One Piece: New Life

by AncientFun

Due to an astronomical chance, Luffy, who died at the age of 15, ends up coming back to life with memories of another life with the help of a higher dimensional being and another dead person. Follow Luffy as he goes through his journey with future knowledge and drives everyone crazy with random stories, seemingly clairvoyant abilities and his magnetic personality.

6. Chapter 6 - Kuja, Part 2

Further in the chapter:

"You're really pissing me off"

Disclaimer: One Piece belongs to Eiichiro Oda.

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Chapter 6 - Kuja, Part 2

He was just another man when Hancock first laid eyes on him. Most probably, a selfish, cruel and disgusting man just like every other man she had met in her life. She had dismissed him from her mind just after Sonia told her that they could use him and she thought that that would be the end of it.

The next night, however, Sonia called her and she was made to acknowledge the man's existence again. He had been a slave apparently. To the worst kind of slavers no less. Just like her.

She softened when she heard her sister crying that she had done something horrible and tried to comfort her. Her two sisters were the only ones she would let herself open up to after all and she didn't like seeing either of them in pain. She had asked about how the man behaved, whether he was distraught or in dread, but when Sonia denied that, she became doubtful whether Sonia had seen right or not. When she told her sister that she was probably mistaken and it was not a brand and that she had nothing to feel guilty for, she was adamant that it was the brand.

Hancock sighed when she heard that. Sonia was always the most emotional out of the three of them and even this trip where she had to accompany her for Leah's sake was because she was too emotional. Ultimately, she told Sonia that they should give the man a ride out of the Calm Belt to alleviate her guilt and she had agreed. Hancock thought that that would be the end of it and she would never have to hear about the man again.

And then the next night came.

She was on a catch-up call with Sonia and Mari, and they were just chatting like usual when a sound of a door knock came from Sonia's snail. After the sounds of a blanket moving which was probably Sonia covering the snails followed by a 'Come in' and a disappointed 'Oh, it's you', Hancock heard his voice again.

"I get that you don't like me. No need to prove it everytime"

Hancock's lips twitched a little. At least the man knew his place. She and Mari were waiting for him to leave so that they can continue their conversations, but the man started asking questions about why Sonia and Hancock were even there for such a menial task, and Sonia started answering him.

Hancock sighed face-palming. 'She still feels guilty thinking she exposed him…and also feels guilty about Leah…'

She and Mari listened as Sonia looked like she had forgotten that they were on call and started conversing with the man. Looked like even he didn't buy her story of why she was there and Sonia got defensive and started shifting the focus off of herself by accusing him, calling him suspicious and probing why he was in the Calm Belt.

"Big Sis?" Mari's voice came over from her snail and she lifted it up so that it would be away from Sonia's snail, "Who's the man?"

"Just someone who intruded upon our ship. I'll let Sonia tell you in detail later as to why she's being so responsive to his questions"

Mari hummed and the two listened as the conversation continued. They both stiffened up when the man said that he knew about the Gorgon Eye curse and also said that it was a lie. They relaxed a little when they heard him say that he hadn't told that to anyone else though. It wouldn't be a problem even if he did, as she could just call him a liar and everyone would obviously side with her, but still, it was intriguing that the man hadn't exposed them.

After a lot of questioning, when he finally confessed that he had been a slave and had the hoof brand, Hancock was skeptical as he was way too casual about it. She couldn't imagine someone just confessing about the brand in such a relaxed and casual manner as he did. But when she heard rustling and stepping sounds from Sonia's end and heard her understanding and soft tone as she asked 'What happened?', she knew that it was real.

And then the man started talking, saying stuff like how he was uncooperative and thus was thrown out. She grew angry at that. Was he telling her that if she had been uncooperative too, they would have thrown her out too? Was it her fault for complying when they threatened her to do something? Sonia seemed to have the same thoughts as her too as she asked what he meant by that.

Hancock then heard him explain how he was literally uncooperative as he was going to become the Pirate King and the Pirate King doesn't obey anyone he doesn't want to. 'This man wants to become the Pirate King?… The freest man on the seas huh… That does seem wonderful…'

'So in his mind, since he was going to become the Pirate King, he wasn't going to bow down to anyone huh? Should I have done the same?' Hancock started wondering if it was her fault for complying with their orders and started feeling guilty. As if reading her mind, the man continued telling Sonia that he could only do it because he didn't have anyone precious around him at the time but if he did, he would have done anything they ordered him to do if it meant protecting his precious person… And she did have someone to protect - her two sisters. They would always dangle the lives of the other two if one of them refused to do something and so they could never refuse them. And the man had somehow unknowingly comforted her.

Hancock felt herself falling deeper and deeper into the man's story as he continued but she just couldn't understand how he was talking about it all in an almost cheery tone. How could anyone who underwent what they went through be so nonchalant while speaking about it? And make jokes too?

"…I'm sorry for making you share that… I understand that it might be a shameful past"

"A shameful past? Why would it be a shameful past? I was just a bit reluctant to talk about it as people usually pity me, but I'm over it"

"You're over it?!" / "Over it?!" / "…you're over it?" all three sisters asked incredulously at the same time.

And then the man explained how he had survived, how he had gotten stronger for himself and for his friends so that none of them would ever have to find themselves in such a situation again. Hancock thought about it but couldn't really understand his perspective. Does him being stronger now mean that the things that happened to him in the past don't haunt him? Does it not make him shudder in fear that it might happen again? How can he be over it?

"…Don't you think of yourself as… less than human because of the brand?" Sonia asked hesitantly. Hancock definitely did… she wondered what kind of answer he would give now but that one question was like a switch in his brain. All cheeriness and the nonchalant tone he had had up until then vanished and became replaced by an almost stern tone which seemed like he was scolding Sonia.

"Oh please, it's just a burn mark… …I'm defined by my ideals, my morals, my actions and my dreams… …I looked at them as if they were stupid and just said 'No I'm not.'… …Man, it was so funny… …it threw them off their entire game… …started calling them stupid… …Shishishishi it was hilarious watching their faces!"

The more Hancock heard him the more her jaw dropped and the same was the case for Mari too.

"They were doing this to me in the middle of cages with other slaves… …when the next person was being tortured and she was told that she was worthless, she was a pet, she was less than human and all, she just stared at me for a second… then looked back up at her torturer… and simply said 'No, I'm not.' too! I burst out laughing seeing the gobsmacked look on the torturer's face and so did she…"

Hancock's hands trembled as she imagined such a scenario.

"…pretty soon, all the slaves in the cages there started howling with laughter too screaming 'No! I'm not!' and 'Fuck you!'… …best moment there. Seeing their hopeless hollow expressions turning into one of desire and rebellion…It was amazing!"

Hancock could hear the wistful tone in his voice as he said the last part and she could imagine how that would make one happy. Also, the man had just used the words 'The best moment' while describing his enslavement and to her surprise, she didn't disagree with him. She wished she was there to watch that scene play out.

"Wh-what happened next?!" she heard Sonia's excited voice asking the question that was on her mind too. And the man only had more amazing things to say. How the slaves had been inspired by him, how they had started a rebellion, how they killed a bunch of slavers, how a few of them had escaped but he himself wasn't able to.

"Fischer Tiger…" Hancock breathed in awe just as Sonia said "…you're like Fischer Tiger…"

"Nah, Tiger was a hero… …What Tiger did was so much more amazing" she heard the man say and her body swooned unable to contain her excitement. He not only knew about Tiger but also saw him as a hero. Tiger was someone she was extremely indebted to, so hearing someone say that he was a hero made her ecstatic. She didn't think it was possible, but she thought that she might actually like this man. Unlike Tiger, he ultimately failed in causing a huge rebellion, but he had still started something just by his words and actions.

"So Sonia, bottom line?" Hancock heard the man continue and leaned in more with excitement. Until now she had been ecstatic hearing how he had fought back against his tormentors but what he said next changed her entire demeanour as she had her world shattered. "I'm not defined by the marks on my body. I'm not defined by what others did to me… …I'm not defined by those actions that I was forced to do… The only thing that defines me is what I willingly do with my life. I'm defined by the choices I make. I'm defined by what path in life I choose to follow"

She slowly lost the smile she had and her eyes trembled.

There were sounds of someone's steps before the man continued, "So thinking it's a shameful past?… …To anyone who suggests that me or any slave is less than human just because of a fucking mark? I will always laugh in the face of whoever tells me that and say four simple words - 'No. I'm. fucking. not.'…Got that?"

Hancock's hands trembled and she let the snail fall to the bed as she leaned back on the headboard. His last words which were filled with strong sentiment resonated with her and she couldn't concentrate on anything else.

Salome, who was sleeping until then, woke up with a start when she sensed the despondent mood of Hancock. She slithered to her and wrapped herself around her wondering what had happened and Hancock gratefully hugged her close. The man soon left after saying good night and the room descended into silence. The man's words kept resounding in her head and she just couldn't help but feel respect and admiration for him even if he was a man.

His last words made Hancock take an objective look at herself. Her greatest fear was that someone would find out about her brand and shun her. And here comes this man, telling her that he would laugh at anyone who says that and simply deny it, that a slave brand does not define them, does not make them lesser…

It was a new line of thinking she had never even thought of. The slavers had drilled into their young minds that the mark on their back turned them into lesser humans and she had accepted that as fact, accepted that everyone who finds out about it will look down on her… but what the man said was true.

She remembered the time she was being branded when the slaver kept laughing at her, telling her that she was now a lesser human, telling her that she was nothing but a pet and her body trembled in fear… but she remembered the man's words and opened her mouth to say something she didn't know she had waited her entire life to say.

"No…I'm fucking…not…" she breathed wistfully feeling a kind of pleasure she had never felt before course through her entire body. She closed her eyes, her body shuddered with pleasure and her lips curled up into a smile. 'That was…liberating'

Hancock heard sniffling noises from Mari's snail and only then did she come out of her daze. "Mari?" she asked worriedly, "Are you okay?"

"Yes…Big sis…"

There were sound of sheets rustling, a surprised yelp and Sonia finally acknowledged them again. "Sister, Mari… I completely forgot you were there…Are you crying, Mari?"

"So are you, Sonia…" Hancock said noticing the strain and emotion in her voice.

"Yes…did you hear all that?"

"Yes" / "Yes"

"…that was…something else huh?" Sonia breathed unable to believe how lost she was in his words.

"He's like Fisher Tiger…" Marigold said in between sniffles.

"He really is…just inexperienced and failed in causing a massive rebellion I suppose…But his ideals are really something admirable"

"Does he know of our pasts?" Mari asked, "Those last words of his… I felt like he was telling you all those things rather than talking about himself"

"Yes," Hancock also agreed, "He became sterner as if he was chiding you and I also felt he was speaking about you"

"I thought so too. He was pissed when I asked if he thought of himself as lesser but it didn't feel like he got angry for himself but rather for another's sake… Maybe someone he knows also has the brand and he was pissed that I was calling them lesser?"

"Yes, that is a possibility"

"Who even is he?" Mari asked still not knowing anything about him.

"Oh he got swatted by a Sea King onto our ship in the middle of the Calm Belt" Sonia giggled as she began telling her everything that had happened from Hancock and a Sea King using him as a tennis ball to him giving a sex-ed class.

"Wow… so all that happened huh? Is that really true though?" Mari asked surprised, "Some men don't like being woken up by kisses?"

"Yeah! I was surprised too!" Sonia exclaimed, "I learned so much in his sex-ed class too. You know…"

Hancock tuned them out when they began talking about such topics. She knew that her two sisters sometimes liked to talk about sexual topics and even secretly went to some of the pregnant women to hear of their experiences, but she herself never did. She was extremely uninterested in it and so didn't participate in such conversations.

'The man also seems to be uninterested… but he's very much knowledgeable from what Sonia says… Interesting' she thought intrigued by the man. When there was finally a lull in the conversation, Hancock asked "Sonia, what's the man's name?"

"…Um…Oh my god, I don't know! Can't believe I never asked for his name…"

"Ask him tomorrow. I wish to know his name"

"Yes, I will"

There was a brief lull before Mari hesitantly asked, "Are we going to talk about it? Defining ourselves and not being ashamed of the brand and all?"

Hancock and Sonia both sighed deep in thought, feeling very complex emotions which they couldn't put into words.

"What the man said," Hancock began, "It was a very different perspective I had never considered… I just imagined saying 'No, I'm not' to the man who branded me and imagined his face contorting in shock and…" she smiled, "It is quite comical and powerful to think about. I see why he burst out laughing"

"Hehe yeah," Sonia giggled, "I wish I had seen the scene of all the slaves laughing while they fought and killed their slavers…"

"I never imagined we would one day talk about that place and laugh about it," Mari said in disbelief but had a small smile, "But yes, I would have liked to see that too"

"As for his views on the brand," Hancock continued, "It is… quite idealistic. Other people are not like him. Even if he seems to be 'over' it, that does not mean the meaning of the brand will disappear… if someone sees it and finds out that he was a slave to the Celestial Dragons, they will shun him and then make sure he gets enslaved again"

Sonia and Mari's mood deflated when they realized it too and they came off their ecstatic high.

"He didn't bow down to the slavers and that inspired the others with him, but in the end, they still failed… The Celestial Dragons just hold too much power… The man would have to stand against the Celestial Dragons for his idealistic view to be seen as valid and no one is that foolish. The man also did say that he didn't even know who the Celestial Dragons were at the time. Now that he does, I don't think that he would act the same way…" she said not knowing how utterly wrong she was.

"Yeah…but…but still…I definitely will change the way I view myself…" Sonia said, "I will no longer look down on myself…"

"Yes, the way he didn't bow down to his slavers and inspired the others with him is worthy of respect. His way of thinking is definitely something we can apply a little of in our lives too"

There were a few seconds of silence, the other two realizing that even though his story was inspiring, his resolve and everything would crumble in front of a Celestial Dragon. Mari sighed and broke the silence, "Yeah there's no way he would do something like that now that he knows who the Celestial Dragons are…"

"Yeah…" Sonia also agreed.

Hancock sighed and changed the depressing topic, "Sonia, I don't think it registered for you, but the man said that he unleashed Conqueror's at one point"

"Yes!" Mari added, "I missed that too"

"Oh yeah! How the hell did I miss that?!" Sonia facepalmed, "I was way too preoccupied thinking about the nonchalant attitude he had while confessing about the brand…"

"He's a Conqueror, so he's definitely not a normal man. Ask more about him tomorrow, Sonia"

"Yes"

There was silence as the three tried imagining his story playing out and thinking about what all he had said, their minds wanting to shout that the man was right in everything he said and that they shouldn't be afraid of the brand, but years of fear wouldn't dispel just like that.

"Let's close the call" Hancock finally said when she felt like she wanted some alone time to think and the other two agreed. They said their goodbyes and soon closed the call before the three sisters fell back on their beds, the man's words running through their minds the entire night. Their mindset wouldn't change overnight, but the seed was planted.

—o—

Luffy facepalmed hearing a question one of the women had asked. "No no, you got it all wrong…"

"Really?" the woman said, "But Elder Mother Sym told us that men liked to wake up to a kiss… That's why we kissed you to wake you up…"

"That's after spending some time or a night together. Please don't do it to random people you've never met before"

"Ohh I see!"

Luffy sighed thinking that he was gonna have a word with whoever this Sym person was for filling these girls' heads with so much half-information.

"Anyway, I'll be there keeping an eye on you on the island, so if you do choose someone unsavoury, I'll be there to stop you, so don't worry" Luffy concluded giving the second sex-ed class to a bunch of women in their twenties and also told them how to approach men. It was the next day's morning and he had called a class again which went on for four hours where he had explained what kind of men to pick while they were on the island and answered all kinds of questions for which the answers should have been obvious.

By the end, he was mentally tired but still made sure to answer everyone's questions. Leah came up to him after the session was done with an apologetic expression.

"Sorry Luffy" Leah said eyeing all the women, "I honestly had no idea they were this clueless…"

"Yeah… wait a damn minute!" Luffy suddenly snapped at Leah, "Why the hell am I giving these lessons?! You're here, aren't you?!"

Leah smirked mischievously at him, "Well, it's your fault to be honest. You were the one who said you'll give it with no prompt yesterday"

Luffy blinked thinking back "…huh…you're right… I got way too scared that they will try to stretch other men and so, decided on the spot to teach them some stuff"

"Sasasasa don't worry, don't worry. You did a great job"

Luffy sighed letting it go as he saw Sonia, who had also heard the whole session, come up to them with a smile. "Hey beast, another good session"

"Beast?" Luffy asked tilting his head.

"Yep! It's because you fight like a beast. Not caring how hurt you are and just keep attacking"

"Hmm yeah from what I heard about the fight, you definitely do fight like a beast, so it fits you" Leah chimed in.

"Sure sure, call me whatever"

"What's your name?" Sonia suddenly asked causing Luffy to stop and stare.

