When I opened my eyes… the first thing I saw was the ceiling of a room that looked like a guest cabin.
My body sank into something soft. A bed. So I'd been laid out properly, at least.
…And I remembered everything, annoyingly clearly, right up to the moment I blacked out.
I'd pushed my Awakening to full output and fought like my life depended on it—because it did—but I couldn't finish him before the timer ran out.
My stamina hit zero.
I fizzled out mid-fight and dropped.
…That moment right before losing consciousness—everything felt weirdly slow. Like the world had dipped into syrup. And because of that, I understood it perfectly: I'd lost. Or rather, I was about to lose. I even remember thinking, Ehh… seriously? You've got to be kidding me.
Right before the darkness took me, I might've felt someone—or something—catch me, lifting me up.
Or maybe I imagined it.
Whatever.
So I figured the next time I opened my eyes, it'd be behind bars.
Guess I was wrong.
I tried to sit up through the aches—only for my strength to drain the instant I put effort into it.
Still out of stamina? I thought, for half a second.
No.
I knew this sensation.
The harder I tried to exert myself, the more my power slipped away—like something was choking it off at the source.
My left arm felt off. I looked down.
A bracelet I'd never seen before was locked around my wrist.
"…Yeah. Of course you'd restrain me. Still… I'll take this over a cell."
It was probably Sea Prism Stone—just like the accessories they used back in Mary Geoise, when I was living as a "Celestial Dragon's wife."
With this on, I couldn't use my Devil Fruit. And even Haki was sealed. The moment I tried to focus power, it got suppressed.
Low purity, maybe. I could still move normally. I could tell by feel.
Wow. Been a while since I got captured, I thought, weirdly calm—
"Oy. You're awake."
The door opened. Shiki walked in with Dr. Indigo.
Shiki had a bandage stuck to his cheek, but he looked perfectly lively. Too lively.
"…So I lost."
"Yep."
He exhaled smoke like it was punctuation.
"But relax. Just because you lost doesn't mean I'm gonna force you to become my subordinate."
…Huh?
"Even if we settled the score," Shiki went on, "dragging in someone who clearly hates our guts? That's a trust problem. I'm not inviting a worm into the lion's belly."
"Because you're the Golden Lion?"
"Nice."
He jabbed a finger at me like I'd just nailed a punchline.
…I'd been thinking it for a while, but this guy really does have a playful streak.
And that was the problem.
If you ignored the fact that he was an unrepentant villain, he wasn't… immediately hateable.
…Or maybe—some part of me was reacting to him being my biological father.
Not that it mattered. I wasn't about to help a pure-bred bastard commit pure-bred bastard crimes.
Blood ties only go so far.
…Still.
Even "so far" isn't the same as "zero."
And I hated that I could feel the difference.
"So," I asked, "what happens to me now? I'm in a nice room. Are you… letting me go?"
"That's not happening."
Shiki's tone was flat.
"Like I said, I'm not forcing you into the crew. But letting you walk after you fought me? That stains my name as a pirate. You're gonna pay a debt. One way or another."
Yeah. There it is.
The bracelet kind of screamed We're not letting you do whatever you want.
But "pay a debt" could mean anything, and I didn't exactly have a pirate etiquette handbook in my pocket.
Shiki leaned forward, grinning.
"You're a writer, right, Sensei? Try guessing with that famous imagination of yours."
Ugh.
This was the writer-version of "Hey comedian, do something funny."
Ideas don't come out on command just because you've got a job title.
But fine. If he wanted imagination—
"Arms… fingers… legs… eyes… ears…"
"This girl's default imagination is horrifying," Shiki said, like he was judging a cooking show.
…Wrong genre? Okay, switch lanes.
"Forced labor… underground kingdoms… organs… surrogate mothers… breeding stock… sacrifices…"
Dr. Indigo sighed like he'd aged five years.
"Being imaginative doesn't always make someone appealing, does it."
And then, as if that wasn't enough, he added:
"Honestly, what terrifies me most is how much this confirms her blood relation to Sou."
"Can you two stop talking like I'm not here," I muttered.
"Answer's simple," Shiki said. "I haven't decided yet. But you're doing something that benefits my crew. Eventually. Until then—"
He waved a hand.
"—you'll stay here."
"Well, I can't exactly refuse," I said dryly. "So where's my 'accommodation'? This room, or am I being moved to a cell later?"
"This room's fine. With that on your wrist, you can't pull anything too dangerous."
Then, like he was casually discussing the weather:
"Oh. And if you try to leave the hideout, that thing explodes. Don't get any clever ideas."
"…Ehh. That's terrifying."
