Tortoise’s Shell Fragment

In the vast universe among the countless stars and planets which being created and destroyed as the passage of time—white flash trailed as star-shaped object travelled.

Behinds it, was a spaceship which was numerous times bigger than the star-shaped object—as big as it was, it was slower than the star-shaped object—by the look of it,

the game of tags have been going on for quite an amount of time.

"Gotta... surv..."

-----

Kuro brought out the topic whether to stay here in the Naruto Bridge or not—asking to Oujian, and leaving his decision as the highest priority.

Whether Oujian want to stay or not, Kuro will do so. Kuro's costumer service right now would have gotten 5 out of 5 stars.

Oujian surprisingly decided to stay here, making Kuro nods his head as the kid with him began to cheers.

"With that in mind, I beg you to teach us around here, Zuma." Kuro said to Uzumaki after hearing out Oujian's decision to stroll around.

"Sure thing." Uzumaki brightly smiled not bothering of the nickname Kuro attached to him.

"Then, can I ask you how much do you know about Naruto Bridge?" Uzumaki questioned Kuro.

"Let's see..." Kuro unconsciously adorably tapped his cheek with his finger as he searched his memory.

"First of all, this is more of an artificial island rather than a bridge—many citizens lives here despite it being a bridge for easier transportation routes to pass to another places without having to cross the demons' territory.

Second, this road we're walking at is called Naruto Road, which is the largest and longest road—it continues from the starting point of Naruto Bridge to the ending point.

From Naruto Road, the road to west and east will divide in branch-like manners making one have a space to build a house and live there.

For convenience purpose, the divided route have a name like; A1, B1, C1, and so on.

The bridges is also strengthened with [The Tortoise's Shell Fragment] and only because of that could this bridge island maintain it's stability despite being attacked by ocean creatures almost everyday.

Thirdly, this bridge specialize in transport, it has an transporting technologies that don't lose against Reign Empire's vehicle called 'Train.'

Fourth, Because of the variants of peoples passing this bridges, bunch of rare found from all over the world are usually gathered around here—stalls such as that sells the latter.

"Fif-... that is all I know." Kuro read the atmosphere as he noticed the old man's smile slowly crumbling.

"Then Kuro-kun must not know of Fishing Tournament."

'Oh... the annual fishing tournament one.' Kuro thought inwardly but didn't say it.

*giggle* Ayame laughed to him.

"Fishing Tournament are being held every years in summer and the winner receives a reward. Unfortunately, you guys have arrived 2 months early."

Uzumaki explained the rules of the tournament—how the rewards of the championship differs every year, etc.

After the old man was done explaining, he had the satisfied expression in that old face of him as the group disbanded, everyone did their things.

Uzumaki on his way to stroll around to kill some time, spotted a children crying in the mid of the road.

"What's wrong Yuji?" Uzumaki asked the child his smile remained the same.

"My balloon… Waaah!" Wiping his face with his hand, his another hand pointed toward the sky.

"Hahaha! Your balloon became the gods' snack." In contrast, instead of jumping to take it or something like what they do in cliche,

Uzumaki laughed it off as he smacked the kids' shoulder cheerfully. However, the next moment, how magical!

The balloon which was supposed to be high up in the air, appeared in Uzumaki's hand, tightly clutched.

"No snacks for god. This balloon belong to this boy." Smiling, he gave the balloon to the no-longer crying children.

-----

"Rotational force, huh…"

Kuro calmly smiled. Even if he didn't look at it, he knew it with his Ki Sense. The rotational forces dragging in the air, sucking in the balloon.

In short, it's the reverse fan.

"By the way, Kuro, what was that… thing?" Ayame came into his world as she asked something in the way only Kuro could figure out.

Disbanding from the group, Shion and Okayu strolled around together while Oujian went on alone. In the end, Kuro strolled around the town with Ayame.

Kuro and Ayame could communicate through their eyes, but obviously talking with their mouth were much easier and took no effort.

"…Oh, did you meant that [Bullet Advance]?" Kuro figured out Ayame's question.

"Hm! When you fired your pistol, you appeared by Shion's side and then when you fired it again, you disappeared along with Shion." She nodded whilst asking innocently.

"That is the way which I came up in case I fight against someone strong and I can't escape the battle for some reason. Tying up the spatial threads in the bullet inside the gun,

once I fire the gun, I can teleport anywhere within one direction. However the flaw is obvious as it sacrifice my freedom in exchange of speed surpassing the speed of sound.

I can only move anywhere within one direction—and teleporting again takes an process longer than instant—who knows, maybe my enemy in future can use this to their advantage."

After Kuro was done explaining, Ayame laughed out-loud, holding her stomach.

"Haha! Kuro. You don't need to worry about it! Because in the future, I will always be by your side and whatever dangers come to you, I will protect you!" Ayame said something amazing like it was nothing.

Kuro matched with her as he laughed lightly as well. "I will be relying on you."

The two laughed as the shooting star high in the sky passed through, its tail trailing an beautiful white starlight, emitting an brilliant light strong enough to dazzle the blue-white sky.

The shooting star everybody thought would flow through never disappeared as the orbits became to be clear and slowly increasing in size,

Upon taking an closer look, the shooting star wasn't emitting a beautiful light but was burning it's own life to launch itself on this huge planet to crush it with its entire body.

However, unlucky it is, the comet crushed its celestial body to the Great Naruto Bridge—not only were the impact absorbed, the momentum was cancelled seemingly easily.

From the places where the comet contracted an crack has appeared, although the barriers stopped the energy behind the comet it didn't come unharmed.

The crack became larger and larger, in the next instance, the crack turned like a spider-web before shattering like a mirror—the comet passed through the barrier, landing in front of the two children.

""…"" Kuro and Ayame were speechless at the sudden turn of event.

Ayame took a step forwards.