"I never introduced myself to you huh?" Luffy said thinking back, "Well anyway, I'm Luffy. Nice to meetcha"

"Luffy huh"

"If that's all, I got a date with the sea serpents. So see ya later"

"Wait, what are you even trying to do on there?" Sonia asked stopping him, "Some sort of meditation?"

"Hmm well, I kinda want to hear them talking"

"…huh?" both women blinked not understanding him. "Hear who talking?"

"The sea serpents"

"Umm…they can understand human speech because we raised them and we can sorta understand them too through gestures… but people can't hear them"

"Maybe I can. Never gonna know until I try"

"Are you stupid? Humans can't understand Sea Kings"

"Just let me try it"

"…sure, knock yourself out" / "You're so weird"

Luffy ignored the comments as if climbed up the Sea serpents and again asked for permission before sitting down. He looked out into the sea and saw that the greenish-brown reptilian Sea King was still following them from a distance.

"You two notice that Sea King? Does it want to fight me that badly?"

The Sea serpents both nodded.

"Wait, you talked to it?"

Nod.

"Why isn't it attacking now? Is it scared of Hancock?"

Nod.

"More like we have an accord with the Sea Kings," Sonia said as she jumped up and landed next to him.

"An accord?"

She sat next to him and started explaining "Sorta yeah. These sea serpents talked on our behalf with the Sea Kings around here letting them know that the Kuja will be using these waters and to not attack us. In return, we won't attack them."

"Wow, how many did you guys have to kill before they accepted that?"

"Just beat up a few. These are nesting grounds so kids and pregnant ones are usually here, so they agreed readily. We don't touch the kids and pregnant ones and they won't touch us. Thus, we got full access to these waters"

"How do all of them know? There are thousands or maybe even millions of Sea Kings here right? These Sea Serpents couldn't have possibly talked to them all"

Sonia stared dumbly at him, "Umm…I don't know?" she said and then looked at the Sea serpents, "How exactly did you guys tell all the Sea Kings to not attack?"

The sea serpents just eyed her causing Luffy to burst out laughing, "You just called me weird for trying to hear them and here you are, not even two minutes later, asking them questions like they'll answer you Shishishishi"

SMACK!

Sonia blushed hitting him on the head which only made him laugh harder and even the Sea King's mouths widened a bit as if they were laughing at her.

"Shishishi well anyway," Luffy continued, "Maybe the message to not attack you gets passed down from mouth to mouth? Or they have a council which decides stuff for all the Sea Kings in the world" Luffy was obviously joking when he said the last part, but then he suddenly remembered the promise Joyboy had with the Sea Kings. It wasn't with any specific Sea King but the whole Sea King species. And after the Fishman Island arc, the Sea Kings even took the Noah to safety and for repairs. Wouldn't there have to be some sort of consensus among them for such things to be possible? The more he thought about it, the more the existence of something like a Sea King council seemed likely. Or maybe it's just passed down from mouth to mouth until all the Sea Kings learn of it. He decided he would just ask one after he unlocked his Voice.

"Yeah, sure there's a council," Sonia said with sarcasm bringing Luffy out of his thoughts, "The massive ones never care but one or two small ones still come to attack us, so I guess the massive ones tell the smaller ones to not attack?" she shrugged, "Anyway, we just beat up the ones who do attack us slightly before letting them go, so I guess they know to keep their distance. If Sister is there, a single Conqueror's blast is enough to scare them away"

"I see"

"And now the reason I came here. I can't believe I glossed over this fact yesterday but didn't you say you unleashed Conqueror's once too? I've never seen anyone other than Sister who can use it"

"Yep! Still can't use it on command though. But maybe if I'm pushed to my limits, it'll activate"

Sonia's eyes widened with realization "So that's why you were so confident that day even when you were losing so badly…"

"It was one option sure. Even if I did unleash it, I know you or any of the other stronger fighters wouldn't have fainted."

"That's true"

"You want to know what my last resort was, don't you?"

"Yes!"

"Shishishi well I'll show you when we're on land. I don't want to destroy the ship"

"Wow…something that powerful?"

"Kinda yeah. I would have just broken off a part of this ship and then used a few pieces of wood to make a makeshift boat and rowed away"

"So that was your plan? We could have caught you pretty easily you know"

"I'm not saying it was foolproof. I would have just rowed away quicker than you but I had no guarantee of how far you would have chased me and even if I did manage to get away, I'm still stuck in this Calm Belt. So decided to use it only as the last resort"

"I see… Anyway, since you have Conqueror's, you're no ordinary man"

"I'm the one who's gonna become the Pirate King!"

"So you keep saying…"

Luffy shrugged and closed his eyes intent on meditating and hoping to hear the voice of Sea Kings but Sonia didn't leave. He opened an eye and looked at her questioningly "Umm, anything else?"

"Not really" Sonia said lazily looking out into the sea.

"Why are you here then? I want to meditate"

"You do know this is our ship right? How rude of you to tell me where I can and can't be"

Luffy just rolled his eyes "Yeah yeah…"

She seemed to want to sit next to him and talk to him, so he knew he wouldn't be getting any meditation done.

"This is so strange you know. We have a man on board and everyone's okay with it. This is the first time this has ever happened"

"Aren't you the one who engineered this though?"

"Yeah and that makes it even more strange…"

"Shishi I'm lucky like that"

"Would a lucky person get lost in the Calm Belt?"

"…My luck works in strange ways…" Luffy said sagely.

"Guess so… I think the major reason I'm okay with you being here is that you're so different from the men I've met. Almost all men just go crazy over Sister's beauty and just keep eyeing her mostly. If she's not there, they gawk at the rest of the warriors with lust too"

"What kind of men do you usually run into?"

"Marines and pirates mostly. Sister is a Warlord, after all, so we have to deal with Vice Admirals sometimes. Other than them, pirates who think they can kidnap one of us or hurt us. And be it the Marines or the pirates, all of them stare at us with infatuation. But you? Not even a bit. Don't even blush when talking about sex with so many women… are you gay?"

"Nah, I'm into girls alright"

"Then how come you don't want to sleep with anyone?"

"…You have a really hard time understanding this huh?" Luffy sighed. "You're such a kid"

SMACK!

"I'm 28! Don't call me a kid!"

"Shishishi you are though. I feel like a grown-up around all of you"

SMACK! SMACK!

"You're saying this but I bet you'll jump at the chance to sleep with Sister!" Sonia huffed.

"Hancock? She's beautiful sure, so are many on both ships. Doesn't mean I have to lust after them"

"Oh please, every person, man or woman, is infatuated with my sister. Even animals are infatuated with her!"

"Oh yeah, I did want to test that. See if her Mero mero beam works on me or not. Think you can ask Hancock to fire a beam at me?"

Sonia gawked at him "You want to face her beam? Are you crazy?! You'll get petrified!"

"Yeah yeah let's test it then. It only works if the person is infatuated right? I'm sure I won't turn into stone"

"No, you idiot! Do you have a death wish?!"

Luffy just sighed shaking his head "Do you not understand the concept of a test?"

"Of course I do! But what do you take my sister for?! Do you think she's patient enough to listen to your whims?!"

"Hmm, I guess she has no reason to huh? Well, my bad then"

"That's right! God, you're so weird!" Sonia huffed getting angry at him for even suggesting that. "And again, no one can resist my sister's charms!"

"And again, we won't know until we try. Somehow make her use her beam on me and we'll see who's right"

"You're insane…"

"Yeah yeah…"

Sonia folded her legs staring at the batshit insane man not understanding if he was actually being serious or not. "How do you even know about that?"

"About what?"

"Her Mero Mero beam…have you seen it before?"

"Heard about it from someone"

"From who?"

"Leo. My brother"

"And how did he know?"

"Hmmm" Luffy tilted his head not knowing what to say, "He just did?"

"That's not an answer"

"That's the only answer you'll get"

"Suspicious…"

"Well, get Hancock to kill me this time. That way, we'll know if her Mero Mero beam works on me or not"

"….I don't even know what to say…"

"Shishishishi"

He then remembered something that he had forgotten to ask, "Wait. What does Hancock think of me being here? Didn't she only agree to me not being executed because you told her that I'll bed the others?"

Sonia smirked mischievously, "Oh don't worry. Just told her that you were impotent"

She expected him to get annoyed that she had said that but he only got a glint in his eyes and gave her an approving nod with a smile while saying "Ooh good job!"

"…what?"

"Good job!" Luffy said patting her back with an appreciative smile and Sonia only became bewildered again.

On the other ship, Hancock was squirming in her chair with a snail in front of her that was relaying everything Sonia and Luffy were saying. "He doesn't think he'll fall for my charms?" she scoffed, "How ridiculous!"

—o—

Luffy was sitting on the Sea serpent's head after another unsuccessful attempt of trying to hear them and was just relaxing when she spotted Sonia and Leah on deck talking with each other. Luffy didn't want to pry but their relationship was strange.

He had observed the two's interaction whenever he got the chance and understood that Sonia talked to her more than she did with others and also found that the fact that she was spending time on this ship rather than staying on Hancock's ship was also because of Leah.

He had asked Leah about it and she told him that before her mom took her away from the island, Hancock, Sonia, Mari and she were close friends and used to play a lot. This was like when they were all around 8-9 years old, so they were childhood friends before the kidnapping of the three sisters. That had cleared up some of the mysteries about her sure, but Luffy still saw signs of guilt and unease from Sonia sometimes when she was talking with Leah. Leah didn't seem to notice though as she was totally oblivious… Or was it him that was unnaturally perceptive?

Leo was interested in criminal psychology too and had done a thesis on interrogation tactics detectives used when confronting suspects and had watched a lot of interrogation videos. Body language, speech patterns, eye movements, hand movements… his original personality could already perceive such subtle hints but he wasn't able to draw any conclusions from them and usually used his instincts to judge a situation. But now that he had psychology lessons and was smarter, he could analyze all that information and make accurate judgments.

It was like earlier he could get weather data but couldn't make sense of it, but now he could make accurate weather prediction models based on it. He had tried to read Reiju but she was impossible to read as she was more of a master at such things than him, Sonia was a bit hard to read too but if he calmly analyzed her, he would be able to read her, and people like Leah were an open book to him. He didn't actively try to analyze people though, but he still couldn't help but see obvious signs of lying or unease quite easily. And seeing it from Sonia worried him. Why would Sonia of all people feel uneasy while talking to a friend? If she didn't like it, why even spend time with her? And then there was Hancock whose presence here still made no sense as she rarely ever talked to anyone but Sonia.

And Leah? She loved the three sisters and everything about them. She had apparently lost herself a bit after losing her mother and had come searching for Amazon Lily to reconnect and find a home again. She seemed to be ecstatic that her childhood friends were now so amazingly successful and wanted to lend her strength to them. So, there was nothing about Leah that stood out to him that would make Sonia uncomfortable. Apart from her being knowledgeable about the outside world that is.

"Hey Luffy!" Leah called out from deck bringing him out of his thoughts and he shelved the topic jumping back on deck.

"We'll be disembarking on a smaller boat in a few minutes, so get ready"

"For what?"

"We don't really want to announce that the Kuja are here, so taking these ships will be a dead giveaway" Leah explained, "So we'll get into smaller boats and row to the island. Should take hardly an hour since the island is very close to the Calm Belt"

"I see"

It was currently the fourth day since Luffy had landed on the Kuja ship and he could already see the end of the Calm Belt and laid his eyes on the Grand Line again. The ships would apparently stay near the edge of Calm Belt while the women went to the island in smaller boats. Hancock and all the Kuja pirates would wait at the ship itself and only the women who needed to get pregnant, Leah, Luffy and a couple more were going to the island. Sonia also chose to stay on the ship itself but when Leah pressed for her to come, she said that she would come on the last day. Again, he saw that something had her uncomfortable and the way she said that she'll come on the last day, he knew something would be happening then.

"See you in a week" Sonia said as Leah and Luffy got into the boats. "We'll decide then if we need to stay longer or not"

"What?!" Luffy asked surprised looking up at her.

"Hm?" Sonia tilted her head, "Yeah. If things haven't gone well, we'll have to extend the stay you know…"

"Oh hell no! We're leaving in a week as planned. I need to get home as soon as possible!"

"Ooh good then" Sonia smiled mischievously, "Do a good job then"

"Okay!" Luffy nodded resolutely intent on finishing the task as fast as possible. All the women descended into the smaller boats too and they were soon rowing towards the island.

The women on board were all excitedly talking about visiting an island that wasn't Amazon Lily and looked like they were looking forward to visiting the island more rather than meeting a man.

"Okay girls, just stick with me and Luffy when we get there. Please don't wander off"

"Okay!" came the chorused response.

The island they were going to was a normal peaceful summer island at the edge of Grand Line called Callipe island. It just had a few cities and was pretty much a normal island with nothing Grand Line crazy. The island soon came into view and the women started to get more excited as they pointed and marvelled at the island. The first person they saw was a kind old fisherman who was heading back to the island too. The women gawked at the older man and even though he was slightly taken aback, he waved at them with a smile, which only made them more excited.

"Hey old man, what's the best hotel for all of us to stay in?" Luffy asked getting his attention.

"Oh, visitors huh? Look for an inn called Callipe inn. Named after the island cause it's the best. Cheap, clean and safe. You won't have any problems even with so many women" he responded helpfully.

"Thanks, old man!"

"Have a fun visit. And welcome to Callipe Island!"

"Thank you!" chorused the women excitedly which had the old man chuckling as they looked like a bunch of grade schoolers on a class trip.

"This is gonna be a thing huh?" Luffy said tiredly to Leah, who was sitting next to him, and she giggled nodding her head.

They soon reached the dock and the women looked wide-eyed at the city marveling at every new thing but it was just a normal city with decent sized shops and houses.

They paid for docking their boats and walked into the city, with Luffy and Leah leading the way while the rest followed behind oohing and aahing at all the different shops. They had been told not to point and shout 'Look! A man!' when they see a man, so instead they nudged each other, pointed with their chin while whispering 'Look! A man!'

That still attracted a lot of attention as the men either smiled waving back at the attention, which made the Amazons gasp in shock, or just looked at them weirdly. They thankfully reached the Callipe inn without any incident, got single bedrooms for everyone, and soon started to explore the city.

Luffy and Leah led them on a tour of the city while explaining certain stuff they didn't understand and after a bit of exploring, they went to a tavern near the port. The usual process the Amazons followed was to find a tavern near a port as sailors would also be stopping by there and looking for a fling. They would also be strong and the Amazons preferred strength, so they were the perfect candidates for them.

Whatever Luffy had to tell them, he had already told them, so they just went on their own to look for a partner. Luffy and Leah just stayed nearby to keep an up eye on them and hoped they wouldn't cause any trouble but not even five minutes in, a fight broke out near the bar counter between a couple and one of the Amazons.

Luffy quickly ran there intent on seeing what had caused the problem and found that the Amazon had just approached a man who was already dancing with another woman. The woman, of course, had gotten pissed at her asking how dare she approach her man.

"Okay okay, she's sorry" Luffy interrupted coming in between the irate woman, her embarrassed boyfriend, and the Amazon called Jess.

"Are you her friend?!" the woman yelled, "How dare she approach my boyfriend so blatantly when I'm right next to him?!"

"What did I do wrong Luffy?" Jess asked completely clueless.

"I guess it's my fault for not considering this scenario" Luffy sighed to himself before explaining to Jess, "You did see him dancing with her right?" he said pointing at the man and woman who were now more curious and confused.

"Yeah so?"

"That means the two are together. He already has her as his partner"

"But I only want him for tonight"

Luffy felt like tearing his hair out but explained patiently "It doesn't work like that. He's hers and she's his. They only sleep with one another, understand?"

"I see"

"Yeah, so only find single men… like look over there," he said pointing at a pretty well-dressed man sitting alone at the counter, "Go talk to him"

"Okay!" Jess said happily going to him. Luffy sighed turning to look back at the couple who were giving him strange looks.

"Okay, what the hell dude?" the man asked.

"Small island. Low population. Don't have much contact with men. So they're here to experience men for the first time. They're pretty clueless so I apologize on their behalf" Them being from Amazon Lily was of course a secret and Hancock was kinda strict when telling them that they should never mention anything about Amazon Lily to anyone. They had even changed out of their beast hide clothes and were wearing normal dresses.

"Luffy!" Leah yelled from the other end where two more fights had apparently broken out. She went to deal with one while calling Luffy to take care of the other. Luffy just sighed waving the couple goodbye before running to break up the other fight. It had broken out for the same reason too and after he took care of it, he went around to all the girls telling them not to approach couples. After an hour of running around, most of the women were talking with someone, having a sort of date, and Luffy and Leah finally got a chance to sit down and relax.

They collapsed at the counter and ordered two strong tequila shots. There were only 15 women, but they were causing so many problems.