I swallowed.
"But okay. If the rule is 'don't leave,' I can do that. I'm used to being locked up. Either way."
Shiki stared.
"What kind of life have you lived?"
Then he added, half-proud:
"…I've been in Impel Down myself."
"Wasn't the worst part the boredom?" I said. "Shackles, can't move right, same walls, same view… it starts to feel like you can't breathe."
"Yeah! Exactly!" Shiki snapped his fingers. "You keep thinking, Can something—anything—happen? No newspapers, no distractions… I got so bored I started thinking, Maybe torture would at least be stimulating."
"Okay, no. I'm not built like that."
"…Why are we bonding over prison life," Dr. Indigo cut in, utterly done with both of us. "Father and daughter, too."
That… made me pause.
Because he wasn't wrong.
Shiki rubbed his head like he'd just remembered why he came here, then—unfortunately—did a "tehepero"-style gesture.
An old man doing that should be illegal.
"What, you bastard!" Shiki barked at Dr. Indigo. "You do it too!"
"I do," Dr. Indigo said, dead serious. "And unlike you, I have the looks for it."
Shiki squinted at him.
"But you're twenty-seven. 'Tehepero' at twenty-seven? Round up and you're basically thirty. As a parent, I don't know what kind of face I'm supposed to make."
"Still workable," Dr. Indigo replied. "I made the newspaper's 'Top 10 Beautiful Pirates' list recently."
Shiki's eyes narrowed further.
"That's impressive. And I'm willing to bet most of the people who voted for you did it because they don't know what you're like inside."
Dr. Indigo coughed politely.
"Anyway. Boss. Miss. We're drifting off course. You came to explain what happens next."
…Miss?
That word hit me wrong.
Like I'd been dropped into some old gangster drama where the math tutor calls the boss's granddaughter ojou.
I must've made a face, because Dr. Indigo immediately clarified:
"She's Boss Shiki's daughter, so 'Miss' seemed appropriate."
"But I'm not joining," I said. "I want to settle this and leave."
"That's how you feel right now," Shiki shrugged. "You might change your mind. For now, let him call you that."
"…Fine," I sighed. "Whatever."
As long as they didn't pull some "well you stayed long enough so you're crew now" nonsense.
Not me.
No way.
Shiki spread his hands.
"Besides banning you from leaving, you're free. Food whenever you want, whatever you want. Delivered to this room."
Then he jerked his chin toward the hallway.
"And since you're here… look around. This room, the library across the way. Do what you like."
"Library?" I echoed.
"Yeah." Shiki's tone shifted slightly. "Your mother—Sou. Her books. Her notes. Her stuff is there."
My heart jumped before I could stop it.
Dr. Indigo added, more measured:
"Anything truly important—research materials, papers, that kind of thing—has been moved to the active lab for safekeeping. What's left is mostly personal books. But you might still find something connected to her."
…I see.
If I couldn't leave anyway, I might as well.
☆☆☆
A few days passed.
I stayed in the Golden Lion Pirates' hideout in conditions that were honestly too comfortable for a "prisoner."
Three meals a day, no work required.
Aside from "you can't leave," I could do almost anything.
It reminded me of Mary Geoise—how I'd lived there for about a year.
Even the way everyone treated me felt familiar. Excessively respectful. Like I was something fragile or valuable.
This time, at least, I wasn't a spectacle.
I was being treated—temporarily—as the Golden Lion's daughter.
No one banned me from writing, either, so whenever I felt like it, I picked up a pen and scribbled down whatever came to mind.
And every day, I went to the library.
I read.
Most of it was specialized stuff—medical texts, chemistry, biology, pharmacology, engineering… the kind of books Dr. Indigo had decided weren't worth relocating.
At first I thought: What am I even supposed to do with this?
But—
"…It's not like it's total gibberish," I murmured one afternoon.
It was strange.
These were fields I'd never studied. Knowledge I'd never touched.
And yet, a lot of it slid into my head like it belonged there.
Not everything.
But more than it should've.
I'd always assumed I was a pure humanities brain—Pirate Literary Master, hello.
So what was this?
Did I inherit it from Sou?
Or—
(Superhumanization… did they only modify the body? Or did they mess with the brain too? No, but… that project was considered a failure, wasn't it?)
Well. It wasn't like I was losing anything.
Knowledge was knowledge.
Still… no matter how much I read, the library didn't seem to shrink at all.
How many thousands of books were here?
This was easily the scale of a small school library.
As someone's personal collection, it was absurd.
…Did my birth mother really read all of this? And remember it?
