CONFRONTATION

The somehow enhanced soldiers of the Germa 66 had died slowly, but easily. What they had working for them were the years of boot camp that had drilled into their minds how to work together, and thusly, even with Haki on my side, I constantly had to disengage, splitting my attention evenly among the squads that they formed around me, avoiding bullets, which admittedly was by then more instinct that a cognizant action on my part, and attacking in patterns that kept me from being hit.

The Conqueror's Haki had swiped over them, making their reactions sluggish and slow compared to their usual standards, but it went to their credit that more than half of them kept their wits and didn't simply collapse with foam spilling from their mouths.

I ducked below a last, almost desperate, savage kick, and retaliated with a straight punch to the throat of the man, before recovering Shusui from the body that I had impaled a fraction of a second before, and swiped it with a surprisingly still clean jacket from one of the soldiers.

I counted around forty of them, and there was no way to express my thoughts without sounding either callous or with an inflated sense of ego. "Even with having to be careful about the stitches, I haven't broken an actual sweat..." I sighed, crossed between disappointment and resignation. I couldn't expect any fight to bring me to the brink of death's door, nor I actually wished to end up hospitalized for a month after every battle, but I started to understand why no Emperor bothered with the first half of the Grand Line, and didn't even consider the Blues. What was the point? There was no thrill, no challenge, which ultimately was the purpose behind a life as a pirate. There was no whetstone against which I could grind my skills, no expectation to meet if I wanted to stay alive...

I shook my head and walked around the relatively big galleon that had made land against the rocky beach at the feet of the cliff, eagerly looking for anything of value. Inside the galley, there was a vast amount of canned goods, basically food as tasteless as cardboard, which I really couldn't be bothered to actually taste. Being a military vessel manned by clones raised as lobotomized meat shields, I could understand why it was so, but it didn't mean that I had to like it.

Their holding cells were empty, even if badly washed smears of blood signalled clearly that there had been prisoners in there until recently. The dorms were as organized and orderly as I had expected, no secret porn stashes, no light drugs... Honestly, the ship was revealing itself to be extremely boring. I crossed their map room without really stopping, noting distractedly that they had a reasonably well-drawn map of the North Blue, with lines highlighted in red, which were the usual routes followed by the giant sea-snails that dragged around the Vinsmoke Kingdom.

I shrugged and kept looking around. Like every tyrannical organization with some form of self-respect, the galleon had a vault. Which, after a brief examination, was confirmed to be a 4x4x4 meters of steel. At least they haven't been so stupid as to place a single steel door over a room with wooden walls. Sadly for them, it was a combination safe, so, I only had to Observe, and tinker with the knob until I felt the door click correctly. I didn't have x-ray vision with Observation Haki, that wouldn't make sense, and yet, I had a feeling as to where the gears were and as to how they had to click one over another.

It took me, from beginning to end, 4minutes, and the door clicked open. Inside, orderly cases contained stacks of beli and small chests held small sums of gold. Truly interesting, however, was a single relatively small chest locked with three different lumps of chains keeping it shut. "That's a stupid way to guarantee that what's inside is important." I grinned, stepping forward and taking a closer look. Seastone may have been beyond my ability to break, but I was ready for another experiment.

The whole spiel about 'a sword cuts only what the swordsman wishes to cut' that Zoro went through in Alabasta was a good way as any other to get started on my actually understanding how to use a sword properly. I let Armament Haki out of the situation. If I do this properly, I shouldn't need it. I remembered one of the first true-badassery moments of Zoro, his being close to death's door allowing him to briefly Observe his surroundings, albeit in a blurry manner when compared to my own skill with Observation Haki.

I closed my eyes, feeling my surroundings with practised ease, and immediately narrowing down my focus, bringing it all on the chest in front of me. Seventeen links on each chain, three chains wrapped tightly around the wooden chest, the brass linings were scratched from their grinding against the steel chain, while the kays for the three locks where nowhere to be seen. The lock themselves were crafted with steel slightly denser than the chains. Every detail of the chest was bare for me to observe, feel, learn, understand.

Stopping myself from letting my focus expand over the widest area I could cover, as I had always done to look out for targets and threats, was difficult, and I had to start from the beginning several times in order to have a clear mind over which I could properly Observe the small chest in front of me.