"Wow… you really weren't kidding huh?" a voice asked and Luffy found the first couple whose fight he had broken up sitting next to him, and the woman had struck up the conversation. "We were watching you running around breaking up fights…"

"Yeah, my fault I guess. Had told them what kind of guys to approach. Hadn't mentioned that they shouldn't approach guys who already had partners…"

"Uhh, not your fault man. That should have been obvious" the woman said pitifully patting his back.

"Well, apparently not"

"So what's the deal here?" the man asked, "They want one-night stands, is it? She did say that she wanted me for just one night"

"Pretty much yeah. We'll be leaving in a week, so they don't want any relationships"

"Ooh, then you should check out the tavern at the other end of the port. That's more famous for sailors coming in"

"Ah that explains the lack of sailors here…" Leah nodded sagely. "Okay, let's go there then"

"Thanks guys" Luffy said as he and Leah got up.

"Ah wait, can we come? This is kinda fun" the woman asked with a grin and the man also nodded. Luffy chuckled, "Sure, having locals will help"

"Great!" the woman chirped, "I'm Jan and this is Phil"

"Luffy and Leah. Nice to meetcha!"

The four then gathered up the women and went to the other tavern where they had a much easier time as Jan and Phil also helped a lot. The four hit it off too and started playing bar games which attracted others to their group and soon, men themselves started approaching and talking with the Amazons. By the end of the night, all the women had found a partner for themselves they liked. Luffy had told them to go on a date at least before sleeping together so they followed his instructions.

At night, two men walked out after getting spooked when the Amazons told them that they wanted kids and so, they had to go out again and pair them up too. After they were done, Luffy and Leah both collapsed on their beds mentally collapsed from having to deal with such clueless women, but at least they had achieved their goal.

The next morning, all the women were practically glowing talking animatedly talking about their first times. As Luffy had told them, they had straight up told their partners that it was their first time and to be gentle with them. And thankfully, looked like everyone had had a positive experience.

—o—

It had been 7 days since the Amazons with Luffy and Leah had left for Callipe island and Sonia was currently walking through the city after just having landed on the island herself. They were going to be leaving the next morning, so she came to just check if everything had gone well or whether they should extend their stay. And also to deal with Leah…which she still didn't want to think about.

She walked through the city and found it to be in a very festive mood as it seemed some kind of festival was being celebrated. She found everyone going towards the centre of the city where apparently some event was soon going to start. She didn't care as she wanted to find her people, so called Leah's transponder snail.

"HELLOO?!" came Leah's loud shout over the snail. There were very loud background noises and Sonia could barely hear her.

"It's Sonia! Where are you? I'm on the island!" Sonia said raising her voice.

"OH?! YOU'RE HERE?! JUST COME TO THE CENTER OF THE CITY! I'M JUST NEXT TO THE BONFIRE, SO MEET ME THERE!"

Before Sonia could ask what bonfire, the call was cut off. She sighed and started walking towards where the crowds were gathering. She was a huge woman so she stood out quite a bit but it was the Grand Line, so people would just stare for a minute before moving on. When she felt congested, she jumped on a building so that she wouldn't have to get pushed around by the crowds and jumped from building to building until she reached the centre.

She understood what bonfire Leah was talking about as there was a huge one erected right in the middle of the street, but it was still unlit though, so whatever event was going on, it was yet to start.

She made her way towards the unlit bonfire and spotted Leah instantly as she and the other Amazons seemed to be the centre of attention. Leah also spotted her and waved her over with a happy smile.

"Sandersonia-sama, glad you could make it!" Leah cheered.

"Greetings, Sandersonia-sama!" the other Amazons chorused.

Sonia nodded in acknowledgement at all the women before addressing Leah and walked a bit further away from the crowd so that they could talk. "So what's happening here? Some kind of festival?"

"Oh no no," Leah said with a grin, "It's our farewell party!"

Sonia blinked a couple of times not being able to understand her words, "Um what? Our farewell party?"

"Yeah, the people here got to know we're leaving tomorrow, so decided to throw this bonfire party!"

"…why?" Sonia just couldn't understand how that happened.

Leah let out a merry giggle. "Trust me, I watched the whole thing play out and I still can't believe how this happened! Only way I can explain this is to say it's Luffy magic"

"Beast? He did all this?"

"Yep! We were pretty much done match-making the first night itself. I honestly don't know how Luffy did it, but he made sure most of them got partners who would take them out on dates for the whole week. So, he and I didn't even have to take care of them after setting them up"

"So, they all got week-long dates instead of just one-night stands" Sonia nodded in understanding.

"Yeah pretty much. Second night, we kinda kept an eye on everyone to make sure they were all safe and that's pretty much it. The girls went around on group dates or single dates, while Luffy and I were free to enjoy ourselves. We met a couple the first night that helped us and became quick friends with them. They were in a band, and get this- Luffy can apparently play multiple musical instruments!"

"Really? Doesn't really seem the type to patiently learn stuff like that"

"Yeah exactly! When I asked him he just said his brother made him learn it… Anyway, the guy in the band invited Luffy to play in his band as they could use a guitarist and boom! Luffy joined a band and then…" Leah went on to narrate what all had happened in the one week, more importantly, what Luffy had done, and ended with, "…the mayor found out that we are leaving tomorrow, and thus, threw us this last minute farewell party!"

"Wow… So that all happened huh?"

"Yep! He's magnetic if nothing else. I thought I would be suffering this entire week, but it's been so fun!"

Their conversation was interrupted as the mayor chose that moment to start the party by getting the attention of everyone present.

"Hello, Callipe Island citizens! I'm not gonna bore you with a boring speech, so don't worry. We all know why we're here- We've been struggling with resource funds for our schools and water facilities for quite some time now… and I had hoped the charity gala I hosted yesterday would help us in some small way… And as you all know, we got an overwhelming response from all the attendees!"

"WOOOHHHHH!" the crowd cheered.

"Without further ado, the ones who made that possible! Welcome our local band that blew the socks off of all the donors at the gala with their fun songs and jolly personalities! The Rock Five!"

Five people came running from behind the bonfire waving and cheering as the crowd welcomed them with raucous cheers. It was the couple Luffy had met the first day- Jan and Phil, two deer minks who looked to be mother and daughter- Giselle and Scarlett, and a Fishman named Rite.

Jan took the mic from the mayor as she happily addressed the crowd and hyped them up more. "Well we gotta be honest, at the beginning of this week, if someone told us we would blow up like this, I would've laughed in their face… but life sure is strange huh? Who would have guessed that just choosing to go to a dance bar one day would change our lives forever? One random encounter that started on a bad foot spiralled into something huge for us. We were a struggling band at the start of this week, but today? One of the donors at yesterday's gala just happened to be a famous talent agency that liked us so much that they offered to give us a tour! A fucking tour! We finally got our big break!"

"WOOHHHHHHHH!" the crowd cheered and so did the Rock Five.

"And the one who made it possible for us! The man of the week! The one who gave us exposure! The talk of the city!…." Jan trailed off awkwardly looking around, "…who was supposed to come jumping out as soon as I said that…"

Giselle leaned into the mic and spoke into it "Well knowing him, he's probably stuffing his face in with food somewhere around here…"

People all turned towards the food area, where multiple caterers had set up stalls with large amounts of food, and as expected there Luffy was, stuffing his face in with tons of meat without a care in the world.

Luffy suddenly noticed that his surroundings had gone quiet and when he looked around, he saw that everyone was looking at him with amusement. He just stared back taking a bite and chewing the shank of meat in his hand and only after swallowing it up completely did he mutter "What?"

That burst a dam as the entire crowd started laughing and Luffy had no idea what was going on. He just tilted his head confused as his hand slowly made a grab for another shank of meat which only had the crowd howling with more laughter. Giselle and Scarlett suddenly came flying in tackling him to the ground and laughing with merriment.

"Oh, it's you guys! The food's great here! Try some!" Luffy cheered shoving the meat near Scarlett's mouth.

"No, you idiot! You didn't hear a word of what was said just now did you?" Giselle said already knowing the answer.

"Huh? Somebody spoke?"

Giselle and Scarlett both started laughing before latching onto his ears and started chewing on them happily.

Jan, Phil and Rite also came up next and watched in amusement as Luffy sighed and gave up letting the mother-daughter pair do whatever they wanted with his ears. The two were Mink and so when they had first met him, they had greeted him in their usual fashion going 'Garchuu~' as they bit his ear. Since he was rubber, the two instantly fell in love with chewing on him and would do it every chance they got.

"Man, they sure like to use you as a chew toy huh?" Rite said as he grabbed the mother and daughter and lifted them up while they protested not letting go of his ears, thus stretching his ears comically wide. Luffy just tickled the two just under their chin causing them to start giggling, thus making them let go of his ears. A trick he had to learn when they didn't let go for a long time.

"C'mon, you're the man of the night" Jan said as she and Phil grabbed him from either side and started escorting him towards the bonfire which wasn't lit yet.

"Uhh what for again?" Luffy asked not being aware of the effect he had had on the city yet.

"Forget it, we've already tried explaining it to you a million times"

"And I still don't understand. I just had fun with everyone at the gala… and the next day I was suddenly being praised for just having fun. How does that make sense?"

"You just didn't have fun, dummy gummy" Jan pinched his cheek lovingly using the nickname she had come up with for him. "You made everyone have fun"

"Well of course I did. It's not a fun party if everyone is not enjoying themselves."

"And that's why we love you!" Giselle and Scarlett said in unison still being held in Rite's grip.

"You don't even understand what an amazing and impossible thing you did when you convinced the stiff and stuck-up donors at the gala to start dancing and singing like no one was watching" Rite said shaking his head in disbelief. "I was there and even I can't believe how you did it… One minute, everything was boring but the next, all the stuck-up rich people started acting like kids at a party"

"Let's just chalk it up to Luffy magic. That's what Leah keeps saying" Phil said with a chuckle patting his back.

Luffy did understand what was happening but pretended not to as they had almost started calling him a hero. It all started with Jan and Phil saying they were in a band and him mentioning that he could play the guitar and the piano. They invited him to join them the next day and he met Giselle, Scarlett and Rite the next afternoon. He had hit it off with all of them as they were very driven people who wanted to spread their music to the world. They were big dreamers and there was no one Luffy liked more than big dreamers.

Thus, he listened to a few of their songs and noticed that they were really good and complemented each other really well. Apparently, the five had been playing together for three years and were trying to get a tour, but just weren't getting their big break. They had the talent but Luck also played a huge role in a music artist's life, and they were lacking luck.

Luffy just praised them telling them they would hit it big someday. After that, he just started playing a couple of songs from Leo's world and the five loved it so much that they started asking whose song it was. Luffy just explained it away as an artist in his brother's country, which was closed off to the rest of the world. He told them to sing it if they liked it and they were gobsmacked at first and refused profusely, but Luffy just wrote down all the lyrics and sheet music and handed it to them telling them the artist and Leo would be happy if their music was played in the outside world.

Luffy had given them the sheet music for two songs and only gave it to them because they were really good already. If they were mediocre or not driven, he wouldn't have bothered, but their own songs were actually really good and they were big dreamers too, so he didn't mind helping them a bit.

And that was it. The next thing he knew, he was roped into playing as their temporary secondary guitarist and vocalist at the restaurant show they had that night. Rite was on the bass, Scarlett was the drummer, Jan was the pianist and lead singer, and Phil was the primary guitarist as well as the vocalist. They were a pretty unconventional but well-oiled band and Luffy managed to integrate himself pretty well with them.

Luffy had a blast playing 'We will rock you' with the Rock Five who had learned it in just a single afternoon. That song, as expected, had attracted a lot of attention and a huge crowd soon formed around them. Seeing so many people paying attention to them, the Rock Five decided it was their best shot to show off and thus, began playing their best songs with renewed vigour and attracted a much larger crowd. Luffy had slipped out after the first song as he was getting in the way of their perfect band symphony and just enjoyed the rest of the evening with Leah. At the end of the night, the Rock Five had come barreling into him screaming their heads off with joy saying that they had just received an invitation from the city mayor to play at a charity gala the next day.

Luffy congratulated them but they thanked him because it was his song that had given them the initial attention. They were good enough to keep that crowd and also grow it much larger with their own songs, so Luffy really didn't think he had done anything.

They were so thankful that they invited him to the charity gala too. He knew it would be a rich nobles' party with gourmet bite-sized food, and boring talks so started to refuse, but Leah excitedly latched onto him saying she wanted to dress up fancy and attend it. They argued, Leah obviously won and thus, Luffy with Leah as his date, and a few other Amazon women with plus ones had gone to the gala.

As Luffy expected, it was pretty boring. The people were pretty nice though and not like the snobby rich ones like in Goa, but the boring conversations and small portions of food were making him sleepy. The Rock Five, as their name suggested were primarily a rock band, so didn't get to shine a lot either. The mayor gave a bunch of pleas on how they needed money for some infrastructures like schools and hospitals and also needed money for some water plantations. Luffy honestly didn't listen and was more interested in thinking about when he would get to leave so that he could explore more of the city. Leah was his date though, so he behaved gentlemanly for the evening. But soon, even Leah started getting bored, and so did all the Amazon women.

He went to check up on the Rock Five and their moods were also down as they had built this venue up as their massive break, but not only were they not in their element, but people really didn't care for the music.

Luffy just hummed eyeing all the guests before deciding to transform the boring charity gala into a pirate party. He just said 'Give me a few minutes, and then start playing rock music on my signal' to the band before jumping into the array of guests.

He just picked a few single men who were eyeing a few single women and encouraged them to ask the women out. Luffy was blunt and extremely convincing if nothing else and if the guys hesitated too much, he just pulled them forcefully towards the girls and broke the ice with the classic 'Haaave you met Ted?'

He then went to the older married couples and did what he did best- make people laugh. He piggybacked on how nervous single guys were before the older couples started telling him how they themselves were nervous when they first met their partners, which were all funny stories. Finally, after becoming the centre of attention, he started a game where people started telling embarrassing stories from their younger days. It soon broke all the tension and high-class air rich people usually have and they became just normal people with embarrassing and funny stories. Luffy then gestured to Jan and the rest of the band, who were staring wide-eyed with shock at how effortlessly he was turning the boring room into a joyous one, and got his message. The band soon started to play a slow love rock song.

The donors eyed the band curiously as they had suddenly started playing a song that didn't fit the mood of a simple gala. But Luffy just grabbed Leah, who was also staring with shock at him, and began dancing with her. The Amazon couples also thought what Luffy and Leah were doing was fun, and so they began dancing with their partners too. Seeing many couples forming and how they had just reminisced about their younger days, the older couples also started dancing reliving their old memories. Soon, the younger newly formed couples also joined in and thus, a majority of the people at the gala had begun dancing.

But Luffy was far from done. He gestured to the Rock Five to play an upbeat song after a few minutes, and when all the couples were confused, he got all their attention and started a silly dance, which had them laughing their asses off. The Amazon women, who had learned by then that whatever Luffy did was always a good thing, also followed his lead. And when they saw so many people performing silly moves, all the others started too and pretty soon, everyone was dancing like it was a dance club and the Rock Five started showing off their musical prowess. The mayor was the only one who was a bit peeved at Luffy seeing how he had turned a serious gala into a dance party, but he didn't think anything much would come off of it in the first place, so just joined in on the party too.

By the end of the night, Luffy was blackout drunk and so were many people. He had woken up in the morning in a massive dog pile of Leah, the Rock Five and a few Amazons, with Giselle nibbling his ear even in her sleep.

When everyone woke up, the Rock Five had grabbed Luffy and kissed him repeatedly while crying tears of joy. Apparently, one of the donors belonged to a musical talent agency and seeing how well they played, signed a deal with them on the spot. Saying the band were on cloud nine was putting it mildly. They would apparently leave on a tour within the month and do what they wanted to do - put on concerts and sing for all sorts of people on different islands.

Luffy was covered in lipstick marks all over his face when the mayor also came bursting into their room while comically crying and proceeded to leave kisses on Luffy's face too as many donors had had so much fun the previous night that they decided to donate a large amount of money to the charity. When everything was added up, the amount of money raised was fifty times more than what he had expected, so he was also on cloud nine.

Luffy understood on a basic level that the rich people had enjoyed a lot and thus had donated, but he didn't really do it for them. He only did it because he was bored, wanted to help the Rock Five and that was it. The mayor almost started calling him a hero, so he instantly acted like he didn't understand what was going on and didn't acknowledge his involvement in anything.

But he was happy for the mayor nevertheless. When it slipped out that they would be leaving the next morning, the mayor instantly called for a city-wide celebration as their farewell.

And thus, here he was at the last-minute bonfire party being pulled by Jan and Phil towards the bonfire as he was apparently the man of the hour. He had become pretty famous in the city too as he went around exploring the city with enthusiasm and his magnetic and childlike personality of course attracted everyone he talked to, and he had become the talk of the city. So, everyone knew who he was and his massive appetite for food too.

"Okay, here you are. Please do the honours" the mayor said giving him the torch to light the bonfire.

Luffy turned towards the crowd who were looking at him expectantly hoping he would give a speech, but as always Luffy shattered everyone's expectations and did what he wanted.

