Stray Islands.
These islands in the sky was now a scene of utter devastation.
At the island's center, a massive crater tens of kilometers in diameter was continuously crumbling, chunks of stone falling downwards.
At the edge of the crater, two figures stood facing each other.
One of them was IGO President, Ichiryu.
However, his condition was extremely dire at this moment.
There was a large, gaping hole clear through his chest, its edges charred black, as if pierced by some kind of terrifying energy.
Midora stood opposite, his gaze complex as he looked at him.
"Midora," Ichiryu's voice was hoarse, carrying a tone of an elder brother, "You should have... realized it long ago, right? Quite a few 'little bugs' have infiltrated your Bishokukai..."
Midora remained silent.
"Actually... it's not just your Bishokukai." Ichiryu coughed up a large mouthful of blood and smiled bitterly, "My IGO has also been heavily infiltrated. There is a deeply hidden force that has been secretly active, fueling the antagonism between the IGO and Bishokukai."
Midora finally spoke, his voice cold: "Those bugs, I will crush every last one of them with my own hands. I will use their blood as a memorial for you."
Ichiryu slowly shook his head, his breath faint: "No, Midora. If my guess is correct, the power behind that force is likely not a simple individual."
"That person is probably our teacher, the Gourmet God... Acacia."
"Froese-san's 'accidental' death back then might not have been an accident at all."
"What did you say?" Midora, usually indifferent, flew into a complete rage upon hearing that Froese's death might not have been an accident.
Ichiryu continued haltingly: "Acacia orchestrated all of this. He may have... colluded with those creatures from space long, long ago. Froese-san probably discovered something, which is why she..."
"Acacia!" Midora let out an earth-shattering roar.
A berserk killing intent and the terrifying aura of his Appetite Demon surged skyward, shredding the clouds in the sky.
Froese… that gentle, motherly woman who taught them love and cooking, yet passed away too early… was the most untouchable reverse scale deep within his heart, and also the root cause of the path of consumption and destruction he now walked.
The extreme anger and collapse nearly drove Midora to lose his mind.
Just as Ichiryu was about to continue speaking, a blue figure, moving faster than the limit of biological reaction, appeared behind Ichiryu without any warning.
This was a strange creature with a bird-like head but a gorilla-like torso.
But for Ichiryu and Midora, this creature was not difficult to identify. It was clearly a Blue Nitro.
Its sharp claws, glinting with cold light, struck directly at Ichiryu's back, intending to silence this giant of the Gourmet World who knew too many secrets.
"You're dead!!" Although Midora was consumed by rage, his combat instincts remained intact. He immediately moved to intercept.
But the Blue Nitro's speed was too great, the attack was premeditated, and the distance was close. It seemed about to succeed.
At this critical moment, Setsuna suddenly appeared behind Ichiryu, using his own body to block the strike.
The Blue Nitro's pupils contracted sharply. It felt as if it had crashed into the hardest substance in the universe. Its full-power strike instead injured its own hand, fracturing the bone.
It made an immediate decision, abandoning the attack. Its figure turned into a ghostly blue afterimage, retreating backward even faster than it had arrived, attempting to merge into space and escape.
As a race that had traversed the cosmos for hundreds of millions of years, their mastery over space had long reached its peak.
"Come and go as you please?" Setsuna's flat voice sounded.
He grasped the void in the direction where the Blue Nitro had vanished. The space for hundreds of meters around suddenly tore apart, like a piece of cloth gripped by an invisible giant hand.
The Blue Nitro, already half-merged into space, was forcibly 'squeezed' out from the spatial fold, like an insect frozen in amber.
It struggled desperately, but to no avail.
The next second, the Blue Nitro, along with the space surrounding it, was completely obliterated.
On Stray Islands, a deathly silence fell.
Ichiryu and Midora were both in disbelief. They knew very well what the Blue Nitro was.
It was a cosmic lifeform that had descended upon Earth hundreds of millions of years ago, a space noble. They had spread Gourmet Cells and transformed Earth into its current state. Calling them 'creator gods' would not be an exaggeration.
Apart from their small group of fellow disciples and the Eight Kings of the Gourmet World, no one should have been a match for a Blue Nitro.
Yet Setsuna had so effortlessly annihilated the Blue Nitro in an instant. This level of strength shocked even them.
Noticing the hole in Ichiryu's chest, Setsuna casually brushed his hand over it. The flesh at Ichiryu's chest rapidly regenerated, restoring itself completely in the blink of an eye.
Naruto, with the power of Six Paths Yang Release, could reshape Guy's body and extend his life after he opened the Eighth Gate.
And Setsuna now had control over 'Chakra' of a quality and quantity that could be called 'divine power', so repairing Ichiryu's body was naturally an easy task for him.
"All my injuries are healed?" Ichiryu touched his chest in shock.
"Haha, Ichiryu, you look so pathetic!" Don Slime emerged from within Setsuna's body, eagerly arriving on the scene to mock him.
"Without my power backing you up, it really doesn't work! You almost got killed!"
Seeing Don Slime, Midora's eyes fluctuated violently.
He naturally recognized this creature. It was clearly Ichiryu's Appetite Demon.
But now, Don Slime was emerging from that young man's body.
"Why did you give your Appetite Demon to him?" Midora asked in a deep voice. "If you used your Appetite Demon's power, I would not be your match."
"Haha, I simply placed my bet on the future." Ichiryu laughed heartily. "However, I didn't expect this future to arrive so quickly."
After the hearty laugh, Ichiryu became sentimental again: "I remember when you left, your strength was only at the level of barely handling the Four Beasts. How many months has it been? You've already far surpassed me."
"The future?" Setsuna's mind stirred. He decided to take Trunks' script.
He spoke in a grave voice: "My growth is only natural. Because I am not from the present. I have returned from the future."
"The future?" Ichiryu and Midora were both startled.
"Correct." Setsuna nodded. "From your perspective, I was only gone for a few months. But for me, I experienced over a decade of long time."
This explanation, though bizarre, was surprisingly convincing to Ichiryu and Midora, who had witnessed incredible beings like the Blue Nitro and the Eight Kings of the Gourmet World.
Only this reason could explain how Setsuna had achieved such a transformative change in just a few short months.
"I see. A time traveler?" Ichiryu stroked his chin and quickly accepted the premise.
His expression turned serious: "You returned from the future because something terrible is going to happen, isn't it?"
Setsuna looked around at the devastated Stray Islands. "This isn't the place to talk. Let's go back. Master Jiro might ask about this too, so it'll save me having to explain twice if I explained to you all at once."
He looked towards Midora: "Midora-san, would you like to come along? Just before I came over here, at the Gourmet Festival, I captured a woman who looks exactly like Froese. She calls herself Joie, the leader of NEO. I thought you might be interested."
"Froese... Joie..." Midora's eyes fluctuated again, but he forcefully suppressed it, simply uttering a single cold word: "Go."
"Good." Setsuna said no more, placing his hands on Ichiryu and Midora's shoulders respectively.
Silvery-gray spatial ripples appeared once more, and the three figures vanished from Stray Islands in an instant.