the back of the head, then stood up and turned his gaze to Gwen; he had a lot to say.
What did he encounter during the patrol? Why did he refuse the fruit in Admiral's White Bird? What did Roy and Mila fight about in the underground space of Water 7 last night? But right now, he just wants to talk to Gwen a little more, even if it's just to hear her voice and ask her if her shoulder still hurts.
Gwen's gaze went over his shoulder, glanced at Garp standing on the steps, and then looked away.
She gave a very subtle signal with her eyes, tilted her chin towards Garp, then released her hand from his forearm and turned to walk towards Barlow and the other two.
Damian watched Gwen's figure disappear at the end of the side hall corridor, a faint smile appearing on his lips.
She was shielding him from trouble. The first thing he should have done when he got home was to entertain his guests, Gwen made that decision for him, taking his family away first so he could focus on entertaining Garp.
Married for many years, their unspoken understanding is beyond words.
He turned and walked towards the main entrance of the house.
The living room was the same as always, with the south-facing French window half open, letting in the breeze from the White Wax Forest and causing the white gauze curtains to billow slightly.
The sofa was a dark gray fabric sofa with noticeable indentations on the cushions. Garp always sat in the same spot when he came, and the indentations had become permanent.
The fact that a sofa appeared in the living room of the Uchiha Clan's main house was not unusual in itself; what was unusual was the thing lying in the corner of the sofa.
That was Garp's dog-head hat. His navy cap had been taken off and tossed casually onto the sofa armrest, the brim askew, as if it were welcoming guests on behalf of its owner.
Damian saw it in the same spot when he came back last time, and it was still there this time. Gwen probably told the servants not to touch Garp's hat, lest he get angry because he couldn't find it.
Garp sat in the center of the sofa, his arms outstretched and resting on the back of the sofa, taking up the space of two people.
His navy blue shirt had been washed too many times; white lines had appeared on the cuffs, and there was a small, indelible oil stain near his collarbone—it looked like the frosting from a donut.
He crossed his legs, slippers dangling from his feet, his posture no different from sitting in his own living room.
Long sat on the single sofa to his father's left, his back much straighter than Garp's, his hands neatly placed on his knees.
Damian walked into the living room and sat down on the single sofa opposite Garp.
Garp watched as Damian settled down, then blurted out, "Damian, you're really willing to do this, aren't you?"
Damian was adjusting the sofa cushions when he heard this and looked up.
"Mythical Zoan, Buddha Form." Garp switched his crossed legs, almost kicking his slippers off.
"White Bird told you, didn't he? According to battle merits, that fruit was definitely yours, but you turned around and gave it to Sengoku. What, are you going to learn from me and not eat the fruit?"
Damian waited until Garp finished changing his leg before speaking slowly and deliberately.
Over the years in the Navy, he developed a rhythm for talking to Garp. He couldn't speak too fast, or Garp would get caught up in his pace; nor could he speak too slowly, or Garp would impatiently slam his fist on the table.
"You've asked me this more than once, and my answer remains the same: it's not that I'm copying you, but rather that my combat system has already taken shape."
Damian rested his arm on the sofa armrest, his tone calm, "Rashly adding a third power system will actually weaken our combat power in the short term. No matter how good the Mythical Zoan are, if they are not compatible with my fighting style, consuming them will only be a burden."
"Giving that fruit to Sengoku was also for the sake of the navy," Damian continued.
"The Navy needs another high-level combatant. You're aware of the current situation on the high seas. Rocks is recruiting more and more officers, and the veteran pirates of the New World are being spurred out of their lairs. You know better than I do the number of admirals in the Marine Headquarters. Sengoku himself has the ability to become a top-tier combatant; all he lacks is a suitable Devil Fruit. The Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Buddha Form —when White Bird Admiral handed the fruit to me, I knew that giving this fruit to Sengoku would far increase the Navy's overall combat strength more than giving it to me alone."
Garp leaned back on the sofa, listening to Damian finish speaking, and the teasing expression on his face disappeared without him noticing.
He nodded several times, very heavily, his chin almost hitting his chest each time.
This is the kind of excellent navy he recognizes.
There are plenty of capable naval officers. Every year in the New World, a new batch of officers are promoted and then demoted, and they are all capable fighters.
However, there aren't many people who can both fight and calmly weigh the pros and cons when facing a Mythical Zoan Fruit. Sengoku sought him out for a sparring session as soon as he became a Buddha -Buddha Form user. He remembered Sengoku's state at the time, that confidence that had been suppressed in his heart for many years and was finally released. It wasn't given by the ability itself, but by Damian's words when he put the fruit on the table and said, "You are more suited to it than I am."
Why does Garp always go to White Wax Island?
It wasn't because the Uchiha Trading Company was rich, nor because the sofas at the Uchiha Ancestral Grounds were comfortable (although they were indeed very comfortable), but because he wanted to show Ryudo people like this.
