Chapter 122: Dead Calm vs Phantom Blade × Mark Seam's Kind Warning
What is water?
It is the surge of waves, the meandering stream, the great river, and the boundless sea. It is the thin porridge that one eats, the wellspring of life that sustains the body.
Everyone understands it differently, but without exception, all thought about water eventually points back to human perception.
Sakonji Urokodaki sat on a stump, carving a mask. Rough bark peeled away, sharp edges smoothed down, and the faint outline of a fox began to emerge. He worked with focus, but in his mind, two figures surfaced: Giyu Tomioka and Eiichiro.
One cool and quiet, few words. One full of vigor, his edge sharp and unhidden. More than once, Urokodaki had dreamed of someone pushing Water Breathing further than he ever had, surpassing him. Before, it had been Giyu. Now, there was Eiichiro too.
No mystery there. The boy learned faster than anyone.
By the waterfall.
Giyu Tomioka stood on a treetop, facing Roy across the clearing.
When he heard Roy also had a final strike, his cool eyes flickered for just a heartbeat. Then he looked at the boy again.
Roy leaned on the short blade, calm and faintly smiling. He was not joking.
"He learned the Breathing Style yesterday, and today he already created a new form…" The notion was so absurd it felt like someone had taken everything Giyu knew and ground it under their heel. He struggled to find even a grain of reality in it.
He smiled. A rare sight.
"Wait… Senior Giyu is smiling? That is so weird. The sun must have risen in the west today," Shinsuke yelped, leaning forward. Slap, slap, slap. Fukuda smacked him across the face a few times.
Confirmed. Not a dream. He really smiled.
"Senior said that after his sister died, Senior Giyu never smiled again… so what is happening now?" Makomo murmured, glancing at Sabito.
The fox-masked youth was clearly just as surprised. He studied the two of them for a long moment, then his brow eased and a smile touched his lips.
"What did you see, Senior?" Makomo asked.
"Happiness," Sabito said quietly. "The happiness of meeting an equal. Of knowing there is someone to carry on."
He did not say more, but in his heart, Sabito understood. Giyu had always believed he had not passed the Final Selection on his own strength and did not deserve to be a Hashira. In the original story, that was why he stayed alone and avoided the other Pillars.
And now… "He thinks someone worthy of the Water Hashira name has finally appeared."
"Eiichiro?"
"Yes. Eiichiro."
Every gaze was fixed on Giyu. Today, he was truly happy.
He looked at Roy and said simply, "Good."
The tip of his blade angled down toward the treetop. A single drop of water fell. Space rippled outward from the point of his Nichirin Blade, spreading toward Roy in calm, steady waves.
Shinsuke and Fukuda did not notice at first. Then a sparrow flew over Giyu's head and was abruptly cut in two. The wind stopped. Even the rustle of swaying branches went silent.
A cold shiver ran through the group. They looked up again.
Giyu walked across the ripples toward Roy. Everything he passed was severed in half by high-speed slashes too quick to see.
"Water Breathing - Eleventh Form: Dead Calm. All is still…"
Closer now. Roy could already feel the deathly quiet that dragged all things into silence.
Two suns flared in his pupils. He narrowed his eyes and saw it clearly: Giyu had woven a defensive net from countless razor-fine strikes. That was how he had effortlessly blocked Lower Moon Five Rui's Blood Demon Art, Thread Manipulation.
But the "stillness" created through physical means was not true stillness.
True stillness lay in a heart that no longer stirred.
Drip. Another droplet of water fell.
Roy leaned on the short blade, let the tip drop, and drove it into the treetop beneath him. He recalled the scene from the storm—the rising sun split by the mirror of the sea—and activated Phantom Blade.
Hum.
Ripples bloomed and covered heaven and earth, wrapping everything around them: Giyu, who had nearly closed the distance; Sabito and Makomo watching from the trees; Shinsuke, Fukuda, Shimizu, Watanabe, and the rest, still dazed and unsure what had happened.
In that instant, all of it seemed to lose the ability to move, held by the pause of time itself.
All they could do was stare at the red sun rising slowly from the horizon. And then… the boy calmly rested his blade against Giyu Tomioka's shoulder.
A gust of wind swept through at nine in the morning, scattering the mist and letting a shaft of sunlight fall.
Sakonji Urokodaki paused mid-stroke, set down his carving knife, and looked toward the yard.
Giyu Tomioka walked slowly into view, his haori of red, yellow, and white trailing behind him. A faint smile rested on his cool face.
The old man blinked. "You are back."
"I am back."
"How was it?"
Giyu sat beside Urokodaki. His lake-blue eyes were brighter than they had ever been. He looked at his master earnestly. "Master was right. Eiichiro will be the answer."
Urokodaki froze for a heartbeat, then picked up the carving knife again. "Then I had better hurry," he murmured. "Or I will not finish before he leaves the mountain."
Scrape, scrape, scrape. Wood shavings drifted down.
On the other side of the parallel world, after his battle with Senior Giyu, Roy completed six thousand practice swings that same day.
Before bed, he spent a little time chatting with Master and Senior Giyu, then lay down on the heated bed and fell into a deep sleep.
Light snores drifted through the air.