Finding the chest was easy, separating my 'feel' of the whole, and letting pass into the stream of my consciousness only the locks, not easy at all. I couldn't help but feel stupid for ignoring something under my eyes, and yet I persisted. After a length of time that I couldn't have honestly measured, everything clicked.

The chest stopped being a single object in my mind, and split itself to reveal the different materials of its components: the wood, the brass linings, the steel of the chains and their harder counterpart in the locks. There was no song or rhythm for me to listen to, only the knowledge that they were in front of me, and the inescapable understanding of their nature.

Without Haki cloaking the katana, I listened, and when I felt that I could truly hear the locks, I discarded the awareness of the wood from my mind and fell the blade. It cut through the locks like they weren't there, while the upper part of the blade ran against the wood, it left it unblemished. I blinked, surprised by my easy success: "I guess it has been much more impressive for Zoro because of his circumstances, and because he had instinctively found out Observation Haki, without knowing of it beforehand."

My appreciation for my own skill aside, I sheathed Shusui and opened the small chest, finding a swirly fruit inside: like a pomegranate, but with a dark green colour to it, and a corkscrew-like stem on top of a deep brown. I had never seen anything like it, nor heard anything about any such a fruit in the manga, given its position inside of a Germa66 ship, however, I felt safe in assuming that such fruit would never see any use beyond experimenting in the labs of the Vinsmoke kingdom.

For a single instant, I was tempted, terribly so. Eating it and figuring out the hows and whys of its powers, and with it being statistically paramecia, the possibility of finding out what the fuck was awakening. Then the images of myself wielding Enel's powers came through, and I quickly closed the lid on the small chest.

If Luffy had been able to rip away from a ship its figurehead along with a piece of the keel with his bare hands, I couldn't why it would be impossible for me to push a ship back into the sea. So, half an hour after my discovery of the Devil Fruit, , helped along by the changing tide, I dug my feet in the rocky beach and pushed. My feet hurt against the ground, my muscles strained themselves to the point where they almost snapped, I could feel my tendons almost give in to the tension, and my fingers started throbbing against the wood of the ship.

After a second, I managed to overcome the resistance in front of me and the vessel slid, albeit reluctantly, back into the waves. Without hesitating, I moonwalked while pushing on the figurehead at a slight angle, forcing the ship to point West, and only then I jumped back on the deck. I quickly reached tor the helm, and resigned myself to wait for the sails to catch the wind properly for me to set out towards Law's ship.

A less than a day of smooth sailing later, my Observation Haki pointed out a metallic shape underwater, maybe 20 meters deep. The fucker hasn't told me he had the submarine already! I grinned to myself, those were fantastic news: I fished out from the inside pocket of my vice-admiral overcoat a snail transponder and made a quick call.

"Are you the fuckers 20 meters deep under the ship I'm sailing?" I asked with a knowing grin.

The snail transponder made an excellent work in mimicking Law's annoyed expression: "How did you... nevermind, we're coming up." his vice resounded before the call abruptly ended. I busied myself with tying up the sails of the ship, slowing down and I started amassing the valuables on the deck, ready to be moved into the way more cool vessel that was the yellow submarine.

A week later, Law had declared me fit to reopen my wounds doing whatever idiotic thing that came to my mind, and we were almost back at Reverse Mountain, despite the grumblings of being 'not ready' and Law's wanting to bide its time some more.

The Yellow Submarine, that I refused to call in any other way, was extremely easy to navigate with, given the mostly automated controls that regulated the vessel's engine. It wasn't the same submarine that had made its appearance in the manga, it was slightly smaller, and undoubtedly less sturdy, but given the number of improvements Franky would be able to apport to it, I wasn't overly concerned. Upgrade after upgrade, it would become a scary good ship, even if my plans about it were going to sound outrageous to the people seated around me on deck.

"We could use it to enter the underground market of devil fruits, back on the Grand Line." I proposed reasonably: "Robin, you're the expert there, think you could find out where the nearest rallying point for the random scum is and pluck the Nagi Nagi no Mi if they have it? Or put out a voice that we're willing to pay... let's say... double the standard price for it?"

