Author's Note:
Starting from this chapter, we're finally entering the "Two Years Later Arc." I'd be delighted if you'd stick around whenever you have the time. Now then, here we go.
---
Time passes quickly.
Enjoyable time, time that holds value for you, especially so.
The days and months pass quickly.
...Especially once you start getting older.
...I tried to say something cool and self-destructed, taking psychic damage in the process. I, Venerdi Toto Sue, have turned 36.
Round that off and you get 40. Almost-forty. Practically forty. Time really does fly, doesn't it?
Anyway, the fact that I was 34 "two years ago" and am now 36 means, well.
"I owe you... Sue."
Looking quite different from two years ago, Zoro, now dressed in Japanese-style clothing with three swords at his hip, said something like that.
The two-year training period that Luffy had declared "two years ago" was about to come to an end. The time to reassemble at Sabaody Archipelago and revive the Straw Hat Pirates was drawing near.
So, to make absolutely sure there would be no delays, we decided to bring Zoro out early. Today was the day of departure.
...Note: "bring out," not "send off." This distinction is important.
"Still... you didn't have to go out of your way to escort me. Just lend me a compass and a ship, and I could've made it on my own... Sorry for the trouble, right up to the end."
"What mouth are you saying that with?"
"If we let ye go alone, ye'd never arrive even if twenty years passed, let alone two."
Saga and Suzu retorted at the exasperated-looking Zoro.
For everyone who had spent a considerable portion of these two years of training searching for this man, the fact that Zoro gets lost the moment he walks was as self-evident as the sun rising from the east.
So regardless of the destination, the option of sending him off alone simply did not exist. Did not exist, period.
Case in point:
"Sheesh, treating me like I'm some little kid or something..."
"Zoro, that's the way you just came from."
Leona's calm retort to this man, who was already trying to walk in the opposite direction.
...I mean, we were literally about to board a ship. The ship was right there in front of us, and all he had to do was get on it. How was he managing to head the other way? Did he not have eyes?
Look where you're going... unlike in the Original Work, the current Zoro doesn't have only one eye. Things never got bad enough for him to sustain that kind of serious injury.
...Well, that said, while nothing reached the level of losing a body part, eyes included, he did end up with some permanent scars. The later stages of training were inevitably quite harsh.
We could have erased them if he wanted. If we asked Mama, that much was within her ability. But Zoro said "Don't bother," so a lot of them were left as they were.
Given Zoro's values, I don't think he sees scars as medals of honor or anything like that. He probably just doesn't think the act of "erasing scars" holds any particular significance in the first place.
Or maybe, the fact that he got wounded at all is proof of his own immaturity, and he keeps them as a reminder... well, not quite a reminder, but erasing them would be like averting his eyes from his past weakness... ugh, occupational hazard. I can't help reaching for that kind of phrasing.
As if nothing had happened, Zoro made a 180-degree turn and finally headed properly toward the ship.
...And I called out to stop him.
"Oh, wait, Zoro. Can you take this?"
"Hm? Oh right, that... Souvenirs for Luffy and the others, right? Just hand them over when I see them?"
What I gave Zoro was, as just mentioned, gifts for Luffy and the others.
Packed into a suitcase large enough for an international trip, he lifted it with a casual "hup" and slung it over his shoulder.
"Well then, I'm leaving the rest to you, Alice. You too, Perona."
"Roger that! Leave it to me, Mom!"
"Seriously, such a handful right up to the very end..."
As I mentioned, the probability of Zoro reaching Sabaody Archipelago on his own is not just zero but negative, so we decided to have our third daughter escort him.
We also asked Perona, who had escorted Zoro in the Original Work.
This wasn't because Alice alone seemed unreliable, nor was I trying to force things to match the original plot. There was a proper reason for it.
...Rather, there was a reason for sending Alice in the first place.
Watching Zoro board the ship, I gave Alice a high-five as encouragement...
"So, about that matter... I'm counting on you, all right?"
"I know, I know. I'll bring him right back, so wait for us at Merveille."
...While exchanging those words in a low voice, I reconfirmed the top-secret mission I had given Alice.
Very good. Then... off you go.
***
And then, several days later.
