Disregarding Zephyr's bitter departure, Shin's group, aboard Zephyr's warship, calculated their travel time and found they would reach the waters around Whole Cake Island about a day before Big Mom's birthday.
Upon arrival, they noticed the sea had turned into a brightly colored juice.
Ulti and Violet were both surprised and delighted to see the area. They became even more excited when they heard that Whole Cake Island was made entirely of desserts.
However, unlike the two ladies who adored desserts and fairy tales, Shin observed the surroundings more analytically.
In his estimation, this was likely the work of Streusen, the chef with the Cook-Cook fruit. Without it, even the wealthy Big Mom would lack enough juice to turn an entire sea region into a liquid dessert.
The abilities of Streusen must have long since reached the awakening level. Otherwise, even if he could generate such a vast amount of juice for a short time, it would disperse in less than a day.
Only by achieving devil fruit awakening could this kind of phenomenon be sustained.
"Speaking of which," Shin mused, "after combining the Munch-Munch Fruit and Dark-Dark Fruit, their power increased greatly, but the difficulty of developing them to the level of awakening increased tenfold. Awakening requires both devil fruits to be developed together."
"Otherwise, the Dark-Dark Fruit aside, the Munch-Munch fruit should have already awakened by now, especially after analyzing material structures from both the Naruto and One Piece worlds and understanding the body structures of top fighters in both worlds."
As he pondered, Shin used Universal Pull to pull up a large amount of juice from the sea.
Ulti and Violet looked on with curiosity and anticipation, while even the usually disinterested Page One and Kyros appeared intrigued by the strange juice.
Shin filled five cups, one for each of them, and then took a sip.
Ulti tasted hers and remarked, "The flavor is rather plain, like any other ordinary juice."
Shin rolled his eyes. "This isn't a gourmet drink. It's simply regular juice, created through the awakening of a devil fruit. You can't expect it to taste spectacular."
After all, Streusen 's fruit was the Cook-Cook fruit, not a Juice-Juice fruit or Wring-Wring fruit.
"Wait a moment, what's that?" Violet suddenly said, her gaze sharp with surprise.
Shin knew that Violet's powers gave her sight far beyond normal, so he followed her direction but saw nothing. "What did you see, Violet?"
"Uh… a moving… singing ship?" she replied, still sounding unsure.
"Oh?" Shin wasn't surprised by her answer. "That should be one of Big Mom's ships, animated with the powers of her Soul-Soul Fruit."
"Point me in the right direction... Actually, never mind, I'll take us there myself." As he spoke, Shin transformed into a massive dragon, letting out a long, thunderous roar, then scooped Violet up and flew in the direction she indicated.
Even Violet, who wasn't easily shaken, was startled by Shin's transformation, though she quickly recovered and helped navigate.
Before long, Shin spotted a large fleet in the distance. A flurry of panicked shouts erupted from the fleet upon seeing him, and he could faintly hear murmurs of "Kaido."
"After all this time, they still don't know I have the Azure Dragon fruit?" Shin muttered to himself.
This misconception was understandable, given his rare ability to extract devil fruits directly from others.
Shin descended onto the fleet, and as the people on board watched in nervous silence, he activated his Rinnegan to take control of them all at once.
He then used a genjutsu to manipulate the Homies (animated objects created by the Soul-Soul Fruit). The Homies, being mere fragments of Big Mom's soul, were actually easier to control than humans.
After interrogating the captive crew, Shin discovered that this was the ship of Big Mom's eldest daughter, Charlotte Compote, the Minister of Fruits in Totto Land.
Although Shin wasn't very familiar with her, he knew that being Big Mom's first daughter gave her considerable influence, rivaling even some of the Sweet Commanders. She was in charge of Fruit Island and was currently en route to the birthday celebration with a large cargo of high-quality fruit.
While Compote wasn't weak, Shin quickly subdued her, as she lacked Conqueror's Haki and Observation Haki.
Thinking it would be wise to avoid storming Whole Cake Island directly and risking alerting others, Shin decided to join Compote's entourage and infiltrate undetected.
The ship only had a handful of crew members, so Shin quickly adjusted their course and summoned the rest of his team—Ulti, Page One, and Kyros—to join him on the commandeered ship.
To avoid suspicion, Shin used Transformation Jutsu, changing his own appearance and modifying those of his teammates.
In Naruto World, ninjutsu was constantly updated, and using transformation jutsu on others was quite common—even temporary transformations that could turn people into animals were possible.
The crew settled on Compote's ship, where they found it filled with all kinds of dessert food. Ulti and Violet were enchanted, and the sight made their eyes sparkle.
However, the abundance of sweets didn't suit Shin's preferences. Although they tasted good, he was more inclined toward savory foods. When he tried to catch a few sea creatures for variety, he was frustrated to find that even the sea beasts in the juice ocean tasted sweet!
Fortunately, Whole Cake Island was close, and by the following day, they arrived at the island, which looked like something out of a fairytale.
"This is Whole Cake Island? It's incredible; so lively and unusual!" Ulti couldn't resist scraping some frosting from a nearby building and licking it.
"Yeah, everything here is actually alive," Violet remarked, watching as Homies cheerfully sang all around.
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