"I'm not much for words, so I only got two-" he aimed the torch near the erected woodpile, "LEEETTTTSSSS PAAARRRTTYYYY!" he yelled throwing the torch at the same time and the woodpile instantly erupted into a massive pillar of fire as the crowd cheered loudly.

And thus started the biggest and the first yearly bonfire party on Callipe Island.

—o—

A couple of hours later, Luffy found a quiet place on top of a tree as the party kept going with people bringing out their own instruments, dancing and having fun.

He looked down at the joyous scene with a melancholic expression though. He had been having fun until just a few minutes ago but seeing a group of friends laughing their asses off while making fun of each other and eating to their hearts' content triggered a memory which brought his mood down instantly.

He wanted his crew with him. It was really strange as he hadn't even met them but he loved all of them and couldn't wait to meet them. He also started to think about all the friends he would make on his journey and that only brought his mood down further as many of them were suffering at that exact moment.

He remembered things like how Otama would be starving at that very moment and food didn't taste good anymore. He remembered how Nami would be all alone in that stupid room making maps for her tormentor, and laughter didn't feel good anymore. He remembered how Brook would be trying to entertain himself all alone on his ship and partying didn't feel good anymore.

He just wanted to go to everyone and protect/liberate them all but knew he couldn't be at all places at once, couldn't do it alone, couldn't go alone on the journey and he didn't want to either. He knew there was nothing he could do until he got to each of them one by one, but that didn't mean he didn't feel melancholic. He knew there was no point in moping around, but he would still get these intense melancholic feelings from time to time and the only thing he did when he felt like that was train. Train and train so that he's ready to save whoever he wanted and do whatever he wanted when the time came.

He jumped from tree to tree going further into the forest and after arriving at a deep secluded area, activated Gear 2 and started to train. Pump more blood, move faster, hit harder, make his body more elastic, more malleable, twist the legs, twist the hands, the neck, torso and even the tongue. Activate Gear third, channel the air from limb to limb, perform Soru while in Gear 3… and so on.

He destroyed a good chunk of his immediate surroundings but he had come in deep for a reason. He deflated doing out of Gear 3, blowing all the air out and he fell down in his shrunken form panting hard. He still had this side effect and his bones also ached a lot after the transformation ended. It took ten whole minutes for him to return to his original state and he got up and blew into his arm again forcefully activating Gear 3 even though his body clearly wasn't in any shape to handle that. But he would be in a similar state during the war, so forced himself to get up and do it anyway as he had to get used to fighting in such conditions.

After the second time of coming out of Gear 3 and shrinking, he could feel his body would burst if he did it again, so just laid down panting hard.

A few minutes later, a head suddenly popped up in his field of vision making him jump out of his skin before he realized it was just Sonia.

"Heya beast…or should I change that to mini beast?"

"Very funny" Luffy deadpanned, his voice very low-pitched, making her laugh as she sat down next to him.

"I was hoping to find you doing something suspicious when I saw you slipping out of the party and heading somewhere alone. So I hid my presence and followed you… but here I find you just abusing your body… and a chibi you?"

Luffy just sighed nodding his head as she stared at his shrunken form and started poking him curiously. "What even is this?"

"Just a side effect of my Gear 3… where I inflate my bones to gain giant limbs"

"You were inflating your bones?!" Sonia yelped surprised, "Wow, how do you not…pop?"

"Shishishi had to strengthen my bones first"

"So this was your last resort huh? I can see how you could just destroy the ship with this"

"Yeah"

Luffy's body adjusted back to its normal state again and he sat up. "Wanna fight? I could use an opponent"

"You still want to fight in this state? You really have a death wish…"

"C'mon, you can use your devil fruit too. I want to fight you when you're at full power"

"No, I'm in no mood to fight. Besides, I don't think you can even fight in your current state"

Luffy looked down at himself and fell on his back knowing she was right. He had just used Gear 3 consecutively so his body was really in no state to fight. "Yeah guess you're right"

"…So what made you sad?"

"Huh?"

"Back at the party… I saw you eyeing those group of friends messing around when suddenly your mood dropped and you left…why?"

"Wow, I knew that you didn't trust me, but that much? Were you observing me the whole night?"

"…No actually. I just happened to be looking in your direction when that happened"

"Yeah sure," Luffy just sighed, "I just remembered some stuff that's all…"

Before she could ask any follow-up questions, Luffy stood up dusting all the dirt off of his clothes "Imma head back. Coming?"

"Go on, I'll catch up"

"Sure"

Sonia watched Luffy go back towards the city with a slight limp. Once he was out of eyesight and far enough , she said "Geez happy? I told you he wouldn't talk about his past"

Hancock slowly walked out of the clearing from where she was observing Luffy the whole time with a frown on her face. "But I wish to learn what made him sad. The way he was abusing his body here… it is intriguing. I wonder what exactly it is that he is training for?"

Sonia just sighed not knowing why her sister had taken so much interest in Luffy. Sure, his story was amazing but Hancock seemed a bit too obsessed with him. It was actually Hancock who had noticed that he became sad in the first place and then asked Sonia to follow him while she discreetly followed from behind. If Sonia didn't know any better, she would have thought that Hancock had a crush on him.

And she was right. Hancock had indeed developed a small crush on him. It wasn't love or anything close to it, but she was interested in him and wanted to know more about him. She would sometimes peek out of the porthole from inside her cabin and her eyes would always follow him whenever he was on deck or sitting on the sea serpents. She would come out on deck to take a closer look and 'accidentally' see him and start a conversation with him but he would always quickly go below deck a minute or two after she came out. She was slightly peeved at that and had even asked Sonia if he was avoiding her, and it seemed to be the case. She had concluded that he was a shy man and was a bit disappointed that he also was infatuated with her. She had lost most of her interest in him, but she still couldn't help but stare at him sometimes. And tonight, she was staring at him partying, seen his sudden mood shift and thus, followed him.

"Yeah well, I don't see why he would share that with me"

"Hmm, maybe I should ask him myself. No one is going deny any of my requests anyway"

"Yeah, he should answer if you ask" Sonia nodded.

"Anyway, enough about him. I think it is about time we do what we came here for" Hancock said looking at Sonia seriously.

Sonia's mood suddenly deflated as she nodded, "Yeah…"

Hancock patted her head soothingly, "Sonia, I know you like Leah. But she cannot live with us on Amazon Lily. We must banish her from the island and also make sure she never comes looking for us ever again. That can either be done by threatening her that if she ever came looking for us, we will kill her… or we actually kill her"

"…You clearly want to kill her…" Sonia said in an accusatory tone with her head down.

"It is for the best, Sonia"

"But… after what all Luffy said… it's only made me want to not push her away… We shouldn't let the stupid brand make us do this…"

Hancock sighed and grabbed her sister's head making her face her. "You're too emotional Sonia. We have lied to the whole island and Leah knows it. She hasn't asked or done anything until now, but what will we do if she exposes us? If the others talk about devil fruits, we can call them liars or say that it is a myth in the outside world and that would be the end of it. But Leah? She knows too much. We have kept her from being on the island, but we cannot keep pushing her into trips for long… I do not know why she hasn't outed us yet, but she will soon and then, we will have to answer everyone as to why we lied"

Sonia hung her head in defeat for a few minutes thinking about what Hancock had said and knew she was right. She understood what danger Leah posed to them but she didn't want her dead. Hancock had been ready to petrify on the island itself, but Sonia had begged that she wanted to spend some time with her and thus, kept pushing her into trips. Hancock was losing patience though and she knew she couldn't put it off anymore. She had been ready to say goodbye to her on this trip, but then Luffy dropped into her life… After hearing about his resolve, she didn't want the brand on her back to influence her decisions, especially something big like getting rid of a friend.

"…Leah just wants to be a doctor" she tried again to convince her sister otherwise, "After her mother died, she apparently faced a lot of hardships and just kept roaming around aimlessly. She doesn't like to talk much but something horrible happened to her… She finally came looking for us so that she can have a family again…she came looking for me, looking for you…and now we're turning her away…"

Hancock understood that this was Luffy's influence and she had agonized over this decision herself after hearing him out, but at the end, she didn't want to take any chances. "We cannot risk it, Sonia… If…If everyone was like Luffy, then this world would have been a much better place, but people are not like him. He is an exception among exceptions. Leah can certainly expose our lies and when people start asking questions, they will eventually find out the truth and shun us. After that, one of two things will happen. Either we kill everyone who questions us, or we leave… And both options are horrible. Do you want to return to those hellish days?"

Sonia opened her mouth to protest but just couldn't rebuke her. Her body still trembled just imagining anyone other than Luffy seeing her brand and just the possibility that Leah might lead to that terrified her.

Hancock continued, "We have had this trip so that you can spend time with her and have some closure… We do not have to kill her. We'll drop her off here on this island or some other island, but we must tell her, no, threaten her that she should never come looking for Amazon Lily or interfere in our lives again"

"…That will kill her… She's already lost everything she holds dear and… if I threaten her to stay away, it'll break her"

"…I am ready to petrify her too. It won't even hurt her"

Sonia had her head down with a distressed expression on her face. She stayed like that for a long time and Hancock patiently waited not saying anything. Luffy's words kept resounding in her head, but the years of mental anguish won in the end. She finally lifted her head and nodded slowly, "O-"

And that's when their conversation was interrupted by someone approaching them.

—

Luffy walked in eating a shank of meat and stared at the sitting Sonia curiously. She was still in the same position he had left her in, which seemed extremely strange to him.

"Forget something?" Sonia asked keeping her voice as straight as possible. Hancock had again hidden behind a couple of trees not wanting anyone to know she was there.

"Hmm not really. You didn't come back even after so long, so came looking for you. What's up? Why are you still here?"

"Oh, was just star gazing, that's all" she lied.

"Ooh, you like the stars too? I love them!" Luffy said excitedly as he sat down next to her, "I recently discovered my love for stargazing, you know. Have you seen meteor showers anytime? There was this one night when I was training when a buttload of shooting stars started falling from the sky! It was sooo amazing!"

"Heh, you like stuff like stars too huh? Yeah, I've seen meteor showers and yes, they're beautiful" Sonia said hoping to continue the conversation with him for as long as possible. He always made her relaxed and right now, she needed that more than anything.

"Yep! Leah also loves them. You know about her island right? Their houses are built on top of these huge trees, so they're closer to the sky and so, stargazing was this big social thing on their island apparently"

"Oh I see" Sonia said, her voice a bit strained as she wanted him to talk, but not talk about Leah.

Luffy noticed the change in her voice and the melancholic/guilty expression she got when he mentioned Leah. He sighed internally as he finished eating the shank of meat trying to read her face hoping to find out what it was about Leah that made her uneasy. But he couldn't notice anything other than melancholy and even that had disappeared as her face looked blank. Unnaturally blank. She was forcing herself to not show emotion and that in itself told him that she was hiding something.

Noticing the intense gaze, Sonia asked "Why are you staring at me like that?"

Luffy's instincts were screaming at him something was very wrong here. He didn't know what, but if she was guilty and sitting down here in the forest doing nothing, she was probably agonizing over something. And it probably had something to do with Leah. He was going to be respectful and leave them alone to hash out whatever issues they had with each other, but he couldn't help but worry thinking of the worst case. Leah was someone who knew that they had lied to the island, and considering how they were keeping her off the island by making sure she was on trips ever since she came back, it was clear that they didn't want her there. 'Then why not just banish her?' he wondered.

Knowing he needed more information, he started probing. "It's still bothering me…"

"What?"

"Why you and Hancock are here…"

Sonia instantly became annoyed and defensive. She was hoping he would make her relaxed like always with his stupid stories, but he was just making her think more about Leah. "I know I'm treating you like a friend, but don't overstep. You don't have the authority to question where we go or don't go"

Luffy gave an unimpressed stare as he continued, "It has something to do with Leah, doesn't it?"

He watched her closely and there was definitely a slight twitch in her eye that told him he was right.

"Do you want to kill her?" he followed up instantly not giving her a chance to think as he closely observed her. And that question made her eyes widen, her body slightly flinch, and her mouth began to say something before she stopped herself, schooled her expression to make her face neutral again and said, "What the hell are you talking about?"

"…So I was right…" Luffy trailed off as he stood up, loosening his body and cracking his knuckles. He was glad he ate as much as he could before coming here to check up on her. The effects of the earlier training were still there, but at least he had enough energy.

Sonia grew confused about what he was doing. "What are y-"

"Shut up" Luffy coldly cut her off which only made her bewildered at the sudden shift in tone from him. The friendly atmosphere that they had built amongst each other evaporated instantly being replaced with anger and annoyance from Luffy's end and confusion from Sonia's end.

"Did you just tell me to shut up?! Ho-"

"Shut up" Luffy cut her off again, "All that uncomfortable moments and unease I noticed from you whenever you talked with Leah… I didn't want to think I was right, but you're here to kill Leah? That's why you were feeling guilty whenever you talked with her? Knowing that you'll be killing her soon?"

Sonia flinched just as the words left his mouth and that was all Luffy needed to know he was right. She didn't know how the hell he had figured it out but she couldn't have this conversation with him, so quickly got up intent on running away.

"I don't know what the hell you're spouting" she spat as she started walking away.

"Why do you want to kill her?" Luffy persisted following behind her. When she didn't answer, he ran up in front of her and got in her way. "Why?!" he demanded.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Sonia snapped trying to move past him but she watched in shock as Luffy's whole demeanour changed, his blank face morphing into one of rage and a second later, she felt Luffy's fist connecting with her face. The punch was so heavy that she got flung backwards and ended up crashing through a few rows of trees.

She slowly got up wondering just how Luffy had figured it all out and why he was attacking her now. "What are you doing?!" she spat coldly treating him like an enemy now.

"Beating some sense into you" Luffy said as he went to punch her again but Sonia caught his fist.

"You have no business interfering with our matters. Leah is our subject and we'll deal with he-"

"You know who I hate more than I hate those Celestial bastards?" Luffy cut her off while punching her with his other fist which she caught again with her other hand, "People who betray their own friends"

Sonia became downright furious when he insinuated that she was worse than a Celestial Dragon. "YOU DA-"

Luffy pulled his head back and smashed it against hers not giving her a chance to talk, "You've been treating her like a friend, enjoying your time with her. And this whole time, you were planning to kill her?!"

Sonia felt her anger rising as he kept cutting her off. Her mind didn't register whatever accusations he was hurling at her as she didn't want to listen to them cause he was right. She didn't want to face reality, so blocked him off and concentrated solely on what he was doing, which was attacking her out of nowhere. And so, she started retaliating.

She yanked him upwards by his hands and smashed him into the ground a couple of times like a rag doll before stomping on his head, "Do not interfere in our affairs, man"

"So what now? You're gonna kill me too?" Luffy spat.

"Oh you think killing you will be hard for me?" she glowered as she stomped on him harder.

Luffy let out a deep sigh "Leah respects you. She admires you and Hancock so much and is so loyal that she would give up her life for you if you asked… And you want to kill her? What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Sonia couldn't bear to hear anymore so grabbed him by the neck and brought him in front of her as she choked the life out of him. "Stop…talking…"

Luffy didn't even struggle as he stared at her angry face that was hiding an anguished face behind it and instantly went into Gear 2. He kicked right up under her chin making her stagger and loosen the grip on his neck. He slipped out and delivered a blow to her gut making her bend in half, before grabbing her head and smashing his knee right up in her face.

"Gakh!" Sonia felt pain bursting on her nose so shoved him away first before checking her nose and it was definitely bleeding. The attack had happened in an instant and she was way too lost in anger, denial and shock to sense his attacks. "YOU!" she angrily spat as she lunged at him.

Luffy side-stepped her lunge but she changed her trajectory and smashed his head with her fists pummeling him into the ground. His head got buried and before he could pull his head out, Sonia grabbed both his legs and swung him in an arc over her head before slamming him into the ground.

"You finally showed your true colours huh? What was your plan here? Get me alone and fight me? Did you think I was that easy?"

Luffy was confused for a second by her random accusation before he realized what was happening. "You're so in denial that you're making stuff up now?" he said getting up and spitting out dirt, "You're making no sense. You don't want to think about the accusations, so you're just trying to escape the situation by making up baseless stories and making me the villain"

Sonia lunged at him wanting to shut him up and grabbed his leg again intent on whipping him a million times into the ground. Luffy felt himself being swung but before he could get slammed into the ground, he twisted his body and grabbed Sonia's arm tightly. When his back hit the ground, he used all his strength to yank her towards himself and delivered a crushing headbutt.

Sonia staggered back confused as she had not sensed his attack with her Observation at all but before she could process it, Luffy jumped on her head and slammed both his fists on her forehead again. He then jumped down to the ground while still grabbing her head, which had the effect of her bending backwards before he flipped her and smashed her into the ground.

"Guess I got my fight after all huh" Luffy smirked as he airwalked and escaped into the sky when he sensed a leg sweep from her.

