now is sharp enough to sting—it's definitely not calm here! Ren was utterly bewildered.
One Sea King could be written off as a freak accident. But a whole pack?
What, are you guys having a convention today? My bad for crashing the party!
Boom!
Another tail whipped out. Ren narrowly dodged, but the resulting tsunami was unavoidable. A wall of seawater blotted out the sky, plunging him into the ocean's depths. Beneath the surface, several snarling, misshapen monsters were already closing in, their maws wide.
Pfft!
Ren spat out a mouthful of seawater and tried to make a break for the ship. But he hesitated; these things were clearly fixated on him. When Hill and the others fled, the Sea Kings hadn't even given them a second glance. They were hunting him.
But on this vast, open ocean, where could he possibly hide?
Ren looked up at the massive, dark silhouette shrouded in mist in the distance.
Seems I don't have a choice...
Without hesitation, Ren turned and sprinted toward the shadow. They were already at the base of Reverse Mountain; if it weren't for that Sea King pig, they would be in the Grand Line by now. His only hope of shaking these monsters was to scale the Red Line itself.
A black blur raced across the water, pursued by over a dozen prehistoric monsters eager to swallow him whole. In the distance, Hill and the crew watched with their hearts in their throats, praying for their captain's survival.
Finally, the crimson soil of the Red Line appeared. Ren leaped, launching himself onto the vertical face of the continent. He didn't stop, scaling the Red Line with desperate speed. Since these Sea Kings were thousands of meters long, he didn't feel safe until he had put significant distance between himself and the waterline.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
The Sea Kings refused to let go. They slammed into the base of the Red Line like madmen, climbing over one another to reach higher, their stinking maws snapping at Ren's heels.
Snap!
Evading another bite, Ren looked down. The ocean was now invisible, hidden beneath a layer of clouds. Only the occasional massive head of a Sea King would pierce the cloud layer, trying to snag him.
"I must be at least five thousand meters up by now," Ren mused. "I don't know what bug crawled up their collective backs, but they're acting like I personally wiped out their bloodline."
Ren punched a hole into the side of the Red Line and sat inside the makeshift cave to rest. He needed to recover his stamina. If the Sea Kings continued to blockade the base, he'd have to tell Hill to take the ship over Reverse Mountain alone while he crossed the continent on foot to regroup in the Grand Line. No matter how powerful these Sea Kings were, they couldn't tunnel through the Red Line to follow him.
Ren's consciousness drifted into the Brotherhood Space. He had intended to just look around, but to his surprise, he found a version of himself he hadn't seen in ages!
White-Coat Ren and Ninja Ren had been meeting frequently lately to design the machinery for the new Konoha lab. Today, as they were talking, a third Ren appeared. He was heavily muscled and soaking wet, looking like he had just crawled out of a war zone.
"Brother from the One Piece world?" Ninja Ren asked tentatively.
"It's me!" Pirate Ren grinned. "It's been over a year. Good to see you guys again!"
"Long time no see!" Ninja Ren introduced the other: "This is the brother who crossed into the Zombie Brother world. Through his own efforts, he's already a God-level powerhouse!"
"God-level?" Pirate Ren blinked. It had been so long since he'd lived in the modern world that he'd forgotten some of the terminology.
"Roughly equivalent to the strength of Reanimated Nagato," Ninja Ren explained. "Basically, I'm no longer cannon fodder in the Naruto world. I've made it!"
"Haha! That's great! Congrats!" Pirate Ren laughed boisterously. "By the way, what took so long? Why haven't you been here?"
"I come every day!" Pirate Ren looked confused. "But every time I showed up, the place was empty. I'd wait thirty minutes and then leave."
Ninja Ren and White-Coat Ren shared a look of helpless amusement. "Seems we've been perfectly missing each other due to the time difference."
"Whatever, that doesn't matter!" Pirate Ren shook his head, holding out his fist. "Brothers, fist-bump!"
The other two didn't hesitate. After all, they had built their initial foundations on the strength and Haki they'd received from Pirate Ren.
As the three fists connected, the other two realized the predicament Pirate Ren was in. White-Coat Ren narrowed his eyes. "Sea Kings don't attack humans without reason. And the ones blockading you are clearly targeted; you said their eyes are bloodshot? That's not normal behavior."
"If I had to guess," Ninja Ren frowned, "someone is controlling those Sea Kings to hunt you down. But you haven't really offended anyone that powerful yet, have you? Unless... you've been watched from the very beginning!"
"HOLY CRAP! THIS IS INSANE!!!" Pirate Ren roared as he absorbed the combined power of his two counterparts—the immense chakra and the evolutionary God Gene. "Hold that thought, brothers! I'm going to go slaughter some Sea Kings and then we'll finish this talk!"
With that, Pirate Ren vanished from the space, leaving the other two staring at each other.
"Well," Ninja Ren said, "while we wait, let's figure out who exactly is targeting him. Hawkins' prediction about a 'life-or-death disaster' makes me think he knows something."
Back in the One Piece world, Ren snapped his eyes open. He stood up, and a Conqueror's Haki several times more powerful than before erupted from his body!
He looked down, his gaze colliding with a Sea King currently lunging through the clouds.
"Hehehe! Little fishy... let's see what's really going on inside that head of yours!"