C9: Years Of Time Skip |Part 4|

• (Unknown) {Year: 14} •

A young teen laid on a bed in a room, he looked at least 14. He had longer than shoulders ruffled black hair, sword-like brows, along with his chiseled handsome face. His body was quite muscular, only in leaner form, as if he was a god in human form. He wore white clothes, with a blanket covering his body up to neck.

*Ding*

[Progress of Healing: 100%]

[Awaken, Ryu. You have been unconscious for 7 months. Had you been left alone from any outside help, you would have slept for one more month.]

The familiar sound and system woke up Ryu from his unconscious state. As he tried to get up, he found that he was in a bed room...

"Ah! He's awake! Get Queen Otohime and tell her he's awake," a voice said. "Hey, are you alright?"

Automatically on guard, he replied and asked, "Yes, I'm alright. Who are you guys and where am I?"

[I brought you to Sea Forest of the Fishman Island originally, however it seems that a goldfish-mermaid found you and took you in.]

'Fishman Island?! And a goldfish-mermaid... Otohime...' He tried to remember, something about this Otohime sounded familiar.

"You're in Fishman Island," another voice came, "I found you in the Sea Forest. You were bloodied all over, as your body was also nearly broken everywhere."

A golden blond hair goldfish-mermaid wearing very long white kimono with a cream-colored carp-scale design along the hem and a sash around her shoulders that floated, came in and told him. Her golden blonde hair was partially held up in two loops by an orange headpiece. She also had green eyes, but it was different from Ryu's which was bright glittering green.

There were also three large figures behind her ready to act should anything happen.

The first one behind her was an enormous, muscular shark merman, with a wide chest and large arms. He had wavy fair blue hair flowing down to his shoulders, and a dot of some sort printed on the middle of his forehead. He has a dark blue tail with light blue polka-dots and blue fin.

The second, an oarfish merman, was an extremely tall and thin merman, with long wavy dark pink hair. His tail, also similar to the first's, was colored in purple with white polka-dots and red fin.

Finally, the third, an opah merman, was a rotund, stocky and large merman with brown hair and red fins on his head. His tail was similar to the other twos but with red tail with white polka-dots.

"Queen Otohime," the voice back then, a fish man doctor, reported, "his body right now is as if he never experienced the damages before. He's completely healed, although I'm not sure about his trauma..."

While they were talking, Ryu was also talking mentally. Figuring out who they were, 'Queen Otohime and her three sons! So she hasn't died yet.'

[I've had taken liberty of shielding your 'heart' from that person's power. Her power has the ability to probe another person's heart, like mind reading.]

'Mmn,' Ryu then looked like he had a difficult time saying something. 'T-thanks for protecting me, system.'

[...Who are you and what have you done to my Ryu?!] It replied.

'Bastard, I thanked you and you're going to be like this?!' Feeling the mood lifted, he chuckled.

However... While he was talking to his system, to the others he looked like he had a massive trauma and went insane. He had just blankly looked at no where specifically, then looked like he was suffering, and now he laughed.

"It seems he's suffered a mental trauma..." Queen Otohime pityingly looked at Ryu. "Let's keep him for a bit longer!"

The three sons was about to object to that, but they stopped after a look of hers. They also felt a bit of pity on Ryu, just a bit.

• (Fishman Island) {Year: 14.6} •

Ryu had already checked out around the Fishman Island during his stay here. After a long time convincing Queen Otohime he wasn't mentally traumatized, he finally got to see the sights.

"I also found the Gyoncorde Plaza where she'll die in..." He muttered. "As a repayment for speeding up my healing and benefits, I'll save her. After that, I'm going to leave for New World."

Suddenly, a voice shouted out his name, "Ryu-sama!"

The 14-years-old Ryu quickly went exasperated, he had always kept her accompany only because she kept coming to him after they met. He often tried staying away from her, only to be met by her crying out for his name. He couldn't just leave her crying in middle of the Plaza, right?

"I'm here!" He shouted.