When he passed once more through deep sleep, through the tunnel of dreams, and returned to the Hunter world, a red sun blazed before him, painting the sea crimson in its morning glow. Beautiful.
"Young Master, breakfast is here."
Six in the morning.
Just like yesterday, Rika pushed the service cart to the bow and handed it over to Gotoh.
The girl had her blonde hair pulled back and two dark circles under her eyes. She had spent the night cramming Nen theory at a frantic pace.
Roy did not need to guess to know Gotoh had subjected her to a brutal, force-fed style of teaching.
In the young butler's words: "If you cannot learn it, look for the problem in yourself. Did you listen carefully? Did you think it through? You say it is 'hard'—where is it 'hard'? So many Nen users, and everyone learned it this way."
In short, with Gotoh around, Rika would have no peace.
"Young Master, your meal," Gotoh said, taking over the cart and beginning to peel shrimp.
Roy enjoyed the sunrise, stretched lazily, and glanced off to the side. In the shadows, the freak looked over. His head ducked, and he sank back through a hole in the deck.
Faintly, Captain Mark Seam's furious bellow echoed up. "Which son of a bitch did this? Can't learn anything useful, but you learn to dig holes like a rat. If I catch you, I will disqualify you from the exam."
For days now, holes have kept appearing all over the deck. He would patch one, and another would open. It nearly sent Mark Seam into orbit.
Worse, the "rat" who made them was too good at hiding. The moment he used Zetsu, no one could sense him. He would pop up when you least expected it, bore another hole, and disappear again. Infuriating.
At least after ten-plus days at sea, Dolley Island was finally in sight.
The old captain held his nose and endured one more day. On the horizon where sea met sky, a strip of land slowly rose into view.
The ship's horn blared.
After a rough journey, the anchor dropped, the ship secured, and the gangplank lowered. Ten candidates who had survived the points scramble drifted out from various corners of the ship.
The bandaged man. The snake handler. The bow-backed boy. The bald ninja Yusuke, Illumi Zoldyck, Kite, Rika, Gotoh, and Roy.
Everyone gathered at the gangplank. No one stepped down first. They all stole glances toward the bow.
"Young Master," Gotoh called.
Roy tossed the branch in his hand to him, picked up the cane-sword resting across his knees, and stood.
He walked forward at an unhurried pace, Gotoh and Rika following a step behind.
Sunlight fell just right. Perhaps out of respect—or fear—no one dared step off the ship before Roy did.
They watched him approach and split to either side, clearing a path.
In that case, Roy would not waste time. He stepped onto the gangplank and descended from the Sea God first.
A collective exhale followed. Then Illumi Zoldyck, then Kite. One by one, they filed down.
Only Captain Mark Seam remained, pipe clamped in his teeth, watching them go. His eyes lingered on Roy, Gotoh, and Rika for a moment. Then he pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed.
Ring, ring. A child's voice answered on the other end.
"Grandma, it is Captain Mark from the Sea God."
"Mark?"
"Kekeke… so the boy has arrived?"
An old woman leaning on a cane, a string of jade-green prayer beads around her neck, grinned with the few teeth she had left.
She took the phone. Sure enough, the old captain's gruff voice rumbled through.
"Granny Hachi, still alive?"
The old woman's eye twitched. She cackled. "Sorry to disappoint you, old man. This old bag of bones is stubborn."
"Not dead yet."
"Hohoho…" Mark Seam was not fooled by the jab. He exhaled a ring of smoke. "Not dead. But close."
His tone grew pointed. "This year's candidates are different. You old hag had better take it easy. When you are on the floor, let them through if you have to."
He had barely survived sending that boy off. A few swings of his blade had nearly torn the ship apart. Mark Seam could not help but sigh in relief that the kid had at least had the sense to hold back.
"Kekeke. I may be old, but I am not as feeble as you think."
"At least, teaching you a lesson with one hand is still no problem," the old woman said, thumping her cane on the ground.
A group of children in white robes and masks gathered around her, chanting in words hard to understand. Faint aura flickered around them.
"Give… give…"
"Iron and cotton both weigh one ton. Which is heavier?"
"Iron."
"Wrong. They are the same. Both are one ton."
"Between an older brother and a younger brother, who is older?"
"The correct answer is: we do not know. Because they are twins."
"Those 'kids' again," Mark Seam muttered, hearing the noise on the other end. He was not surprised. He took another drag and frowned. "Old hag, I already warned you."
"Do not be stubborn."
His tone dropped. "When you meet a boy with a cane-sword and two servants—one man, one woman—you had better let them pass. After all…"
"That boy is a monster who can train his sword in the middle of a storm. I have never seen a candidate like him. Nothing seems capable of stopping him. Forget you—even the Trick Foxes would have trouble."
Wait, a storm? The old woman was aged, but her eyes and ears still worked. "Do not try to scare me, Mark."
Do you not understand plain language?
"Anyway, I warned you," Mark Seam said flatly. "Remember. A boy with a cane-sword."
Click. The line went dead.
The old woman, surrounded by children, gripped the phone and frowned. After a moment, her ear twitched.
She could just barely hear approaching footsteps and the sound of beating hearts.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
They were coming.