The old man stepped out of his house at sunrise.
He looked at the six men tied up in front of the warehouse, then at Elian and Shikamaru waiting on the dock. Behind him, other villagers began to appear in their doorways, hesitant, like people who didn't quite dare believe that something had changed overnight.
The old man walked up to Elian and stopped in front of him. He studied him for a long moment, noticing the carefully bandaged cut on his forearm, the shoulder that moved with slight stiffness. He made no comment about it. He simply looked Elian in the eyes with that same unreadable expression he had worn the day before.
Then something loosened in his face.
"Is it over?" he asked.
"It's over," Elian said.
The old man nodded several times, lips pressed tight. Behind him, a fisherman stepped toward his boat, untied the mooring rope, and began preparing to head out. Another did the same. Then a third.
Slowly, the port of Isla Verna began to look like what it was meant to be again.
The village's reward amounted to four million Berries, gathered with the quiet dignity of people who give what they can without regret.
The official bounty, collected two days later at the nearest port, added another eight million.
Twelve million in total.
***
That evening, in an inn room that looked like every other inn room they had occupied since Crystal Island, Shikamaru did the count.
"12 million earned at Isla Verna." He set the pouches between them. "This time it's different. 10 million for the Shop, 2 million for the road. We already have 8 million in reserve."
Elian nodded without arguing. He already had 30 million set aside for the system. With these additional 10 million, he reached exactly the 40 million required.
He didn't need to look any further.
He closed his eyes and opened the Shop.
The lines appeared, clear and precise as always. But this time, something had changed in their arrangement. Beneath the usual techniques, a new section had appeared—still grayed out, still inaccessible, but visible for the first time.
40,000,000 – Elemental Affinity: Katon
40,000,000 – Elemental Affinity: Raiton
40,000,000 – Elemental Affinity: Futon
40,000,000 – Elemental Affinity: Suiton
40,000,000 – Elemental Affinity: Doton
And beneath each affinity, a list of techniques whose prices were still hidden, replaced by a simple lock.
He looked at them for a long moment. Then he stopped before confirming the purchase and opened his eyes again.
Shikamaru was watching him from the edge of the bed.
"You're hesitating," he said.
"No." Elian set the pouches on the table and crossed his arms. "I'm thinking."
Shikamaru waited.
"There are five affinities available," Elian said. "Katon, Raiton, Futon, Suiton, Doton." He paused. "In this world, we're surrounded by the sea. We fight often on ships, on docks, near the coast."
"Go on," said Shikamaru.
"Katon is powerful, but it has limits on water. Humidity reduces its effectiveness. Raiton is formidable, but dangerous to use at sea—the water conducts electricity everywhere." Elian looked at his hands. "Futon is interesting for mobility and ranged attacks. But in the East Blue, it depends on weather conditions." He paused. "And Doton is effective on solid ground. But we spend our time at sea, on ship decks, on wooden piers. The earth is almost never beneath our feet."
Shikamaru nodded slightly.
"And Suiton?"
"It's everywhere here. We sail on it, we fight near it, we're constantly surrounded by it." Elian raised his eyes to him. "With a Suiton affinity, I can draw directly from what's around me. No need to create something from nothing."
Shikamaru remained silent for a moment.
"That's solid reasoning," he said at last. "But there's something else."
Elian looked at him.
"Some enemies have Devil Fruits. Suiton is one of the most effective elements against Logia-type users, especially those based on fire or electricity." He paused. "And in the East Blue, Devil Fruits are rare—but they exist. Crane was proof of that."
"So Suiton is strategically the best option for this world," Elian said.
"At this stage, yes." Shikamaru lay back on the bed, hands folded over his chest. "Katon and Raiton are more spectacular. More instinctive offensively. But Suiton gives you something the others don't in this environment: versatility."
Elian stayed silent for a moment, letting the words settle in his mind. He thought of Crane, of the cannonball that had bounced off, of the way water had resolved the problem definitively. He thought of the next missions, the next opponents, of Kael and what would need to be built there.
"Suiton," he said at last.
Shikamaru closed his eyes.
"Suiton," he confirmed simply.
Elian closed his eyes again and confirmed the purchase in the Shop.
What happened next was difficult to describe.
No light, no visible transformation, no spectacular sound. Just something deep and slow shifting in his chest. The warmth he had known since the beginning—the one that had started as a small ember on Crystal Island and had grown mission after mission—took on a new nature.
But it wasn't as if something had been added to him.
It was as if something that had always been there had finally found its name.
The warmth cooled slightly, liquefied, in a sense, without disappearing. Elian felt his chakra change consistency from within, becoming more fluid, more mobile—like water that naturally finds its level. It wasn't a violent transformation. It was a recognition. His chakra hadn't changed its nature; it had simply revealed the nature it had always had.
He opened his eyes again and looked at his hands.
Nothing visible. No spectacular manifestation, no water appearing between his fingers. Just his hands—the same as before.
And yet, different.
He reopened the Shop. The locks on the Suiton techniques had disappeared. The prices were now visible—some within reach in the near future, others still far off. He went through them slowly without buying any, letting the numbers settle in his mind.
Shikamaru watched him in silence from the edge of the bed.
"It's done?" he said.