Zoro, having departed from Sue and the others, safely arrived at Sabaody Archipelago... and after that, guided by Perona the entire way, somehow managed to reach the bar where Rayleigh and Shakky were waiting without getting lost.
Having properly confirmed all of this, Perona, now looking like someone who had just completed a monumental task and very much feeling 'Finally, it's over...', took her leave.
Even after arriving at Sabaody Archipelago, there were numerous occasions where taking your eyes off him for more than three seconds would result in him heading off in a completely different direction, requiring her to retort and drag him back each time, so it was indeed no exaggeration to call it a monumental task.
She was now scheduled to rendezvous with Alice and the others and head home.
As for what Alice and the others who had come along had been doing during all this time, well.
Of course, it wasn't that they had dumped the work on Perona and gone off to play. They had a reason for splitting up from those two.
After Zoro arrived, the second person to come to the Rip-off Bar was Franky.
The shipwright greeted Rayleigh and the others, then headed straight for the Crew's ship, the Thousand Sunny... where he reunited with Bartholomew Kuma, who had been guarding it for the entire two years.
In stark contrast to Kuma, whose battered form was covered in injuries and damage, machinery exposed, sparks crackling, swords and spears still embedded in his body... the Sunny didn't have a single scratch.
After seeing off Kuma, who departed with the words "Mission complete," Franky set about maintaining the ship... but it was immediately after that.
Having walked just far enough to be out of Franky's line of sight... Kuma suddenly stopped dead in his tracks.
As if frozen, he became completely motionless on the spot.
"There, I've stopped him! Hurry up and get on with it while you caaaan!"
"Thanks, Grandma. Okay... Lupupu, Tantal, let's move him."
The moment those voices rang out... the next instant, Kuma "vanished."
That unmistakably huge, conspicuous frame that had clearly been there just a second ago... simply disappeared in the blink of an eye.
...If anyone had been watching this entire sequence of events, that's what it would have looked like.
That's all they would have seen... and they would have had no idea what had just happened.
Let's rewind a little... no, let's rewind quite a bit and explain.
What exactly happened, and why Kuma vanished.
***
Alice had two objectives in visiting Sabaody Archipelago.
One was escorting Zoro.
And the other was a "top-secret mission": the protection of Bartholomew Kuma.
One of the Shichibukai... Bartholomew Kuma.
Though they shared no blood relation, he was the father of a female pirate who had become more than just an ally under their umbrella. She had grown close enough to be considered a friend, even a comrade: Jewelry Bonney.
Having heard this from Bonney, Sue and the others had, from that point on, spurred by Bonney's desperate pleas, made the protection of Kuma and reuniting him with Bonney one of their key objectives.
And Sue knew, with certainty, where Kuma was right now, thanks to her knowledge of the original plot.
Having lost his sense of self through Vegapunk's modifications, Kuma was guarding the ship based on a mission to "protect the Thousand Sunny until one of the Straw Hat Pirates returns to it," all the way until "two years later" when the Crew would reassemble.
Therefore, during these "two years," one could find him by going to Sabaody Archipelago. Sue knew this.
However, even knowing that... it wasn't possible to simply protect or retrieve him.
As just mentioned, Kuma was guarding the Sunny as his "mission." He would bare his Fangs mercilessly against anyone who tried to interfere.
With Sue's level of strength, it wasn't impossible to forcibly retrieve him through brute force. In an extreme scenario, dealing enough damage to temporarily shut him down and then carrying him back was feasible, but... that would be far too cruel toward Bonney.
There were plenty of other problems too. It was a course of action she didn't want to choose.
So instead of force... she decided to take her time.
Going back a full... approximately one year.
Sue and her group, fully aware that only half of the "two years" had passed, visited Sabaody Archipelago ahead of schedule.
And as it happened, that was precisely the period when Hatchan, Duval, and the others had retired after fierce battles to protect the Sunny, and Kuma was guarding the ship alone.
At this point, they did not make contact with Kuma.
What Sue and Sou, who had come along, did instead was use Sou's Mold-Mold Fruit Powers to release spores of a special mold known as "Anomalous Fungus"... allowing an infinitesimal amount to be absorbed by Kuma... and take root as a parasite.
And then... they simply went home.
