Makoto and the Kotegawa sisters walked out of the supermarket empty-handed.
A raindrop landed on Nanaka's nose. She stopped walking, looked up at the sky. "It's raining."
The dark clouds came quickly, pressing in from the direction of the horizon, like a huge gray curtain pulling the sky apart from the middle to both sides.
The raindrops went from sparse to dense, from dense to pouring.
Makoto raised an eyebrow.
Over at the beach, that monster's presence had grown stronger again.
"Let's go back."
On the private beach, the Deep Sea King punched the ice surface.
The ice began to crack from the point of contact, the fissures spreading outward in a radial pattern, faster than sound.
The sea surface that Yukino had frozen for dozens of miles shattered into countless pieces of floating ice under this punch.
The ice chunks collided with each other, making crisp sounds, bobbing in the waves.
The expressions of the onlookers changed slightly.
"Is he... getting a bit bigger?"
Hiratsuka stood under the beach umbrella, frowning slightly.
Ever since it started raining, the Deep Sea King's size had been visibly expanding.
From 4 meters, it visibly reached over 7 meters in height, his skin changing from light green to dark green, his muscle lines going from defined to exaggerated, those fins spreading out like fans.
Not just his size, but his strength, speed, defense, and even regeneration ability were all being enhanced simultaneously.
Ryo watched the opponent's increasingly exaggerated speed and said with an expressionless face, "Might be a trait, like Swift Swim."
Yotsuba blinked. She didn't understand.
Utaha activated her Mangekyo Sharingan, three tomoe spinning in her crimson pupils. "Need help?"
Out on the distant ice, Yukino's breathing was already ragged.
The Deep Sea King's speed was far faster than she had anticipated. Every attack forced her to give up offense and return to defense, and before she could catch her breath after defending, the next punch was already there.
Her Ice-Ice Fruit was originally more of a mage-type, long-range fighting style, but the Deep Sea King simply wouldn't give her a chance to create distance.
"...No need."
This was her first official battle since obtaining the Ice-Ice Fruit.
She didn't want to rely on anyone else's help, and she certainly didn't want him to see her like this.
But unfortunately, when Yukino's peripheral vision swept across the far end of the beach... Makoto had returned at some point.
He stood next to the beach umbrella, Pochita squatting at his feet. One man and one dog were watching the scene.
Just then, the rain grew even heavier.
Heavy rain turned into a downpour. Raindrops hitting the ice sounded like someone drumming.
The Deep Sea King's body continued to expand in the torrential rain, from six meters to eight, from eight to ten, finally reaching a height of twenty meters. His appearance was also changing drastically—
His mouth split to his ears, his eyes bulged out of their sockets. There was nothing humanoid left on that face... it was just a mutated ugly fish.
"Hahahaha!
The Deep Sea King stood among the broken ice, the downpour shrouding his entire body in a curtain of water.
"You froze the sea earlier, which put me in a bad state, but thanks to this rain... now, it's my turn to counterattack."
The moment the words left his mouth, he vanished from the ice.
Yukino's pupils contracted sharply.
The Deep Sea King appeared before her, his twenty-meter frame completely blocking the sunlight.
He looked down at Yukino as if looking at an ant.
"Ice Age."
Yukino pressed both hands onto the ice. Cold air surged from under her feet, spreading along the ice to the Deep Sea King's feet, then climbing upward.
The ice began covering from his feet upward. In less than half a second, the Deep Sea King's entire twenty-meter-tall body was frozen into a blue ice sculpture.
But in less than half a second, the ice layer suddenly exploded from within.
"Such attacks don't even tickle."
The Deep Sea King grinned hideously.
"Farewell."
His swift right fist came smashing down.
Yukino's feet were frozen to the ice. No, she couldn't move anymore. Too much stamina drained.
At the critical moment, the Deep Sea King's right hand began to twist from the wrist.
A black dot appeared out of nowhere on the back of his hand, spinning violently.
A vortex spread from the back of his hand to his entire arm, pulling his skin, muscles, and even his whole body toward that black dot.
The Deep Sea King whipped his head around.
On the beach, Utaha's left eye had turned into a three-bladed pinwheel shape, spinning rapidly in her eye socket.
Kamui!
The Deep Sea King made an instant decision. His left hand formed a hand blade and chopped down on his own right shoulder.
With a 'crack', his entire right arm separated at the shoulder joint, the severed part as clean as if cut by a sharp knife.
The severed arm was sucked into the different dimension by Kamui, disappearing completely into the air.
The Deep Sea King leaped back to create distance. The wound on his severed arm began to squirm under the rain's washing, and a new arm grew from the severed part.
"That was close, that was close."
The Deep Sea King moved his newly grown right hand, opening and closing his ten fingers to confirm it was functioning properly.
He looked at Utaha, his gaze lingering on her left eye for a moment. "I didn't expect such a dangerous ability. If I'd been a bit slower, my whole body would have been sucked in, right?"
Utaha withdrew Kamui, her left eye returning to normal. "What a pain."
Chika stood nearby, tilting her head as she examined the Deep Sea King. "He should be at top Demon-level strength, right? Plus his special ability to regenerate when exposed to water, he might even rival some low-level Dragon-level threats."
The Deep Sea King glanced at Yukino, who was already half-kneeling on the distant ice, and curled his lip.
"Never mind the small fry for now."
His gaze locked onto Utaha. "Let's deal with the troublesome one first."
His twenty-meter frame vanished from the spot.
A sand explosion dozens of meters high erupted on the beach. A fist had already smashed down, showing just how much the Deep Sea King's speed had increased.
Utaha stood still.
The Deep Sea King's fist passed through her body... no, to be precise, her body was like a mirage, allowing his fist to pass right through the middle.
The Deep Sea King paused for a moment.
The feeling was wrong. There was no sensation of hitting a target.
Utaha's body shifted from intangible to tangible, walking out from beside the Deep Sea King's fist.
She bowed her head and began forming hand seals, her cheeks puffing out slightly.
"Fire Release: Blast Wave—"
Suddenly, a sword of black flames pierced through the Deep Sea King's chest from behind.
Amaterasu flames adhered to the blade, burning the Deep Sea King's internal organs.
He looked down at the sword tip protruding from his chest wreathed in black flames, then turned his head to look behind him.
A deep purple giant stood behind him, no smaller than him in size.
The giant had no lower body, only a fearsome skull, ribs, and arms.
Its arm held a long sword burning with black flames, the blade running from the Deep Sea King's back through to his chest.
One person stood within the giant's ribs... Kaguya.
Left eye Rinnegan, right eye Mangekyo.
Utaha still had that breath held in her mouth as she looked at Kaguya, her tone not very friendly: "What are you doing?"
Kaguya manipulated Susanoo to swing its sword, cutting the Deep Sea King in half from the middle.
The blade wreathed in Amaterasu flames passed through his body, splitting muscles, bones, and organs in two.