"Natsu, please guard the door. No one is allowed to enter, no matter who they are. Otherwise—"
At this point, Tanaka paused, not explicitly stating the consequences of trespassing. But to Natsu, the meaning was already clear.
"Understood, Tanaka-sama."
After putting things down, she hurried to the entrance, standing there like a guardian deity.
Boom!
Tanaka took out a scroll and sealed all the deer meat and deer blood in front of him. Then, he visualized the Void Walker's Gate and vanished into thin air.
As the residence of the Hyūga heir, the area was naturally protected by a barrier.
Unless someone forcefully broke in, it was impossible to perceive the interior using sensory jutsu or even the Byakugan. With Natsu guarding the entrance, Tanaka had no worries about intruders.
And even if someone did break in—it wouldn't matter.
Given his current status and power, as long as he didn't do something as extreme as wiping out the entire main house, he didn't need to answer to anyone for his actions.
Not even to Hizashi.
---
Tanaka had returned once again to the place where he intercepted the Op-Op Fruit and changed his fate.
He reappeared exactly where he had previously left for the Naruto world.
"ROOM."
Out of habit, Tanaka activated both his Byakugan and ROOM simultaneously.
Within 3,500 meters, aside from plants, animals, and insects, there were no signs of any humans.
Naturally, none of the Donquixote Family executives were within range either.
"All gone?" Seeing this, Tanaka felt relieved.
He had no doubt that during his absence, Doflamingo would have conducted an exhaustive search of Minion Island.
This was precisely why he didn't immediately return to the One Piece world.
He needed time to grow.
Unless there was an absolute necessity, like seizing a top-tier Devil Fruit, he had no reason to recklessly confront Doflamingo at this stage.
Seeing no one around, he temporarily deactivated ROOM but kept his Byakugan active.
After all, he had barely survived the Caged Bird hell-mode opening in the Naruto world. Now that he had a bright future ahead, he had no intention of dying carelessly on this island due to negligence.
Thus, he had developed a habit—always keeping either ROOM or Byakugan active.
With the Byakugan, even though it was only his second time on Minion Island, he didn't get lost. He made his way smoothly to the shoreline.
Looking at the vast, turbulent sea before him, he felt the exhaustion from his sparring session with his teacher fade slightly.
"No wonder… Compared to the Naruto world, the people here are far more bold and ambitious. Many who start from humble beginnings eventually rise to greatness."
Living long-term in such an environment would inevitably shape one's spirit. Regardless of their original personality, people here became resilient, broad-minded, and daring. Many small-time individuals eventually leaped to prominence, becoming the forces that shaped an era.
By comparison, in the Naruto world, unless one was connected to the Ōtsutsuki clan or the Sage of Six Paths, the pinnacle of achievement was someone like Minato.
And even then, there was only one Minato.
Meanwhile, in the One Piece world, countless figures had risen from obscurity to rule.
In the Marines, there were Sakazuki, Borsalino, and Kuzan.
Among the pirates, there were Edward Newgate, Kaido, and Charlotte Linlin.
These Emperors came from some of the most impoverished backgrounds, with no connection to the Clan of D. Yet, they trampled those so-called "D" bearers and noble royals beneath their feet.
Standing by the shore for a moment, Tanaka let the waves of the North Blue wash away the scheming and deception of the Naruto world. Then, he took a scroll from his ninja pouch, placed it on the ground, and formed a hand seal.
Boom!
With a burst of white smoke, the deer meat, skeleton, and blood sealed within the scroll appeared.
"Shambles."
First, Tanaka transferred the deer blood ten meters above the ocean surface, letting it drizzle down into the sea.
A moment later, he then teleported the entire freshly processed but still bloody deer carcass ten meters into the ocean.
If other Konoha ninjas saw someone using an entire deer as bait for fishing, they would definitely curse him for being wasteful.
After all, the deer he tossed into the sea wasn't just an ordinary wild deer from the forest, but one raised with medicinal herbs by the Nara clan. For an average ninja, completing a low-paying B-rank mission would barely earn them enough to buy a single live deer.
But Tanaka didn't care in the slightest.
After launching a coup, seizing power by force, and becoming the young clan leader, his monthly allowance alone was equivalent to the pay from two or three A-rank missions.
If he ever needed more money, all he had to do was ask, and the clan members would bring it to him.
Besides, he wasn't just fishing, he was baiting a Sea King, a creature far more valuable than a Nara clan deer.
"It's coming!"
As the deer blood mixed into the sea and the bloody carcass sank, he could see everything clearly through his Byakugan.
About a kilometer away, five hundred meters deep, a massive creature with fierce, glowing eyes surged through the ocean currents, charging straight for the submerged deer.
Apart from super-sized Sea Kings, which possessed intelligence comparable to humans and could even communicate in a human-like manner, ordinary Sea Kings and sea beasts were naturally violent and extremely sensitive to the scent of blood—far surpassing sharks in this regard.
The Nara clan's deer, whether its meat or blood, was incredibly nutritious. To Sea Kings and sea beasts, if size weren't a factor, its scent alone was an irresistible lure.
As the massive creature drew closer, a terrifying shadow gradually emerged beneath the previously calm ocean surface, growing larger by the second.
Then, suddenly—
Boom!
With a tremendous wave crashing skyward, an enormous, gaping maw burst from the sea, swallowing the entire deer along with the surrounding blood-stained water in a single bite.
This was the great terror that every seafarer in the One Piece world had to face.
Especially on the Grand Line and in the Calm Belt.
Aside from Marine warships with seastone embedded in their hulls, other vessels could be completely devoured at any time if they were unlucky enough to encounter a hungry or irritable Sea Kings or sea beast. A single monstrous jaw could rise from the depths and consume both ship and crew in an instant—grinding them into oblivion.
"In terms of sheer size... Summoning beasts? No, even tailed beasts are nothing more than baby chicks compared to the giant creatures of the One Piece world."
Tanaka's gaze sharpened as he observed the massive sea creature breaching the water. It resembled a giant sea serpent, or rather, a sea eel.
Having only traveled to the One Piece world twice, he was neither a chef nor a biologist, so he couldn't distinguish whether this was a sea beast or a Sea King. He could only estimate its size using his Byakugan.
From head to tail, it was over 70 meters long.
It was several times larger than an average giant.
Even his ROOM couldn't completely encompass it.
At least, in his current state, Tanaka's ROOM wasn't large enough to fully cover this sea eel.
Of course, if the massive creature curled itself up, then perhaps his ROOM could just barely contain it.