A low voice echoed from behind the coral pillars.
"So you noticed me… Not surprising. They call you the strongest creature for a reason."
A tall blue shark-woman stepped out from the shadows.
"Shyarly?!" Jinbe exclaimed, startled to see her walking out from the inner hall.
The tension eased a little. Shirahoshi swam forward, carefully balancing a tray in her hands.
"Um… Lord White… these are roasted Sea King cuts," she said shyly. "I heard they're your favorite."
White Ghost accepted the tray with a nod, sparing Shyarly a brief glance before calmly starting to eat.
Compared to most fishmen or humans, Shyarly was tall and striking.
Short black hair covered part of her right eye, the other a sharp, clear blue. Her skin was pale, and a faint fierceness clung to her like a natural danger warning. Her shark tail was dark blue near the base, fading to white at the tip, with small fins running along her lower back.
She wore a dark purple hooded top fastened only at the center, exposing a strip of midriff. The outfit matched her air perfectly—a woman who lived by her own rules.
"Have you stared enough, Mr. White?" Shyarly asked coolly, clearly a little uncomfortable under his direct gaze.
White Ghost coughed once, realizing several pairs of eyes were giving him odd looks, and shifted his attention away.
At that moment, Shirahoshi spoke again in an earnest, hopeful voice:
"Um… Lord White, could you… change into the form you used last time?"
"Shirahoshi! Mind your manners," Otohime chided gently.
But seeing her daughter's pleading expression, White Ghost sighed. Who could refuse a face like that?
"It's fine," he said.
Golden scales rippled over his body as he transformed. He compressed the form, settling into a roughly twenty-meter dragon so as not to fill the entire hall.
"Ah… it's that warm, peaceful feeling again…" Shirahoshi murmured happily.
She searched the hall with practiced familiarity, then swam over to the same spot she'd rested in last time and curled up beside his flank. Within seconds, her breathing evened out.
"…You fed me just to use me as a pillow, didn't you?" White Ghost muttered dryly, spreading one wing over the sleeping princess to shield her.
Everyone stared.
Otohime was stunned—Shirahoshi normally took forever to fall asleep unless coaxed with the utmost care. Yet just like last time, she'd drifted off almost instantly beside him.
Neptune's expression darkened again.
His precious daughter… knocked out cold… by some dragon…
White Ghost ignored his look and returned his gaze to Shyarly.
"All right. She's out," he said. "She won't bother us. Now—Miss Shyarly. Since you know who I am, you also know I killed your brother Arlong, right?"
Shyarly took a slow drag from her long-stemmed pipe.
"I know," she said quietly. "But he brought that on himself. I cut ties with him a long time ago."
"And what exactly did you see?" White Ghost asked between bites.
Shyarly's tail flicked lazily.
"Heh. You're well-informed. Last time you came to Fishman Island, I watched from a distance… and tried to divine your future."
White Ghost raised a brow.
"But the result," she continued, "was nothing. A blank."
The hall went still.
Shyarly's divinations were said to be nearly one hundred percent accurate. The only flaw: she could never see when an event would happen.
But she always saw something.
"Today, I wanted a closer look," Shyarly said, lifting her crystal ball. "If you don't mind."
"Go ahead," White Ghost said, placing a claw gently against the orb.
The instant he touched it, something shifted—his Observation Haki reacted oddly, as if something inside it were resonating.
Shyarly closed her eyes and began, her hands tracing familiar patterns across the crystal's smooth surface.
Everyone watched in tense silence.
After a few moments, Shyarly opened her eyes—wearing a complicated expression.
"You're strange," she said softly. "Completely blank. No past. No future. Nothing at all."
Murmurs rippled through the hall.
"No past? No future?" Neptune whispered, bewildered.
White Ghost only chuckled inwardly.
Of course she can't see anything.
I'm not from this world.
He tapped the crystal ball thoughtfully, trying to push Observation Haki into it—nothing. Armament Haki—still nothing.
Odd. His Haki had felt… curious earlier. But now it refused to enter the orb at all.
"So," he asked, setting the ball down, "why did you want to meet me?"
Shyarly drew in another breath of smoke.
"I couldn't see your future," she said. "But I felt something else."
Her gaze swept the hall.
"Ever since you first came here… Fishman Island's future—its overall fortune—has grown brighter."
White Ghost blinked.
"Fate, huh? What are you now, some kind of ancient mystic?" he said dryly. "Next you'll be talking about destiny charts and energy flows. How old are you, exactly?"
Shyarly stared at him.
"…What?"
"…Never mind. Continue."
She rolled her eyes.
"After the island's fortune changed, I performed a reading for Princess Shirahoshi."
Otohime and Neptune both stiffened.
"Shyarly… what did you see?" Otohime asked anxiously.
Shyarly tapped ash from her pipe.
"She originally had a calamity waiting for her—the one named Vander Decken IX. You know him."
Her steady gaze shifted to White Ghost.
White Ghost paused mid-chew.
"That creep is still bothering her?" he asked.
"So you do know something," Shyarly said, eyes narrowing slightly.
"What do you mean?" Neptune asked, completely lost.
Shyarly continued:
"When I heard from Hachi what happened in that East Blue village… I thought, at first, you'd gone after Arlong after hearing the news."
"But then he told me something else."
Her eyes sharpened.
"He said he heard you say, 'I've been waiting for you.' Meaning—you already knew Arlong would go to East Blue. And not just that—you knew he'd go specifically to Cocoyashi Village."
The hall fell silent.
White Ghost cursed silently.
Zan Gao… you talk too much. I'm shaving your head when we get back.
"And you know about Moria's samurai. And the black blade," Shyarly added.
Jinbe's head snapped up.
A black blade… There were only a handful in the entire world.
Shyarly exhaled a long stream of smoke.
"Put it all together," she said. "The things you know, where you appear, the timing of your actions—I can only reach one conclusion."
She met his eyes squarely.
"You know far, far more than you should. And just now, when I mentioned Vander Decken, you reacted immediately."
White Ghost's dragon head lowered a fraction, golden eyes locking onto hers.
His aura shifted.
A quiet, crushing pressure filled the room—dragon's presence entwined with Conqueror's Haki, rolling out like thunder under the skin.
Jinbe stiffened. His Observation told him exactly how dangerous the air had become.
"Mr. White, please calm yourself," Otohime said quickly, fear flickering in her eyes.
Shyarly's breathing hitched under the weight, but she forced herself to keep speaking.
"I convinced Queen Otohime," she said hoarsely, "that Fishman Island should tie its future to you—as tightly as possible."
"As long as you don't abandon Fishman Island… we'll accept whatever conditions you name."
The moment the last word left her lips, the pressure peaked.
Shyarly's knees buckled.
She collapsed to the floor, propping herself up with one hand, drawing in ragged breaths as the weight of that dragon's will pressed down on her.
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