Now time leaps forward again... to the moment just earlier, when Kuma had declared "Mission complete" and walked away from the Sunny.
Over the course of a year, the parasitic growth of the special mold had advanced within Kuma's body... to the point where it had reached and could affect part of his brain.
This had absolutely zero negative effects on Kuma's health, brain function included. Sou had engineered and created it specifically to ensure that, and the parasitic growth had been allowed to progress slowly over the full year.
Using the Mold-Mold Fruit's Powers, Sou interfered with that mold from the outside, temporarily shutting down Kuma's functions.
Even as a Human Weapon, the "recognition," "comprehension," and "judgment" functions were still handled by Kuma's brain, not by machinery. The mechanical parts were merely supplementary.
Therefore, if one could interfere with his biological brain... even an unflinchingly obedient, inflexible cyborg could be temporarily silenced.
Had his brain been fully electronic, making him an "android" in the truest sense, this would not have been possible.
Once Kuma was rendered nonfunctional, Alice, who had been hiding, rushed to his side along with her two subordinates.
One was a girl with indigo hair and two horns growing from the sides of her head. Gothic clothing, hot pants, devil wings sprouting from her back, a devil's tail from around her waist: Tantal.
The other was a girl with pink hair and a somewhat timid-looking expression. She wore a robe with a black cat-ear hood, the hood pulled down deep as if to hide that distinctive hair: Lupupu.
Both were close to Alice in many senses of the word, always at her side as her direct subordinates, her inner circle, so to speak.
Though in reality... much like Sue and her own two close aides, the dynamic was less boss-and-subordinate and more just friends hanging out together.
...After all, all three of them shared exactly the same tastes and inclinations in that department. The kind that swings both ways.
And beyond just them... starting with Tantal's older sister, the people serving under Alice were generally all like that, making the whole group radiate an overwhelmingly pink aura.
Getting slightly sidetracked there, but accompanied by those two, Tantal and Lupupu, Alice approached Kuma.
Their presence was... not recognized by anyone.
It wasn't that they couldn't be seen. They simply couldn't be "recognized"... couldn't be noticed.
Like those people with an uncommonly thin presence. You know the type: they've been standing right there the whole time and nobody noticed, or when a group goes to a restaurant, they're the one person who doesn't get served water. That kind of sad phenomenon.
Or rather... this was literally the result of a "thin Shadow."
One of the aides introduced earlier: the girl with the pink hair and the deep black hood. Lupupu.
She had eaten one of the "future-origin" Devil Fruits that Iris and the others had brought: the Shadow-Shadow Fruit, becoming a Shadow Human just like Gekko Moriah.
However, the ability she manifested was... bizarrely, something completely different from Moriah's.
Former Shichibukai Gekko Moriah. His Powers allowed him to sever other people's Shadows, insert them into corpses to animate them as Zombies that he could control... or absorb them himself to power up.
He could also manipulate his own Shadow, moving it as a doppelganger called "Doppelman," or freely reshaping it for attack and defense.
Lupupu could use those abilities too, but in her case, that wasn't all.
Most likely, it was a product of her personality... or more precisely, her "proclivities"...
The three who rushed to the incapacitated Kuma. For some reason, all three were running while pressing close together, each with both hands on Lupupu's shoulders.
When Lupupu touched Kuma... her power took effect through that contact, and Kuma's Shadow grew thin.
Not metaphorically. Literally... Kuma's Shadow, cast upon the ground, physically grew faint... and vanished, becoming invisible.
And simultaneously, Kuma's presence became unrecognizable to anyone. Because his "shadow had grown thin" in the metaphorical sense as well.
Lupupu's own Shadow was also absent, as were Alice's and Tantal's. Thus, none of them could be recognized.
They could be seen. But they could not be noticed.
This was the Shadow-Shadow Fruit ability unique to her, something Moriah did not possess.
By thinning her own Shadow, no one could notice her even if she approached or made physical contact... a stealth ability surpassing even the Clear-Clear Fruit.
Moreover, despite a training period of less than a single year, her ability had already reached Awakening, allowing her to propagate this effect to anything she was touching, including other people.
This was what made the covert operation possible: concealing all three of themselves plus Kuma for extraction.
