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CHAPTER 2

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Sabaody Archipelago, Paradise, Grand Line, One Piece

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Distorted rays of light pierced through the glistening blue of the ocean from above, illuminating an entire other world under the sea. Well there was a world over it as well, but Irene didn't want to go back there just yet.

Her eyes fell on all the various schools of fishes and... other things as they approached her position, only to swim away in fright just as quickly as their instincts screamed to them that a predator, no a monster lurked nearby. It was... strange, how absolutely alien some of these aquatic creatures tended to become. It was a trend she had noticed; as the sea grew deeper, the size and appearance of the life here started to warp and distort until they could be better be called mutated chimera or eldritch abominations rather than anything else. Perhaps that's why the bigger ones were generally just labelled sea kings and sea beasts? - Because any sane taxonomist would take one look at that mess and promptly quit their jobs.

But in the end, whatever their size, whatever their shape, they all took a single look at her and promptly swam away.

Irene felt a bit insulted at that.

After a long moment of simply enjoying the feeling of drifting through the water, Irene eventually decided that she had stalled long enough. She shook her head and pulled back the raven black hair that had drifted in front of her eyes.

'Hm... something else that's new.' She thought. 'Oh well, I better get going. It's about time for me to surface.' Not because she needed to take a breath or anything - her body had long since evolved past 'simple' human needs like food, water, or even air to sustain itself. no, she needed to leave because she wanted to overcome her hesitation.

Irene knew all too well what kind of cesspit she was about to walk into. It was sort hard to ignore the massive cluster of gargantuan mangrove trees floating in the distance within a mere hour of her foray into this new world - which turned out to be yet another fantastical place she had remembered as a work of fiction in her first life. Unfortunately, she wasn't as knowledgeable of this world as she was the last. Not because she didn't like it or anything like that, but because she simply never bothered to refresh her memory on the subject because it wasn't really a priority in her life as the contents of 'Bleach' had been. And as such, she had forgotten a lot of the details over the last two decades. But even so, Sabaody Archipelago was one of those places that managed to stay due to the sheer impression it had left in her mind. It made her realize where she was, and with that realization, she had sat down on a reishi platform in the air to think long and hard about what she wanted to do with her new lease on life. Irene could admit to herself that she had no idea about how this world worked beyond the half-remembered bits and pieces of the story that somehow managed to stick around in her head rent free all this time.

But despite everything, there was a reason she had unconsciously sought out this world. Happiness, trust, adventure, discovery, challenge, will... it was all something fundamentally different from her experience in both her lives. That was why she had latched onto this world when she had nowhere to go in that void between places, and that was why she had been dropped into the world of One Piece mere hours ago.

The world was immensely dangerous to a 'normal' human, but full of secrets and adventure and breathtaking places to discover and explore to those willing to brave the risk and handle the consequences. It was exactly the kind of adventure she had always wanted to experience as a child, before life decided to crush her dreams with cold, cruel, logic. Her second life had only made things worse, not being able to even leave the darkness of the Wandenreich before the 'promised time' was up.

This world was the best place anyone could ask for if they wanted to live a life of excitement and adventure. And while she was all for it, the weight of experience and reason forced her to acknowledge that she had to settle down and cool off a bit first. And well, her life back in the shadows of soul society had been immensely stressful, so she just wanted some place to sit back and blow off some steam. Doing something mundane where she could simply turn her brain off like she had done in her first life should be interesting too. She... sort of missed that feeling, to be honest.

She just wanted a vacation of sorts.

Irene could always go on an adventure later, after she'd relaxed to her heart's content; It wasn't as if she was in a hurry or anything. She was well and truly immortal at this point so she could afford to waste time as she pleased.

But what should she even do? She had always planned for her grand escape, but now that she was free and unshackled in another world entirely, she had no idea what to do with herself. So, she asked herself a few questions and pondered on the answers.

What was her immediate priority? To live a happy life. What did she need to live said happy life? A home, money, security, and something fun to do.

That narrowed down things a bit, didn't it. She could lump the monetary concerns along with something interesting. She had all the time in the world to give a try at everything and see what fit her best. Maybe she should start off as a waitress or a barmaid?
Hm... maybe later. She didn't had the mood or patience to deal with that right now. What if she opened up her own restaurant? That would be cool too, but she had the distinct impression that it was a very competitive field in this world, wait was that actually a thing, or was she just under the impression that was the case since the Straw hat pirates had a really dedicated cook in their crew? What about just a shop in general?

"Yeah, that sounds good." But then she needed a large capital and some goods to start things off didn't she?

And that was why she was here, scouring the ocean floor for interesting things with her newfound ability to act as a sea-monster repellent and her ability to breathe underwater. Well, she wasn't really breathing to be honest, since her lungs were completely waterlogged by this point. To be honest, she had no idea what the Hogyoku had done to her body up to this point, but she was happy to reap the benefits nonetheless. A sudden thought struck her mind, and she winced.

"Getting all this water out of my system when I get back to the surface is going to be a real pain, isn't it?" She imitated a sigh underwater, more on instinct than anything else.

