"Chiga-kun, this is the bento I prepared for you!"
On the way from the dormitory to the training grounds, Chiga was "ambushed."
Smiling, Chiga took the bento from a female cadet. The female cadet, seeing Chiga accept it, covered her face and ran off before Chiga could say anything.
After the female cadet left, Chiga opened his Door-Door Space and put the bento inside. Looking at the various bentos and gifts that took up a large chunk of space, Chiga rubbed his temples, estimating how much more the Bridge trio could eat.
Just as he was about to close the Door-Door Space, another female cadet walked up, holding a bento.
This time, it was an acquaintance, Ain, whom Chiga had met on the training grounds.
Ain glanced at Chiga's still-open Door-Door Space, a hint of sadness flashing in her eyes. Placing the bento behind her back, she playfully teased Chiga,
"You're really popular, Chiga-kun. It seems I'm late?"
Seeing it was Ain, the smile on Chiga's face also dropped. He put on a "wronged" expression and looked at Ain,
"I don't want to be, either. Ever since I fought Smoker, I seem to have become famous."
After speaking, he extended his hand to Ain again.
Ain looked at him strangely, not knowing what he wanted to do now.
"Your bento looks good. I haven't eaten yet, why don't you give it to me?"
Ain's previous expressions and actions, of course, did not escape Chiga's eyes. He admired this strong-willed girl and naturally didn't want her to be sad.
Ain was clearly a bit flustered.
"Eh, eh, but, don't you have so many bentos already…"
"I don't know those people, so I don't dare to eat randomly. Yours is safer to eat."
Seeing Ain still standing there in a daze, Chiga took the bento from her hand and then ran off in a flash, a distant voice echoing,
"Give it to me!"
Watching Chiga's figure disappear from sight, Ain smiled brightly, like a blooming white orchid.
…
At the end of today's training, Zephyr did not immediately announce dismissal but kept all the cadets to announce a piece of news.
"Your first year of training is about to end. Next month, we will have our year-end assessment. This year-end assessment will be a practical combat assessment. The top three cadets will receive rewards such as Devil Fruits and Great-grade swords."
As soon as these words were spoken, the cadets below immediately erupted into an uproar.
Everyone was mentally prepared for the year-end assessment, so that was nothing surprising. The main point was the rewards: the top three could actually get things like Devil Fruits or Great-grade swords?
What were Devil Fruits? It could be said that eating a Devil Fruit was the fastest way for a person to increase their strength in this world! What's more, if one ate a powerful Devil Fruit, it could even allow an ordinary soldier to reach the top in one step!
And Great-grade swords, for cadets specializing in swordsmanship, were even more tempting rewards than Devil Fruits. Which swordsman didn't dream of owning a good sword as their weapon?
Everyone looked eager, secretly vowing to get second or third place. As for first place? Wasn't that prepared for Uchiha Chiga? Everyone naturally assumed that first place already belonged to Chiga, including Zephyr.
Zephyr had long anticipated the crowd's reaction. There had been rewards in previous years, but none as outrageous as this. One should know that even for the Marines, treasures of the Devil Fruit and Meito-grade sword caliber were not common goods.
Thinking it over, he could only come up with one possibility: that Sengoku was trying to reward Uchiha Chiga in a roundabout way.
Over the past few months, Chiga's repeated astonishing performances had made Sengoku unable to sit still. Coupled with Gion's relationship with Tsuru, Sengoku had completely decided to cultivate Chiga as the next Admiral.
But this was also good. For talent, one should value them and provide as much help as possible during their growth. Waiting until they have grown up to do these things would only be adding icing to the cake.
Zephyr was undoubtedly a traditional and upright Marine, but this did not mean Zephyr was inflexible. After experiencing the murder of his wife and child, Zephyr's views slowly began to change.
One should know that when Chiga joined the Marines, he crushed all the pirates of the Brand Pirate Group into a black ball, which completely went against his non-killing philosophy.
In the past, he would certainly have had some prejudice against Chiga, but now, he had no emotional fluctuations at all and even silently supported Chiga's actions in his heart. He taught Chiga everything he knew.
Zephyr believed that Chiga would definitely become a Marine Admiral or even higher in the future. He had already retired to the second line, watching Chiga continuously grow, and he felt a long-lost sense of accomplishment. Now, Zephyr regarded Chiga as a form of hope.
Chiga was also very excited at this moment. He didn't need a Great-grade sword for now, but a Devil Fruit would greatly enhance him.
Since absorbing the Door-Door Fruit, Chiga had not encountered any new abilities that could be absorbed. The Devil Fruit as a reward this time would likely not be bad and would be enough to activate the second tomoe of his Rinnegan.
With each tomoe activated, the power of the Rinnegan would increase. Chiga had a premonition that when he reached three tomoe, his Rinnegan would be able to activate exclusive techniques like Madara's Limbo or Sasuke's Amenotejikara.
At that time, being ambushed by Orochimaru caused his Rinnegan to overdraw its pupil power just as it awakened, failing to give birth to an exclusive technique, which had always been Chiga's regret. He absolutely had to get this Devil Fruit!