The first pale rays of the morning sun pierced through the thick ocean mist, casting a soft, pearlescent glow over the shoreline of the uncharted island. The violent, ash-choked skies of Wano were miles behind them, replaced by the crisp, biting air of the open sea.
Kozuki Toki slowly opened her eyes, her mind disoriented as the gentle, rhythmic sound of lapping waves brought her back to consciousness. For a terrifying second, the phantom smell of burning wood and the echoing roars of Kaido's dragon form filled her senses, causing her heart to spike with adrenaline. She blinked rapidly, her gaze instantly darting downward to her side.
Young Hiyori was still tucked tightly beneath a corner of her silk robes, her tiny hands clutching her mother's sash even in her sleep. The little girl's breathing was shallow and uneven, her eyelashes still damp with stained tears, but she was alive.
'When did I even fall asleep?' Toki thought, a heavy wave of mental exhaustion pressing against her temples as she gently sat up. 'The jump through time, the fire... it all feels like a distant nightmare. But we are truly out of Wano.'
As she smoothed down her wrinkled kimono, a sudden, rich aroma drifted through the morning breeze. The distinct, unmistakable smell of woodsmoke and charred, savory meat.
Curiosity and hunger driving her forward, Toki carefully slipped out from under the makeshift shelter of broad leaves, ensuring she didn't wake her daughter. She stepped out onto the damp sand of the beach and followed the scent around a massive jagged rock formation.
What she saw on the other side made her stop dead in her tracks.
Standing at the edge of the shoreline was Norwell D. Giovanni.
He looked entirely unchristianed by sleep. His left arm was still tied awkwardly to his torso with a makeshift splint made of torn cloth and thick tropical vines. His face was smudged with black charcoal, and fresh, dark blood had seeped through the white bandages wrapping his torso. Yet, using only his right hand and the precise, razor-sharp edge of Roger's legendary cutlass, Ace, he was putting the finishing touches on a fully constructed, medium-sized wooden sailboat.
The vessel was crude, carved from the thickest mahogany trees of the island's interior, but the hull was perfectly aerodynamic, and a sturdy mast had already been raised into the center. A small campfire crackled nearby, where a massive slab of white ocean meat was slowly roasting over the flames.
"Good morning, Norwell-san," Toki said softly, her voice carrying the elegant, melodic cadence of the ancient capital.
Giovanni didn't flinch. He cleanly sheared off a protruding wooden peg from the boat's rudder before sheathing Ace with a smooth, one-handed flick of his wrist. He turned his head, his piercing eyes looking heavily bloodshot beneath his messy blonde hair.
"Morning, lady Toki," Giovanni rasped, his voice incredibly deep and scratched from exhaustion. He used his right hand to grab a sharpened wooden skewer from the fire, lifting the roasted meat. "You timed that well. Just finished up some Sea King roast. Look, I'm not exactly a high-class chef like the guys on the main ship, but it's cooked through. It's a hell of a lot better than starving on an empty stomach."
Toki stepped closer, her eyes moving from the freshly carved boat to the heavy, labored rising and falling of his chest. "Norwell-san... have you been awake this entire time? Have you not slept a single hour since we escaped?"
Giovanni shrugged his right shoulder, a cynical smirk playing on his lips as he kicked a stray piece of timber out of the way. "Sleep is a luxury for people who aren't being hunted by an immortal dragon, lady Toki. I was up processing the lumber. We needed a boat if we want to get off this rock, and nobody else was going to build it for us."
Toki's expression immediately shifted from immense gratitude to strict, motherly disapproval. She marched directly into his personal space, her hands resting firmly on her hips.
"You are being completely reckless with your own life!" Toki scolded him, her voice firm despite her gentle nature. "Your left arm is severely fractured, your ribs are clearly damaged from your battle in the capital, and you are actively draining your remaining life force! Sit down immediately. I am going to treat your wounds."
Giovanni let out a dry, amused chuckle, waving his right hand dismissively. "Save your breath, lady Toki. I'm fine. Besides, look around you. This island is completely barren. There isn't a single medical herb, bandage, or proper supply within miles. There's nothing here to treat me with anyway. I'll just hold out and patch myself up properly when we hit the next civilization."
"I do not care if this island is a wasteland," Toki replied stubbornly, her eyes flashing with a rare, unyielding defiance. "I will find something. Sit by the fire and eat. Do not move from that spot."
Without giving him another chance to argue, the noblewoman turned on her heel and marched straight toward the dense jungle foliage of the island's interior, her gaze scanning the ground for any wild root or leaf that could serve as an anti-inflammatory poultice.
Giovanni stared after her for a long moment, shaking his head in sheer disbelief. "Women from the past are terrifyingly stubborn," he muttered to himself, carefully lowering his aching body onto a smooth piece of driftwood beside the fire.
A soft, hesitant rustle in the sand broke his train of thought.
Giovanni turned his head to the left and saw young Hiyori standing near the edge of the rock formation. She looked incredibly tiny against the vast backdrop of the open ocean, her small fingers twisting the fabric of her tattered kimono. She was staring at him with wide, unblinking eyes, her face completely pale. The trauma of her father's execution and her home collapse into an inferno was weighing heavily on her silent frame.
