Author's Note: Sorry for the delay, AGAIN. There's a time-travel sequence in this chapter, and I didn't know how to pull it off. But, I think I did it right.

Disclaimer: I don't own One Piece or any dragons Zoro slayed.

Ch. 52: "Project Mei."

"A story?" Daisuke asked the girl.

"Yes, a story. I have the power of the Hora Hora no mi, which allows me to be a time traveller. My name is Apple. Do you want to hear a story?" The girl asked everyone.

"Well, if you can travel through time, can you take us to a certain point in history?" Daisuke asked Apple.

"I can, but… The past can leave long-lasting scars on some people. Some… That don't even heal, even with time," Apple explained.

"I don't care about that! I want to know what Project Mei was! My friend keeps saying things about it, and I don't know if she's gone crazy or not!" Daisuke explained. Apple tensed up.

"Are you really sure… That you want to see that?" Apple asked the four.

"I've seen worse. I think we'll be fine," Heathcliffe said.

"Alright then… Are you ready to learn the truth?" Apple asked Kazuma, Heathcliffe, Daisuke, and Gareth, who nodded.

*Begin Flashback, Six Months Ago*

Kazuma, Heathcliffe, Gareth, Daisuke, and Apple found themselves on an island in the East Blue at nighttime.

"Where are we?" Kazuma asked before Apple shushed him.

"We have to be quiet. They're coming any minute," Apple explained. Daisuke facepalmed.

"We didn't come here to stand on a freaking beach!" Daisuke yelled angrily. "I want to know about Yulia!"

"And, we want to know what this Project Mei –" Heathcliffe said before he felt something press against his back. He turned back, and he saw Yulia with her knife poking Heathcliffe's back.

"Yulia? What the hell?" Daisuke cried.

"I don't think she knows who you are. You are from the future, after all," Apple calmly explained.

"Who are you – Besides a victim of this project? Do you want to take from me or give to me? Are you going to take something or give something that doesn't even exist? Is this why I'm forced to kill and steal for an ex-Marine commodore? Is this why I can't let people live? If I could, I would let all of you live, but if I do that, I would die. Why is life not fair to me?" Yulia ranted before raising her knife to prepare to stab Heathcliffe.

"Heathcliffe, look out!" Gareth cried before he used his Devil Fruit to push him out of the way of Yulia.

"What's going on? I thought she wouldn't notice us!" Heathcliffe cried.

"I have no clue! We have to get out of here!" Kazuma cried.

"Kazuma, look out!" Daisuke yelled as he pointed to a Molotov cocktail heading toward Kazuma's head. Kazuma got out his nodachi and knocked the Molotov cocktail back into the sky, like a baseball.

"I agree with Heathcliffe – What the hell is going on?" Kazuma cried.

"Project Mei has begun. It all began when Commodore Pasternak of the Marines was fired for misconduct. Distraught, he slowly turned mad, and he wanted to destroy the Island of Mei, the one island where he was fired on," Apple explained as chaos went on around the five. "He recruited and brainwashed people who seemed to have no purpose in life – Pirates, ex-slaves of the Tenryuubito, gypsies, and even thieves like Yulia. They were then forced against their will to raid this island to kill the civilians, to steal from everyone, and to burn the whole island down when everyone was murdered and when every single item – including paper and toothpicks – was taken from the island."

"Oh… Damn. Now I can see why Yulia is so mean to me. Being kidnapped and forced to kill and steal… That really must've had an impact on her," Daisuke said. "Honestly… I don't know what else to say about this."

"Wait… Soren did say something about a General Pasternak guy earlier today. Could it be… That we ran into him?" Heathcliffe asked the four.

"Heathcliffe, say what you will about it, but –" Kazuma explained before loud screaming cut him off.

"Doesn't that sound like…. Daisuke?" Gareth cried. Daisuke turned pale.