Finally finding the person, 6-years-old Shirahoshi, still huge, yet cute mermaid, went to where he was. She, an smelt-whiting mermaid, has her pink hair, similar to her mother, held up in two loops with a headpiece. She wore a light colored crop top with floating straps. Seeing the subject of her search, she quickly asked him to play as usual, "Let's play together again!"

"Ugh..." Groaning, he asked her, "why do you always want to play with me, not someone else like your family?"

"Haha! It shows that she likes you!" The bulky huge merman, King Neptune, said as he walked in. "I also like you too! After all you saved her from Vander Decken IX!"

Yes, Ryu saved Shirahoshi when Vander Decken IX was about to touch her, but it was only because Vander Decken was attacking him too. He had thought Ryu was Shirahoshi's future husband, when he only stood beside her... It seemed that Vander already discovered her power, so Ryu simply blasted him out of the Fishman Island before he could even touch a single strand of her.

Fortunately or unfortunately for Ryu, only Shirahoshi had saw that and thought him as the prince charming she read in stories and so, she started to develop a little crush on him, only not excessively like Hancock's.

Ryu not only looked handsome, he was also strong and was nice if you disregard his cold attitude at start. He would become nice to those who were nice to him, cold to those who weren't.

Blushing because her father outed her, she yelled, "Father!"

Not knowing whether to be happy or cry that King Neptune didn't act like a menacing father when he discovered that she liked him, he muttered quietly, "Shouldn't you be sad that your little girl's already liking someone else other than you?"

He muttered that quietly but King Neptune heard it. "I am indeed sad, however during your stay, though indirectly, you've had helped us out in politics and personal matters. And-"

"I'd get mad at him if he had objected even a bit," a certain blond goldfish-mermaid came with her three sons. "He wouldn't want to make his daughter sad, right Neptune~?"

"R-right." He replied quickly, even though he still had some grievances about it. He silently cried, '*sob* I'm the king and yet I have no control over my queen!'

"And Shirahoshi, have you forgotten that you wanted to come with us to Gyoncorde Palace for the petition?" Otohime reminded her daughter. Smirking, she said, "Looks like Ryu is more important, huh?"

Now blushing profusely, she yelled embarrassed, "Not you too, Mom!"

Fukaboshi and his other two brothers also had some grievances about her liking Ryu at start, but as time went on, they started to like him too and even started looking at him as a brother.

"Besides, Shirahoshi has never been this happy for awhile since Vander Decken IX had been bothering her," Fukaboshi said. "Anyways! Ryu, do you want to come with us to Gyoncorde Plaza to ask people sign the petition pages?"

"...Sorry, I have somewhere to be," Ryu told them. He broke the news to them, "I'm leaving tomorrow..."

"W-what?" Shirahoshi suddenly spoke ever since she stopped because of embarrassment. Gathering tears around her eyes, she started to cry. She whimpered, "D-don't leave."

"We always knew you would leave soon or later," Queen Otohime sadly said. Turning to her daughter, she tried to calm her down, "Shirahoshi, you also knew that. We can't always hold him here."

"B-but I want him to stay," she defiantly told her mother for the first time.

"Shirahoshi," Ryu spoke before her mother could continue, "I'll come visit and play with you again in future. For now, you'll need to grow stronger along with your brothers."

Turning to Fukaboshi, Ryuboshi, and Manboshi, he told them, "Grow strong to protect your sister. I can't always stay here to protect her from her power forever."

Surprised that he knew of Shirahoshi's power, Queen Otohime silently looked at Ryu. He only shook his head and mouthed that he was not after her power, calming her.

"Of course!" Slightly tearing, all three brothers replied at the same time.

"Well, go on! Go get more people to sign your mother's petition," Ryu shoo'ed them all away, even though Shirahoshi looked like she still wanted to stay with him. All of them but King Neptune left, with more determination.

King Neptune seeing them like that, he thanked Ryu. "Thank you, Ryu. For not leaving without saying good bye to us."

