"What's the damage report?"
"It's extensive, but… well within a range we can recover from. Fortunately, most of the attack was long-range bombardment, so casualties have been minimal."
"We've already mobilized all the engineers under our banner to assess the situation and arrange repairs, but even so… we should probably expect it to take a few weeks…"
"…Fine. If they brought in an Admiral and this is all we took, that's more than acceptable. I'm not going to rush you—just do it properly."
"Yes, sir!"
The day after Shiki's stronghold, Merveille, was attacked by the Marine fleet led by Admiral Aokiji…
Shiki sat on his usual throne, listening as his men reported the damage, issuing a stream of detailed orders as he directed the response.
As they'd said, the damage from the assault wasn't small. Even so, it was still well within the range of what could be repaired and replaced.
Pirates make their living in violence. They break things, and they get broken right back. Shiki and his crew had plenty of know-how when it came to rebuilding from rubble.
If the damage had been so catastrophic that recovery was impossible, that would be another matter. But if it was something they could handle, then it wasn't worth treating like a crisis.
"For now, we're going to move this island—soon, and by a lot," Shiki said. "I can guess how they found us… but that doesn't mean they won't send men in again by some other route. We'll let things cool down for a while."
"Understood."
After Aokiji was driven back by the combined technique Shiki and Sue unleashed—with Dr. Indigo's help—the battle itself ended quickly.
Or rather, Shiki ended it personally.
With the supreme commander out of the fight, and the Marines trapped in fear and chaos, Shiki descended among them.
Every warship had been fixed in place by the sea Aokiji froze… but Shiki carved through both ship and ice with flying slashes launched from the force of his kicks, shredding them to pieces.
Then he released the Float-Float Fruit's power—only in those specific sections.
What happened next was obvious.
The splintered warships, along with massive chunks of ice, all dropped without resistance, tumbling toward the vast ocean spread below.
After sweeping the Marines away like that, Shiki returned to the base, issued broad orders, and—finally feeling the weight of exhaustion—rested immediately.
And then the next day, he sat here, taking reports and issuing instructions to deal with the aftermath in earnest.
"Have you already taken the traitor into custody?"
"Yes. We caught several who tried to flee in the confusion of the attack. However, we haven't verified the facts yet… we arrested everyone we considered suspicious. They're all denying it so far, but…"
"It might not be all of them, but odds are the real one's in that pile," Shiki said. "Interrogate them, search their quarters—whatever it takes. Find them."
"Yes, sir!"
"…And Dr. Indigo."
"Yes?"
"What's she doing?"
"…Ah. The young lady. Right now, I believe she's…"
☆☆☆
"Another serving!"
"Y-yes! Right away!"
"I-it's being prepared now, so please wait just a moment…!"
"Yeah, sure. Take your time. I'm not in a hurry."
"Hey, hey—what are you, some kind of food fighter?"
"Hm? Oh. Hey. Thanks for the meal."
I was eating breakfast in the hideout's dining hall when Shiki walked in.
He stared at my table, and his face twisted into a strange mix of disbelief and exasperation.
Because laid out in front of me—right there on the table—were countless empty plates.
Bowls, party-sized platters… all of them, originally filled with what could've fed dozens of people.
And now every single one was empty.
I'd finished it all.
Honestly, I couldn't blame him for reacting like that.
The amount was absurd.
And the worst part was… I was just as baffled as he was.
What is happening to me? I've never had an appetite this insane in my life.
Sure, for a woman I'm fairly tall and I've always eaten a decent amount, but I've never eaten anything remotely like this in one sitting—not even close to the kind of ridiculous quantity Luffy puts away in the Original Work.
And I still wasn't satisfied.
No matter how much I ate, I didn't feel full.
My body just kept demanding more—more food, more nutrition, like it was insisting it still wasn't enough.
It didn't feel like my appetite control was simply broken, either. My stomach didn't seem anywhere near its limit.
No pain. No swelling. I didn't even look bloated. If anything, it felt like my body was burning through everything immediately, digesting it and converting it into energy on the spot.
A server brought more fruit, and as I kept eating, Shiki and Dr. Indigo looked at me like I was some kind of rare beast.
"Well, we've got plenty of supplies, so eat as much as you want," Shiki said. "I know Awakening drains you—after you use it, you get tired and hungry. I've felt that myself. But… does it really get this bad?"
"…I have a guess, Boss," Dr. Indigo said carefully. "Only a guess, though."
