This is the beginning of Volume 2: Alabasta Saga.
It will cover everything from Entrance to the Grand Line To the end of Alabasta arc.
The next Volume will be Sky-Island Saga.
.
.
Four months ago, I started writing this story, not knowing where it will lead to.
But now, here we are, starting the Volume 2 of this fanfiction.
We even reached 1 million.
I can't believe it that I didn't drop the story. It's truly a miracle, and thanks to all of you, my story has grown alot.
Even though it is not shown in the popular category search of Anime & Comic fanfiction, I am still happy for few loyal supports I have. You guys are the best to keeping following my story.
.
.
A writer pours their soul onto the page, never knowing if it will land in silence or find a home in someone's heart. And somewhere, a reader picks up those words, perhaps at the exact moment they need them most, and in that quiet encounter, loneliness dissolves. The writer thought they were writing alone; the reader thought they were reading alone. But the truth is, they were always searching for each other, two strangers meeting in the white space between sentences, proving that no one who creates, and no one who receives, is ever truly alone.
Thank you all truly from the bottom of my heart.
.
.
Thought of the Day:
"Failure is not the opposite of success; it is part of success."
.
.
Attendance Please:
--------------------
24 YEARS AGO—
MARINE HEADQUARTERS, PARADISE (GRAND LINE)—
A steady tap… tap… tap echoed through the empty corridors of Marine Headquarters. The sound was unhurried, each footfall a low, heavy beat that seemed to make the walls themselves hold still. Itadori Wasuke moved like a storm wrapped in silence.
He was a giant of a man, broad-shouldered and built from something harder than bone, his shadow swallowing the light as he passed. His face was sharp and angular, and his piercing red eyes held the quiet heat of dying embers. Light pink hair, almost jarringly soft against his brutal frame, was slicked back, the sides frosted with gray from decades of surviving a world that had tried, and failed, to break him.
He wore a plain white shirt tucked into black formal pants, the sleeves straining against his biceps. Draped over his shoulders was a light grey Marine coat, hanging as still as a calm sea, with the kanji for 'Justice' boldly stamped on its back in unforgiving black.
He reached the mess hall. Inside, three figures were sprawled around a lunch table.
As if sensing his presence, the trio turned toward the entrance. They stood and saluted with a slowness that was almost theatrical.
Wasuke waved them down with a single, impatient flick of his fingers. His gaze, intense and unwavering, fixed on the youngest.
"Garou, have you been in contact with Jin lately?"
The kid, Garou, shook his head. "No. The last time I talked to him was before he left for Mary Geoise."
The silence that followed grew heavy and oppressive.
"Is something wrong, Itadori-san?" a tall, lanky teen with an afro that defied gravity asked, his usual drawl replaced by something sharper.
"Everything is alright, Kuzan… everything is alright," Wasuke's voice was a low rumble. He patted the teen's shoulder and strode out of the mess hall.
Garou looked at Kuzan, then at his other friend, Borsalino, who was polishing his glasses with sloth-like laziness.
Borsalino raised his hands in mock surrender. "Don't look at me; I don't know anything about it."
--------------------
Wasuke's pace quickened, his footsteps now stalking like a predator through the building's corridors. His destination was the Fleet Admiral's office. As he turned a corner, he heard Garp's familiar booming laugh coming from inside.
"I'm telling you, you should definitely try this place—"
The door exploded inward, torn from its upper hinge with a shriek of tortured metal, and smashed against the interior wall in a cloud of splinters. Wasuke filled the doorway.
Garp, completely ignoring the broken door, turned toward the pink-haired man with a grin already forming. "Yo, Wasuke! You came just in time. I was telling Senny about this great barbecue place—"
Wasuke's gaze pierced him, a tangible force that wiped the grin from Garp's face. He focused solely on the man behind the desk, the man in the seat of ultimate authority.
"Where is Jin?"
A single, frigid question hung in the air. Garp's cheerful demeanor evaporated. Sengoku straightened, his shoulders squaring. Tsuru, seated calmly to the side, stared at her old friend, confused.
"Wasuke, what's going on?" she asked, her voice a steady anchor that he ignored.
He raised a hand, a gesture sharp enough to cut off her words, his red eyes still locked on Kong. "Where is my son… Fleet Admiral Kong?"
Kong met his glare, a granite statue facing a volcano. "I don't know what you're talking about, Wasuke. But we can discuss this like civilized people if you just sit—"
He didn't get to finish it.