"No… I don't want to see it again!" Daisuke cried, even though his feet brought him to the source of the screaming. He eventually ran up to his past self, who was standing over an old woman, who was kneeling. Yulia was also standing above the old woman, with her head bowed and her knife covered in blood.

"Yulia, please don't! She's my grandma!" Daisuke's past self begged.

"Bullshit! You just claim that she's your grandma so you could steal from her! You are one of THE lowest thieves I have ever met!" Yulia cried as she stabbed Daisuke's grandmother.

"Grandma!" Daisuke's past self cried. With a huff, Yulia walked away.

"Please… Go with that girl. She's going to really regret the actions she committed, and she would… Need a good boy to help her out," Daisuke's grandma explained with a gasp.

"Grandma, no! You can't die! I still need to help you!" Daisuke's past self cried. Daisuke's grandma grabbed his hand.

"You're my favorite grandson… Smile for me… Every single day," Daisuke's grandmother said before passing on. Daisuke's past self burst into tears.

"No… Take me back, Apple! Take me back! TAKE ME BACK!" Daisuke shouted in agony. "Why?"

"Daisuke, calm down! We're taking you back to the present right now! Just hang in there!" Apple cried as she closed her eyes. "We're going back… To the present."

*End Flashback, Revert to the Present*

The five time-travellers found themselves back on Blumheim, wondering what happened.

"Thank God… I never want to see that again," Daisuke said in between breaths of air before throwing up.

"I can't believe it. A commodore for the Marines would actually do that? And, he used Yulia?" Gareth wondered to himself. Heathcliffe sighed.

"Such is life. We all react in different ways when we see somebody die in front of us," Heathcliffe explained.

*Begin Second Flashback, Several Months Ago*

Heathcliffe sat in the small tenement apartment he was forced to share with four other people – a family of three and an old man, to be exact. The old man and the mother were napping, the father was at work, and Heathcliffe and the little girl sat in the dim apartment.

"So… Why are you living here?" Heathcliffe asked the little girl.

"My dad accidentally stepped on a Tenryuubito's cape and the Tenryuubito forced us to live here. My dad works at a Tenryuubito-run textile factory, and it's dangerous work," The girl explained. "Unforutnately, the pay is low and we don't get enough to eat, like you and oji-chan."

Heathcliffe sadly sighed as the father came into the apartment.

"I'm back!" The man announced The old man woke up.

"Did you bring us any food?" The old man asked, grumpy from a lack of sleep.

"Or some soap? I want to take a shower again," Heathcliffe asked. The father just pulled out a stale loaf of bread.

"It's not much, but this will have to do for now," The father explained sadly.

"Dad, mom's not up," The girl said sadly. Worriedly, the father walked over to the sleeping mother, who was actually dead.

"Honey, wake up, please. I brought us food. Honey? Honey, please wake up! I'm begging you!" The father cried as he tried to wake his wife up. Heathcliffe's eyes grew wide with horror.

"Oh, my God…" Heathcliffe commented before he ran up to the window and threw up on the fire escape. Heathcliffe then screamed.

"About a month after that day, the little girl lost her father in a fire at the factory he worked at. She pretty much lost the will to live after that and died a couple of weeks later. How I managed to live on was a miracle."

*End Second Flashback, Revert to the Present*

Apple sighed.

"What a sad world we live in. You're thankful that you've got nakama to fall back on," Apple commented. "As for me, all I have are the people who I had to live through Project Mei with."

"Then, you must know Yulia, Mitchell, OR that Pasternak guy!" Daisuke yelled.

"I'm not promising anything, but…" Apple said before a red fox approached them with a letter in its mouth. The fox then gave the letter to Daisuke before walking off.

"Daisuke, meet me back at the Hyperion. I think I know what happened to Yulia. – Aki," Daisuke read from the note.

"We have to go to the Hyperion! Aki must know what Yulia is planning on doing!" Heathcliffe cried.

Ending Note: Review if you want to see Yulia.