"I thought that the Cypher Pol were the ones with the Nagi Nagi no Mi." Law objected with a hard glint in his eyes while Robin nodded, accepting my request and signalling that she didn't foresee any problem.

"I said I suspected it, we should split at some point on the Grand Line, I'll deal with the Cypher Pol, snoop around for information or anything useful." I answered Law's objection with a shrug on my part.

"I'm coming with you." stated Law, causing me to furrow my brow and naturally object: "No offence doc, but I don't know if I can keep an eye on you and at the same time complete the task."

He simply crossed his arms and stared at me expectantly, waiting for me to give an actual reason behind my refusal. After a minute I sighed, it would be a good occasion as any to observe what he could actually do with his fruit, and maybe even point out shit I knew he was going to be able to one day accomplish.

Two days after our chat about future plans to find the Nagi Nagi no Mi, we found ourselves riding the currents up Reverse Mountain. Which was as wild as it had appeared in the manga, even if there was a notably higher chance of sudden death due to a variety of reasons, but all in all, I had a reasonable amount of fun getting moderately wasted with morphine. Given the outlandish constitution of my body in One Piece, I wasn't even worried about developing an addiction.

"Brook, Ryoshi, Laboon: I present you Law, Bepo, Penguin and Shachi." I introduced everyone gruffly once we made land at the Twin Capes.

"That's an owl." Penguin pointed out, causing an outraged Hoot on his part.

"You worry about the owl?" Shachi hissed: "That whale is bigger than the island we were hiding in!"

Bepo almost dropped into unconsciousness when he saw Brook introducing himself, and was thrown into depression by a particularly harsh squawk from Ryoshi. At the same time, I was blessed with Law's usually unperturbable expression going slack with disbelief: when I had told them about the rest of the crew, I had been careful to avoid mentioning their races or different states of undead-ness.

"We go to Water 7." I stated once the crew members were done freaking out around each other, "We need to regroup and set up a base of operations, since we're looking for the Nagi Nagi no Mi." if I could get away with it, I would have sent Robin on her own in the middle of Baroque Works, they had likely an already growing smuggling ring, it was a pity not taking advantage of it, but I wasn't going to risk her when we could work it out later on our own.

That evening, we threw a party, mostly on my suggestion, and mostly because I felt like thanking Crocus for having taken care of Ryoshi. Brook had immediately made his the idea and managed to turn the lukewarm interactions among people that had actually never seen each other before into something more genuine, if still somewhat controlled. Crocus seemed indifferent to the whole thing, but Shachi and Penguin, once properly wasted, stole more than a single laugh out of us.

I simply chose to get drunk while I could safely do so, and I sang off-tune with Brook as Laboon moved in the fleebile light given by the stars and our campfire. I even tried to interact with Crocus, asking what he was going to do now that Laboon was going away, and he grumbled something I had immediately dismissed. I really wasn't interested, I had tried to test if he would be amenable to travel with us for a while, maybe dropping some tricks into Law's hands since they were both medics, but to no avail.

At some point, I found the drunk-haze slightly dispersing from my senses, and I noted that our resident skeleton was gone from the large deck of the ship where we had been partying on: "Hey Brook." I said as I joined him at the edge of the ship, looking with a smile at the vast form that was an asleep Laboon. "Captain, what a lovely crew you're putting together, yohohohoho." he greeted me, even if his laugh sounded somewhat subdued. I could understand his being a bit overwhelmed after years spent alone, and I was more than aware that I lacked the magical, plot-based superpower of 'genuine friendship' that coated the whole existence of Monkey D. Luffy, so it would be some time before everyone truly meshed together, but I would make it happen.

"Have you thought about what I told you?" I asked, causing him to nod quietly: "I have."

We had some time before shit actually started to go down, so I wasn't overly concerned with the current strength level of my crew members, but that wasn't a reason to not help them in the right direction. "I'm no swordsman material." I confessed him without beating around the bush: "Ryuma told me I could become one, but... I have other things to do, and I don't get the... elegance, I guess? Intrinsic of swinging Shusui around." and it was true, no matter the sure advantage that a Haki coated super-katana gave me, while I had been able to figure out some of the tricks I knew people were capable of throwing around, I felt more at ease while using whatever ended up in my hands as a weapon, may it be a fishing line or a pebble, I didn't really care. And given my plans of getting the Goro Gro no Mi, whatever effort I now spent into 'mastering' the way of the sword would be wasted.

