Seven years later.
Ace quietly set sail from the coast of Mt. Colubo.
"Ace, don’t slack off on your training!! You have to keep at it!!"
I called out to Ace as he sailed away, waving from his boat.
"I got it!! You nag!!"
"He’s still waving."
Was it because I’d made him diligently practice the Haki training methods Garp taught us?
Even from a considerable distance away, Luffy could still make out Ace.
"Ace is crying too."
Unlike Luffy, who could only see him waving, I could see the fat tears streaming down Ace’s face.
"Good grief... What’s that Garp bastard going to say...?"
He said that, but aside from Makino, the village chief was the only villager who had come to see us off.
I silently hugged Dadan, who was crying alone at the mountain bandits’ hideout.
"You insolent brat!! You’re a hundred years too early to comfort me!"
Despite her words, tears poured down her face like a waterfall.
Three years after Ace set sail.
The year Luffy and I had decided to set sail together had arrived.
After losing Sabo, I had truly trained with everything I had.
Before Grandpa Garp left for Marine Headquarters again, he taught me something from the Six Powers called Shave.
He said it was a way to move quickly, and it really was fast.
Back when I was thinking, ‘At this point, shouldn’t this count as Observation Haki?’ after all my training,
even I couldn’t see it.
But this year, I finally got started with Observation Haki. When I activated it, it felt as though time slowed down.
And I could sense the presence of things nearby.
It felt a little like having an improved sixth sense from a martial arts novel.
Also, the god who sent me here seemed to have definitely granted my wish regarding my looks.
I’d grown to 197 centimeters, with perfectly proportioned, pleasing features, and both subjectively and objectively, my face was more handsome than anyone I’d ever seen.
Lately, even Makino would sometimes blush when she looked at me.
"You’re not seeing us off?"
"The village chief and Makino are fine, but the people of Foosha Village would get scared."
"If we came down from the mountain..."
"Then hurry up and leave already!!"
Dadan answered Luffy’s question.
"Then thank you so much for raising us!!"
"Thanks from me too!!"
"Sheesh, you’re making me embarrassed. What’s with the thanks?"
"Dadan!! I hate mountain bandits, but!!"
"Shut it, you damn brat."
"I like you guys!!"
"Quit spouting nonsense and get the hell out of here!! Damn it!!"
Dadan began crying again at Luffy’s words. I hugged her briefly before heading to the village harbor.
"You boys!! How about using our old fishing boat??"
"This is enough!! I’m starting from here."
"Yeah! We’ll get a better ship soon enough, so it’s fine."
"But a rowboat?!"
Luffy and I decided to start out in a tiny rowboat.
After Ace left, I focused all my efforts on training instead of saving money, so our budget was lacking.
And besides, I knew about the Going Merry.
"Sabo~~!! Watch over us!! I’m heading out to sea too!!"
"Me too!!!"
And as if it were fate, the moment we set sail, the monster of the sea that had taken Shanks’s arm appeared.
"Gum-Gum Pistol!!"
"Serious Slash!!"
Luffy’s punch knocked the monster unconscious, and as its unconscious body fell, I sliced off its head in a single stroke with Griffon, the sword Shanks had given me.
It was a sword Shanks had given me, so I cherished it and was attached to it, but I thought the design was awful.
‘Sorry, old man, but I can’t pull off a quick-draw slash with a design like this.’
I couldn’t use the Hiten Mitsurugi Style with that horrific hybrid of a cutlass hilt, a katana hilt, and a katana blade.
I had no choice but to seal away the Hiten Mitsurugi Style until I found a katana.
(Not really.)
In the middle of the sea.
"On such a nice day, too. Looks like this voyage is going to start with us getting shipwrecked...."
"I never expected a whirlpool this huge. I miscalculated."
"This isn’t the time to say this, Luffy, but you’re bad at math."
"Shishishishi, that’s true."
The moment our journey began, a massive whirlpool stood before us.
I felt like something like this had happened in the original story,
but it had been so long since I watched it that I couldn’t remember anything except the really major events.
"Luffy, let’s give up for now. Hold on tight."
"Guess we have to. Jin, I’m counting on you."
"Well, let’s hope we find something before I run out of strength."