His dream is to raise his son and even his future grandson to be outstanding naval officers; Long is at an age where he needs role models.
Garp admits he's not a good role model; he's a troublemaker himself. Sengoku is too serious, Tsuru is too rational, Zephyr is too rigid.
Only Damian, capable of fighting, enduring, and scheming, and able to maintain a harmonious relationship with headquarters while displaying Fan Flag on a warship, is the kind of naval officer Garp envisions.
So every time he came to White Wax Island, he brought Dragon with him, so that he could see how Uchiha Damian did things.
The dragon sat to the side, without interrupting.
When Garp and Damian were talking, he maintained the proper posture of a junior, with his hands on his knees, back straight, and his gaze moving between the speakers without interrupting or getting distracted.
After Damian finished speaking about the fruit, he nodded slightly, a reaction that was closer to "understanding and agreement".
Damian picked up the teacup that Gwen had prepared in advance from the coffee table, took a sip, and his gaze lingered on the dragon's face for half a second.
He was observing this young man. Gwen had told him that Dragon and Gray were very close, Gray liked him quite a bit. The two of them often discussed things in the study, sometimes for half a day at a time.
If the dragon is truly alright, Damian is willing to let the dragon play the role of Gray's older brother.
Gray's position in the Uchiha Clan meant he would never lack sycophants, but he lacked an older brother who could debate with him about "whose justice is it really?"
The dragon fits this position perfectly.
However, after several exchanges, he discovered that some of the things Long said were subtly different from his expectations of an "outstanding naval prospect".
Long never questions the necessity of the navy's existence, and his understanding of the naval system is more thorough than that of most naval officers of his age; however, whenever the topic touches on the operational level, Long's views unconsciously lean towards a "bottom-up perspective."
The perspective itself is not problematic; the problem lies in the tone with which Long presented it—it was not out of sympathy, but rather in reflection.
When he pondered the Navy's pursuit of justice, he considered who exactly was covered by the word "justice," and who was not.
Damian didn't immediately perceive danger from this angle, but he made a mental note of it.
Long stood up from the armchair, walked to Damian, stood at attention, and gave a standard military salute.
His movements were anything but perfunctory; the angle between his arms and body, the height of his fingertips, and the direction of his gaze were all textbook-perfect.
Damian waved his hand with a smile, "We're not even in uniform. You don't need to do this at home."
Garp stood up from the sofa, bent down to pick up the dog-head hat from the armrest, and casually put it on his head. The hat was askew, and the dog's head was crooked, its mouth and eyes looking at Damian, which was quite amusing, matching Garp's own crooked expression.
"Alright, enough with the pleasantries." Garp patted Damian on the shoulder.
"I won't keep you from reuniting with your family. I'm going back to the warship to sleep. Tomorrow morning I'll take Long to town for a stroll; I heard a new donut shop opened there."
Damian stood up to see the guest off, and Dragon followed Garp toward the door, his pace a beat slower than when he came in.
When they reached the main house entrance, Garp strode down the steps, his slippers making a clattering sound on the stone slabs, while Dragon lagged behind by two steps.
He turned his head for the first time, at a very small angle, about fifteen degrees to the right, his gaze sweeping from the porch into the depths of the living room.
Mila wasn't in the living room. He turned back and took three more steps, then turned his head a second time, this time at a greater angle, tilting to the right and back, his gaze sweeping across the doorway between the corridor and the side hall.
The light was on in the doorway, and there were shadowy figures moving around, but it was impossible to tell who they were.
He hasn't turned around yet.
Garp walked ahead without looking back, but he sensed it.
This old naval officer, who could intuitively predict the direction of storms on the Grand Line, possessed a perception of his son's pace and rhythm that didn't require his eyes.
The dragon's footsteps paused for a fraction of a second, and that slight anomaly was enough to make Garp clench his right fist.
When the dragon turned around for the third time, Garp stopped in his tracks.
He turned around, his right fist clenched, a vein throbbing on his arm, and slammed another punch down on the dragon's head.
The force of this punch was exactly the same as the punch he threw at the door earlier.
The sound of a fist landing on the dragon's head was particularly crisp in the quiet courtyard at dusk, startling two small birds drinking water by the fountain into fluttering flight.
"What are you looking at!" Garp roared, his fist still clenched.
"Just walk properly, what kind of behavior is it to keep your head turning around like that!"
Long covered his head and quickened his pace to catch up with his father.
This time, he didn't look back.
Roy leaned halfway out of the side hall window and shouted loudly towards the courtyard, "Uncle, that punch wasn't heavy enough!"
Garp didn't even turn his head, but held up one finger behind him, meaning "You wait."
The courtyard fell silent again.
The two little birds landed back on the edge of the pond and lowered their heads to drink.
The mast of the Dog-Head Warship was faintly visible in the direction of the harbor, the seagull flag atop the mast blending into the afterglow of the setting sun, its boundaries indistinct.