"Get back down here!" Sonia raged getting up, "All men are the same after all! Are all the other kidnappers you're working with coming now? I thought you were different but all men ar-"

"Fucking shut up and face reality" Luffy coldly said before lunging at her. Sonia dodged his fist but was hit with his kick, again not having sensed it with her Observation at all. She didn't know how the hell he was doing that but she didn't have time to think as Luffy kept up his relentless attacks. She knew she was making up random stories to escape thinking about his accusations and knew how ridiculous she sounded. But she couldn't help it. If she didn't, then she would have to face his words which her mind refused to do. To be completely honest, she was terrified seeing the always happy and smiling Luffy looking so pissed off and angry, and to top it all off, the rage was directed at her and she knew she deserved it. His eyes especially were so cold and angry that she wanted to run away and hide.

"She looks up to you! She admires you!" Luffy said after delivering a Jet Stamp in her gut before using an armament Haki-coated fist to punch the same spot as he angrily glared at her, "And you want to spit in the face of someone so loyal, betray her and kill her!"

"Stop talkin-!" Sonia growled also getting frustrated and angry but Luffy punched her in the face again not even giving her a chance to talk.

"You don't even try to deny it, you fucking piece of shit!"

Sonia was downright thunderous now and she transformed into her full snake form growing huge. "I think I've been wa-" she began saying but Luffy, not even fazed by the transformation, yelled "Gum Gum Jet Gatling!" and delivered blow after blow into her midriff. He kept up the attack until she staggered back and crashed through a few rows of trees.

"If 'Sorry' isn't the first word that comes out of your mouth, I don't want to hear it!" Luffy yelled as he landed on her stomach and delivered a Jet Stamp.

Sonia finally realized why he wasn't letting her speak but didn't care as she continued attacking him. She was so very angry at him, at herself, her sister, her situation, her past that was making her do this… she didn't know what to do, so just channelled all that frustration into anger and took it out on the person in front of her.

Luffy sensed the change and became more vigilant as he kept jumping from place to place to escape her attacks while also delivering blow after blow when he got the chance.

Sonia only grew more frustrated as the fight went on as she couldn't get enough hits on him. She had even started using her snake hair to take a bite out of him but he kept dodging and attacking her. And most frustratingly, she couldn't sense some of the attacks directed at her and kept getting hit.

Luffy was using a combination of Gear 2, Soru and Airwalk to manoeuvre about on the battlefield. He hadn't realized it but he was using Kamisori to move around in the air in 3 dimensions. And as to how he was bypassing Sonia's Observation, he didn't try to. He was fighting on instinct and so, many of his attacks were purely instinctual without him having not even thought of it, and thus, Sonia couldn't sense some of his attacks. And to top it all off, he kept trying to coat his arms in Armament and succeeded once every 20 punches, but they were still very weak to have any significance.

Sonia, on the other hand, was having a mental meltdown. She didn't want to think about whatever Luffy was spouting but a part of her kept screaming at her that she was a monster who could kill such a close friend like Leah. And another part of her was crying and saying that she had no other choice. And another part was saying that she deserved the beating Luffy was giving her and she should take it. And with a disarrayed mind like that, she performed poorly in battle, thus giving Luffy the upper hand.

"Gum Gum Jet Bazooka!"

Sonia fell on her back after feeling the devastating blow Luffy delivered and didn't get up. Luffy landed back on the ground, all bloody and panting, having pushed Gear 2 to its limit. Seeing that she didn't get up, he thought that she was finally reflecting so walked towards her. But as soon as he came near her, her snake-like hair flew at him all at once.

He grit his teeth as two hair snakes bit into him on either side of his shoulders while two more bit into his wrists. Sonia slowly got up and stared at him with cold eyes holding him in place with her hair.

"You sure have some gu-"

Again, Luffy definitely didn't want to hear anything other than an apology, so he threw his head back and launched it at her. One of the snake hairs got in the way with its mouth open intent on biting his head off, but Luffy opened his mouth wider, bit into the lower lip of the snake before clamping his teeth down and biting it off, and then ploughed through the rest of the snake hair body and smashed his head against hers.

Sonia was way too mortified to see him eating and tearing her hair to dodge his attack and felt more pain than ever before burst on her forehead. She collapsed on her back clutching her bleeding forehead in pain while her other snake hairs that were holding him loosened allowing Luffy to slip out. Just as his head snapped back coughing and spitting out hair, he jumped high in the air not wasting any time. He threw his hands high above him and started winding both his hands together and before Sonia could even open her eyes, had launched it at her.

Sonia, who was just opening her eyes wondering what kind of hard head he had, paled when she saw his rotating fists coming right at her with frightening speed. Thankfully for her, someone pulled her out of the way and Luffy's fist landed on the ground creating a loud boom and a massive crater.

Luffy just sensed that she had moved but hadn't seen anyone else, so when he landed back on the ground, he was caught off guard when two dark and cold eyes met his own before he felt a blow to his stomach and got flung away.

He coughed and wheezed as he slowly climbed out of the splinters of wood he found himself in, wondering who had kicked him, and felt his mind blank when he saw Boa Hancock herself standing in front of Sonia defensively while glaring at him.

'When the hell did she get here?' he thought as he got back on his feet and walked back to the two sisters. Sonia also sat up but didn't stand back up and hung her head while Hancock stared at her for a moment before turning her attention back to Luffy.

"How dare you attack my sister?" Hancock said coldly. No matter how much admiration she felt for him, he had just attacked her sister so she was pissed off. She had waited knowing that Sonia was stronger but when it looked like her head wasn't in the fight and she was going to get hurt badly, she finally intervened.

Luffy just stared at her not knowing what to do in this situation. He had avoided her the whole time to the point that if she came out on the deck of her ship, he would immediately go below deck so that he wouldn't catch her eye. The last they had talked was when he had first landed on the ship which wasn't even a conversation, so this would probably be their first proper conversation.

He observed her angry face and she didn't seem to be asking Sonia what was going on nor did she look like she was curious. It was like she already knew everything that had transpired here, so Luffy concluded that she was probably hiding somewhere nearby listening from the very start. 'So, why is she even here in the first place? That too, secretly? She wants Leah dead too?…Idiot! Of course it's her! She wants Leah dead but Sonia doesn't want to. That's why Sonia's feeling guilty. She doesn't want to kill Leah but she can't go against her sister…shit, I should've realized that sooner…'

Hancock was mostly shown to be innocently cute in the story but that was after she fell in love with him. She was a stone-cold ruler before that though. In the story too, she had petrified Marguerite and the others just because they spoke up against her and scenarios like that must have happened before too. She had lied to her subjects but there had to be at least one or two who should've known about devil fruits and had information about the outside world, so had she killed them too? Like right now. Leah knew too much, so they wanted to get rid of her.

And Sonia was no less of a cold character. She had toyed and played around with the stone statue of one of the petrified women while fighting him and would have broken her too if Luffy hadn't unleashed Conqueror's. He could understand if they were cold and hostile to him, but they didn't mind killing their own subjects just for speaking up. Deep down they were kind, but their pasts and fears made them quite cold before Luffy changed them. And currently, he wasn't dealing with the cute version of Hancock, but with the stone-cold version of her.

Luffy was wondering what to do when Sonia suddenly started hysterically laughing looking at him, "Now you have nothing to say?! All this time you kept talking and talking and now that my beautiful sister is here, you're too infatuated with her to not say things to her face?!"

Hancock just stared at Luffy and scoffed, "All men are the same. No one can deny my beauty after all"

'Haaah…What the hell do I do here? If I fight and talk back, she's gonna start falling in love. If I don't, Leah will die by their hands…' He sighed internally as the answer was obvious.

"You want to kill Leah" Luffy finally said throwing caution to the wind. The most important thing here was that he had to save Leah, so it didn't matter what happened next. He would worry about the consequences later.

"So? What's it to you?"

"She's my friend. And I won't let you hurt her"

Hancock flipped her hair back and looked down on him, "She is my subject. I'm free to do whatever I please with her"

That sentence infuriated Luffy more than anything. "She's a subject. Not a slave" he spat coldly even more rage building up inside him.

"I kill her, I let her live… it's up to me. Whatever I do, I will always be forgiven… Do you know why?" she asked tilting her head a little before answering herself, "Indeed. It is because I am… beautiful," she said haughtily flipping her hair and then with a seductive smirk asked, "Don't you agree too?"

Luffy balled his fists up, her condescending words and the casual way she was talking about killing his friend pissing him off greatly. He understood that she was scared of being outed and shunned but that did not give her permission to treat others like this. He was resisting the urge to tell her off and was wrestling with himself not to say the words he had said to her in the story, but in the end, he decided to be honest with how he felt. "You're really pissing me off"

"Haan" Hancock dramatically swooned back holding her head unable to believe what she had just heard but her eyes widened with shock when she saw Luffy appear in front of her, with his arms stretched behind him, right before she felt a fist connect with her cheek.

She staggered back a couple of steps unable to believe that someone had so casually punched her out of nowhere. But Luffy wasn't done as he airwalked over her head, grabbed it and then proceeded to flip her in the air before whipping her into the ground.

Hancock found herself face up on the ground staring at the man's angry face directed at her in shock. Sonia was in the same shocked state staring at Luffy with her eyes wide open unable to believe that he had just attacked her sister.

They only got more shocked when Luffy followed that attack by stretching his leg high above him before bringing it down on her stomach. Hancock caught his foot before the attack connected and sat up slowly, physically unfazed by his attacks but was definitely mentally fazed by them. "Did you just… attack me?" she asked incredulously with anger and disbelief laced in her voice as she squeezed his foot in her hand.

"Yes" Luffy answered before whipping her with his other leg. Hancock only got angrier as she caught his other foot and threw him away into a row of trees where he crash-landed.

"How dare you?!" she snarled, "How is this even possible?! How did you resist my charms and manage to attack me?!"

Luffy didn't say anything as he got up and again lunged at her with Soru. She went to catch his arm just before it could connect, but already expecting it, he kicked off the air at the last moment to jump higher and brought his heel down on her head. Unfortunately, she managed to sidestep and dodge the attack before kicking him in the stomach. 'Oh fucking hell' Luffy cursed internally as he felt the pain of a Haki-coated kick and got flung backwards. He managed to keep himself upright as he flew back and planted his feet into the ground, creating a deep trail as he slid to a stop. 'Man, her legs sure are strong…'

"I can't believe this!" Hancock spat more angry than ever before, the casual way he was attacking baffling her. 'Does he not feel anything when he sees me?!' She brought her hands in front of her and made a heart symbol. "Die for that, you insufferable man! Mero Mero Mellow~"

Luffy stared at her and her beam coming right at him not even bothering to dodge. If it only worked on people who are infatuated with her, then there was no way it was going to work on him, especially in this circumstance. And as expected, nothing happened as the beam passed over him harmlessly. Both Hancock and Sonia were dumbfounded, and thinking the beam hadn't hit him, even though it clearly did, Hancock brought her hands forward and released her beam again. "Mero Mero Mellow~"

This time, Luffy ran right into the beam going through it straight for Hancock and lodged his fist into her gut trying to coat as much Armament as he could muster up. Hancock bent in half more shocked by the fact that her beam hadn't worked and came face to face with Luffy's angry eyes. "You piss me off" he reiterated only making her more bewildered and angry.

She grit her teeth in anger and kneed him in the stomach making him hover slightly in the air before delivering a roundhouse kick. 'God, I'm no match for her…' he concluded as he found himself crashing through trees again. Her Armament was on a whole other level when compared to Sonia and even that small attack was coated with enough Armament Haki to hurt him badly. He knew he was still weak when compared to the real monsters in the world, but having it shoved in his face like this was a humbling experience for him.

He didn't give up though as he grabbed one of the trees to the side and used it as a pivot to slingshot himself back at her with his hands raised and balled into fists while trying to coat it with enough Haki.

Hancock had never been more shocked in her entire life when she saw the man coming at her again and again to attack her. She grabbed his fists just as he flew at her, but already expecting it, Luffy used that chance to reorient himself parallelly to her before kicking up right into her chin making her head snap upwards.

"I can't believe this…" Hancock again said bringing her face down and staring at Luffy whose hands she still had in a death grip.

Sonia was just sitting to the side, watching the fight with a gobsmacked expression on her face. She just couldn't believe that her sister was being attacked the way she was. He would always hide whenever Hancock came out on deck, so she had even teased him saying that he was hiding because he was shy and infatuated with her… but now? She knew that wasn't the case. His words about her beam not working on him also turned out to be true.

Meanwhile, Hancock's mind was in even more of a disarray. First, her attack hadn't worked which was a reality she refused to accept and then he told her that she pissed him off which no one had ever told her. But that wasn't what was baffling her the most. The most baffling thing about this whole thing was that she couldn't understand why he was fighting her. His reason of wanting to save Leah just didn't make sense. She could understand if he was fighting her because he wanted her, or because he thought he could defeat and kidnap her, or because she had slighted him…or a myriad of other reasons but him fighting her because he wanted her not to kill a subject of hers? It was just too absurd.

"Why are you fighting me, man?" Hancock asked as she casually deflected his other hand which came at her face. Luffy was, of course, trying to yank his hand out from her grip but when he was unsuccessful, started attacking her with his other limbs.

"Really?!" Luffy snapped with disbelief, "Is your hearing bad or something?! You want to kill my friend! So, of course, I'm gonna stop you!"

"Your friend? You mean Leah? You didn't even know her a couple of weeks ago. You're willing to die for someone you met such a short while ago?"

"Shut up!" Luffy snapped as he got increasingly frustrated at how easily Hancock was deflecting all his attacks. "I'm doing this for you too! Do you really want to kill her?! She's one of your own, isn't she? What did she even do to get a death sentence?!"

"Silence" Hancock demanded kicking him with a Haki-coated leg and burying him in the ground in front of her. Luffy felt his insides breaking and grit his teeth in frustration as he realized the huge chasm of strength between them.

"Stay down, man." Hancock ordered, "You don't get to lecture me on how I rule over my subjects"

"What did…" Luffy said as he got up clutching his stomach in pain, "…she even do? Is it just because she's more knowledgeable of the outside world? You're scared she'll call out your Gorgon eye curse story as a made-up story? You're afr-"

Luffy suddenly felt his world turn white as he was repeatedly slammed into the ground by an irate Hancock. "Shut your mouth!" she growled in anger and didn't stop whipping him until a large crater was created in the ground and Luffy went limp in her hands.

She panted slightly as she studied the man in her hand, who was barely conscious and dropped him into the crater letting out a huff and staring at him with displeased eyes. She felt respect for him and she wanted to be closer to him and learn more about him, but the circumstances were just too complicated.

She understood what Luffy was trying to say, she understood that her sister also didn't want to get rid of Leah, but she couldn't take that chance. She had to protect herself and her sisters and Leah was a possibility that could lead their lives to become hellish again. 'Luffy, you don't understand…people are not like you.'

Her heart stung slightly for a reason she didn't understand as she saw him lying in the crater all bloody and battered. Killing him was the logical conclusion here but she just couldn't bring herself to do it. She stood there wondering why just the thought of killing him made her sad and ultimately she decided to just leave him there. He was a man after all, so unlike Leah, if he did go and tell all the women that Hancock was lying, the women themselves would beat him up first.

"Let's go, Sonia" she said not wanting to think anymore about him and started walking away.

Sonia slowly stood up looking at the crater with sad eyes and then at her sister before following behind her. They didn't talk as both were too distressed and didn't know what to say either.

They hadn't even taken a few steps before they both jerked in shock when they felt a wave of Conqueror's spread over them. They turned around and almost let out a yelp when they saw Luffy standing there like a zombie, his whole body covered with blood and grime but his rage-filled eyes were still focused on them. Sonia took in an unconscious gulp and she couldn't understand why Luffy was doing this. And neither could Hancock.

"I'm not done yet…" Luffy wheezed raising his fists and getting into stance barely able to keep his eyes open. 'Can't beat her. Need to get Leah out first…'

"Why are you doing this?" Hancock asked her voice trembling, not able to believe his reasons. He wasn't defending himself, he wasn't getting anything out of this, and yet the amount of resolve needed to get up while being as injured as he was was no small order. And he was doing this for someone he didn't know for more than two weeks of his life.

"Leah is my friend. And so are you. I don't want to see friends killing one another for stupid reasons"

"What do you know of our reasons?!" Hancock snapped. "You don-"

"Shut up!" Luffy cut her off, "Doesn't matter if I know or not! You're the ones who are struggling. Just look at Sonia's face! She clearly doesn't want to. You're the one who wants to kill Leah and forcing her, so I'll put a stop to you!"

Hancock eyed Sonia, who flinched and averted her eyes before looking back at Luffy. "Yes, my sister doesn't want to. But it's a necessity. She understands that too," Hancock said and then glanced at Sonia, "don't you?"