From my experiences up until now, I could tell that my original speculations about how people brought into the world ice, fire and rose petals through their swords were on the right track: it was a subsection of armament Haki, really, even if I was slowly come to realize that Haki was a misnomer. Observation or Armament Ambition? It worked through the ambition of 'seeing' or 'being indestructible', yes, but it was all a mumbo jumbo caused by your soul, which explained also how Brook had been able to figure out how to bring 'the ice of the underworld' into reality after the time skip without anyone to explain that shit to him.

The king disposition allowed you to impose your will upon others, even if on different levels, it went from complete blackout, to charisma, to general drowsiness and compliance to orders, crossing all that there was in between. Observation allowed you to see through absurd distances and walls, evaluate the 'presence' of others, almost like some form of empathy that bled into psychic powers in Otohime's case, and even bleeding into seeing a silver of the immediate future in Katakuri's experience. Armament was the most straightforward, obviously, going from the black-armour, to the proper 'flow' explained in Wano, in the first case manifesting the 'indestructibility of the soul' (Brook's existence proved that souls existed after death) in the latter... well, I only had a single working theory: letting Armament Haki 'flow' inside something, or in general outside from your body, basically destroyed everything that wasn't your body, because the soul and the body were undeniably linked together, and the soul does not share its space with anything else. But what did it mean, to le your soul flow outside of yourself? Apparently, trough the focus, the 'middle man', of either music (in brook's case) or a weapon, one could more easily bring it in the physical world, or something along those lines. After all, didn't the three admirals shielded Marineford from Whitebeard's first attack?

Apparently the Akuma no Mi brought with them 'the curse of the sea devil' or some garbage akin to those lines, and only after death their power was released back into the world, to mysteriously undergo rebirth in another compatible fruit.

So it made sense that Haki, read: the soul, of someone, would bypass whatever trick the Devil Fruit granted to an opponent.

But then, what about when Luffy used his fruit along with Armament Haki? My best guess was that a devil fruit user could channel his soul along with his fruit powers. I couldn't believe that Whitebeard didn't have the most badass Armament Haki around, then how did Akainu manage to punch a hole into his chest? Somehow, haki could be channelled through the body of a devil fruit user, and it clearly wasn't limited by the category of the fruit, hadn't Marco kicked Borsalino?

I shook my head violently, leaving the confused, drunken ramblings about the nature of the world and soul in order to focus again on what I was doing: Oh, now I remember. I could grow better and faster focusing on Haki, which I was sure would always be useful, and which, given my ramblings, deeply fascinated me. I would be better off spending my time thinking about ways to abuse my otherworldly knowledge to boost my crewmembers and their skills. So, without regrets, I untied Shusui from my waist, and offered it over my open palms to Brook: "I've seen your moves executed by Ryuma, he was scary, there is no reason for you to not surpass him: you could focus on your swordsmanship and you Devil Fruit abilities until I get around to teach everyone about Haki."

The skeleton jaw opened itself on its own as his hands hovered over the sheathed masterpiece: "When used by Ryuma and combined with my fencing style of the Gentle Blade, he managed to create a strong blade version of my moves, making it far stronger and destructive than the original." he whispered, his musical voice trembling with anticipation: "But I fear that my body is no longer capable of improving, so my swordsmanship will stay the same, even if I can squeeze some new tricks into these old bones, yohohohohoho..."

He brought the meito grade sword close to his chest, before unsheathing it with a slow movement: and frankly, a three meters tall skeleton with an afro holding a black katana in a single hand, while his empty orbs seemed to shine... take it from me, it's fucking scary. "And I fear that the only power my fruit granted me is to be alive after my death, not a bad result, uh? Yohohohoho..." but his here wasn't in his laugh, his was focused completely on the beautiful weapon in his hands.

I shook my head with a smile, remembering early about the kind of batshit crazy stuff he had been able to pull off after the time skip: "You lost your body after your death, didn't you?" I asked, and after he nodded once I went ahead: "That means that you're not a skeleton, you're the soul inhabiting your skeleton. Why not trying to bring into the world the ice from the otherworld?"

