Far away from the chaos of God Valley, deep in the South Blue, life had begun to move again.
In the Sorbet Kingdom, the small church that once belonged to Kuma's father still stood quietly on the edge of town.
Inside that church were three familiar faces.
Kuma.
Ivankov.
Ginny.
The air inside the building was calm, the chaos of the outside world feeling distant—almost unreal.
Ivankov sat nearby with a newspaper spread out in his hands, his face slowly twisting with irritation the longer he read.
The headline praised the incredible bravery of Vice Admiral Garp, celebrating him as the hero who had saved the day at God Valley.
But the article didn't mention the truth.
Not the Celestial Dragons.
Not the human hunt.
Not the massacre.
Ivankov crumpled the paper slightly in his grip, muttering to himself as the anger built in his chest.
The people in power had already rewritten the story.
History belonged to whoever controlled the narrative.
Meanwhile, across the room, Ginny leaned quietly against the wall.
She wasn't paying attention to the newspaper.
Her eyes were on Kuma.
The boy knelt in front of the altar, hands clasped together, his head bowed in quiet prayer.
It was the most wholesome thing imaginable.
He wasn't praying for himself.
He was praying for the lives he couldn't save.
Every single one of them.
His shoulders trembled slightly as he whispered quietly to himself, asking for peace for the people who had died.
Kuma rarely spoke about what happened on God Valley.
But the weight of it never truly left him.
Still—
He deserved more credit than he gave himself.
Even in the middle of that hell, Kuma had managed to save five hundred people.
Five hundred slaves who had escaped the island alive.
They had cried when they realized they were free.
Cried so much that Ginny had started crying too.
Now, watching him kneel there in prayer again, the memory made her eyes water.
Kuma noticed.
He immediately tried to protest, clearly embarrassed by the attention.
But Ivankov cut him off before he could say a word.
Kuma's hands, Ivankov insisted, weren't meant only for prayer.
Those hands—
Were the hands of liberation.
For a while, the three of them simply existed together in that peaceful moment.
It was rare.
A fragile happiness.
But eventually, reality returned.
Goodbyes had to happen.
Ivankov couldn't stay.
