Chapter 551: A New Home
Deep beneath the ocean, Noah moved at an unhurried pace toward its destination.
It would carry five million Fish-Man Island residents to their new home.
Queen Otohime and the efforts of both armies had brought a measure of quiet to the ship's interior. The people who had been forced without warning to leave everything they knew were no longer quite so gripped by panic.
Only then did Brett allow himself to breathe a little easier. He decided to go find Shyarly.
The space inside Noah was immense. The ship was nearly half the size of Fish-Man Island itself, and when you counted the multiple internal decks layered throughout its hull, the actual capacity was likely greater than the island it had just left behind.
Finding a single person in those conditions was no simple task.
Fortunately, Brett's Observation Haki was genuinely exceptional. Picking out a familiar presence and voice from among several million people was not, for him, a particularly difficult thing.
Shyarly had apparently been given preferential treatment. She was on the highest level of the ship's cabin.
A room with windows, at that. One where the light from the artificial sun outside came through clearly and warmly.
When Brett arrived outside the room, he hadn't even raised his hand to knock before he heard laughter spilling through the door. Cheerful, unworried laughter. Nobody inside sounded the least bit troubled by the situation.
Before he could knock, the door swung open.
Shyarly looked out at him from the doorway. "Why are you just standing there? Get in here."
Brett smiled and followed her inside.
Every room aboard Noah was built large. None of them had been designed for a single occupant. Each one was meant to house an entire family, or in some cases an extended one. Building individual rooms for millions of people would have been both an engineering impossibility and a waste of the ship's interior space.
The room was wide and bright, and the mermaids from the Mermaid Cafe were all piled inside together, laughing and carrying on.
He wasn't sure why none of them had stayed with their own families. Apparently they had all decided Shyarly was better company.
"Brett!"
The mermaids greeted him warmly.
Miriam, the cook, smiled as she spoke. "Shyarly said she was getting lonely by herself, so she invited all of us to keep her company."
That explained it.
And it was clear Shyarly really had been given special treatment. A private room was a luxury even Neptune and his family hadn't received.
"Don't tell me this was in one of your prophecies," Brett said, glancing at Shyarly.
The girl he had grown up beside shook her head. "If I had known in advance, you would have known too. I am not all-knowing. I only made another prophecy after everything had already begun."
Brett gave a small nod.
"Brett!"
Nana came bouncing over to him, grinning from ear to ear.
When Brett had first returned to Fish-Man Island, she had been ten years old or so, a girl who barely understood the world around her. Now she had grown into a proper young mermaid, poised and full of life. The expression on her face, though, was exactly the same as it had always been. A little earnest. A little eager.
"The war is really starting, isn't it?"
She balled up her small fist, her expression shifting to something fierce. "They forced us to leave our home. Those people are absolutely unforgivable. Let me fight too. They have to pay for what they did."
Her fist turned black with Armament Haki. She had gotten quite good at it.
"All right. I have a job for you."
Brett reached over and ruffled her hair.
Her eyes went wide with excitement. She snapped to attention and threw him a salute. "Yes, sir!"
"Go find Shirahoshi. Stay close to her and keep her safe."
He kept his voice even. "Her power is going to be critical in this war. Her safety cannot be compromised."
The excitement drained from Nana's face. She had been imagining the front line, throwing punches at the people responsible for driving Fish-Man Island from its home.
Brett smiled. "What's the matter? Do you want to see your best friend get hurt?"
Nana let out a long breath through her nose, then nodded with reluctant acceptance. "Fine. I'll protect Shirahoshi."
"Good."
Brett gave her hair one more ruffle.
He had meant what he said. Once the war began, Shirahoshi's safety would need to be taken seriously. As the one who could call upon all the Sea Kings in the world, she possessed the kind of power capable of reshaping the ocean itself. But that was precisely the problem. Her own combat ability was still far too limited. If the World Government came after her directly, she would have very little way to defend herself.
Of course, sending Nana to protect Shirahoshi was also, if he was honest with himself, a way of keeping Nana out of the worst of it. He couldn't pretend otherwise. He had watched that child grow up. He wasn't about to send her into a battlefield if he could help it.
The real protective detail would need to be someone else. He would figure that out later.
"So where exactly are we going, Brett?"
One of the mermaids finally couldn't hold the question in any longer.
"A deserted island, for now," he said. "But don't worry. Everything's already been arranged. As a temporary home, it will do perfectly well."
Rather than anxious, the mermaids looked lit up.
"Does that mean we're really going to live on the open sea?"
"It does." Brett smiled. "It's only temporary, but yes. An island on the surface, under the open sky."
The room erupted in cheering.
It was a dream that had been passed down through generations. The wish to reach the surface. To live where the sky was real and the sea stretched endlessly above instead of below. And now, without quite planning it, it was finally happening.
"Shyarly."
Brett turned to look at her. "This time it really is the surface."
Unlike him, who had made the trip up more times than he could count, Shyarly had never once left Fish-Man Island since the day she was born. She had never seen what lay above.
"Then you had better give me a proper tour."
The corner of her mouth curved.
"Of course."
He smiled back.
Sea Kings were not slow creatures. A single sweep of their bodies sent them hundreds or even thousands of meters through the water. A Sea King measured in the thousands of meters moved in ways that covered ground faster than most ships could dream of.
It didn't take long before the seafloor ahead began rising sharply. They were entering shallower waters now. And far ahead, dimly visible through the water, an island came into view on the ocean surface.
The new home had arrived.