I formed wings with my Devil Fruit, while Luffy used the Gum-Gum Fruit to cling to me like a belt, as naturally as ever.
Now that I’d grown strong enough to fly for a long time,
I figured I could at least find somewhere to land before my strength gave out.
I flew up high and activated Observation Haki to survey the area.
I saw a pirate ship attacking a passenger ship.
"Luffy, get ready to fight the moment we land!!"
"Shishishi, got it."
An unidentified pirate ship had hooked onto the passenger ship.
The pirates had seized the passenger ship’s deck, and a woman who appeared to be their captain stepped forward.
She was an extremely fat, ugly woman.
"Who’s the most beautiful woman on these seas?"
"Lady Alvida!!!"
The pirates shouted her name in unison.
"Huh?? Who’s this ugly old lady?"
"Luffy, no matter how ugly someone is, it’s rude to call them ugly to their face!"
!!!!!!!!
The moment we landed on the ship, Luffy said something far too harsh, so I scolded him.
"I’m sorry. My friend can’t lie."
I apologized to the fat woman.
"But are you in the middle of pirating right now?"
I asked just to make absolutely sure.
"Unforgivable!!! I’ll send both of you straight to the afterlife!!"
The fat pirate woman swung her iron mace at me.
But it was slow enough for me to dodge without even activating Observation Haki.
"Too slow."
Dodging the club, I struck her jaw with my fist and knocked her unconscious in one blow.
"Luffy!!"
"Gum-Gum Whip!"
Luffy stretched his leg into a whip and swept away the enemies around us in an instant.
Was it because we were still in East Blue? They were far too easy for us.
"Hooray!!!"
A bespectacled kid cried as he threw his hands up and cheered.
Ah!!
The kid with glasses was Koby, and the fat woman was Alvida.
I remembered that boy who wanted to become a Marine, and the woman who later ate the Smooth-Smooth Fruit or the Slip-Slip Fruit or whatever it was.
Anyway, she became pretty after eating a Devil Fruit.
What should I do?
Looking at how ugly she was now and how she’d been plundering people, I wanted to turn her into an old woman right away, but then I remembered she would become beautiful after eating that Devil Fruit.
"Koby, what do you think we should do?"
"Pardon?"
"You’re the biggest victim here, so I’ll do whatever you want."
"I just want one ship...."
"Hmm... Is that really enough?"
"My dream is to become a Marine! If she does bad things again, I’ll capture her myself."
He really was a character from a shonen manga....
Or maybe Alvida wasn’t actually that wicked a pirate....
That guy, what was his name, Krieg?? He was the one who said to leave people to die, wasn’t he?
"Shishishishi, you’re a good guy!!"
Luffy seemed to like Koby quite a bit.
"You agree too, Luffy?"
"Yeah!!"
"All right! Give Koby one ship. And all the treasure belongs to us."
I told the remaining pirates.
"Thank you. It isn’t much, but please accept it as thanks for saving us."
"Thanks, mister. I’ll put it to good use."
I accepted without refusing.
Nami likes money, so I needed to gather as much as I could. Nami had her reasons for it, but
if I remembered right, she was still pretty sensitive about money even after Arlong Park.
"Koby, where are you headed?"
"I’m going to a Marine base to become a Marine."
"Then do you happen to know how to sail a ship there?"
"Isn’t that obvious?...."
"Shishishishit, so it is obvious."
"Sorry.... I’ll leave that to you, then."
"And when Alvida wakes up, tell her this: I’ll only let her off once!!"
As we sailed, we introduced ourselves to one another.
"But Luffy, if you’re looking for ‘One Piece,’ that means you’re going into the ‘Grand Line,’ right?"
"Yeah, so I need strong crewmates."
"And a navigator too!"
"I see...."
"Koby, have you ever heard of Zoro?"
"Oh, Roronoa Zoro? I heard he was captured at a Marine base not long ago."
‘Thank goodness. So far, things are more or less following the original story.’
"If he’s useful, I’ll make him a crewmate.!"
"Whaat!! No way, no way! That guy’s like a wild beast!!"
"Wouldn’t that make him even better?"
"Shishishishi, that’s good."
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