And before he could start objecting ar even find himself again, I drowned him in suggestions: "How do you see without eyes? How do you feel pain without nerves? How do you breath without lungs?" Seriously, your fruit is totally broken man. "You're a soul, what can you do with the souls that surround you? Perhaps bring them into your mind with music?"

He took a step back at my eager suggestions, his empty eyes leaving the legendary sword only to land on me once more: "If my music had been able to do as you suggest, I..." he stopped, "... I have never really thought about it."

I left him with a grin on my lips, ready to get drunk some more, I kind of missed the heavy buzz of the extra heavy ale we had been consuming. While I was in a gifting mood, I gave to Shachi the Vice-Admiralìs katana

Two weeks later, we needed to stop to fill our galley: there was only so much I could whip together from seeking meat and the reserves of vegetables we had stocked on the Yellow Submarine after all. We had left on the technological marvel that I strongly believed had been built by the Germa 66, only to be stolen by Law and his people, leaving the ship we had used to reach the Twin Capes the first time around to Crocus to do with it as he wanted, after all, he had a house inside of Laboon's stomach, and we took it away.

Apparently, while I was in North Blue, he had explained in detail how to take care of Laboon to Brook, who managed adequately, but only because his 'lightweight' allowed him to run over the water in the Giant Whale's stomach, but we would need to find someone in the crew who wasn't a Devil Fruit user and who was willing to help.

The island we had spotted was a temperate one, with hills and a sane Marine presence: "Pomegranate Island." Robin informed us. It was a relatively large one that I had never heard anything about, but apparently, following the One Piece usual pattern of giving either self-explanatory names or joke-based ones, it had a large collection of orchards, and produced everything but pomegranates.

Back in North Blue, Law hadn't started yet with piracy, or at least, not properly: meaning that he didn't sail under the Jolly Roger, and while we had to spend a few hours making sure that Laboon would await us at large, we made land at the port without issues. That should have let us do our shopping, or shoplifting, in peace, but as I stepped down from the ship onto the pier proper a marine shouted: "It's him! Bounty of 388.000.000 beli!" and everything fell under a rain of lead.

Three days later, we were still sailing straight for Water 7, this time with enough food to last us the whole way, and Laboon happily following, occasionally disappearing for hours at a time in order to eat: thanks gods we didn't need to figure out a way to purchase food that appeased her tastes

While we were sailing, one of those strange, hat-wearing seagulls dropped a news coo on our deck in exchange for a small bundle of beli: DISASTER ON POMEGRANATE ISLAND was the headline.

The main article narrated how the evil pirates had come out of nothing into the harbour of the pacific and productive island, with the intent of raiding it to the ground. Obviously there was no mentioning of the fact that I had been attacked from the get-go. I sighed: This teaches me to keep my Observation Haki always on while not on my ship. The article was less than kind with the terms used to describe me and mine, and managed to sound petulant in the parts where were reported the damages. We had no intention of setting all of their orchards to fire, and they had been the ones to think that Bepo would turn on us if they scared him with a flamethrower!

"The Disaster Pirates have shown no mercy and burned the whole island to the ground, murdering without any restraint all those that they could reach." I read out loud with a veneer of disgust on my face. I may have gone all out against the marines, but they had always been fair game for me.

As I turned the page, the new bounty posters came out: 'Humming Skeleton' Brook, 25.000.000 beli, pictured our resident musician with Shusui raised towards the sky and his off-hand holding its sheath. 'White Menace' Bepo 20.000.000, pictured the mink as his punch threw away a marine, 'Human Dismantler' Trafalgar Law 18.000.000, and 'Drunk Disaster' Jones David 392.000.000.

In all of that, I focused on a single thing: "They got my name wrong? But..." I didn't know how to work with it, I didn't really need a D. name, nor stealing Roger's stitch, but it had been fun thinking it when I started out as a pirate. Apparently, the slurring of my name had been taken as a sign of me being drunk, and from there they had given me a nickname. I sighed... I... I really hadn't reason to care about how I was called, since when how they named me was an issue? I had my plan to follow!

"How comes Law has a bounty lower than Bepo's?" Nico Robin questioned with something that could almost resemble a smile. I withheld a jump, mentally cursing myself from my lack of attention, I couldn't let people just sneak up on me, crewmember or not it wasn't an excuse.

