Victor Shaw gently comforted the woman by his side his somewhat foolish, slightly naïve, and occasionally arrogant Queen.
Sally De Cannette, despite her noble upbringing, wasn't used to navigating power struggles of this scale.
So Victor didn't press the issue with Garp any further.
Instead, his mind was elsewhere.
He was already thinking about how to make the Goa Kingdom stronger, wealthier, and far more influential.
Thanks to the recent influx of riches from the Oterluk estate, the kingdom could easily afford the Celestial Tribute required by the World Government.
But just because there was no financial pressure, didn't mean Victor felt no pressure at all.
After all, transmigrating into the One Piece world came with a certain unspoken expectation
Overthrow Imu. Dethrone the Gorosei.
It was practically the main storyline quest assigned to every transmigrator in this universe.
However, unlike others who started from the bottom sailing as pirates or Marines Victor had already taken a shortcut.
He had seized control of a kingdom.
That changed things.
He needed to think carefully about his next move.
Taking down the Celestial Dragons couldn't be done with brute force alone.
It would have to be… strategic.
Push them from the front.
Flank them from the sides.
Strike from above.
Collapse them from below.
Step by step.
At first? Play the part.
Pay the Celestial Tribute.
Play the loyal king.
Then?
Take it all back at once.
The moment his thoughts drifted to his Devil Fruit ability, a grin crept onto Victor's face.
If he developed it to its full potential… he could even disguise himself as a Celestial Dragon, infiltrate them from within, and wait for the perfect moment to banish Imu into the distant future
And take the Empty Throne for himself.
Dethrone the Celestial Dragons.
Become one.
Surpass them.
Replace them.
By the time Imu finally returned from wherever he was banished, Victor Shaw would have already reshaped the world.
Stronger.
Smarter.
Untouchable.
Why stop at being King of Goa?
He'd be King of the World.
Of course, there was one big condition:
He needed to develop his Devil Fruit ability to the point where he could truly banish someone like Imu.
If he could do that?
Then the Gorosei, the Four Emperors, even Sun God Nika himself…
Wouldn't be able to escape.
Whoever stood in his way
Would be banished.
And this world?
Would be his.
Yes. That was right.
Victor Shaw had obtained the Paramecia-type Time-Time Fruit (Toki Toki no Mi) during his brutal survival battles in Edge Town.
It was the very same Devil Fruit once eaten by that foolish woman Kozuki Toki, back in the days of Wano Country.
He never expected that all three Devil Fruits of the fallen Wano warriors had been reborn in the East Blue.
For example:
The Barrier-Barrier Fruit (Bari Bari no Mi) once wielded by Kurozumi Semimaru had ended up in Bartolomeo's hands he'd eaten it in Loguetown, also in East Blue.
And now?
The Time-Time Fruit once belonging to Toki had appeared in the Edge Town slums of the Goa Kingdom.
And Victor?
Had claimed it.
At first, Victor Shaw had been sorely disappointed by his Time-Time Fruit.
In fact, he thought the ability was completely useless.
It only allowed him to travel forward in time never back.
Exactly like that foolish woman Kozuki Toki had done.
And honestly, what was the point of that?
Even Foxy's Slow-Slow Fruit seemed more useful in comparison!
Just slow your enemies down and whack 'em. That's practical.
But, as it turned out…
Victor had judged too soon.
The fault didn't lie with the Time-Time Fruit itself.
The fault lay with Toki.
That naive, clumsy woman from Wano, who had leapt 800 years into the future just to drop dead in someone else's tragedy.
She had possessed such a powerful Paramecia-type Devil Fruit, and yet she developed it into something so shallow, so wasteful, that Victor could barely believe it.
What a waste.
Because in reality?
The Time-Time Fruit was a terrifying, game-breaking ability.
Victor preferred to call it "Time Banishment."
That was the true nature of its power.
Right now, his mastery over the fruit was already ten thousand times more precise than Toki's ever had been.
She had leapt centuries forward and still landed decades off her mark.
Was that supposed to be impressive?
Victor had seen more accurate postal services.
She was blind figuratively and emotionally. Falling head over heels for Kozuki Oden, getting herself tangled in the Fire Festival mess, and ultimately sacrificing herself for a dream she barely understood.
What kind of person takes the power to transcend time and uses it… to get buried alive with her boyfriend?
Toki had become a legend of wasted potential.
And Victor?
He was here to correct that mistake.
Now, he had developed a technique far more refined something that reminded him of Obito's Kamui from another world.
He could leave behind a spatiotemporal phantom, a shell or projection of himself
and banish his true body into a future space-time layer, completely untouchable by enemies.
No one could land a hit on his real body.
Not a blade.
Not a bullet.
Not a Buster Call.
And when he was ready?
He could just walk back into reality.
Of course, there were drawbacks.
It drained stamina.
It couldn't teleport him.
And it lacked a full-blown parallel dimension like Obito's Kamui space.
Still, for dodging, stalling, or countering sneak attacks?