If she did… then Shiki and Dr. Indigo weren't exaggerating. She really was a monster of a mind.
Thinking that, I reached for the next "book."
I expected another dense textbook.
But when I opened it—
"…This isn't a book."
The pages were different. The handwriting was personal.
"…A diary?"
☆☆☆
Elsewhere—on the flagship's bridge.
Shiki sat on the throne built into the bridge, cigar in hand.
Dr. Indigo stood nearby, careful as he asked:
"So, Boss… what are you going to do with Miss in the end?"
Shiki exhaled smoke and stared at the ceiling like the answer might be floating there.
"Don't know. If she'd cooperate willingly, she'd be a damn reliable piece on the board."
Then his mouth twisted.
"But she's already a full-on wild horse. Just like her mother. If I try hostage tactics, she'll become a worm in the lion's belly the same day."
Dr. Indigo nodded.
"And she doesn't have anyone left. Sou's gone. No family, no ties you can use."
"Tch." Shiki clicked his tongue. "That idiot woman really left me something annoying."
Normally, Shiki would've used anything—hostages, threats, cruelty—whatever forced loyalty.
But this girl didn't give him the leverage.
And stranger than that…
Shiki found himself unwilling to use those tactics in the first place.
Almost without thinking.
That was new.
Confusing.
He'd even considered letting her go and washing his hands of it—something that, for him, bordered on absurd.
(So this is what it is? Being a parent? Feelings that don't follow logic… but they're still there.)
He muttered, almost to himself:
"…Would Newgate or Linlin understand this?"
The old man who called his crew "sons."
The woman who built an empire with her own bloodline at its core.
But his words were too quiet. Dr. Indigo didn't catch them.
Instead, he asked something else.
"Boss… why didn't you explain Sou properly back then?"
"Hm? Explain what?"
"The part about her falling ill right before giving birth. The way you said it makes it sound like you just kicked her off the ship."
"I did," Shiki said bluntly. "No lies there."
"No, not a lie," Dr. Indigo agreed. "But you left out the part where she tried to kill herself first."
Twenty-seven years ago—Sou fell sick right before delivery.
The "Superhuman" birth was no longer possible.
Faced with the truth that her final masterpiece—the child in her womb—would be reduced to an ordinary human's strength… maybe worse…
Sou broke.
She apologized to Shiki for the failure of the "final experiment," offered her life as payment, and asked him to kill her.
If he refused, she'd do it herself.
But Shiki refused both options.
He ordered her to live.
You failed at the end—but your years of service were real. Don't erase them.
That child is my blood.
Don't treat it like trash just because it won't be useful as a soldier.
You're dying anyway. I'm not wasting effort killing you early.
Live to the end. And if you can—give birth. Stay with the kid to the last second. You might understand something then. Maybe. Who knows.
And instead of abandoning her on a random island like she asked, Shiki took her—by prior research—to the island where her sister, Kuu, lived, and left her there.
If he'd let Sou drown in despair…
Sue would've never been born.
Dr. Indigo said quietly:
"If you told Miss that… you might've made her feel indebted. It could've tilted her toward us."
"Maybe," Shiki admitted.
Then he started to speak—
and the world exploded.
DOOOOON…!!
"…What?" Shiki snapped upright. "What the hell was that?!"
Another blast followed. Then another.
Not inside the island-ship.
Outside.
Rapid succession.
He barked orders at the operators watching the monitors.
And within seconds, the cause filled one screen—
Marine warships.
Multiple.
Floating around the island, bombarding it—and the surrounding facilities—with relentless cannon fire.
"That's… Marine ships?!" someone shouted.
"Impossible!" another officer blurted. "This is a sky island—no one can reach it without Lord Shiki's guidance! How did they get up here—?!"
How didn't matter right now.
They were here.
Shiki's gaze went cold.
He cut off the levitation of the seawater around the island—the section the warships floated on—intending to drop ships and sea together, smashing them into the surface.
But—
PAKIN.
The water froze.
The ships froze with it—locked in place like they'd been nailed to the island itself.
They'd turned from warships into fixed artillery platforms.
And the bombardment intensified.
Shiki stared at the ice—at the technique, at the signature—and immediately knew who had brought the Marines here.
☆☆☆
On the deck of one of the Marine ships—
A tall, heavy-built man wore an eye mask and moved with lazy, unbothered calm as he gave orders.
"Alright. That should do it."
He yawned through his words.
"You guys handle the rest. The Golden Lion's gonna show up soon, so I'm heading over to deal with him."
"Yes, sir!"
"May fortune favor you…"
The officers snapped to attention.
"Admiral Aokiji!"
To be continued...