After that, Alice used her Reva-Reva Fruit Powers to reverse gravity, gently floating Kuma's body along with themselves, then used a Breath Dial's thrust to fly through the air and escape the scene.
They returned to a ship that had been hiding above in the clouds, where they reunited with Sou and the others who had been waiting.
There, Sou worked on the Anomalous Fungus inside Kuma's body, reinforcing the restraints more firmly. Complete.
With this, he shouldn't go on a rampage... hopefully.
And so, Alice's top-secret mission, "the protection of Bartholomew Kuma," was successfully accomplished.
All that remained was to return to Merveille, but...
"I'd love to hurry back and let Bonney see him, but the plan is to confirm Luffy and the others' departure first... Well, they should all be gathered within a few days... So I guess we're on standby until then?"
"In that case, would it be okay to go have some fun on Sabaody Archipelago? It's famous as a tourist spot too, and there are tons of local specialties."
As Tantal said, her eyes sparkling, Sabaody Archipelago had plenty of spots perfect for sightseeing and enjoyment.
Of course, it was still a lawless zone to a degree. Pirates and human traffickers walked the streets openly, and Celestial Dragons occasionally showed up, so caution was necessary.
The Employment Agency... that is to say, the Slave Trader, was of course still operating too.
The biggest establishment had been destroyed in the incident two years ago, but this kind of Underworld business stubbornly bounces back no matter how many times you crush it. As long as there are people who demand slaves as Merchandise and there's money to be made.
Well, Alice was strong of course, but Tantal and Lupupu were both formidable in their own right, so anything short of a Celestial Dragon shouldn't be a problem.
"Besides, Alice, look, Lupupu's got that look on her face like she wants to go out and play... She's already fidgeting. She always gets like this after using her Awakening techniques."
"Huh?! Y-You could tell... ugh..."
Lupupu shrank back in embarrassment, struck right in the bull's-eye.
Seeing how cute she looked, Alice apparently got carried away and joined Tantal in the teasing assault.
"Now, now, what are you getting all embarrassed about, Lupupu? You love doing embarrassing things in front of people... You're so cuuute."
"That's right. Using the Shadow-Shadow Fruit to take advantage of being unnoticed, and then doing all sorts of things not just 'in front of people' but right on public streets..."
"And when she really gets heated up, since 'nobody can notice,' she gets that close and rubs up against people and lets loose and..."
"There was that whole stink about a mysterious smell, and then Miss Leona said 'Hmm, something smells like chestnut blossoms' with this puzzled expression, and Lady Suzu, hearing that, just froze solid."
"And it's not just Merveille. She does it everywhere she goes on assignments too, so weird rumors keep popping... I mean, cropping up. Like 'I felt someone's presence but turned around and nobody was there,' or 'There were agonized moans coming from an empty room.' Ghost-story stuff."
"Except it's not moaning, it's panting, and it's not a ghost story, it's a dirty story. Back when Lupupu still couldn't fully control her Powers, she couldn't make her Shadow 'thin' enough and people overheard her. She practiced every day and every night wherever she went... well, 'practiced,' more like solo sessions, so from overusing her power she hit Awakening in just a few months..."
"And on top of that, she'd sneak into our beds while we were sleeping and just... Stealth that can slip past even decent Observation Haki, used for night raids, and on us of all people. She's really something else."
"When I found out I'd been 'developed' in my sleep without knowing... even I was surprised. Well, after that, Alice and I teamed up and gave her a proper punishment, but."
"P-Please, no more... I-I'll lose control again..."
"And even while we're talking like this, she's getting more and more worked up..."
"She's not gonna last until we get back to Sabaody Archipelago, is she? How about you be a good girl for today and make do with just the two of us? Not just 'make do,' we'll make sure you're properly satisfied, you know?"
"We've still got a few days, after all. There'll be plenty of chances for you to enjoy yourself 'outside' and 'alone' too... Speaking of which, right, Tantal?"
"Yeah. Talking about all this... even we're starting to... get worked up, aren't we...?"
"Huh? Ah, w-wait, don't... n-not there... ah, no, not here, I'm already too s-sensitive... you can't, both of you at... f-front and back?! Hyaaaahhhh!"
Anything further would require an age restriction, so we'll leave it here for today.
To be continued...