"—Hoh?" Shiki's eyes sharpened. "What is it?"
"Uh… it's a bit delicate, so I'd prefer to speak later. Not somewhere with eyes and ears around. A private room… and ideally after the young lady's finished eating, with her present as well."
"Hm?"
"I see… Hey. You heard that, didn't you?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah, yeah. I heard. Apple in potato salad is heresy, right?"
"Hah? What are you talking about?" Shiki snapped. "That crisp bite mixed into the creamy texture is the whole point! Sometimes they put cucumbers or pickles in too—it's the same idea!"
"Yeah, but cucumbers and pickles add crunch and salt, right? Apples bring sweetness, and it feels… kind of off. Doesn't it?"
"You idiot, that sweetness is what makes it refreshing—no, wait, that's not the point!" Shiki barked. "That's not what we're talking about! If you weren't listening, just say that! Why are you suddenly talking about potato salad!?"
"And why did you go along with it for a full second!?" I shot back.
A sharp smack cut through our bickering—Dr. Indigo slapped Shiki on the head without hesitation, a crisp, practiced motion.
That was a beautiful hit.
He's done that before. Definitely.
After that, my meal continued for a while longer…
☆☆☆
…And then we moved to another room.
Or rather, the same room where Shiki had questioned me on the first day.
"Now," Dr. Indigo began, "about the young lady's abnormal appetite… this is only a hypothesis, but I suspect her latent potential may be awakening."
He spoke in that careful, measured way of his—like he was laying out something that could go wrong if he got even one word out of place.
"During Sou's pregnancy, we were altering the child in her womb—meaning the young lady—through external modifications, raising her as a 'superhuman.' I believe I've already explained that. And as we discussed the other day, we thought that attempt ultimately failed due to illness."
"But it actually succeeded?" Shiki asked.
"More precisely… the procedures were completed and, in that sense, successful. However, before the results could fully bear fruit within her body, the illness interfered, preventing the process from reaching 'completion.' That is likely what happened."
Summing up what Dr. Indigo explained after that:
Sou's treatment to turn me into a "superhuman" had, in fact, almost entirely finished.
While I was still in her womb, the elements—the "materials," so to speak—needed to become a superhuman had already been placed inside me. Everything was prepared.
All that remained, aside from minor finishing steps, was for me to grow properly in the womb and be born.
If it had gone as planned, my body would've formed using those materials, and by the time I was born, I should've emerged as a superhuman.
But partway through, I contracted the illness—the one that affects fetuses.
And because of that, the final stage—"building the body"—stopped.
I could still be born and grow as a normal child.
But I didn't become a superhuman.
Still… the materials remained.
They weren't used in constructing my body, but they also weren't expelled or lost. They simply stayed inside me—sealed away, dormant, like something buried and forgotten.
So I was born normal. I grew up normal. I became an adult.
And all that time, those "superhuman materials" slept inside my body without changing anything.
Until the battle with Shiki.
Dr. Indigo's hypothesis was that during that fight, the dormant "superhuman" finally woke up, was absorbed into my body, and began doing the job it was always meant to do.
Just as Haki blooms under the pressure of life and death… the body, too, can break its restraints and surge forward when something triggers it.
Against Shiki, it hadn't been training. It hadn't been a mock fight.
It had been real.
And in that real battle, I'd thrown everything I had into it—my sword, my Powers, my Haki… even Awakening. In every sense, I fought at full strength.
Thinking back, that might've been the first time I'd ever fought like that.
Most fights up until now were fights I could win with room to spare. And even against someone like Rayleigh—someone I couldn't beat—while I did fight with everything I had, it was still training in the end. If I'm honest, I could say my mind wasn't truly desperate enough. I wasn't forced into that raw, ugly seriousness.
Even including the times I fought "over-a-hundred-million" pirates, if someone asked me when I'd fought with the most absolute "full strength"…
Yeah.
It was that fight.
I remember it clearly: right to the very end, my ability and my focus stayed at a peak I didn't even know I could maintain. It was like I'd discovered a deeper well of myself mid-battle.
A fight where I poured in everything I had—body and soul.
And that, Dr. Indigo believed, was what likely triggered the superhuman sleeping inside me.
"If that hypothesis is correct," he continued, "then I can't honestly predict what changes will occur in the young lady's body from here. However, if her body is truly shifting into something that can be called 'superhuman,' then it would require a tremendous amount of energy. The abnormal appetite we just witnessed is likely her body seeking that energy."