"Apparently, a bounty of over 300.000.000, a skeleton using a katana and a polar bear of 700kilograms have been way more eyecatching than Shachi, Penguin, you, and Law." While Robin had opted to hide her presence, only intervening with random limbs appearing and disappearing faster than the people could notice them, the others had openly acted, and I wondered what their reaction would be.

Less than a month later, I attended the first actual party organized by my crew, only for my crew. It had started lukewarmly but when we were drunk enough, save for perhaps Robin and Law, which apparently were bonding over a chess match, things truly started to look up, and everything bled into a haze of music, food, random declarations, skull jokes, regular jokes, and dumb pranks.

Meeting again with Chihiro had been strangely... warm? I had been relieved when I spotted her on board of Brook's old ship, maybe a small part of me had been wondering about her safety, after we separated moths before. She half-heartedly scolded me for having risen hell on the Grand Line: 'Attacking Schichibukai? What was I thinking?'. I managed to appease her with the several dozens of different seeds I had kept from our visit to Pomegranate Island, while Franky had grabbed all the beli I had scavenged and put on another order for Adam Wood, always through his mysteriously black-market contacts, and Robin had joined him, ready to start poking around in search for the Nagi Nagi no Mi.

We were partying over Brook's old ship, which had been repaired as much as possible for such an antique ship, and had been filled by all the Adam Wood Franky could stick into it. The large ship would need another trip to Water 7 in order to bring away what was left of the special wood and the next shipping once it made its way there, but we had all the time necessary for it.

Hours later, the haze thinned once more, and I joined Robin at the end of the ship as it started sailing towards Little Garden: "It will take some years still." I announced, causing her to lower her book marginally and look at me questioningly. I smiled a bit sadly, recognizing that the genuine affection that she had felt in another life for the Straw Hats would never come to pass in this reality, not for several years of companionship to prove that she was safe in my crew. "I had promised you help in reaching and collecting knowledge of the past, but it will be some years before I can bring you to another poneglyph." And before she could answer, I carried on: "But from there on, the crew will be ready to move and keep safe you along with your knowledge, so that we will be able to counter whatever shit the WG tries to stop us with."

Her face paled immediately at the veiled mention of a buster call: "It's the part of your recruitment speech that I never truly bough... building a new Ohara... it sounds wonderful, but, while I do not enjoy being manipulated, and you evidently lack the skill to do so, being offered empty promises is worth nothing." she was already shaking her head, when I interrupted her. "I'm not good at this friendship thing." I shrugged, "But I offer people what they want, in exchange for joining me. I have no interest in going against my word with the people I'll need to trust to have my back at some point."

"Friendship? Is this what it is?" she asked with a raised eyebrow, causing me to shrug again, unapologetically: "How would I know? I'm figuring it out as I go."

There, she looked at me like I was batshit crazy, and a small smile sprouted on my lips. I was aware of my sociopathic tendencies, and even of my evergrowing greed and megalomania, but, while that only placed me in the 'less sane' half of the pirates sailing the Grand Line, I still wasn't a frothing-at-the-mouth, kill-before-it-kills-you zombie or chtulu-monster: "If I had to draw a line... I don't deliberately target civilians, I'd prefer to not oppose the Revolutionaries, and I'll stick with my crew, come hell or heaven."

"Emotional blackmail and strongarming me with secrets I had hoped to bury years ago don't speak well for whatever this 'friendship' you forced on me will mean for me." She retorted blankly, stealing a sigh out of me.

"Hey, I'm greedy, and I wanted you in my crew." I opened my arms with my empty palms turned upwards. I had never truly expected that my improvised speech would fool her, only that she took that long to confront me about it.

"If I wasn't the last of Ohara you wouldn't have even considered of recruiting me." She countered, causing me to scoff: "If I had hooves and a tail I would have been a horse." I countered, "I chose you because you are you. Denying a part of yourself doesn't make what's left any more or any less worthy of attention, it simply makes it false. We are the sum of ourselves, our experiences, hopes, beliefs, dreams, actions."