Sonia hastily nodded her head scared, "Y-Yes, Sister"

"Stop scaring your own sister, motherfucker" Luffy growled seeing Sonia's scared face and lunged at Hancock. He only then remembered how Sonia and Mari were scared of Hancock in the story when the two looked like they were losing in their fight against his story counterpart. They were very close from what he had seen in reality, so didn't think there was any fear amongst them, but looked like Hancock sometimes got so cold that even her sisters got scared of her.

"Gum Gum Jet Gatling!"

Hancock grit her teeth getting angry and frustrated as she took his consecutive punches, her heart hurting when she saw Sonia clearly being scared of her and also when Luffy called her names. 'Why is he like this?! Why can't Sonia understand?! I'm doing this to protect us, protect her!'

She could see her sister swaying his way and her eyes widened as she came to a conclusion. She grabbed one of his arms and yanked it towards herself making him falter and fall on his face. "Are you trying to create a rift between us? Is that your plan here? Th-"

"Oh shut up" Luffy dismissed her having had enough of baseless accusations that made no sense and also frustrated that she was taking his hits without much trouble, "Stop trying to create some conspiracy here that makes no sen-"

"I don't get your goals!" Hancock snapped, "Just what is it you are trying to achieve here?! Are you telling me that you are sacrificing your life for someone you barely know?"

"All I'm trying to do is to stop you from making a mistake. Why do you even want to kill her? She's been with you for months now, hasn't she? And she hasn't called you out on your bullshit story. Just fucking talk to her and sh-"

Just like the previous time, the moment he said something about the made-up Gorgon eye story, she got angry, lost it and attacked him. She yanked his stretched arm towards herself again and Luffy didn't resist as he accelerated towards her direction too with Soru. He spun just as he reached her and used another Soru at the last moment for one more burst of speed before lodging a fist into her gut.

"Gah!" Hancock actually felt that one and Luffy smiled having finally hurt her in some small way. She didn't take that sitting down though as she grabbed both his hands before kicking right up into his chin. His head stretched upwards and he used that opportunity to let his head snap back at her with force, but she intercepted it with a Haki-coated kick this time and a Haki-coated blow to his head was definitely not good. Luffy almost lost his consciousness as he felt his world go white and went limp in Hancock's hands.

Hancock calmed down and dropped him with an irritated huff. 'Why does it feel so bad when I attack him?!' She really didn't want to but him mentioning anything about their made-up curse story agitated her and she wanted to shut him up.

She saw that he was still holding onto his consciousness even after the repeated Haki-coated blows and his hands started moving as he pushed himself back up again. Her eyes trembled as she saw him stand up again with blood leaking down his face and she just couldn't understand him.

She was still pretty close to him, so as soon as Luffy stood up, he used Soru to accelerate himself at point-blank range bodily slamming into her and grabbing her shoulders. Hancock wasn't expecting that and was caught by surprise as the momentum of the Soru shoved her backwards off balance and she started falling on her back.

During the less than a second short fall, Luffy tightened his grip on her shoulders and bashed his skull into hers three times in quick succession.

"Gakh!" Hancock felt the pain bursting on her forehead at the first head bash and was disoriented for a moment, thus allowing him to successively attack. As her back touched the ground, Luffy threw his head back, stretching it high up before letting it snap back.

Hancock opened her eyes cursing at the man and managed to spot the head coming at her just before the attack connected. She moved her head at the last moment causing his head to smash into the ground right next to hers. She slowly exhaled and felt blood leaking from her forehead not able to believe that someone was attacking her this relentlessly for a reason like his. But it looked like the fight was over as Luffy's body didn't move anymore and he collapsed on top of her.

She got up pushing him off of her and was surprised to see that he was still conscious, just barely though, and was having a hard time just keeping his eyes open with all the blood that was running down his own head. She touched her own forehead and found that she was actually bleeding too and it wasn't just his blood that had splattered onto her.

She stared at him, her mind having a really hard time processing the existence of such a man, who would fight for someone he barely knew by putting his own life on the line. She couldn't believe that there was someone this pure-hearted… Seeing his strong resolve, she could picture the scene of him inspiring the other slaves more clearly now and her heart beat faster feeling more admiration for him. She brought her hands forward and wiped his forehead making sure the blood wasn't getting into his eyes before she realized what she was doing and stopped herself. She didn't know why but her heart hurt even more when she saw his battered state and realized she was the one who had done that to him.

"Sister…" a soft voice shook her out of her thoughts and she turned to see the distressed, sad, and anguished face of her sister. Hancock regained her senses and slowly got up making Luffy collapse onto the ground. She stared at him for quite a while knowing she should kill him but she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

So she turned and started walking away, only to be stopped by a hand grabbing her ankle. She looked behind her in bewilderment and found Luffy was getting back up.

"Not done yet…" Luffy said his voice barely above a whisper as he pulled himself back up with shaky hands and legs. Hancock watched him pathetically collapse to his knees halfway up, curse, still proceed to get up anyway and stand up straight with his legs trembling.

'Leah will die if I lose consciousness. Leah will die if I lose consciousness' was the only thing keeping him conscious and he forced himself up. But that was all he could do. There was a limit to how much he could push his body and he had just hit it. Even though he was commanding his foot to move, it just stayed glued in place. The only thing he could do was raise his fists challengingly at Hancock and hope he got a few minutes of rest, so that his body would listen to him again.

He would fall down if Hancock just casually pushed him but seeing his determined expression and seeing him raise his fists made her admire him more while also confusing her more.

"I don't understand…" Hancock said her voice quivering, "You're in no condition to stand let alone fight. Why are you doing this all for someone you barely know?! Just what are you getting out of this?!"

Luffy, barely able to keep his eyes open as he swayed standing up, looked at her like she was stupid. He wanted to call her stupid for asking the same question again and again but he was having a hard time just breathing.

He took in slow and deliberate breaths wondering how he could get out of this predicament. He definitely could not defeat her, that much was obvious, but his end goal here was to save Leah, not Hancock's defeat. He thought of ways he could get out of the situation but was having a very hard time keeping his thoughts straight. 'I should run away and get Leah out, eat and then fight again. Should've done that from the beginning dumbass!… need Zoro to buy some time for me…where's my crew?…shitfuckingmemories! You don't have one yet, idiot!…okay, okay, rest and run when you get a chance…get Leah to safety and then eat…the fight again…'

When Luffy didn't answer and seemed to be lost in his own mind, Hancock was still getting agitated. 'Such a kind-hearted man cannot exist!' She just couldn't accept it and when she tried to think of any ulterior motive he could have, a sudden thought struck her mind, 'Is he stupid?… Yes, that must be it!'

There was no other explanation as to how he was choosing to oppose her and still get back up otherwise. Maybe he didn't understand what he was exactly doing and is just fighting based on instinct? Maybe he doesn't realize that he's dying for someone he barely knows? Maybe he doesn't understand that he's fighting a warlord? Maybe he doesn't realize that since they are the ones giving him a ride, if he fights them here, he wouldn't get a ride back? Maybe he's stupid and doesn't realize the gravity of what he's doing? No matter how ridiculous it seemed, that's the only thing Hancock could think of that could explain his behaviour… Or maybe he's just that pure-hearted was another explanation but there was no way that was true. So, she devised a test for him which would prove if he's just a hard-headed idiot fighting her or someone so pure-hearted that he would willingly give up his life to save another.

"Man," she addressed him who could barely hear her, "I have heard from Sonia that you need to get back to your home as quickly as possible?"

Luffy was confused by the random non-sequitur but talking did give him some time to recover his energy, so answered. "Yeah?"

"Do you not realize that we're the ones giving you a ride there? If you keep fighting me, we'll leave you here and there's no way you'll get back home any time soon"

Luffy grew annoyed as he just stared at her wondering where she was going with the conversation.

"So I'll grant you a choice. As you want, I won't kill Leah and she will be safe with us, but you will be left behind on this island itself. Or… I'll kill Leah and you get a ride back to your home. Choose one of these two options and throw the other one away forever"

This way she could confirm if he actually was just a stupid man who was just fighting without thinking of the consequences or if he knew of the negative consequences and still chose to do it. 'C'mon, reveal your true nature as a 'man'!'

'GODFUCKINGDAMMIT! IT'S THE SAME CHOICE FROM THE STORY!' Luffy internally screamed. It was pretty much the same circumstances with Leah being the one he wanted to save rather than Marguerite, so looked like she had thought up the same test. But still, he was extremely glad about it. He saw absolutely no way in which he could win or run away to get Leah to safety with how he was barely able to stand, let alone fight or run, so he was really glad when he finally saw a way and let out a huge sigh of relief.

He looked at Hancock, who was waiting expectantly for his answer and he took his time as if he was thinking about it. He didn't want to blurt it out instantly like he did in the story which had made a very favourable impression on her, so after a few seconds, he nodded "Okay, Leah lives. I'll find some other way to get back home"

Unfortunately for him, his pause was received with even more shock from Hancock and Sonia. They thought that even though he badly wanted to get back home and there would be negative consequences to himself if he didn't, he still chose to save Leah. That only cemented the fact that he was even more selfless in their minds.

Luffy's legs gave out when his mind relaxed knowing he had achieved his goal and he fell to his knees. He still hadn't heard anything from Hancock, so looked up at her and asked, "Do I have your word?"

Hancock slowly nodded her eyes trembling, "Yes"

"Thank you" Luffy said with a smile before falling forwards and fell unconscious.

"…How can such a selfless man exist…" Hancock whispered barely able to keep the quivering in her voice and the trembling in her body under control.

Sonia snapped out of her disbelief state when she saw blood pooling around Luffy and immediately went to him to check his condition. She grimaced at the truly bad state he was in and lifted him up intent on taking him treated in the city. Hancock also walked forwards to see his condition and caught Sonia's hesitant eyes.

"I'll get him treated…" Sonia softly said.

"Yes" Hancock nodded, both sisters wanting to talk a lot but didn't know where to start and neither were they in the right mindset. They still needed time to process what all had happened and needed some space from each other too.

"…Did you mean it?" Sonia asked, "Leah doesn't have to go?"

Hancock bit her lower lip in frustration as she slowly nodded. "Yes"

"Thank you" Sonia smiled before going towards the city carrying Luffy in her hands.

Hancock leaned against a tree with a sigh after she was gone and held her head in distress. She had proposed the test to see his reaction and was sure that he would choose his own self-interest over Leah, but now, she didn't know what to do. Of course, she was going to keep her word and not hurt Leah, but that didn't mean her threat was erased. Leah would one day out them and what would she do then?

She started walking to clear her mind and found herself back near the city where the party was still ongoing, no one having realized the events that had transpired. She spotted Leah sitting at a table having drinks with a couple of deer minks and just stared at her. 'She's a subject. Not a slave' / '…Just fucking talk to her…'

Leah seemed to sense the intense gaze on her and started looking around everywhere. She soon met eyes with Hancock and was surprised to see her there. She excused herself and happily made her way towards the forest where Hancock was waiting.

"Snake Princess?! You came to the party!" she exclaimed surprised and excited when she laid eyes on Hancock but soon turned worried when she saw the signs of battle on her. "Are you okay?" she asked cautiously.

"Yes, I am fine"

"No, you're not" Leah said looking at her forehead and carefully approaching her to take a closer look. They were childhood friends but Hancock was the Empress now and she had to maintain decorum with her. She had changed a lot and become a lot sterner and colder too, so she hadn't talked to or approached her much but she was still a doctor though, so pushed through even though she didn't know if it was disrespectful or not.

Hancock let her check her forehead as she thought of how to broach the subject.

"Looks like someone bashed you on the head?! Who dares to do such a thing?!" Leah said shocked and enraged.

"It is fine. I was just training with Sonia, that is all"

"Oh…I see"

Hancock couldn't think of any subtle ways to bring up the topic, so she just straight up asked her, "Leah, why…why have you not asked about the Gorgon Eye curse? You know Sonia and Mari's transformations and my powers are the results of devil fruits, do you not?"

Leah was surprised by the sudden question but scratched her cheek awkwardly letting out a laugh, "Ah that… well, I don't know to be honest. I just trust you I guess. I'm sure whatever the reason is, it's an important one. I would like to know sure, but only if you're comfortable enough sharing it with me. Even if you don't tell me, that's okay too… Sasasa Luffy said something recently that fits this situation. Everyone has things that they don't want anyone else to know. It's not a sign of distrust if someone doesn't tell you something, it's just life. You don't have to know every single detail of another person's life to like them or trust them"

"I see" Hancock slowly nodded and showed a relaxed smile when Luffy was mentioned.

"Ah do you know who Luffy is? He's the man th-"

"Yes, I know who Luffy is" Hancock said with a smile. "As for the lie, I would like for you to keep silent and not mention it to anyone"

Hancock was taking a huge leap of faith in trusting someone other than her sisters. She didn't know what would happen, but this was the only way she could keep her sister happy, keep her word to Luffy and also make sure no one learns of the lie. If Leah does betray them in the future, she would take care of it then.

"Sure! My lips are sealed" Leah smiled, "I was going to keep quiet anyway"

"Okay"

They stood silent for a second before Leah hesitantly spoke up, "Um Sandersonia-sama was here, so I had set up a tent for us alone so that we could enjoy ourselves without any men or others interrupting us. Would you like to join?"

Hancock looked at the hesitating expression on her face and nodded. "Alright" It would be good to build a relationship with her and keep a close eye on her too. Just because she had decided to put her trust in her didn't mean she wouldn't take measures. She was still the Empress after all and she had a responsibility to keep herself and her sisters safe.

"Yes!" Leah excitedly cheered as she led the way "Come come"

Hancock showed a small smile as she went with her but she was wondering when she would get to see Luffy again. In another timeline, Leah would have been abandoned on this island after Hancock and Sonia cruelly threatened her to never interfere in their lives again, and she would have lost all hope in life, while Hancock and Sonia would have only turned colder… but they had met Luffy here.

—o—

'I was so pathetic…' Luffy condemned himself as he sat under a tree staring up at the morning sky. He had woken up with a start the next morning, found himself alone in a tent with bandages wrapped around him and as soon as his memories came rushing back to him, he had frantically started searching for Leah. She or the Amazons were nowhere to be found, so he had run to the shore, spotted them all loading up supplies, spotted Leah walking around all alive and safe, and only then did he calm down.

He didn't want to meet anyone though, so went to the forest, collapsed under a tree and started reviewing the previous night's fight and realized how pathetic he had been.

He was so outclassed that he didn't think he had made Hancock sweat even a little bit and it was frustrating to think how much weaker he was compared to her. The way she deflected all his attacks, tanked all his attacks with little to no problem, the way how just one Haki-coated attack was all that was needed to cripple him, the way he had lost…

He buried his head in his hands letting out a silent scream at how weak he still was. He knew that Hancock was basically one of the strongest people on the planet but that wasn't an excuse he could use. What would have happened if Hancock hadn't given him the choice at the end? What would happen in the future if he came across someone like Doflamingo and he was powerless to stop them?

He also sighed and berated himself at how poorly he had handled the situation. He had been too rash when he punched Sonia just after trying to talk to her a couple of times. When she started going away, he should have persisted and tried to talk a bit more before attacking her. He should've realized that Hancock was the one who wanted Leah dead and was pushing Sonia into it. He should've also thought of the possibility of Hancock being there. He should've run away as soon as Hancock showed up, made sure Leah got out safely and only then, engaged in a fight… But he had just gotten way too angry when he got confirmation that Sonia was planning to kill her and by the time Hancock entered, the situation had already gotten out of hand.

He also realized that he was kinda happy to get a chance to fight someone strong like Hancock and thus, his mind had subconsciously decided to fight her without considering anything else. He let himself be in a mopey mood for five more seconds before letting it go.

'Need to do better, need to be calmer, need to make smarter and better choices, need to get stronger…' he slapped his cheeks a few times to come out of the depressive mood and thought about what to do now. He couldn't go back with the Kuja anymore and was left behind on the island. In the story, Hancock learns that he punched a Celestial Dragon and changes her mind and agrees to take him outside the island but here, there was nothing that would convince her otherwise, so he was stuck in the Grand Line.

He thought of all the rich donors at the charity gala and wondered if he could ask one of them for a ride. Reverse Mountain wasn't that far off from Callipe Island apparently, so if he could just get to the Twin capes at least, he could ask Crocus if he knew of a way to get to the other side.

All his speculation on how he could get back to East Blue wasn't needed though as he soon sensed Leah and Sonia coming towards him.

"Yo!" he greeted with a smile when he saw them but Leah instantly ran up to him and smacked him yelling, "How the hell did you get so hurt?! What's wrong with you?!"

"Shishishi just lost myself in training that's all. Don't worry about it"

Leah let out a tired sigh when even Luffy didn't tell her what was going on. Sonia had arrived at the party a bit after Hancock had joined her the previous night and she saw the signs of battle on her too. She thought that the two sisters had fought but when she later saw Luffy with all his bandages, she had figured that even Luffy was involved somehow. She didn't pry as it was something between the three of them, but she wanted to know badly.