"Well, originally I was going to, but over time I changed my mind." Smiling, he replied.

"Huh, originally?" King Neptune looked at him questioningly. "Why?"

"...You'll find out when you receive news soon." He mysteriously told. "Good-bye, Neptune."

Ryu disappeared on spot, surprising Neptune. He knew that Ryu was stronger than him, but he didn't know to what extent. 'And what did he mean, receive news soon? Is Ryu going to do something?'

He suddenly got worried for Ryu.

...

Later that day in Gyoncorde Plaza...

"Thank you, for signing!" Queen Otohime shakily shouted, she had finally got the full support for immigration to above. She cried happily along with her children. Her daughter and three sons were also happy at her side, but they still looked like they wanted to tell a certain green-eyes person about it.

Suddenly, the petition papers started to burn out of nowhere. Commotions spread out the crowd, "Who did this?!", "Quickly stop it!", "Somebody stop the fire!"

In amidst the commotions, a gunshot was heard.

*BANG*

At that moment, a figure wearing a hooded cape hiding everything but green eyes, came in front of Queen Otohime, quickly took out a sword in middle of air and stopped the bullet coming towards at the queen.

*CHHH*

Stunned, Queen Otohime, her children, and the others could only look at the figure as it jumped to where the gunshot was heard from. As the figure got there, they all heard a cold voice sending shivers into everyone who heard it.

"Hody Jones..."

...

Standing in front of Hody Jones dressed in a Royal Guard outfit for fishmen, Ryu coldly said his name. "Hody Jones..."

Surprised that he knew him, Hody didn't react when Ryu took him by neck as he broke the gun and threw him in middle of the crowd where Queen Otohime and her children were at.

Whispering so that only his voice would be heard by Otohime and her children with his system, "I've completed the debt I had with you, for saving me."

'Surely Otohime would hate him for being in her way of cooperation of humans and fishmen and his assassination attempt.' He thought as he looked at her and the children. They were also looking at him with realization on who he was.

They were about to talk but Ryu interrupted them, "I promise to visit again in future."

He disappeared into a sword-like beam going upwards.

"W-wait!" Queen Otohime yelled in vain. "Thank you for saving me!"

...

As the sword-like beam, Ryu, went upwards...

"It was Hody Jones that shot at her?!", "Why did he do that?", "Probably to stop us from going above..." The fishmen and mermaids were talking as they angrily looked at Hody Jones holding a broken gun in front of Queen Otohime.

"Why? Why did you do this?" She asked of Hody.

Seeing that his plan failed and he had no way out, he decided to tell the truth. "Why? Because I don't want fishmen to cooperate with humans! If that green-eyes bastard hadn't ruined my plan, you would've died along with your ideals!"

Shocked gasps were heard as he truthfully yelled at Queen Otohime. Queen Otohime had intended to try change him, but hearing him insult Ryu, her and her family's savior, she got angry, "Guards! Take him away! I would've tried to forgive you but you had to insult our family's savior!"

Hody fought back the guards only for it to be in vain, "Stay away! I'm only doing this for a better future!"

As they took away Hody Jones, the 6-years-old Shirahoshi wasn't paying attention, instead she looked at the beam as it went up. 'I'll definitely get you fall in love with me when you come back!'

(AN: Boi b' gettin' girls right n' left. Tee-hee~)

...

Back to Ryu...

"Woo-hoo! This is fun, I should do this more!" He shouted as he swam through the ocean in a sword-like beam. 'Hey system, why didn't you tell me about this?'

[Because you didn't ask.]

'Ugh...' He couldn't retort to that. 'Any other features?'

[There are several more features.]

After waiting for awhile for it to tell about it, he received nothing. 'And?'

[And figure them out yourself. Price of me healing you.]

'I'm at the admin rank! You should tell me them!' Ryu mentally shouted at his system.

[Just because you're at 'Administrator' rank doesn't mean I should tell you my three sizes, you naughty pervert.]

Twitching his mouth, he yelled in the water, "Why did I get you as my system~!"