An ominous pressure, thick and suffocating like the deep sea, crashed down upon the room. A low groan echoed through the building's steel skeleton. The mahogany desk split with a lattice of cracks, and the reinforced office windows shattered.
Kong, Sengoku, and Garp clenched their fists as their Conqueror's Haki roared to life in a desperate, instinctive parry. The air in the center of the room shimmered with a heat haze of colliding wills, causing the shadows to dance violently.
But it was Tsuru who was drowning. She had felt Wasuke's Haki before, a familiar, controlled pressure, never aimed at her. Now, the full, unfiltered force washed over her, and she was like a small boat caught in a hurricane. Her life literally flashed before her eyes, and a silent scream lodged in her throat.
Seeing her terror, the three men pushed their Haki to its limit, a three-part harmony of power against a single, deafening note. Yet, even combined, they could not suppress it. They were holding back a tide with their bare hands. In that moment, they felt a cold truth: this was why even Rocks D Xebec had never sought a fight with Itadori Wasuke.
Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the pressure vanished. The silence felt like a physical wound.
Tsuru collapsed from her seat, hitting the floor with a soft yet terrible thud, unconscious.
Sengoku was at her side in a blur, cradling her. His glare at Wasuke was pure, unadulterated fury. "What the hell, Wasuke?! What is the meaning of this?!"
But Wasuke said nothing. A muscle in his jaw twitched, the only crack in his mask of rage. He clicked his tongue, a sound of pure, unvarnished disgust, and walked out of the ruined office, his footsteps echoing in the stunned silence.
Garp slumped into his chair, the wood groaning in protest. He wiped a sheen of sweat from his forehead, his hand trembling slightly. Then, he looked at Kong.
"Oi, old man. What the hell was that? I've never seen Wasuke this angry. What's going on? Where is Jin?"
Kong rubbed his forehead, trying to massage away the weight of a looming catastrophe. "I… I assigned him a mission," he muttered, his voice hollow. "A very important one, given directly by the Five Elders. They didn't brief me on the details… just… they specifically asked for Jin to oversee it."
Both Garp and Sengoku stared at him as if he had just confessed to juggling live Sea Kings.
"You for real?!" Garp's roar was incredulous. "Have you forgotten how much Wasuke hates those old farts? And you just handed his son to them on a silver platter! Real big move, old man."
With that, Garp stomped out of the office, his heavy footsteps echoing like a drumbeat of anger and disappointment.
Sengoku looked at Kong, his expression a painful blend of anger, understanding, and dread. He said nothing, there was nothing to say. Instead, he lifted the unconscious Tsuru more securely in his arms and carried her toward the infirmary.
--------------------
Garou walked alone, hands tucked deep in his pockets, but his mind was racing. He had felt it, the sudden, massive surge of Haki emanating from the Fleet Admiral's office. Then three more bursts erupted, pushing back against it in a desperate attempt at containment. He exchanged a worried glance with Kuzan and Borsalino. Then, nothing. Normalcy returned like a tide washing over wreckage. They shrugged it off, a silent agreement to pretend it was just another Monday.
As Garou turned a corner, his fellow trainee Gion came rushing toward him, her usual poise replaced by frantic energy. She held his personal Den Den Mushi in trembling hands.
"Garou-kun, there's a call for you!"
He blinked and took the receiver. "Hello."
A raspy, fractured voice, brittle as dry leaves, crawled from the snail. "Garou… it's me. Please find my dad. I need to tell him something urgent."
Recognition hit him like a fist. The voice was Jin's, but it was all wrong, distorted, uneven, hollowed out. He didn't ask a single question. Gion watched, bewildered, as the space where Garou had been standing simply became empty. A single, displaced dust mote swirled in his wake.
With his Observation Haki stretched taut like a wire, he instantly located Wasuke, a nexus of raw grief and fury in the front yard. Garp stood nearby, his hand a heavy, steady weight on his friend's shoulder.
Garp was mid-sentence. "…will be fine, Wasuke. The boy is tough—"
They both sensed Garou before he solidified next to them, and he thrust the Den Den Mushi toward Wasuke. "It's Jin senpai."
Those three words stripped the terrifying man of his armor. Wasuke snatched the receiver with a desperation that was painful to witness. "Jin! Son, where are you?!"
The snail's face twisted into a grimace of pain. "Dad… meet me in Razor Town in two days… and please… hurry…"
The call ended with a final, ominous click.
Wasuke stared at the silent snail, his towering frame suddenly and terribly fragile. Garp's hand squeezed his shoulder, grounding him.