Giovanni's rough demeanor softened instantly. He dropped his gaze to eye level, trying his best to look approachable despite the blood and soot covering his skin.
"Hey there, little princess," Giovanni said gently, keeping his voice quiet so he wouldn't startle her. "You're up early. Did the smell of the food wake you?"
Hiyori didn't answer. She remained frozen, her lower lip trembling slightly as she stared at his heavily bandaged chest.
'She's completely frozen in shock,' Giovanni thought, a pang of genuine sympathy tightening his chest. 'At her age, losing everything in a single night... it's a miracle she isn't screaming.'
"Come here," Giovanni murmured, reaching out his right hand. He picked up a smaller, perfectly cooled portion of the Sea King meat and held it out toward her. "You need to eat something to keep your strength up. I promise you, the monsters aren't coming back. I kicked them all away."
Hiyori hesitated for a long moment, looking at the steaming meat and then back into Giovanni's warm, eyes. Slowly, with tentative steps, she walked across the sand and took the wooden skewer from his hand. She sat down on the sand right next to his good knee and took a small, cautious bite. The savory flavor instantly caused her eyes to widen slightly, and she began to eat with an eager, quiet hunger.
Giovanni smiled, gently reaching out to pat her green hair. "Good girl."
A few minutes later, Toki emerged from the jungle brush, her silk sleeves rolled up to her elbows. She was carrying a collection of crushed, damp broad leaves and a few thick roots she had smashed using a flat stone. Without saying a word, she knelt down right in front of Giovanni and began to systematically pull away his torn bandages, applying the cold, crushed herbal paste directly over his heavily bruised ribs.
Giovanni gritted his teeth, a sharp hiss escaping his lips as the raw, freezing moisture hit his inflamed skin.
"Keep still," Toki instructed gently, using strips of her own outer robes to tie the makeshift poultice securely into place. She looked at the crude wooden sailboat floating in the shallows and sighed. "Norwell-san... we should stay here on this island for at least a week. You cannot navigate the treacherous currents of the New World in this condition. You need time to heal."
"That's not possible, lady Toki," Giovanni said, his tone shifting back into absolute seriousness. He took a heavy bite of his own food, chewing quickly. "This island is completely dead. There are no natural resources here. I literally had to swim three miles out into the deep ocean trenches just to find and kill that single Sea King for our breakfast. If we stay here, we'll starve within three days. We have to leave immediately."
Toki looked up, her hands pausing on his bandages. "Where... where are we going?"
Giovanni's eyes locked onto the northern horizon, a deep, ambitious glint returning to his eyes. "We're heading straight for Elbaf."
Toki's face instantly drained of color, her breath catching in her throat. "Elbaf?! The legendary nation of the Giants? The most violent, war-torn island in the entire world?"
Giovanni let out a confident, arrogant laugh, his white teeth flashing through the soot on his face. He leaned back against the driftwood, his right hand resting comfortably on the hilt of his sword.
"Don't worry about it, lady Toki," Giovanni said smoothly. "Giant or not, it doesn't matter. As long as I'm drawing breath, I'll protect the both of you. Nobody touches my guests."
---
The morning sun hit the towering, pristine white architecture of the Marine Headquarters, reflecting off the massive justice Kanji painted across the central plaza.
Inside the spacious, high-ceilinged office of the Fleet Admiral, the atmosphere was incredibly tense. Sengoku sat behind his massive mahogany desk, his glasses reflecting the harsh fluorescent lights as his eyes furiously scanned the front page of the latest issue of the World Economic Journal. His brow was furrowed so deeply it looked like carved stone, his jaw tightly clenched.
Across the room, sitting comfortably on a plush leather sofa, was Vice Admiral Monkey D. Garp. The legendary marine hero was completely unbothered by the heavy atmosphere, loudly crunching through a massive bag of rice crackers, leaving crumbs all over his dark blue suit and his white marine coat.
SLAM!
Sengoku violently slammed the newspaper down onto the desk, the impact rattling the brass pen holders.
"This is getting entirely out of hand, Garp!" Sengoku roared, rubbing his temples in absolute frustration. "Look at these headlines! The entire world is falling into absolute chaos, and it is all centered around those two reckless bastards!"
Garp swallowed a handful of crackers, letting out a loud, booming laugh. "Bwahaha! Which ones, Sengoku? There are a lot of reckless bastards sailing the seas these days!"
"Red-Haired Shanks and Norwell D. Giovanni!" Sengoku snapped, pointing a trembling finger at the large, detailed photographs printed on the paper. "Shanks just engaged in a massive, unauthorized duel against Dracule Mihawk right in the middle of Marine G-Base 4! They completely leveled the entire military facility, destroyed sixteen frontline battleships, and rendered the island entirely uninhabitable! Shanks' bounty has just been officially escalated to a staggering 1,450,000,000 berries!"
Garp chuckled, shaking his head. "Man, that Red-Haired kid really knows how to throw a party. What about the other one? The blonde brat?"