And with a flex of her wings, she rocketed out of the sea at impossible speed, throwing water high up into the air like a geyser. The massive, blue, incandescent wings of light folded around her form gently, while the similarly huge ring of light in the shape of a halo hung above her head. The ring of light had five protrusions along its outer edge, but the foremost one extended out further than the rest, jutting out like an arrow or spear of sorts. It also seemed to... rotate, spinning around an axis like a compass.

And that's because it did.

Her Shrift represented the concept of Navigation, and in her current transformation, the Quincy; Vollständig, said ability was magnified to the point where she could determine the location of anything she could possibly imagine. ...It was a glorified quest marker, all things considered, but then again, her Shrift wasn't something flashy or obvious. It was far more subtle and pervasive than that. The wings weren't a surprise though, since it hadn't changed much from the shape it used to take back when she was just a regular Quincy, but the 'halo'? Well, it had apparently hit the gym while she was out because saying that it simply 'bulked up' would be an understatement. The thing was larger than she was, and it almost looked like a solid, tangible object by now, and its reality warping power asserted a sort of... gravity that was hard to explain.

Whatever, the case, she had used it extensively for the past few hours to pick up anything and everything that could be even remotely considered 'valuable' in this world. Treasure chests filled with gold and jewels, dials, devil fruits, submerged wrecks of ships she suspected was made of Adam's wood, massive chunks of sea stone, weird weaponry of all shapes and sizes including some swords of extremely high quality, log poses, oddly enough a lot of plant and fungal derivatives - she had chucked all of them into her shadow.

Though, she probably needed to contact some appraisers and herbalists if she wanted to figure out what even half of them actually were. She must have made for an odd sight, an angelic figure dipping in and out of the sea and the local islands, stripping the area of anything remotely valuable like a particularly luminous magpie.

Even then, there were a surprising amount of free stuff just lying around in the ocean, which she shouldn't have been surprised by, but was. Irene was under the impression that the fishmen and mermaids should have picked most of those clean by now, but then again it wasn't as if they were particularly protected from the local sea life as she was.

Irene coughed out all the water in her lungs, before wiping her mouth and glaring at the ocean below. She eventually forced herself to relax, before finally retrieving her Millenium Arrow.

Irene then forcibly released all the spiritual energy contained by her transformation, undoing it.

However, she was unwilling to just let all that energy just dissipate into nothing. Who knew what would happen is she dumped a shit load of reishi on top of the already mutated wildlife around here? As such, she put it all to better use, infusing it all into her armament instead.

It also served as a measuring stick to indicate how powerful she had grown. The amount of reishi she had gathered from her own reserves to fuel the Vollständig transformation restored the Millennium arrow to peak condition on its lonesome and then some. She had to empty her reserves completely as well as supplement it with natural reishi for years on end to gather the same amount she had so casually generated mere moments ago. And considering the bulk and the near-solid consistency of her halo, she had she had a very good hunch about what she had become.

By the time she was done, the millennium 'arrow' had more in common with a spear than an actual arrow, its grainy texture replaced by a swirling mass of energy and dust that gave it the impression of a starry night sky due to how much it had... expanded. She gingerly took the spiritual equivalent to a nuclear warhead, and proceeded to dump it into her shadow along with all the other random assortment of items she had recently collected.

And just like that, it was over. It was time to take the first step.

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Irene slid forward on a current of spiritual energy until Sabaody finally came into view once more. She rose higher into the air until she was just below the canopy of the gargantuan, striped trees and clinically analyzed the 'land' below her. The Archipelago was actually a cluster of 79 separate trees that made up the Yarukiman Mangrove, and each tree was massive enough to hold entire cities atop their roots. The trees were grouped together into clusters according to their specialties. For example, grove 30-39 was themed after an amusement park, collectively called the 'Sabaody Park'. 40-49 was the tourism sector, 50-59 the shipping area, 60-69 the local Marine headquarters and 70-79 a hotel town. The area that was of immediate concern to her was of course, in grove 1-29, the lawless zone.

Irene scouted the area a bit, before picking the tree on the outermost edge, which coincidentally was also tree number 26. She released the ironclad grip she had on her spiritual pressure a tiny bit- it was the least amount her mind could realistically measure in any capacity, but it was more than enough to instantly pull down everyone in the immediate area into the ground due to the sheer pressure of it.

It only lasted for a few seconds, but within that time, almost everyone was knocked down and subdued, some even foaming at the mouth. But more importantly, she knew the precise location of each and every soul in what she had unofficially declared as 'her' turf. Then came the long and arduous task of finding each of those souls, and... evicting the more unsavory sort into the neighboring trees, and relocating the truly unsavory sort into a... special place she had reserved within her shadow. She left the remaining people where they were, and silently apologized to them for causing them so much trouble. She even left a few coins with them for their trouble - and well, those people looked like they really needed it.

"Yeah, that's a nice spot" she decided, looking at a particularly flat and empty spot facing the sea. If there was any flaw to speak of, then it was the fact that it would be a bit exposed - which might be why it was left unoccupied in the first place, but she didn't mind.

And with a smile, she condensed her reiatsu into stable construct of Soul-made Silver, and proceeded to slowly but surely build a shop. And just for the lols, she decided to rip off a certain candy-store owner. After all, if she was going to start a business, she might as well troll every unsuspecting fool that walks in.

All in all, things were looking good. What could possibly go wrong now?

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