"Training huh?" Sonia asked her voice full of guilt as she barely managed to look at Luffy.

"Yep!" Luffy answered giving her his blinding D-shaped grin. The message that he holds no hostility or grudge against her clear in his smile, but she still felt guilty. "Anyway," Luffy continued getting up, "everyone heading out?"

"Yeah yeah come along. We're leaving" Leah said as she began walking towards the shore, giving the two a bit of privacy.

"I think I'll st-" Luffy began to say but Sonia grabbed him and pulled him along as they fell in step a bit behind Leah. When he gave her a questioning look, she averted her eyes and sighed, "We're not going to leave you"

"Really?"

"Yeah really…" she then looked guilty at him, "…Sorry…and let's talk in private when we get back to the ship…"

"Sure" Luffy grinned as he studied her face, especially her forehead which had a bandaid on it. "Shishishi I got you good huh? Man, you're so weak compared to your sister"

Sonia felt a tick mark growing when he started teasing her and wanted to smack him but she just felt way too guilty to talk back, so just ignored it. Luffy didn't let up though as he continued making fun of her - "Man, did your hair grow back already? I did bite off a good chunk out of it. Be glad I don't find it to be tasty, otherwise, I would eat it all" / "When you transform, all you did was give me a bigger target. Man, you're so weak"… - and so on until she finally snapped and smacked him on the head. "Shut up idiot!"

"Shishishishi"

Sonia let out a huff seeing how unbothered he was with the whole thing and wondered how he could act as if nothing had happened. She wanted to ask but they soon reached the shore where the Amazon women and their partners, the Rock Five, the mayor and a few more citizens were waiting for him.

"Ah Luffy!" many of the Amazons and the Rock Five cheered upon spotting him.

"Oh my god!" Rite exclaimed after running up to him and seeing all the bloody wounds and bandages, "What the hell happened to you?!"

"Who did this?!" Giselle screamed while Scarlett grabbed him crying and making sure he wasn't dead.

"Shishishi don't worry. I was just training in the woods"

"Ah okay" the Amazons who were also getting worried nodded sagely. They underwent training that left them bloody and battered like him too, so it wasn't anything new for them.

The others however were gobsmacked and called them and Luffy crazy while Luffy just laughed. All the Amazons soon boarded the boats after having said goodbyes to their flings, but there are two men who had fallen in love and were begging the girls to stay with them. The Amazons bluntly, and quite cruelly, said they loved their home more than anything else and would never even consider leaving it which had the men collapse in defeat. Luffy just patted the two men's back pitifully before moving on and hugging each of the Rock Five.

"I don't get why you want to be a pirate, but I guess that's your dream" Jan said giving him a tight hug.

"Well, his definition of a pirate is quite different from the norm…Freest person on the sea who travels the world. Sounds like a great dream to me" Phil said as he gave a bone-crushing hug too.

"I respect your dream too," Rite smiled picking him up and squeezing the life out of him, "But I wish you would stay with us…"

"Yes! I want my chew toy!" Scarlett pouted chewing on Luffy's ear while holding onto him tight. "Don't go, Luffy…"

"Now now, don't be so clingy" Giselle said scooping her daughter off of Luffy before latching onto his other ear. "I'm sure we'll meet again~"

Luffy just grinned at each of them "Yeah, you guys will get big and travel the Grand Line on tour right? I'll be coming back as a pirate in a few months, so I'm sure we'll run into each other again! So, see you soon!"

The five grinned at him wide before chorusing "See ya!"

The mayor and a few other citizens also hugged him goodbye and he jumped into the boat just as they started rowing away while waving at all the people of Callipe who had come to see them off.

"That's quite an effect you've had on these people" Sonia said leaning over her own boat. She was in a slightly bigger boat which had a cabin on it too, and Luffy could sense Hancock inside it.

"Shishishi they're good people"

"Man, I still can't believe how fun the last week was…" Leah said wistfully as she leaned on Luffy, "Is this the norm for you Luffy? If so, I wouldn't mind joining your crew"

Luffy snapped his neck at her excitedly "You want to join my crew?! Yes yes, I want you on my crew! Ah but wait…I'm not gonna recruit anyone until I officially set out at 17… Ah who cares! Join my crew!"

"Wait wait" Leah quickly stopped him, "I wasn't really serious…I just said that. I don't want to leave the Amazons"

"Aww…" Luffy pouted. He liked Leah a lot and she seemed to like travelling and visiting new islands too, so he wanted her. But she really did seem to be set on being with the Amazons though, so he couldn't force her.

"Hey, don't go poaching our people now" Sonia said sternly.

"Yeah yeah…" Luffy said as his gaze fell on all the other women, "Anyway, how long does it take for them to realize if they're pregnant or not?"

"About 3 to 4 weeks should tell us" Leah answered.

"I can't believe I didn't ask this, but what happens to the baby boys?"

"Well, we pretty much give birth to girls almost all the time"

"Huh? How does that work?"

"We have a special herb that is found only on Amazon Lily" Leah explained, "Consuming it daily from the moment of conceivement will result in the birth of a girl almost exclusively and that herb is kinda like a staple food to us, so we consume it on a regular basis. There are rare cases where a boy is born, like 2 or 3 times a decade and when that happens, we just drop them off at an orphanage on some island… or sometimes…the woman leaves the island to raise the kid somewhere else"

"I see" Luffy nodded not missing that the last part was said with a bit of melancholic emotion. 'Did her mother give birth to a boy and thus, left the island taking her and her brother?' She hadn't mentioned any brother at all in all her childhood stories, so either he died early or he's a sore topic she doesn't want to discuss. He stopped himself from thinking further and prying too much.

"And all this," Sonia cut in with a tired sigh, "is a secret. No one outside Amazon Lily should be told this…"

Leah blinked alternating her gaze from Sonia to Luffy "But it's Luffy though…"

"So what?!"

"I think the secrets safe with Luffy. You wouldn't tell this to anyone would you, Luffy?"

"If it's a secret, then sure, I won't"

"See?" Leah said as if just his word was all that was required to trust him.

Sonia wanted to snap at her but considering everything that had happened, she really did see no problem in Luffy knowing.

"Then why didn't you stop me?" Leah continued tilting her head, "You were right here…."

Sonia's cheeks reddened in embarrassment causing Leah to smirk at her. "You also didn't see any problem with me telling him, did you? Only after I told him did you realize that it was supposed to be a secret…"

Sonia coughed into her hands averting her eyes causing Leah and Luffy to giggle under their breaths which only caused Sonia to get more embarrassed.

Meanwhile, Hancock was inside the cabin of the boat Sonia was on, staring at Leah leaning on Luffy and felt a pang of something shoot through her heart. She didn't understand what but couldn't keep her eyes off of them, and felt slight irritation for some inexplicable reason.

—o—

A couple of hours later they had joined back with the main ships and Luffy was sitting on top of the sea serpents telling them about all the new things he had seen on the island when Sonia came up to him still with a guilty expression on her face.

"Yo" he greeted with a smile.

"Can you come with me? Sister and I want to talk" she asked hesitantly. He knew this was coming judging by all the guilty looks she kept giving him, so just nodded and soon, the two were standing in front of Hancock's room. Sonia told a couple of warriors to stand guard and not let anyone in no matter what, and Luffy instantly knew what he would see inside.

Her room was extravagant, to say the least. A huge throne was against the wall at the centre, a huge bed with curtains to the right, and cabinets, cupboards and other things to the left. He wasn't interested in the room though as he couldn't see Hancock anywhere but he could sense that she was on her bed with the curtains drawn.

Luffy had a blank look on his face but he was crying on the inside. He knew this was gonna happen and knew he was facing the consequences of his actions right now. He was hoping that him fighting her, unlike in the story, would change something but looked like it hadn't affected anything much.

Sonia closed and locked the door behind them and sat in front of the bed while Luffy stood waiting for the inevitable.

"Luffy" Hancock's voice came from behind the curtain, "Come inside"

"I'd rather not get on bed with a girl" Luffy instantly responded getting an exaggerated sigh from both sisters. 'Wait, I'm sure I heard three sighs just now. Who's the third? Mari?'

"Just go inside idiot" Sonia hissed and Luffy relented begrudgingly. He walked up, parted the curtains and as expected, there she was, the most beautiful woman in the world, sitting naked on top of Salome with a tense expression on her face.

"I'm not gonna sleep with you either" he said bluntly causing the tense expression to turn into a slightly annoyed expression. Internally, Luffy was cheering for himself. He didn't like the sad expressions they had and so, was trying to lighten up the mood.

"Blunt and impudent as ever I see" Hancock commented with a sigh getting a grin in return as Luffy sat in front of her cross-legged and asked "So?"

Before Hancock could say anything, he heard rustling sounds from behind him and when he turned, he let out a loud internal scream as he saw Sonia was also removing her cloak. His brain panicked thinking that the worst possible scenario was happening. 'OH HELL NO! BOTH OF THEM? HELL TO THE FUCKING NO! QUICK! BE DISGUSTING AND DISGUST THEM! THEY'RE PUT OFF BY GUYS LIKE SANJI! ACT LIKE SANJI! CHANNEL SANJI'S PERSONALITY! SANJI! I'M SANJI!'

He tried to think of flowery poems Sanji usually spouted, but his mind blanked and before he could think further, his mouth said the first disgusting thing that came to his mind "You've both got huge badonkadonks"

"…" 'GOD, I FEEL TOO AWFUL SAYING STUFF LIKE THAT! STOP! STOP!'

"Bandanka? What is that?" Hancock asked tilting her head.

"Ah don't worry, it's an inside joke" Luffy said awkwardly as he berated himself. 'They just want to show their brands. That doesn't mean they have fallen in love, so calm the fuck down' he said to himself and managed to calm down. This was a very serious topic for them, so he realized he shouldn't be making light of it and should be hearing them out sincerely.

He sighed internally letting go of annoying thoughts and brought himself back to reality with a question, "You want to show me what's on your backs?"

"Yes" both answered.

"Why? If you're feeling guilty because of trying to kill me, I really don't care. We fought, things worked out. Let's learn from it and move on"

"…Two weeks ago," Sonia began, "This would have been unthinkable… I would rather die than have my back exposed… but now? To you at least? I don't mind. I don't feel the least bit scared or ashamed"

"Yes" Hancock added, "This is something we have hidden from everyone we know. We have deceived and tricked people, we almost killed a friend because of this… and if it were not for you, we would have gone through with it. So, I think you deserve to know… and also, I want to tell you the truth"

Luffy nodded seeing the sincere expressions they had. They were finally letting go of their fears and opening up to someone, so he faced them sincerely too.

Salome lifted her and turned so that her back was facing him. With her slightly trembling hand, she moved her long silky black hair aside and revealed her back. Sonia also turned around with her cloak removed and showed him her back, her body trembling.

Luffy blankly nodded. "You were slaves"

"Me too" came a voice from near the bed and Luffy saw a transponder snail perched upon a desk. "Mari?"

"Hehe, no etiquette in names huh? Yes, it's Mari. Nice to meet you, Luffy. I heard what happened"

"Yeah, nice to meetcha" he greeted with a smile before looking back at both sisters, who were still showing their backs to him, but their faces had contorted somewhere in between disbelief and amusement.

"Wow, can't believe someone saw my back and this is the reaction?" Sonia said with a fond sigh, "Just a simple nod and then talk to someone else with a smile"

Hancock also smiled letting out a sigh of relief, "This is something I've thought of a lot and had nightmares about. And a reaction like yours is something I had never ever imagined in my wildest dreams"

"What were you imagining?" Luffy asked.

"Disgust and contempt" Hancock said with pursed lips, "People will see it and shun us. Think lesser of us"

"Did Sonia tell you about what happened to me when I was enslaved? What my response is to such words?"

Hancock's smile widened as she nodded, "'No, I'm not'"

"…you missed the 'fucking' part"

"I will not use such crude language" Hancock said with a huff but had a faint smile causing Luffy to grin. He couldn't believe it but he was having a normal and honest conversation with Hancock.

There was a brief lull before Mari spoke up, "The most unbelievable part of this is how you are not affected by Big Sis's charms. Do you still not feel anything when you look at Big Sis? She's naked now right?"

"Yes, Luffy. I can understand and forgive you even if you are charmed by me now"

Luffy stood up with a grin. "Let's test it then. Hit me with your attack"

"Are you being serious?" Hancock asked bewildered.

"Do it, Sister" Sonia encouraged. "But I'll be betting on Luffy not turning to stone"

"As if! I'll be betting that he will"

Hancock took a moment to consider and she was also curious to see if he really did feel nothing even after seeing her naked. "Very well" she said as she stood up in front of Luffy completely naked and brought her hands up forming a heart. "Mero Mero Mellow~"

Luffy just stood in place and was completely unaffected as the beam passed through him. "Shishishi I win"

"How is that possible?! Is he hurting himself somewhere to negate the effects?"

"No, he's standing still" Hancock answered as she slowly sat back down on Salome. Luffy thought that him joking around like this would bring their moods up but for some reason, Hancock and Sonia's moods had dipped again. Even Sonia, who was betting on him happily, had put her head down as if in shame.

"Umm, what happened?" he asked confused.

"You…" Hancock began hesitantly biting her lip, "You are disgusted by us"

"What? What are you talking about? I told you I do-"

"Not because of the brand…" Hancock cut in, "You are disgusted by us because we tried to kill Leah. You called me a mot-…names last night too"

"What's your opinion of us?" Sonia asked hesitantly, "Don't you think I'm a monster? I spent all that time happily chatting with Leah while knowing that I would soon be betraying her… And when the time came, I accepted and was going to do it… but you… you, who barely knew her, fought so hard for her. Put your life on the line for her… almost died for her…and I-I….I just sat there…"

"And I was one who forced her and pushed her into it" Hancock added with a shaky voice looking at her sister guiltily and taking glances at Luffy.

Luffy turned extremely serious as they were really suffering and he thought of a way to comfort them. The scenario was similar to the story, but this hadn't happened in it. Was it because he seemed more mature here and so they confided in him like this? Because the person they tried to kill was a close friend? Nevertheless, he had to somehow make them feel better.

"Listen guys, I understand why you thought you had to do what you did. I'm really not judging you for it. It was a mistake and you stopped before it happened, so learn from it and move on"

His words had no effect on them and he could see he was getting nowhere. The two, and possibly Mari too, were still in distress.

He sighed crossing his arms and thinking hard on how to make them see his point of view. He remembered all the things that happened in the story, all his crewmates and friends, and finally opened his mouth.

"…This is a seriously fucked-up world, as you already know" he began slowly getting the attention of the three sisters, "…One of my friends is currently helping in inciting civil war in a country," he said remembering Robin.

"Another is stealing from people and sometimes maybe puts innocent people in danger," he said remembering how Nami had thrown him under the bus the first time he dropped in front of her when she didn't even know who he was or how strong he was.

"Another has infiltrated an evil organization and maybe sometimes does stuff like hurting innocent old men," he said remembering Vivi trying to kill Crocus.

"Another tried to kill me just because I wanted to be his friend," he said remembering how Ace had tried to kill him so many times and would have succeeded too if he wasn't rubber.

"Another is an assassin and has killed innocent people," he said remembering Reiju.

"Another stands by and even supports people who are hunting down slaves," he said remembering his grandpa choosing to stand with the World Government even after seeing Baterilla.

"…and so many more…" he looked back at the two sisters who had shocked looks on their faces, "I know all this sounds horrible, but each person I mentioned just now is an incredible person. They are some of the most kind-hearted and amazing people you'll ever find in this world… But they're all stuck in messy situations where they cannot allow themselves to be who they really are or allow themselves to be kind. They all have demons in their life… some in the form of pirates, some in the form of usurpers, some in the form of family, some in the form of duty and ideals, and some even have the whole world as their enemy…"

"They've found themselves in this messed-up world and doing the best they can with what they have. The world has been so very cruel to them but they still live, survive and strive to achieve their dreams under whatever circumstances they find themselves in… They cannot be kind because if they show kindness or weakness," he said pointedly looking at Hancock, "They're afraid they'll lose what they hold dear. So they all do things they don't want to do out of fear, desperation and necessity…"

He sighed deeply as he continued, "…I'm not exempt from that either. If it means saving my brother or people close to me, I will unleash hell upon the world if needed" he said remembering how he had freed a lot of Impel Down prisoners to rescue Ace in the story and if it happened in his reality, he would be making the same choice too. Some of them like Jinbe were definitely innocent but a vast majority of them are definitely scum who deserved to be jailed, maybe not in a place as cruel as Impel Down, but definitely locked up. That was a moral dilemma he would have to deal with if and when the time came.

