This was back when I was still roaming the Four Blues.
I'd temporarily returned to the Grand Line on business… and that's when a small incident unfolded on a certain winter island.
…Sigh. I'm in trouble. I never imagined it would come to this.
At the time, I hadn't met Honey and the others yet. I was still sailing alone—free as the wind.
It was during that solo journey that I stopped at this island.
As you may or may not know, many islands in the first half of the Grand Line have fixed seasons.
There are spring islands, perpetually mild and warm. Summer islands. Autumn islands. Winter islands—each locked into its own climate.
On a summer island, summer is brutally hot… but winter is oddly comfortable. That sort of thing.
Add each island's unique weather patterns on top of that—and the fact that the "seasons" don't even change on any reliable schedule—and you end up with total climatic chaos.
…What's frightening is that even this is considered "peaceful" compared to the New World.
Anyway, I was now stranded on a winter island.
Not just any winter island, either—apparently one of the coldest. Colder than Drum Kingdom, the perpetually frozen island I'd visited before.
And to make matters worse, it was winter right now.
If "summer on a summer island" is bad, then this was the exact opposite—meaning the conditions were beyond brutal.
So yes. I was trapped here.
It was uninhabited now, but it hadn't always been. Apparently, the climate had eventually forced people to abandon it.
It reminded me of that Calm Belt island where Luffy trained for two years in the original story… I couldn't remember the name.
Of course, that island had been driven to ruin by monstrous beasts. This one had been destroyed by the weather.
There were wild animals here too, but the true menace was the cold itself.
I'd come to explore and document the ruins of the civilization that once stood here… but the moment I landed, a sudden cold wave froze the sea solid and trapped my ship in place.
After that, a blizzard settled in and refused to let go. Even if I could force the ship to move, the gale would flip me over in an instant.
Hail pounded without mercy. Visibility dropped to almost nothing—worse than any storm I'd ever seen. And to top it off, ice floes churned through the sea in endless numbers.
Yeah. I was stuck for a while. All I could do was wait for the weather to ease.
I wasn't the only one stranded, either.
"Hey, hey, it's freezing! Let's burn something and get a fire going!"
"Burn what? I don't have anything worth burning!"
"At this point, anything… well, not our sea charts or our bags, obviously…"
Three men who claimed to be adventurers.
They'd arrived by following their Log Pose across the Grand Line. They seemed fairly experienced—but this was apparently their first time getting caught in an environment this extreme. Had they just been lucky until now?
That luck had run out.
Now they were shaking, half from cold and half from fear.
"If we go outside, we can probably find animals or firewood… We've got a base camp set up too, so we should be able to last for a bit…"
Next was a young woman—maybe a wandering fighter, maybe a bounty hunter.
She looked like she could handle herself. The calm in her eyes was the kind you only got after surviving too many hard roads. Even now, she wasn't panicking.
I caught her glancing at me more than once. She probably recognized me as the so-called Pirate Literary Master.
But she wasn't foolish enough to pick a fight in these conditions. Not now.
At the moment, she sat in a corner with a cigarette between her lips, using the act of smoking to steady herself.
"Damn it… those bastards. They just left us behind!"
"That's why I didn't want to scout an island that was obviously dangerous…"
"We barely got away from the Marines, and now we're going to die here? Like hell we are!"
"....."
Three men who looked like typical pirates.
They must've stopped here during their voyage—judging by their complaints, they'd been chased by the Marines and ended up here by accident. While they were scouting the island, the weather flipped violently.
Their ship decided the island was too dangerous and sailed without them.
Leaving them stranded.
And then there was one more—someone the pirates had brought along as a porter.
A slave, most likely. He wore a collar—not one of those explosive ones, just thick leather. He'd probably been bought at a human auction house and forced into menial labor.
He barely spoke. His eyes darted between the pirates and the rest of us, his body trembling.
Probably not from the cold.
He was terrified.
Though… it might be cold, too. He was dressed far more lightly than the pirates. They were treating him miserably.
…And then—
"All right, all right, everyone! Moping won't help a thing!"
"Exactly! Fortune favors the cheerful! Come on, smile!"
"Meeting here must be fate! Let's all work together and survive!"
Three okama.
Three okama.
"Shut up, you freaks! Don't make so much noise at a time like this!"
"Yeah! You're an eyesore! Get lost already!"
"Oh my, what crude language!"
"Now, now, boys. Isn't that a bit much, considering the circumstances?"
"Exactly! Acting like that won't impress the ladies… shudder?"
…Shudder?
Shudder?
The okama struck their signature pose—pinky raised, head tilted, a wink thrown like a dagger.
(Ugh…)
The pirates took massive psychological damage.
If that wink needed a sound effect, it wouldn't be sparkle☆ or shine☆—it would be something more like BADJOON★.
