Chapter 88: Retinal Scarring and Revolutionary Reminiscing
(POV: Sunny)
I wasn't running because I was tired. Let's get that straight. My stamina stats are high enough to sprint from one end of Alabasta to the other without breaking a sweat. No, I was running because my brain was currently experiencing a full-system meltdown, and if I stayed in that palace for one more second, I was going to short-circuit.
Every time I closed my eyes—hell, even when they were wide open—all I could see was that. The curve. The skin. The sheer, unadulterated "what the hell did I just do" of Crocodile's new anatomy.
My Knocking technique had worked. It had worked too well. I'd gone in intending to paralyze the Baroque Works elite and maybe humble the Warlord, but instead, I'd accidentally performed a localized reality-warping gender-swap that would make a miracle worker blush. And then I'd touched it. I'd actually grabbed the fabric and…
"God, kill me now," I muttered, my boots kicking up plumes of red-gold sand as I tore across the dunes. "Just open the ground and swallow me whole. Author? Are you watching this? Is this funny to you? Because I'm pretty sure my soul just left my body back there in the dungeon."
I didn't stop until the palace was a shimmering blur on the horizon. I skidded to a halt, my chest heaving—not from physical exhaustion, but from the sheer psychic weight of what I'd witnessed. I bent over, hands on my knees, staring down at the sand.
"Okay. Okay. Deep breaths, Sunny. You are a 200-million-berry pirate. You've faced Marines. You've faced monsters. You are the Abyss Assassin. You do not get defeated by a pair of… of…" I couldn't even finish the sentence. My face felt like it was currently being roasted over an open flame.
Nobody saw. That was my only saving grace. Nobody else was in that cell when the transition happened. If I keep my mouth shut, this secret dies with me and a very, very angry female Warlord. I just have to act normal. Totally normal. Not like a guy who just accidentally redesigned the Desert King's biology.
"Sunny-sama! Wait! Please!"
I stiffened. That voice wasn't Crocodile's. It was too high, too desperate, and sounded like someone was currently dying of a lung infection.
I turned slowly. Coming over the rise of the dune was a man I didn't immediately recognize, draped in desert robes that looked a few sizes too big for his scrawny frame. He was staggering, his face pale and slick with sweat.
"Sunny-sama… I finally… found you," he wheezed, collapsing onto his knees about five feet away from me. "You run… so fast. Why… why are you running into the middle of the desert?"
I blinked, my "Abyss" instincts cooling as I realized this guy wasn't a threat. He was just… exhausted. And he knew my name. Not my title. My name.
"Who are you?" I asked, keeping my voice low and steady. "And how do you know who I am?"
The man looked up, and for a second, the exhaustion in his eyes was replaced by something that looked dangerously like worship. It made my skin crawl.
"You don't remember," he whispered, a small, sad smile touching his lips. "Of course you don't. To you, it was just another Tuesday. To us… It was the day the world started again."
(POV: Seiko)
My lungs felt like they were filled with hot lead, and my legs were shaking so violently I thought they might snap. But I didn't care. I had found him.
Sunny. The man the world was starting to call a monster, a "phantom," a "cute pirate." To the Revolutionary Army, he was a variable no one could account for. But to me? To the people who had been on that ship?
He was the Abyss Assassin. He was the end of our nightmare.
I looked at him now, standing against the backdrop of the Alabasta sun. He looked younger than I remembered, his face flushed—probably from the heat, I assumed, though he didn't seem to be sweating at all. He looked like a boy, but I knew better. I had seen the demon that lived behind those eyes.
Eighteen months ago, I wasn't Seiko, the "Eye and Ear" of the Revolutionary Army. I was just Number 402. A slave. A piece of property belonging to a Celestial Dragon who found it amusing to see how many of us he could fit into a single hull before we started suffocating.
I remember the smell most of all. Iron, salt, and rotting hope. We were bound for Mariejois, a one-way trip to a hell that never ended. Every day, the guards would come down and pick someone. Sometimes they didn't come back. Sometimes they came back in pieces. I remember the brand on my shoulder—the Hoof of the Soaring Dragon—burning like a permanent mark of shame. I had accepted it. We all had. We were going to die as things, not men.
And then, the world went dark.
It didn't happen slowly. One moment, the ship was creaking under the weight of the waves; the next, the very air seemed to turn to ink. The torches didn't just go out; the light was swallowed.
I remember the silence. Then, the screaming began—but it wasn't coming from the slaves. It was coming from above. It was the sound of the guards being erased.
The door to our hold didn't break; it simply ceased to exist. And in the doorway stood a figure clad in armor the color of a midnight ocean. It didn't reflect the light; it seemed to draw it in. A void-blue silhouette of death.
He didn't speak. He just moved. It was like watching a dance where the partner was the reaper himself. The Celestial Dragons—those "Gods" who had treated us like dirt—were dead before they could even beg. He didn't gloat. He didn't lecture. He just executed.
When he finally turned toward us, I felt a terror so cold I thought my heart would stop. But he didn't raise his blade. He raised his hand.
"Knocking: Release," he had whispered.