"Go," Garp said, his voice stripped of all its usual bluster. "I'll handle everything here."
The pink-haired man looked up, his crimson eyes meeting Garp's. He gave a short, jagged nod. "Y-yeah…" He handed the Den Den Mushi back to Garou, and then, using Soru, he was simply gone, the aftershock of his departure a gust of wind that rustled Garou's hair.
Garou looked up at his teacher, the unspoken question hanging heavily between them. "Old man, what the hell is going on?"
Garp stared at the empty space where his friend had been, his face carved from stone. "I don't know either, kid," he said, his voice a low rumble, devoid of its usual humor. "Let's just pray nothing happens to Jin."
--------------------
Wasuke reached Razor Town in a day and a half, traveling on a commercial ship to conceal his movements from the World Government's watchful eye.
It was night, a thick, moonless darkness that clung to the skin.
He moved through the outskirts, tracking his son's presence with his Haki. The signature flickered like a candle flame, and something about it was profoundly, terribly wrong. It felt hollow, like a house with the lights on but its soul torn out.
He stopped at a clearing in the forest. A lone, cloaked figure stood a few meters away.
"Jin."
The figure slowly and painfully lifted its head. The hood fell back.
Wasuke's breath caught in his chest.
Itadori Jin did not resemble his son. He looked like a ghost wearing his son's skin. The vibrant pink hair was gone, replaced by thin, brittle gray strands. His face was a mask of wrinkles; flesh stretched tightly over a skull. His posture sagged with agony. He appeared to be eighty years old; a dying man trapped in the body of a boy.
Wasuke's eyes, those unbreakable spheres of crimson, trembled. Tears welled up, blurring his vision and turning the world into a haze of pain. "J-Jin… what… what happened to you?" The whisper escaped him, raw and broken.
"I don't have much time left, Dad…" Jin's voice was the rasp of sandpaper on gravel. He shuffled forward, his movements the jerky clockwork of a dying machine. "…I need you to do something for me."
Then, Wasuke saw it: a small, secret bundle Jin was hiding inside his cloak. "What is it?"
Jin pulled the cloak aside.
Nestled in his arms was a baby, a tiny, impossibly fragile being with a shock of soft pink hair. It slept peacefully, its small chest rising and falling in a rhythm that contrasted sharply with the tragedy unfolding around it.
"This—" Wasuke's voice broke.
"Please, Dad…" Jin interrupted, his voice a desperate, tumbling plea. "Hide him. Protect him. Keep him safe. Don't let them find out about him. Because if they do… then everything is over." He no longer looked at his father but through him, toward a future he would never see. "Everything."
"Who are you talking about? Is it the World Government? Who is the child's mother?" Wasuke's questions came in a torrent, but Jin was already fading. He pressed the baby into his father's massive, trembling hands and stumbled backward.
"I—I need to go… before they find me…"
"Jin, wait… we can fix this. Whatever this is, we can—" Wasuke was begging now, the most powerful man in the Marines reduced to a father pleading with his son.
Jin gave him a sad smile, a crack appearing in a porcelain mask. "It can't be undone, Dad. My fate is already sealed." He pulled his hood back up, hiding his withered face in the shadows. "…Thank you for everything."
And Itadori Jin vanished into the night.
Wasuke stood frozen, a monument to grief. The world had just ended and restarted in his arms. He looked down at the baby, at the tiny, peaceful face. It was like holding a piece of the past, a perfect, untouched echo of the son he had just lost. As if sensing the storm of sorrow above him, the baby slowly opened his eyes.
They were not his father's red. Instead, they were a warm, liquid amber, flecked with gold like captured sunlight. They looked up at Wasuke without fear.
Wasuke's breath caught in his throat. A lone tear, hot and heavy, traced a path down his weathered cheek. It fell onto the baby's face, a single, salty raindrop of a broken promise. The baby did not cry; he simply blinked, his tiny fingers curling around his grandfather's large thumb with surprising strength.
"I don't know what is going on, or who these people are that are after you and my son," Wasuke whispered, his voice a gravelly, sacred oath in the silent forest. "But if Jin was ready to give everything just to protect you, then I promise I won't let anything happen to you. That is my promise to you."
He lifted the baby, holding him close against the vast, sheltering expanse of his chest.
"…Yuji, my grandson."
--------------------
Young Wasuke:
Old Wasuke:
.
.
Like the chapter, then please share your powerstones with me.
See you in next chapter.
Peace out...