Sengoku's expression turned incredibly grim as he flipped the page. "Giovanni... he just did the impossible. He bypassed the isolationist borders of Wano, successfully infiltrated the country, and systematically defeated both King and Queen of the Beast Pirates in back-to-back combat."
Sengoku leaned forward, his voice dropping into a dangerous whisper. "The World Government has just raised Norwell D. Giovanni's bounty to 1,400,000,000 berries. And worse... the journalist Morgans has officially listed him in this article as the confirmed Vice Captain of the Red-Haired Pirates."
The Fleet Admiral slumped back into his executive chair, staring blankly at the ceiling as a heavy sigh escaped his lips. "When Roger was executed on the scaffold in Loguetown... I truly believed it would mark the absolute end of this lawless age. I hoped piracy would bleed out. Instead... his final words have given birth to two absolute monsters in Shanks and Giovanni. They are moving too fast."
Garp stopped chewing, a broad, nostalgic grin spreading across his wrinkled face as he looked out the large glass window toward the ocean. "Bwahaha! Roger really did a number on all of us with that One Piece speech, didn't he? He knew exactly what he was doing."
Garp threw the empty cracker bag into the trash can and slowly stood up, flexing his massive, muscular shoulders until his joints popped like gunfire. He adjusted the Marine coat draped over his back, his dark eyes flashing with a sudden, rare sharpness.
"Hey, Sengoku," Garp said, a confident smirk playing on his lips. "Would you like me to go out and handle these two kids for you? I've been getting quite bored around here since Roger died anyway. My fists are getting soft."
Sengoku looked up, the intense stress on his face instantly melting away into a rare, calculated smile. He knew the absolute, unmitigated strength of the man standing before him.
"If you are the one going after them, Garp... then their capture is a mathematical certainty," Sengoku said, his voice filled with renewed authority. "If we can arrest and execute two of the brightest, most influential upcoming pirates of the new generation simultaneously... it will completely demotivate the rest of these rookies. It will crush the very spirit of the Great Pirate Age."
Garp turned around, walking toward the large double doors of the office with a heavy, deliberate stride.
"Alright then," Garp laughed, throwing a casual wave over his shoulder. "I'm off to sea. Let's see if these new era monsters can handle a real punch."
---
The dark, choppy waters of the Grand Line splattered against the hull of a large, uniquely shaped pirate ship. The vessel carried a sinister, theatrical aesthetic, with bat-winged sails and a dark color scheme that mirrored the eccentric personality of its captain.
Standing at the bow of the ship, leaning against the wooden railing, was a young, tall, and highly ambitious Gecko Moria. He had not yet lost his chin or his physical fitness to the tragic despair of his future; he was lean, wearing a high-collared coat, his sharp, stitch-like neck tattoos prominent as he stared out into the horizon with absolute arrogance.
"Kishishishi!" Moria laughed, his high-pitched, manic cackle echoing across the deck. "Wano is just beyond these waters, men! Kaido thinks he can rule over that isolated paradise forever? We are going to sail right into his territory, tear his beast army to absolute shreds, and free Wano under the name of the Gecko Pirates!"
His crew members roared in approval, raising their cutlasses into the air, entirely fueled by their captain's absolute confidence.
"Captain Moria! Captain Moria!"
Suddenly, the frantic voice of the lookout screamed from the crow's nest, breaking the celebration. The lookout was staring through a brass spyglass, his hands shaking violently as he pointed toward the open waters directly ahead of their trajectory.
"What is it, you idiot?!" Moria barked, his eyes narrowing in irritation. "Did a Sea King get in our way?"
"No! No, boss! There's a tiny, crude wooden sailboat floating dead ahead of us!" the lookout stammered, his face turning completely pale. "And... and look at the guy steering it! It's him! It's the guy from the morning news paper! It's Norwell D. Giovanni! The Vice Captain of the Red-Haired Pirates! The paper says his new bounty just dropped—it's 1,400,000,000 billion berries!"
Moria's jaw dropped slightly, his eyes widening in absolute shock. He instantly ripped the spyglass away from a nearby crewman and raised it to his own eye, focusing the lens on the small wooden boat drifting in the distance.
Through the glass, he could clearly see a bleeding, heavily bandaged blonde youth with his left arm in a splint, casually holding the rudder of a small boat with his right hand, while a beautiful woman and a small green-haired child sat in the hull.
A massive, incredibly predatory grin slowly spread across Moria's face, his sharp, needle-like teeth glistening in the sunlight.
"Kishishishi!" Moria laughed hysterically, the pure hubris of his prime era completely taking over his senses. "A 1.4 billion berry rookie floating right in front of my face? And he's already half-dead and completely broken from his fight with Kaido? This is an absolute gift from the heavens!"
Moria slammed his fist against the railing, his shadow stretching out across the deck as he channeled his devil fruit powers.
"If I take his head right here before I even set foot in Wano... the entire world will know my name! The throne of the Pirate King will practically be mine!" Moria roared, his voice filled with manic excitement. "Men! Turn the ship! Prepare the main cannons and get the boarding axes ready! We are going to completely crush him!"
---
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