{Dam Fat Adam Even is foine....}
After listening to all the possibilities, only one thing remained in Kairo's mind.
'If I bring her back, we can study this seal from up close and we will finally have our final weapon against that thing.' There was no need to wait for some gods to come and save the day.
He was not the kind of person to really believe in gods. Yes, he was part of a clan who knew for a fact those entities existed, and they literally had video proof in their archives. So it wasn't a matter of blind faith—it was just hard not to believe in them when remnants of their actual power were walking around.
Like the original Devil Fruits, which his clan was quite aware of. He even knew why the Mythical Zoan Nika fruit wasn't in the oldest records, and that was because it was relatively recent. It wasn't the first fruit ever created; that title belonged to something else entirely. That specific fruit was manifested after the original JoyBoy's death. A Devil Fruit carries a lineage factor or spirit within it, and the original user was basically elevated to that status. It didn't take a genius to guess what kind of legacy that guy left behind, but oh well.
Kairo technically could have tracked down the Nika fruit for himself, but someone else had already eaten it in this era. Unlike his future self, he was still a bit more innocent; he wasn't going to go out of his way to completely slime out a kid just to steal a power-up. Future him probably would, though heavy on the if, since the current rubber kid was completely innocent and he'd have no way of justifying it to his own conscience.
Shuri wondered why the boy had been quiet for so long, when Kairo suddenly stood up, a bright smile making itself known on his lips.
"What are you doing?" she asked, completely confused.
"We're leaving," Kairo declared.
She blinked at him. Was this guy completely insane in the head? How could they possibly escape a high-security facility like this? "How?"
"By walking out the front door, duh."
"If it were that easy, I would have done so already!" her head seemed to swell a hundred times bigger as she screamed at him in sheer exasperation.
'Jeez, the original JoyBoy sure did leave a permanent mark on reality,' Kairo thought. The ancient warrior must have messed around way too much back in the day, and now practically everyone in this world operated under slight cartoon physics during high-emotion gags. Sometimes, if a moment was funny enough, even gravity would straight-up stop working.
"If we get further than a hundred feet from this cell without authorization, these collars will detonate," she explained, desperately clutching the metal ring around her neck. "That shit is tight."
"Why not just remove it?" Kairo asked casually.
Shuri, who was usually quite reserved, felt her blood pressure actively spike because of this boy. "Oh, sure! Let me just rip it right off. I'm absolutely certain my head won't explode into a million pieces!"
'She gets pretty talkative when her guard drops,' Kairo noted. That was exactly what he had planned. Through a subtle combination of specialized observation haki and a tiny hint of Conqueror's Haki, he was gently easing the absolute panic she had built up, projecting a wavelength that made him appear completely trustworthy.
Ninjutsu tricks really were overpowered. He wouldn't trade his clan's abilities for anything else in this wild world of pirates.
"Why couldn't you just do this?" Kairo asked, acting entirely confused. He knew exactly how the explosive mechanisms worked; he just wanted to mess with her a little bit to break the tension.
"I've seen it happen! When anyone tries to force it open, it blows up!"
Kairo, however, was fully confident his ancestral genes could face-tank whatever primitive gunpowder was packed inside. Without warning, he reached up to his own neck and grabbed the locking mechanism.
"Wait... no!" Shuri lunged forward to stop him.
Before she could reach his hand, however—
BOOM!
A loud explosion erupted inside the cell. Yet, weirdly enough, no one else in the surrounding cells seemed to pay it any mind at all. It was as if a specialized sensory barrier had been erected, completely masking the event from the rest of the prison.
Speaking of Shuri, her Abyssal Mark lightly glowed the exact moment the illusionary barrier took effect, and she held her temple in sudden dizziness.
"Yo," Kairo greeted, standing perfectly intact amidst the dissipating smoke.
"AHHH!" she shrieked, stumbling backward as if she were looking at a literal ghost. While Kairo loved messing with people, it was officially time to get moving.
"Hello," he said cheerfully.
"You're alive?!" her voice shook violently. "How did you survive that? Everyone else who tries just dies!"
"Let's just say I have a remarkably durable body," he replied with a grin, dusting off his clothes. He looked completely unharmed.
{Energy shield tanked 100% of the kinetic blast.}
The system was incredibly useful. God, he loved nanotech; that hidden defense layer was absolutely busted.
{Warning: Abyssal Energy spike detected from nearby subject.}
Kairo's smile faded into a frown as he gazed at Shuri's mark, which had suddenly begun pulsing with a dark radiance.
"AAHHH!" She dropped to her knees, clutching her head in pure agony.
"Are you okay?" Kairo asked, his tone shifting to genuine worry as he rushed over to her side.
"I can hear him... he's close..." she whispered, trembling so hard her teeth chattered. She looked like she was right on the brink of losing her sanity entirely.
"I have to be quick," Kairo muttered to himself.
He swiftly pulled out a blank scroll of sealing paper, bit the tip of his thumb, and used his blood as ink to rapidly draw a containment matrix. With practiced precision, he slapped the paper seal directly over her pulsing Abyssal Mark.
Instantly, the dark radiance faded, and the agonizing pressure stopped. Shuri went completely limp, having passed out from the sheer intensity of the mental strain.
Shit. He needed to get her out of here immediately. Unlike him, her current physical vessel wouldn't be able to handle a prolonged spiritual tracking event if the Elders caught her trail.
"Gotta clear her collar first." Using a concentrated burst of localized energy, Kairo snapped the metal band right off her neck, crushing the device entirely inside his palm as it detonated.
POP. The blast did exactly zero percent damage to his reinforced hand. He carefully lifted her up, slinging her securely over his shoulder.
"Hang on tight. I'm getting you out of here safely."
And with one swift, flickering motion, the cell was completely empty.
A/N chapter 55 of werewolf is out, also ignore my comment at the begining of the chapter.