The air vibrated. A pulse of pure, blue energy rippled through the hold. I felt my wounds knit back together. I felt the ache in my bones vanish. And then, the most impossible thing happened. The brand on my shoulder—that cursed mark—simply faded away, the skin becoming as smooth as the day I was born.
He looked at us then, his eyes hidden behind that void-blue helm.
"You all need help," he said, his voice sounding like it was coming from a great distance. "I am not the person who helps you. I don't have the patience for it. But I know people who do."
Before we could even thank him, a blinding blue light enveloped the ship. My stomach did a somersault, the world spun, and when I opened my eyes, I wasn't on a slave ship anymore. I was on a lush, green island.
The Revolutionary Army base.
Monkey D. Dragon himself had been there to meet us. He looked surprised—which was a terrifying thing to see on a face like his—but he moved quickly. They gave us food. They gave us medicine. They gave us back our names.
Sunny stayed for a few weeks. He didn't want to be a hero. He spent most of his time in the infirmary, teaching the doctors techniques that defied everything they knew about biology. He provided meat—Sea King meat, piles of it—that kept the entire base fed for a month.
But mostly, I remember the girls.
The female revolutionaries—hardened soldiers who had seen the worst of the world—went absolutely feral the moment Sunny took off that helmet. They didn't see the Abyss Assassin. They saw the most beautiful, "cute" boy they had ever laid eyes on. They treated him like a living doll. They followed him in squads. I saw a group of female commanders nearly get into a fistfight over who got to bring him his lunch.
And Sunny? The man who had slaughtered a ship full of guards without blinking? He ran. He spent more time hiding in the rafters or teleporting to the top of the island's highest peak just to get five minutes of peace.
Dragon eventually had to step in because productivity was dropping to zero. But even Dragon couldn't stop the "Sunny-mania." To keep the peace, the leader of the Revolution actually had to authorize the production of Sunny merchandise. T-shirts, posters, even small wooden carvings. If the girls couldn't have him, they'd have a piece of him.
I remember the day he left. Dragon had cornered him near the docks.
"For the thousandth time, Sunny," Dragon had said, his voice echoing with that low, rhythmic gravity. "Join us. With your power and our vision, we could bring the World Government to its knees in a year."
Sunny had just sighed, looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. "No. Not again, Dragon. I told you, I'm not a soldier. I'm not a revolutionary. I'm just a guy on a journey."
"A journey to where?"
"To my own future," Sunny had said, his gaze turning toward the horizon. "I'm going to start my own thing when I'm eighteen. I've got girls waiting for me—Aqua, Nami, Nojiko. I'm not going to be your weapon." He'd paused, then softened just a fraction. "But if you're really in a jam… call me. I'll see what I can do."
And then, with a flicker of blue light, he was gone.
Now, eighteen months later, I was looking at him again. He was the same, yet different. Older. More dangerous. But still looking like he wanted to bolt the moment things got "awkward."
"Sunny-sama," I wheezed, wiping the sweat from my brow. "The girls back at the base… they still talk about you. Some of them have… shrines. It's a problem, honestly. Dragon had to ban the life-sized posters last month."
(POV: Sunny)
I felt a cold shiver run down my spine that had nothing to do with Crocodile's chest.
"Shrines?" I whispered, my voice cracking. "Life-sized posters? Are you kidding me? I saved their lives! I gave them medical knowledge! I fed them Sea King steak!"
"They really like the steak, Sunny-sama," Seiko said earnestly. "But they like your face more. There's a rumor that if you join, you'll be the face of the new world. Everyone wants a piece of the 'Abyss' merch."
I groaned, burying my face in my hands. "I am never going back there. Never. Dragon is a terrifying man for many reasons, but his inability to control his PR department is the worst of them. I'm a pirate now, Seiko! A 200-million-berry threat to the world! Tell them I'm evil! Tell them I eat kittens!"
"They'd just find it 'edgy' and 'charming,' sir," Seiko said with a shrug.
I was about to retort—about to explain exactly how much I hated being a "doll" for the Revolutionary Army—when the air above us suddenly screamed.
It wasn't a wind. It was a sonic boom.
I looked up, squinting against the glare of the Alabasta sun. Something was coming down. Something fast. Something that was currently trailing a wake of fire and… pink flower petals?
"What the hell is that?" Seiko gasped, stumbling back.
I focused my eyes, my sight clicking into high gear. My heart nearly stopped.
"You have got to be joking," I hissed.
Falling through the atmosphere at terminal velocity were two figures. One was a teenager in a bright orange hat, his body literally wreathed in flames as he laughed like a maniac while trying to steer his descent. The other was a woman of such staggering, regal beauty that even from this distance, she looked like a goddess descending to earth. She was draped in purple silk, her long black hair whipping in the wind, and she looked bored—or maybe just annoyed that gravity was currently winning.
Portgas D. Ace.
And Boa Hancock.
"Brace yourself!" I yelled, grabbing Seiko by the collar and blinking us fifty yards back just as the two of them slammed into the sand with the force of a meteor.
A massive cloud of dust and grit erupted, obscuring everything. I stood there, coughing, my hand over my eyes, as the sand slowly settled.