"I hadn't taken you for an actually philosophical man." she quirked her lips upwards, as if she was finding the idea hilarious, and expressing it as much as she could. I shrugged again, she was mostly right, actually thinking about my circumstances brought me to remember that I couldn't be sure if this world was real or not, so I sidestepped her question, trying to change topic: "Building a New Ohara will be possible only in the New World, deep into yonko territory, and if I have it my way, the island you'll choose will be placed far beyond the reach of the marines."

She chose to focus on reining in her emotions, questioning me with a single raised eyebrow. I smiled more genuinely then: "Some clusters of clouds hosts whole islands at heights beyond 10,000meters, with some planning, there is no reason why we shouldn't be able to use one of such islands to build New Ohara on." I carefully insisted on the word New, making it clear that I read it as part of the name of the to be civilization dedicated to knowledge.

"You offered me a dream I hadn't dared conceive, from my understanding, you offered to find the Nagi Nagi no Mi in order to bring closure to our troubled medic, you brought Brook to his beloved Laboon, which joined us... you held hostage dreams we didn't know we had in order for us to join you. I wonder, what will you do with us once you'll complete your collection?" She spoke slowly, almost seductively, but her words did somewhat stung, since they were nothing but the truth. What should I do about it?

"I guess I'll get to live." I simply stated, "Maybe gaining your trust and letting others gain mine in return, once that the utilitarianism that dictates our relationship has run its course."

She gave a dry chuckle at it, but it wasn't an honest expression of levity, she simply expressed her incredulity at the idea: "You speak of trust? You? You, who uncovered secrets that have been buried for reasons? You, who wield our past over our heads like a sword before and a leash after we capitulate?"

"I never denied being greedy," I answered, slightly annoyed at her perceptiveness and resentful attitude: "But the choice between living only focusing o how I got you on crew instead of why is only yours." I really was spiralling out of control of our conversation, but it felt... more real than a lot of the other events that I had witnessed in the world of One Piece. It felt somehow good, to be honestly confronted with words about my reasons and future plans. She shook her head again, bringing up her thick book once more: "You would ask us to trust you and the rest of the crew when you do not do the same?"

"Neither of us knows anything about trust, not really." I quietly answered, taking a step back and leaning on the bulwark, after a minute, I took a decision.

"Imagine that you were born seeing everything: past, present, future." I started suddenly, paraphrasing my situation as much as I could: "Do you know what you would do?" I shook my hands dismissively: "Not in your specific case obviously, stopping the genocide of your people is obvious. I mean, if you were a civilian in the ass-end of nowhere, do you know what you'd do? Born able to see a whole lifetime of lives, events, their connections, their reasons, the consequences of each fallen leaf and rolling stone?"

She frowned, considering my question seriously for a second before taking a sìwary step back from me, her eyes wide in alarm. I smiled somewhat sadly again, remaining still with my palms turned upwards, in the universal sign of peace: "You'll plan every step of the way in order to become blind." I simply answered, causing her to actually close the book she was holding.

"Can you imagine the boredom?" I asked taking a step forward: "The emptiness of living something like it was a rehearsed tragedy in a theatre?" I took another step, my arms lowering fractionally: "I was tired of this world before I was six, because everything had already happened. I was at the end of my path before having taken the first step."

Living in the world of One Piece had clearly removed the idea of impossible from her vocabulary, but it was obvious that she wasn't really believing my implications, and I frowned, I didn't need her to believe me, not really, but it would have been... nice, I guess, having someone other than me who knew my thoughts without deeming me all kinds of batshit crazy.

"Why would you be born knowing everything?" she questioned me, causing me to frown: "Don't be deliberately obtuse, Robin, I haven't said anything about knowing everything, just that I knew almost all the possible interactions between me and the world during my lifetime, and the causes that had brought them forward."

She slowly shook her head: "What kind of devil fruit..." I slammed the flat of my palm against the railing, stopping her. I could understand her disbelief, I truly could, what I was suggesting was alien even for the standards of the Grand Line: "There is a girl, her name is Marianne." I started "Who will be recruited in Baroque Works, and without eating a devil fruit, she is able to write symbols which influence the psyche of other living beings." I suspected it was some kind of mutation of the Conqueror's King Haki, but it was honestly a shot in the dark. "There is a Mako-mermaid on Fishman island, who can see silvers of the future in a crystal ball."