"It's done," Elian murmured.
A silence.
"Do you feel anything different?"
Elian searched for words for a moment, eyes on his hands.
"My chakra is more fluid. Like before it was searching for a direction, and now it simply knows where to go." He paused. "I didn't do anything. It just changed on its own."
Shikamaru nodded slowly, not looking surprised.
"That's what a natural affinity is," he said. "Your chakra already had that nature within it. The affinity didn't give you something new. It just removed what was preventing it from expressing itself." He leaned his head back against the wall. "Suiton techniques will take work. But your foundation is already there. That's an important difference."
Elian looked at the Shop for a while longer, eyes on the list of now-accessible techniques, then closed it. He couldn't buy them yet. Not tonight. He would need to gather the necessary Berries first—and for that, he needed new missions.
But something had changed in the way he saw what came next. Before the affinity, techniques had seemed like separate tools—things you acquire one by one without any real connection between them. Now, they appeared to him like the branches of the same tree. Each connected to that Suiton chakra flowing quietly within him—steady and certain.
He lay down on his bed and stared at the ceiling.
Outside, the port slept under a cloudless sky. The sea shimmered softly under the moonlight, and the wind blew in from offshore with that steady rhythm he now knew by heart.
Since Crystal Island, he had come a long way. Missions, fights, ports whose names he had already forgotten. Berries patiently accumulated, spent with method. Shuriken thrown thousands of times. Mistakes made and understood.
And now this.
A Suiton chakra flowing within him as if it had always been there, simply waiting to be recognized.
It wasn't an ending.
It was the beginning of something different.
"Shikamaru," he said in the dark.
"What."
"Thank you."
A long silence. Then the Nara's drawn-out voice, almost imperceptibly different from usual.
"Sleep."
It wasn't an answer.
But it was one all the same.
***
The next morning, they left the port beneath a clear, cloudless sky.
Elian rowed in silence for the first few hours, feeling the Suiton chakra flowing gently along his arms with each movement. It wasn't useful yet. He couldn't do anything with it without the corresponding techniques. But it was there, present—like a promise kept.
Shikamaru sat at the stern, eyes half-closed, a map spread across his knees.
They sailed like that until mid-morning, carried by a steady wind from the north.
Then Shikamaru spoke without lifting his gaze from the map.
"Have you heard of Don Krieg?"
Elian kept rowing.
"No."
"Neither had I three weeks ago." Shikamaru folded a corner of the map slightly. "But his name is starting to circulate in the ports. Not loudly. Just a murmur. The kind of murmur that comes before something bigger."
Elian set the oars down for a moment and looked at him.
"Who is he?"
"A pirate captain. Based in the eastern part of the East Blue for now." Shikamaru placed a finger on a point on the map. "His name is Don Krieg. Tall, massive, with golden armor covering his entire body. The people who've seen him say he looks more like a walking fortress than a man."
He paused.
"He fights without rules, without honor, without limits. He attacks his own allies if it suits him. His men obey him out of fear, not loyalty."
Elian listened without interrupting.
"His bounty is 15 million Berries." Shikamaru lifted his eyes from the map. "The highest we've heard so far."
Elian paused in his rowing.
It was the highest bounty they had ever heard of. Higher than Crane, higher than Renzo, higher than every name that had circulated through the ports since Crystal Island.
And yet Shikamaru didn't sound like he was talking about a target.
He sounded like he was talking about a warning.
"It's not the bounty that matters," Shikamaru continued. "It's what it represents. Someone with 15 million and a fleet of fifty ships behind him isn't a pirate just trying to survive."
"It's someone building something much bigger."
He slowly folded the map.
"And people like that never stop halfway."
Elian picked up the oars again, letting the information settle in his mind.
"Is he dangerous now?"
"Not directly to us. He's not operating in our area yet. And his fleet is large but scattered—not coordinated the way it could be." Shikamaru slipped the map into his pocket.
"But men like him grow fast. And when he's ready, the entire East Blue will feel it."
The sea stretched around them, calm and indifferent.
Elian looked at the horizon for a moment, thinking about what Shikamaru had just said. A fleet of fifty ships. A bounty that would inevitably rise. A man building something vast with a method and ambition few pirates in the East Blue possessed.
"Do you think we'll cross paths with him one day?" Elian asked.
Shikamaru looked out at the sea with half-lidded eyes.
"In this world, people like Krieg and people like us always end up finding each other."
He paused.
"The question isn't if. The question is what state we'll be in when it happens."
Elian nodded slowly.
He thought of Kael's village, still just a dream written on a crumpled note in his inner pocket. He thought of the Suiton techniques he still couldn't afford. He thought of the list of summons in the Shop, still financially out of reach.
There was a long road between now and the moment they'd be ready to face someone like Krieg.
But the road existed.
"We keep going," he said simply.
Shikamaru nodded, eyes still on the horizon.
"We keep going."
The wind blew gently from the north, pushing their small boat eastward.
The sea shimmered beneath the mid-morning sun—vast, and full of everything the East Blue still had to offer them.
Somewhere to the east, Don Krieg was building his fleet ship by ship, man by man, with the methodical patience of someone who had yet to show the world what he was truly capable of.
He didn't yet know he wasn't the only one building something.