"Hey! Ha! Hah!"
Zhang Da Ye was standing a couple of meters away from a plate of pastries, stretching his hand toward it with all his focus. To anyone else, he looked exactly like a scammer pretending to use telekinesis.
Naturally, no matter how hard he tried, the plate didn't budge, and his arm didn't change one bit.
Artoria, Rui Meng Meng, Shark Chili, and Tom sat in a neat row, all propping their chins with their left hands as they watched Zhang Da Ye struggle. Then, as if on cue, they switched to their right hands, still in perfect unison. The synchronized movement was oddly satisfying.
After a while, Zhang Da Ye lost some spirit. "Seriously, did you guys actually see my arm stretch?"
Artoria and Rui Meng Meng nodded. Rui Meng Meng added, "Not only did it stretch, it bent too."
Shark Chili waved his hand. "Don't look at me. I was in my room. By the time I came out, you were already acting crazy. I didn't see a thing."
Tom shook his head, signaling that he hadn't seen it either.
Zhang Da Ye protested. "Tom, you were the one involved! How can you not know?"
Tom pointed at his own back, then at Zhang Da Ye, meaning, "I had my back turned to you. Of course I didn't see. Besides, weren't you also the one involved?"
"Sure, I was, but all I did was stretch my hand toward the door. It felt like something yanked me back from the doorway."
That part made sense—Tom running downstairs in that short time didn't raise suspicion. The real mystery was his arm. Did it stretch by itself? Was it some sort of passive ability, or was it something he could control?
He remembered how one of Tom's former owners once caught Tom's tail from across the room. Did this mean he had awakened some kind of guaranteed Tom-catching skill?
Completely useless!
Zhang Da Ye frowned, then decided it must be linked to Tom's influence on his body. "Alright, Tom, you try with the plate of pastries."
Tom happily ran over, picked up the plate, and handed it to him with an expectant look for praise.
Zhang Da Ye rubbed his forehead. "I meant stay put and try to stretch your arm to grab it."
Tom slapped his thigh and laughed out loud. What a joke—how could a cat's arm stretch? Impossible.
With that, Tom strolled into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Halfway there, he suddenly remembered the plate in his paw and casually put it back.
The others froze as they watched a furry cat paw snake out from the kitchen, place the plate neatly back on the table, and retract.
"…," they all thought. With this cat, taking anything seriously was a guaranteed loss.
Zhang Da Ye's face was full of frustration.
Rui Meng Meng blinked and said, "I'll go help in the kitchen."
Artoria looked at him. "Do you want to keep practicing?"
"No. This isn't something I can practice my way into." Zhang Da Ye sighed.
"Oh." Artoria happily picked up the plate and began eating pastries.
Zhang Da Ye went silent. He'd thought she was about to comfort him. Fine, better to practice sword swings instead.
He moved to the yard, swinging his sword over and over. Shark Chili joined him, throwing punches using the techniques Jinbe had taught him.
Although, with those short, shark-fin-like arms, it was debatable whether they counted as proper fists at all.
"One-thousand Tile True Punch!" Shark Chili called out with each blow, analyzing his weaknesses as he practiced.
Zhang Da Ye tilted his head. "With your strength, enough to stop a train with one hand, isn't one thousand tiles too low? Even without technique, your raw power should exceed that."
"It's different," Shark Chili said seriously. "If I rely only on brute force, I'd be no better than Hody Jones. I want to build from the basics—step by step—mastering the true essence of Fishman Karate."
"Fair point." Zhang Da Ye nodded. Shark Chili was much more mature than his appearance suggested. He rarely had to worry about him going astray.
What he wanted to point out, though, was that for an ordinary fishman, a thousand-tile punch was already a finishing move. But for Shark Chili, it was just a warm-up drill. Truly, having monstrous strength was unfair.
After a solid training session, Zhang Da Ye had saved enough points for a lottery draw before dinner. This time, both rewards happened to suit Shark Chili:
[Shark Chili's Black Martial Arts Uniform: Usable before and after transformation. Shark Chili once wore this during a judo tournament and defeated Kabuda.]
[Kabuda's Electric Rod: Kabuda's secondary weapon, though usable by ordinary humans. Dr. Takayama once used it to shock Shark Chili into submission.]
"Finally, something useful." Zhang Da Ye handed the black gi to Shark Chili.
"Oh? A martial arts uniform? Perfect, this should make training even more comfortable." Shark Chili eagerly changed into it.
Zhang Da Ye smiled with relief. At last, he was wearing clothes. Without them, Shark Chili was too hard to see as anything but a strange robot. Seeing him bare all the time had been uncomfortable.
Next came the electric rod, about fifty centimeters long. It resembled a stag beetle's head with some modifications. A button on the handle unleashed crackling sparks.
To Zhang Da Ye, it looked like a basic stun baton. But if it had once taken down Shark Chili in his super form, it had to be something more.
"Whoa! How did you get your hands on that?!" Shark Chili jumped back two steps in alarm.
Zhang Da Ye frowned. "Come on, it's not that serious. Do you know how it works? Does it need charging?"
"I don't know. Don't ask me. Just—please—don't point it at me. Whenever I see a human holding it, my waist aches and I get a splitting headache." Shark Chili shuddered. He remembered how the doctor once jabbed his waist with that very rod, and how the scar on his head came from that incident too.
Against Kabuda it hadn't felt like much. But in human hands, it only brought back the trauma of being punished.
"Alright, alright. I'll figure it out myself." Zhang Da Ye tucked the rod away, planning to test it on some sea beast later.
…
Elsewhere, someone else was nursing a headache too. In Marineford, Fleet Admiral "Steel Bone" Kong rubbed his temples, muttering that this year had been nothing but trouble.
It had taken years to settle the uproar from the Holy Land attack three years ago. Jinbe had even joined the Warlords, and things seemed to be heading in a good direction.
Then Saint Mjosgard disappeared, leaving Kong harassed for weeks by the noble's father. Fortunately, Mjosgard eventually returned safely, and Fishman Island even reached out with friendly gestures toward the World Government.
But before Kong could relax, word came of the Red-Haired Pirates wreaking havoc in the New World.
He knew about Shanks—once an apprentice on Roger's ship. Ten years later, while most of Roger's crew had gone into seclusion, Shanks had risen into one of the most notorious pirates.
One more big pirate wasn't necessarily an issue. After all, their numbers were already rising sharply. The problem was Shanks' identity. That made things far more complicated, and Kong didn't know how to handle it.
Another pirate from the same era had also gone quiet—either retired or plotting something big. Kong made a note to keep an eye on that too.
Before he could decide what to do about Shanks, fresh intel arrived: Crocodile and Dracule Mihawk had met in Alabasta.
Two Warlords meeting was no small matter. If they had fought over personal grudges, that would've been manageable. But just exchanging a few words and parting ways? That was much more concerning.
Kong never fully trusted the Seven Warlords. He was certain those two were scheming something. Otherwise, why would Mihawk travel thousands of miles just to chat with Crocodile for a moment?
This had to be investigated. Mihawk was too solitary to tail effectively, but Crocodile had been rooted in Alabasta for years. He was the better lead.
This year really was cursed. One problem after another. Maybe it was time to hand things off to Sengoku sooner than planned.
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