The pirates went quiet, likely because they'd lost the will to argue.
…Honestly, though, these three okama—beards thick and tinged with blue, shoulders like boulders—were far more imposing than the pirates. Their bodies were huge. Intimidating.
I'd bet they were formidable fighters.
Taking down those three pirates would probably be effortless for them.
Between their faces, their voices, their sheer presence… the intimidation was overwhelming.
The room felt smaller. The air felt warmer.
No—maybe that warmth was welcome right now.
Apparently, these okama were on a bride-training journey, and they'd stopped at this island to purify and temper their bodies and minds beneath the icy waterfalls of winter.
…Where do I even begin with that?
Still, once I spoke with them, it was clear that beneath the flamboyance, they were decent people.
Actually, that seemed to be true of most okama in this world.
We were sheltering in the ruins of what had once been a settlement.
Stone and packed earth—sturdy structures that hadn't decayed much at all.
There were no signs of life left. No stored food. No clean water. Nothing.
But it blocked the worst of the wind and the hail, and the interior was surprisingly spacious.
Twelve people—me; three adventurers; one bounty hunter; three pirates; one slave; and three okama—could sleep here without being piled on top of each other. We even had enough room to stretch our legs and keep a little distance.
Still, it couldn't shut out the cold completely, and we were already running low on food.
We couldn't stay holed up forever.
Like the bounty hunter had said, sooner or later we'd have to go out—gather firewood, hunt for meat, find anything edible.
According to the okama, who seemed to know this island well, these blizzards came without warning and without pattern, and the weather wasn't likely to clear anytime soon.
Sometimes the wind and snow would ease—just enough for short trips outside to hunt or gather wood.
But it wouldn't last long. Not long enough to launch a ship. And the winds would remain dangerously strong.
So, they said, the only real option was to endure and wait.
How long would it take?
A few days… or as long as a month.
We'd have to survive that long.
The adventurers and pirates reacted exactly as you'd expect—shock, despair, agitation. But in the end, they resigned themselves. There was nothing else to do.
Even the okama, after explaining, stayed quiet and composed. They understood that people who'd stumbled into a trap like this needed time to calm down.
Considerate, as always.
In the middle of all that, the bounty hunter—still oddly unfazed—approached me.
She sat beside me and spoke in a low voice.
"You're Sue… the 'Pirate Literary Master,' right?"
"I never actually called myself that. What do you want, bounty hunter?"
"It's awkward to keep calling me that too. Name's Shere. Call me what you like. Straight to the point… I want to team up."
Shere laid it out simply.
If we wanted to survive, we had to pool our strength.
The cold. The beasts. The ruins. The unknowns. Trying to handle everything alone would get you killed. We needed roles—fighters to hunt, others to stand watch, people to handle chores and support.
To make that work, we needed reliable allies quickly.
That was why she'd come to me.
"Why me?"
"Elimination," she said. "Among the people here who can reasonably be considered allies right now, you're my top priority. Ideally, all of us would work together… but…"
Her eyes flicked around the room.
The three adventurers were rattled, and honestly, their stamina and combat ability looked questionable. Even if they helped, they'd be limited to menial tasks.
The three pirates were worse. Even in this crisis, their arrogance was already surfacing. They didn't look like the type to follow orders—or cooperate without trying to profit. I couldn't afford sabotage or betrayal when it mattered most.
And one of them had already thrown lewd glances at me and Shere more than once.
I didn't trust him enough to ever want him at my back.
The slave boy looked even frailer than the adventurers. You could see exhaustion weighing on him already. We couldn't rely on him either.
As for the three okama… unknown variable. For now, they were on hold.
"They're not idiots," Shere murmured. "They have to know cooperation is their only chance… but."
"People show their true selves in situations like this," I said. "Sometimes because of them. Emotions override logic."
Pointless fighting would be stupid, so yes—everyone would cooperate to a degree.
Standing watch. Maintaining shelter. Hunting. Rotating cooking duties if we had enough food to justify it.
But survival at the edge slowly grinds you down. You can't rule out someone snapping.
That was why Shere wanted a pact—someone she could rely on, someone who'd watch her back.
"Also," she added, "we're both women. That helps. To put it bluntly… if it's just you and me working together, even with limited resources, I think we can survive."
"Oh? You think highly of me. Thanks."
"And when it comes to changing clothes or washing up… that might be difficult, but we can at least take turns standing guard. Even in a situation like this, there are always idiots who let desire win."
"…True."
Maybe my nerves had finally settled, because I noticed the pirates watching us again.
Shere and I continued our conversation while keeping a quiet eye on them.
"So," she said. "What's your answer?"
"Of course. The pleasure's mine."
"Mm. Likewise."
And so began the survival journey of twelve stranded souls on a winter island.
How long it would last, no one knew.
In more ways than one.
To be continued...