"But why would you..." she insisted, causing me to snort and remember something I had read once in Dune, by Frank Herbert: "Deep in the human unconscious, there is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic." I straightened from my position against the railing: "I have told you the truth, do with it as you wish."

"Are you telling the truth? Or is this another of your random spiels that get more confusing and convincing the more one listens to them?" a dry voice interrupted us while I was turning to leave.

I rolled my eyes towards Law, I didn't truly care that he choose to eavesdrop, in his place I would have done the same, and my meta-knowledge was bound to come out in a way or another at some point:" The respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality. Nothing is born from Nothing. You should recognize it as profound thinking if you understand how unstable 'the truth' can be."

AN 1

I've been reminded time and time again that the MC is too robotic and emotionless to be relatable, and that it makes for a shitty character. The whole dissociation and general amorality of the MC was something I was conscious of, that I wrote willingly, and with a purpose, the whys and hows start to emerge in this chapter, which is scary long.

And let me tell you that it has been extra difficult to make it 'flow' properly. Even now, I'm not exactly pleased with all of its nuances, but I don't hate it.

AN 2

Yeah, I skipped pomegra-whatever island' events as much as I could, it was an excuse to reveal to the world that the MC has a crew, as well as a way to start out with the bounties. Like I said at the very beginning of the story, I can't be bothered to write about every single island, and up until now I have been avoiding random adventures as much as I could.

That is for two reasons: one, the MC knows what's going around him most of the time, and such plans around eventual madness as much as he can, two, I'm not pulling an Oda. I can't, I'm not him, I don't have his resources, his time, his willingness to write whole arcs just to gain another crew member, nor the average level of dedication that a story like One Piece likely deserves.

Skipping all the parts not strictly necessary for this story to work has been the only compromise I have found between not writing this ff at all and trying out an SI-OC in the One Piece world. So, to the ones that pm me asking for chapters on this or that island, suggesting new OC or canon crewmembers... until I get down to setting up a pa! tre! on! or something, I won't be doing any of those.

Anyway, I've started to return to the MC a measure of sanity, and settled for David Jones as a name, or Jones David as the people in One Piece write. Why, you may ask? Because I kept forgetting his name myself.

I wanted to avoid calling him David, as it's the same name of the SI-OC of my first ff, but at this point, since I'm unwilling to go back and rewrite, for reasons that vary between material ones (I don't have the time), or spiritual ones (it's a ff, I'm not rewriting something I do as a hobby), so I'm forced to stick with David Jones.

Canon is definitely crippled by now, we will see if I manage to kill it and torn its dead body asunder, I sure as hell I'm going to try.

I don't know if my explanation of Haki has been exposed by someone else already, I spent like... a week? something like that, trying to reconcile the mechanics of the world with the shark-woman on fisherman island seeing the future and the redhead kid in Baroque Works pulling off her magic mumbo jumbo without Devil Fruit. In my mind, powers come either from Devil Fruits, subcategories of Haki, or a combination of both, so King's disposition, which imposes your will upon others, could maybe (I hope so) mutate to grant Marianne her superpowers, and Observation with a crystal ball apparently allowed the shark-mermaid to see a confused version of the future.

One Piece is not really a universe meant to make sense, but I'm still trying, we're still some years before the beginning of canon, and I should reach that point by chapter 19, if I manage to follow my schedule, before December.

As to why I haven't put Renju on the crew? She is content playin' princess-superhuman so the MC had no offers to make, he is a generally no-nonsense person, and teetering to the whims of a royal only because she has tits and spits pink venom doesn't really compute in his mind.

What is the fruit taken from Germa? a lucky finding that allowed Robin to have something to barter for the Nagi Nagi no Mi.

Why would Law be interested into Rocinante's fruit? Apparently, in the One Piece world there is some sort of myth that states that the past users somewhat live on in the following users, at least I have understood it that way from the way both Luffy and Sabo scampered to reach the Mera Mera no Mi as soon as they heard about it. I took my clue also from how Blackbeard takes the stance to mimick Whitebeard to use the Gura Gura no Mi power.

It's likely been done to add some shock to the sudden power, and given the working theory I have on that Devil Fruits have something to do with souls, I don't see why it couldn't be so.