"So she's going to keep changing," Shiki said. "And get stronger."
"As I said, we can't know until it happens," Dr. Indigo replied. "I did review Sou's research materials, but… they appear to have been incomplete. The descriptions are, frankly, vague."
"Easy for you to say," I muttered. "I'm the one who's about to 'become' whatever this is."
I remembered… something about becoming a "Big Mom"-level monster.
I didn't know the details of what Big Mom was like.
But from the way Shiki described her the other day, she sounded less like a person and more like a nightmare that happened to walk on two legs.
And I did not want that.
"Even if the human body changes rapidly, there are limits," Dr. Indigo said. "It isn't as though you'll suddenly become like Big Mom—over eight meters tall, strong enough to instantly kill giants, with a body so tough cannonballs and blades don't work. That won't happen overnight."
"Everything you just said sounds like 'not human,'" I shot back.
"I've thought that more times than I can count," Shiki said flatly, "but she is, species-wise. Somehow."
"Setting aside Big Mom—who would absolutely become a giant if you rounded her off…" Dr. Indigo cleared his throat. "Based on Sou's notes, the primary changes in the young lady will likely be to her body—her physical side. There were many passages about focusing on the lineage factors associated with that."
"So I'll become physically superhuman," I said.
"Even the word 'superhuman' can mean many things," Dr. Indigo replied. "There are 'superhumans' who gain overwhelming combat power by implanting machines or weapons into their bodies, and there are 'superhumans' who, through lineage factor manipulation, manifest bodily functions and traits humans normally do not possess. What Sou pursued was likely closer to the latter… but the direction seemed especially simple. It looked like enhancement focused almost entirely on raw physical ability."
"So I don't gain new kinds of abilities," I said slowly. "I just become… absurdly strong, physically. That's it."
"Yes. It's not flashy. It's not strange-looking. But that simplicity makes it easy to train toward, easy to handle, and it leaves fewer weaknesses," Dr. Indigo said. "And if you consider that Big Mom was born having already reached something like the end-point of that concept…"
"I see," Shiki said, nodding. "Yeah. That's plenty terrifying."
Shiki—who seemed to have known Big Mom for a long time—nodded with something like grim familiarity.
…He knew too much.
It wasn't just that he'd lived in the same era. The way he talked about Whitebeard and Big Mom felt… deeper.
Like there was more there.
Maybe I should ask him sometime.
"By the way," Shiki said, turning his gaze to Dr. Indigo, "that technology—can we reproduce it?"
"No," Dr. Indigo answered immediately. "Impossible. It's too complex, and there are far too many uncertain variables. The young lady's condition is the result of Sou—someone who understood every field—playing an ultimate trump card: 'making himself the experiment.' And then, on top of that… it's as if five or six miracles happened in a row and produced this outcome. Whether it even counts as a 'success' is still unknown."
"Then there's no point thinking about reproducing it."
"Young lady," Dr. Indigo said, "if you notice any changes in your body, do not hide them. Report them to us. We'll run tests and take the appropriate measures."
"Yeah," I said. "I will. Thanks."
And just like that, the explanation—hypothesis or not—about the strange change in my body was finished.
At the same time, Shiki told me that repeated Awakening use would've left the kind of fatigue that doesn't show right away, so I could stay here for a while. Eat and sleep as much as I wanted. Rest.
He also waved off the "debt" from refusing to join the Golden Lion Pirates—the one we talked about before—saying my work this time had settled it.
Generous, huh.
…It was strange.
When someone treated me that generously, part of me started to feel uncomfortable just taking it.
Not long ago, I'd been thinking, I'm going to beat him down and leave as soon as I can.
But now… maybe because we fought together once, I didn't feel that same disgust anymore.
Or maybe…
Maybe it really was because he was family, after all.
Back when Shiki said it, he was probably just trying to provoke me. But it was still true: if you're talking about blood relatives, he's the only one I have left.
And if I was going to be staying here for tests and rest for a while…
…Yeah.
Maybe a little more filial piety wouldn't earn me any punishment.
"Hey, Boss?"
"Hm? What?"
"This whole incident happened because there was a traitor, or a spy, inside, right?" I said. "If you want… I can help with the interrogation."
"?" Shiki looked at me. "You got experience with interrogation or torture?"
"No, nothing like that. I don't have any experience at all," I said. "But if I do it… we won't need an interrogation."
To be continued...