It was practically divine.
His only concern was being ambushed by someone truly powerful.
But even then he had a backup plan.
If things got dicey?
He could simply cancel his phantom and jump far into the future.
Let the enemy wait for him for a lifetime if they dared!
Victor chuckled to himself.
"Let's see who has more time to waste."
If someone really ambushed him for a lifetime…
Then Victor Shaw would simply wait them out.
After all, during time travel, his lifespan remained untouched.
That was one of the strange benefits of the Time-Time Fruit his body didn't age while moving forward through the timeline.
Of course, this didn't mean the fruit was without flaws.
Its biggest shortcoming?
When used on oneself, it couldn't trigger spatial movement.
But Victor was starting to bend that rule.
By expanding his Time Domain, he discovered something clever.
He could banish his opponents freezing them in time while he remained active and moving.
And that?
That was essentially relative teleportation.
That was exactly how he'd butchered the rebel soldiers in the capital.
From their perspective, they had been instantly teleported on by Victor.
One moment they were facing him from afar.
The next, slash! he was right in front of them, sword already swinging.
But in reality?
Victor had simply banished them each to a different point in the near future "respawning" them one by one so he could take them down methodically.
To those soldiers, it looked like he had teleported.
But to Victor, he was just moving forward in time, while they were paused.
This was time manipulation disguised as teleportation.
It was a concept similar to Trafalgar Law's ROOM which allowed for instantaneous spatial swaps and slashes within a spherical zone.
But unlike Law's spatial dominance, Victor used temporal dominance.
Law could cut space.
Victor could slice time.
And from the enemy's point of view, the result felt the same: a lethal ambush out of nowhere.
Of course, his Time-Time Fruit was still far from complete.
That's why Victor trained relentlessly, pushing himself toward mastering all three types of Haki Observation, Armament, and Conqueror's.
He needed that power to stay alive in a world filled with monsters.
His gut told him the fruit he had eaten was likely an incomplete version of a truly godlike time ability.
It could only manipulate future time, not the past.
Was that a flaw in the fruit itself?
Or had Toki's weak development stunted its true potential?
Right now, Victor couldn't develop any abilities related to traveling backwards in time.
And that was probably for the best.
Because altering the past could unleash cataclysmic butterfly effects, warping fate, disturbing karma, and disrupting the world's natural order.
Even the greatest Paramecia-type fruit might shatter trying to resist that kind of cosmic backlash.
But moving forward in time?
That carried fewer consequences.
And even with just half of its full potential…
The Time-Time Fruit was already absurdly overpowered.
Its most broken feature?
Long-term banishment.
Victor could throw his enemies forward years, even decades into the future.
By the time they came back?
They'd be facing a fully evolved Victor Shaw, potentially with power levels approaching gods.
It was the ultimate delay-and-destroy tactic.
And as of now, most opponents couldn't even resist being banished.
Unless they wielded very advanced Haki, they were helpless against his domain.
In that way, the Time-Time Fruit had a lot in common with the Barrier-Barrier Fruit used by Bartolomeo.
Even if someone had strong Armament Haki, they couldn't break Bartolomeo's barrier unless their Haki reached the very top tier.
Victor's banishment worked the same way.
Only the most elite warriors could shrug it off.
To everyone else?
It was game over the moment he raised his hand.
Compared to that, Law's Op-Op Fruit while versatile was limited by stamina, surgery-type mechanics, and physical touch.
Enemies Law couldn't displace?
Victor could just banish.
No muss. No fuss. No mercy.
After all, the Op-Op Fruit may be versatile, but its strength lies in its variety of abilities, not in raw purity.
The Time-Time Fruit, on the other hand, is pure and terrifyingly advanced.
Time rules. Space obeys.
That's not just a saying. It's a fundamental truth.
As that maniac Blackbeard Teach once said: "Either I kill the Pirate Empress instantly, or she kills me instantly."
In this world, it's all about who acts first. Act fast, and you win. Act slow, and you're done.
These high-tier Devil Fruits?
They're built for decisive battles.
Even someone as legendary as Iron Fist Garp if he lets his guard down for a second and forgets to reinforce himself with Haki could be banished by Victor Shaw for years… or even decades.
It's not about brute strength anymore.
Look at the Magnet-Magnet Fruit after awakening. Even someone like Big Mom, one of the Four Emperors, got her entire body forcibly magnetized.
Or take Kaido of the Beasts his nearly invincible form turned into rubber by Sun God Nika.
These are abilities that distort reality itself.
So what if Victor could develop his Time-Time Fruit to the point where he could forcibly banish Emperor-level monsters to future timelines?
That would be insane.
Anyone who dares to provoke him banished.
Whether it's the World Government, the Marines, or the Celestial Dragons…
Victor Shaw won't let any of them off the hook.
God's Knights, Gorosei, even Imu?
One by one, they'll all be hurled into the distant future.
And by the time they reappear?
The world will have changed.
Because Victor Shaw will be the one ruling it.