He gave another deep sigh, already tired of talking so much and looked at Hancock, "You're a ruler who sits at the top and makes tough decisions, so you must know all these things already"

Hancock nodded more and more intrigued by him, "…Yes, I do"

"And now you know that I do too," Luffy grinned glad he was able to get his point across. "If this was a peaceful world, then yeah, what you did would be unforgivable. But we don't live in a peaceful world. Good people end up doing bad things out of necessity and desperation all the time… So, a bit of tolerance and understanding helps. Some people can forgive and forget, some can't… I definitely can in this scenario. So believe me when I say I understand your situation and I don't feel the least bit disgusted by you… I know it's unfair to Leah but that's something you'll have to deal with. You stopped before you did something irreversible so there's still time for reconciliation. You tell her, don't tell her… I honestly don't care. Do what you want"

"…What do we do if she ever outs us?" Mari asked hesitantly after a few seconds of silence, "I see your point. I really do. But I don't want to go back to that part of my hellish life…"

"How about telling her?"

The two sisters he could see flinched and physically recoiled in horror just by him suggesting it and he was sure Mari had had the same reaction too. They were about to protest but he raised his hand and stopped them, "Okay okay, I get it. You can't"

"That's right!" Hancock snapped at his outrageous idea, "I do not know how but you somehow really do seem to be 'over' it and you manage to talk about your time as a slave with no fear… but people aren't like you. They will shun us and look down on us if we reveal the brand… and I suggest this to you too that you don't go around showing it to people. Someone will call in the Marines and they will hunt you down and enslave you again under the Celestial Dragons"

"Yeah I realize that but I'm going to be the Pirate King, the freest man on the seas! There is no way in hell am I going to let this stupid thing," he said pointing at his back, "have any sort of control over me. If someone does come after me, I'll beat them into the ground. If someone looks down on me, I'll ignore them…" he trailed off with a sigh knowing that he was being way too idealistic. He understood the real world didn't work like that and he imagined Nami or Zoro looking down on him because of his brand and it really would hurt him. He understood that he was just too optimistic in his way of thinking and that he would never be able to understand how the brand affects others. "I get what I'm saying is too unrealistic and optimistic, but that's just how I work…"

Looking at the unsatisfied expressions on their faces, he came to a decision, "I know I'll never be able to comprehend how slavery affected you all but I do understand that you're scared of having your brand and pasts exposed… So, I'll change the world"

"Change the world?" Hancock asked confused.

"Yep! I just decided. You're scared of showing your back right? Then I'll change the world so that you can show your back and not care about it. I'll make it so that you don't have to feel ashamed and forget it even exists"

"…You sure do talk big" Hancock said with a sigh at the absolutely ridiculous claims he was making. A part of her remembered how he kept standing back up even when he shouldn't have been able to and thought that if he had the same resolve, then maybe…just maybe, he could do something outrageous like what he was claiming. But the sane and rational part of her mind was sure that there was no way he could do something like that.

"Just watch me" Luffy said with a shrug. He knew he looked like a kid who was spouting out grand dreams and really unrealistic goals, which would put anyone off. He probably came across as insensitive, annoying and obnoxious too, but he would just have to do it and show them. As to how he would achieve something like that, he had no idea. He decided he would ponder on it later and think of something. "Anyway, coming back to Leah. You guys do realize that she has seen my back right?"

The two sister's eyes widened with surprise and they seemed to realize it only then. "T-that's right…" Sonia muttered, "She must know what it signifies, right?"

"She does" Luffy confirmed, "She didn't ask about it but she definitely knows. And do you see her shunning me?"

"…no….."

"See? Anyway, it's up to you. You don't have to if you don't feel comfortable. And I'm sure just telling Leah not to talk about devil fruits and all will make her agree to it"

"I already did back on the island…" Hancock said with a sigh, "But I would like to tell her in a more official manner"

"Sure" Luffy shrugged and got up with a yawn, "Anyway, if that's all, I need some sleep"

"Yes. You may leave" Hancock said with a nod.

"Bye" Luffy waved at them with a smile before walking out and closing the door behind him. Silence descended in the room as the three sisters pondered over all his words.

"He's quite the character…" Mari commented after a few seconds. "His claims are just too outrageous for me to take him seriously…"

"Yeah…" Sonia said still staring at the door he had just left from, "But… he truly believes in whatever he's saying. His determination is something you can see in his demeanour. I know what he's saying is ridiculous but… I just can't help but wonder…"

"Yes" Hancock was also looking at the door, "I do think his resolve will crumble in front of a Celestial Dragon… but he did surprise me yesterday when he kept standing back up while fighting me…"

Mari had just heard of what he had done and only heard his voice during the whole conversation, so for her, he just seemed like a crazy man making outrageous claims, but for the other two who had seen his resolve during the fight and seen his demeanour during the conversation, they couldn't help but think that there might be some validity to it, even though their rational mind was sure he was just crazy and delusional. Hancock, especially, was taken by his words as she was the target for most of it. 'He'll change the world…' she recalled his words, and her mind added two more '…for me?' as her heart rate spiked up and her small crush became bigger.

—o—

'Hmmm…' Luffy had a contemplative look on his face as he sat in the patient's bed that night after having slept the entire day. He thought back to the conversation he had had in the morning and wondered if he had said too much. When he had seen them flinching just by him suggesting they tell Leah about their brands, he had felt bad for them and just decided that he would do something about it.

He was also thinking of its effects on all the slaves that were with him, Kell, all the slaves in the story, the Sun Pirates, Hachi and even Koala, and so had decided that he would do something about it. He already had plans of helping Sabo and Dragon with taking down the Celestial Dragons, so it wasn't anything completely new he had decided upon.

He sighed letting go of that topic and pondered on how Hancock had treated him. She was like a friend mostly instead of being crazy in love like in the story. He had punched a Celestial Dragon in the story before he met her and it was one of the main factors that had led to her falling in love with him, so since he hadn't done it yet, she hadn't fallen for him. He had even joked around with her like he would with a friend and she also had responded casually too.

Either way, he was going to make sure their relationship stayed like that and not worry too much by comparing what happened in the story to his reality. Even if she did end up falling for him, he would deal with it and have a proper conversation with her.

He stared out of the porthole and saw the reptilian Sea King still following them from a distance and knew he would have to deal with it soon. Currently though, he was more worried about what was happening in Hancock's room. Sonia had actually called Leah into Hancock's room right after dinner and six hours had passed with no sign of her coming out. He didn't know if they were confessing about everything to her or just telling her not to pry and keep quiet about the lie, so he just waited for her to come back.

He trusted that Hancock wouldn't do anything after giving him her word, but it wasn't her that had him worried. It was Leah. The way she had reacted when Sonia invited her…something about it was off and it bothered him a lot.

Finally, after more than six hours, he sensed her coming out of Hancock's room and a minute later, she entered the doctor's office with puffy eyes.

"Hey… You good?" he asked noticing the tear streaks and damp shoulders.

She didn't say anything as she slowly sat down next to him on the bed before pulling him into her lap and hugging him tightly. "I heard what you did for me…"

"Hmm"

"Thank you"

"What happened?"

"Oh nothing much" Leah sniffled slightly loosening the grip around him but still holding onto him tight, "Sonia and Hancock told me they were going to kill me"

"Ooh calling them without honorifics? How scandalous, Leah?" Luffy joked getting a giggle in return.

"Well you don't give a shit about titles, so at least when I'm with you, I'll be laxer"

"It's too tiring to be so formal all the time though"

"Yeah, that's true. But I'm a citizen of the country you know. I need to show respect to the Empress"

"I guess… So, you're not leaving?"

"Nope" Leah buried her head into his nape. "They were so…distraught…and said sorry with a lot of tears, especially Sonia. They told me about their pasts too… I had no idea they had gone through something so horrible…"

"Wait what? They actually confided in you?"

"Not intentionally… Hancock had already told me to keep silent about their lie back on the island… but tonight, they made it more official I guess. She again told me the same thing and asked me not to pry too much and I agreed. A bit later, Sonia asked me about you…your back and if I knew about your brand and all… They asked if I looked down on you, and I said of course not… and seeing their expressions when I said that, recalling them not wanting to show their backs… I kinda figured it out. They could see that I figured it out too and when I verbally asked for confirmation, they actually flinched… like a physical full-body flinch. Like you know how an abused dog flinches and lays down shivering if you just raise a hand around it? They had the same reaction too. It was horrible… they're so scared of people finding out…"

"Yeah…"

"After that, I started crying realizing how horrible it must have been for them…" she shuddered thinking back on it. "Spent a few hours assuring them that I don't look down on them, I don't think any less of them…I still respect them a great deal and I'll keep it a secret and never mention it again…"

"I see. Good then" Luffy smiled. He was still going to talk and check up on them the next day.

"For the record, I really don't look down on you, you know"

"Shishi I know. I don't need comfort Leah" he said smiling at her and she giggled.

"You're a strange enigma Luffy. You're not at all scared about it huh?"

"It's okay. Amazing things happened afterwards, so I'm kinda glad it happened"

"Sasasa you're way too optimistic and see the bright side to everything huh? I wish I could be like you… By your logic, I should be happy that they tried to kill me because now, they've shared their secret with me and trust me more than anyone else in the Kuja tribe"

"Does that not make you happy?"

"I mean yeah… I completely understand why they almost killed me. I understand and sympathize with them… but it still hurts you know. Can't move on from it so easily like you do… I don't hold a grudge against them… but still, I need some time to come to terms with it you know…"

"But you already knew didn't you?" Luffy asked sternly, "I realized it this evening when Sonia asked you to come to her room. You looked almost…happy and sad at the same time. That's when it hit me that you were way too nonchalant and clueless before whenever Sonia seemed uneasy around you… You were pretending not to notice her unease"

Leah pinched his cheek and in an admonishing tone said, "You're way too perceptive for your own good Luffy. Don't out people's secrets like this…"

Luffy looked at her seriously, "Why didn't you do anything?"

Leah sighed burying her head into his nape and tightening her hug. "…a small part of me did know that they wanted to get rid of me but… They're all I have left. I lost everything a couple of years ago, got betrayed a lot by people I trusted…I came looking for Sonia and Amazon Lily as a last try to form a connection with someone… so if they betrayed me too, I wouldn't have the will to live on anymore… So if they did kill me, I'd have been happy"

"Idiot! You have me now, don't you?! I'll take you away"

Leah gave him a soft smile as she caressed his bandaged head, "Honestly, the thought did cross my mind… but I just didn't know the extent to which you went for me before I walked into that room tonight. You got so hurt for me…you almost died protecting me, idiot. Why did you go that far for me? I only met you a couple of weeks ago and you don't know anything about my past…"

"You're my friend. Everything else is irrelevant"

"…You're the strangest person I've met in my life Luffy…" she trailed off ruffling his hair fondly. They sat in silence for a while before Leah spoke up "Cuddle with me tonight? I need some comfort"

"Sure"

They both laid down with Luffy snuggling her head against his chest while she put her arms around him and relaxed completely. They had ended up in the same position back on the island when Luffy had gotten drunk and had latched onto her. Leah had woken up the next morning feeling relaxed and well-rested in his arms, and thus, she had learned how good it feels.

"I still can't believe how amazing it feels to cuddle with you. What's your secret?"

"Everyone likes hugs and cuddles no matter who gives them"

"Hmm yeah…but something with you is different"

"I have a hypothesis"

"Ooh tell me"

"With me, you know what you're getting. A cuddle and that's it. So, you don't have to feel awkward and just relax not worrying about things like if this means anything or if I'm expecting anything more… and so, you feel more relaxed and rested"

"…Wow…you're right! I think that's exactly it!"

"And also" Luffy smirked as he started running his fingers through her scalp, "This…I don't know…head massage technique? I guess. It sends tingles down your spine, doesn't it?"

"Yess~" Leah purred feeling the tingles.

"Shishishi Ser- someone I knew liked this too, so had to do it a lot and it became a habit I guess"

"Hmm I'm gonna ignore the name slip-up just now and not pry into who the girl was"

"It's complicated"

"Hmm"

"…"

There was a brief lull where Leah just enjoyed being with him and after some time whispered, "I wish my brother was like you…"

"…So you do have a brother huh? Is that why your mom left the island with you?"

"You figured that out too? You're way too perceptive"

"Want to talk about it?"

"Nope"

"Okay… you know, I have three brothers and none of us are blood-related. We all chose to become brothers… So, if you want, I can be your brother too"

Leah separated a bit and stared at him with surprise, "You really mean that?"

"Yep! Let's exchange sake cups and we'll become siblings"

Leah teared up giving him a small smile, "I appreciate the sentiment. I really do…" she trailed off burying her face back into his chest, "…but the word 'brother' comes with a lot of bad memories for me, so I don't want to associate that with someone amazing like you"

"I see. Well, we'll be close friends then"

"Yep. Besides," she smirked mischievously, "I've had fantasies about you that would be inappropriate if you were my brother"

"Ummm" Luffy slowly tried to separate from her but Leah hugged him closer laughing, "Don't worry, don't worry, it's just fantasies. I won't act on it. I know you dislike relationships and all"

"Okay good"

"Hmm"

"…"

"…"

"Hey, I can't believe I'm only thinking of this now," Luffy suddenly said, "But won't the other women learn of the outside world whenever they go on trips like now? Lots of women over the years have left the island to get pregnant right? Hasn't anyone ever found out about the lie?"

"You're asking that now?" Leah said amused. "Wow, you really are stupid huh?"

"Yes yes, I'm stupid" Luffy sighed, "So?"

"The islands we pick every time are also kinda isolated too" Leah began explaining, "Not completely like Amazon Lily, but kinda isolated. Callipe island is at the edge of the Grand Line and the Calm Belt, so only rarely do log poses lock onto it. Other islands where the women usually go to are the same too…"

"What about libraries and all?"

"Did you even visit the library on Callipe? If you stopped stuffing your face in with food all the time, you would have learned of all the ways the island was isolated. Libraries had nothing but basic textbooks and had no information about anything outside their own island. The ships that came in were just cargo ships from the Blues, and the World Economic Newspaper also doesn't get there much"

"Hmm yeah, I guess I didn't see stuff like that"

"Yeah, and the people aren't that well-informed either. You should've seen some of the men the women hung out with. They told tall tales that made no sense and unbelievable stories to impress them…I get why the women on the island have so many untrue myths about men"

"Shishishi that makes sense yeah"

"And also, many of the islands we cycle through are in the Blues, so those islands are even more ignorant… And even if someone does find out about devil fruits or other things, it would get muddled in with all the other untrue myths and thus, none will be the wiser"

"I see. But the mayor was knowledgeable… and so were a few we met at the gala"

"Those are influential and rich people who have dealings with things outside the island, so yeah they know a bit more. But do you really think the women get a chance to meet influential people or get invited to galas? This time was an exception because of you, but usually, the women go to an island, quietly pick random men from taverns, spend a night and that's the end of it. We don't have huge parties or become the talk of the island like we did this time… also because of you, we can't visit this island for quite some time. Too much attention"

"Hmmm makes sense" he nodded sagely. He sometimes forgot, but the masses in this world were way too ignorant about how the world actually works. With the only source of information being the newspapers, and islands being kinda isolated, the normal masses usually don't know much of anything that happens outside their island. Only in the New World would the general masses be slightly more knowledgeable, but in the Blues and Paradise, they were way too ignorant. In the story, the crew usually ran into influential people like Princesses, so they learn of secrets and find the truth, but if they just met random and normal citizens, they would learn absolutely nothing, or only hear rumours and embellished stories.

"There are other factors too" Leah continued, "Like the women are told not to bring up Amazon Lily while talking with anyone, and so, they learn nothing about it. It doesn't normally come up in conversation you know"

"I see"

"That satisfy your curiosity? All these are secrets by the way"

"My lips are sealed"

"Sasasasa"

"…"

"…"

"Hey"

"Yeah?"

"Thanks… I know you're trying to distract me from thinking about the…'almost killing me' and all"

"Hmm"

"…"

"…"

"Hey"

"Yeah?"

"Keep talking"

"Sure" Luffy continued caressing her head as he began thinking of a topic to talk about. "Hmm… What do you call a factory that makes okay products?"

"What?" she asked confused at the random question.

"A satisfactory"

"…such a lame joke" Leah said shaking her head but had the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.

"Why is it so cheap to throw a party at a haunted house?"

"Stop with the stupid d-"

"Because the ghosts bring all the boos"

"…So stupid…Pfft~"

"I wondered all night what happened to the sun, but then it dawned on me"

"Pfftttsasasa stop! These are all so bad!"

"You're laughing at them though" Luffy giggled, "What's the difference between a well-dressed man on a unicycle and a poorly-dressed man on a bicycle?… Attire"

"SAsasasa! Stop stop!"

Luffy chuckled as he continued making her laugh long into the night until she fell asleep.

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A/N: Thanks for reading! Hope you liked it.

This was supposed to come last week itself, but I found that Hancock is really hard to write Pre-FallingInLove. I struggled a lot and took a lot of time trying to write her psyche and I hope I did her justice.

Anyway, Part 3 is shorter and this arc will end with it. Stay safe and happy y'all. See you next time.