Right now… I'm in an absolutely foul mood.
Without a doubt, it's the worst it's been in years… no, it's bad enough to rank among the worst in my entire life since reincarnating—one of the lowest points in these thirty-four years.
I've already taken it out on the people nearby, beating them down, carving them up, and sinking them into a sea of blood, and even then my anger hasn't cooled. I'm still in a terrible mood. Still, actively, seething.
Ah—don't worry. It's not like I hurt random, innocent civilians. The ones I beat down were the group of kidnappers and bounty hunters who ca after . They tried to "hunt" and got counter-hunted instead. That's what you call getting exactly what you deserve.
They were scum to begin with, so I don't feel even a flicker of guilt.
All around I can hear groans—"Ugh…" "It hurts…" "This isn't what we agreed—!"—and even those pathetic whines are enough to sour my mood further.
"…Tch!"
Ugh… my stomach won't settle.
If I stay here any longer, I'm going to start kicking these idiots around like I'm stomping corpses. I should move. Now.
☆☆☆
How did things end up like this? Put simply… I got tricked.
I'll explain it properly, step by step.
As the "Pirate Literary Master," I have several channels through which I receive work requests.
There's my own personal network, of course, but sotis leads co through Morgans' World Economic News, and sotis they co via Tesoro at Gran Tesoro.
The problem is… mixed in with legitimate requests, there are always traps. Fake jobs ant to lure into capture.
The usual pattern goes like this: I show up at the designated location thinking it's a eting, and it turns out bounty hunters have been lying in wait to spring an ambush.
To prevent that, I'm careful myself, and on top of that, Tesoro and Morgans have been shutting down suspicious requests before they ever reach —making up plausible reasons to refuse them.
But… this ti, it seems they couldn't stop it.
"I'm sorry, Sue! I never imagined it would be a trap… We're confirming everything urgently on our end. Tesoro is furious—he says he's going to grab whoever's behind this by the tail, no matter what!"
"Yeah, it's fine, Stella. They weren't anything special… I already smashed them."
This request ca through the Gran Tesoro route.
I ca to the specified island for a detailed eting… and waiting for there was exactly the kind of group I just described.
I've said it before, but I take pride in my work as a writer. I find it fulfilling. I even think of it as my life's work.
I pour passion into it—more than I could ever fully express in a few words.
Which is exactly why I'm so furious I can't see straight—because soone used that part of , my identity as a writer, to lure into a trap like this.
Even if you set aside the obvious points—pirates get targeted, it's my fault for not seeing through it—there's still this:
Damn it… making waste ti when I'm already this busy…
I had to push back the new work I'm writing—or in the middle of planning—just to carve out the ti to co here.
That said, it's not like I want to lash out at Stella. She was apologizing over the Den Den Mushi with a voice full of remorse, so I forced myself to speak calmly.
I'll take this as a lesson. One I'll carve into my mory.
…but aside from that—
"By the way… Stella, there's sothing that's been bothering ."
"…You're bothered too, Sue? Actually, I was thinking the sa thing… and so was Tesoro. Who set this trap in the first place… right?"
"Yeah. Sothing… feels off about all of this."
Whenever Tesoro passes on a request to , he does what I just said—he treats traps as a real threat, runs checks, layers in safeguards, and only forwards it after confirming it's safe.
And yet these people… slipped past all of that. They managed to deceive both Tesoro and .
Honestly, this isn't sothing random bounty hunters can pull off.
To bypass checks that should be tight, you'd need scale. You'd need precision. You'd need a level of fabrication that screams professionalism. Whoever did this is not ordinary.
…And yet the ones who were waiting for were an utterly ordinary group of bounty hunters.
Sure, they had numbers, but not one of them was a Haki user. There wasn't a single Ability User among them either. Their vibe was exactly what you'd expect from kidnappers or slave traders—just a pack of thugs.
They didn't feel careful. They didn't feel composed. They just laughed like idiots and tried to overwhelm with numbers to capture .
Most telling of all was how they panicked when I used my ability and started slicing through everything in one sweep. It was like they didn't even know I was an Ability User. Their intel-gathering was painfully sloppy.
…Could people like that really slip through Gran Tesoro's screening and fool us?
No. I can say it with certainty. There's no way.
They weren't the ones who deceived Tesoro and his crew.
But they also weren't here by coincidence. They knew the "Pirate Literary Master" was coming, and they were waiting for .
Which ans… they were being used, too?
There's soone else. A mastermind.
Soone laid plans with care, stacked layers of fabrication to fool Tesoro, drew here—and there's no way the "main event" of that kind of sche is a bunch of third-rate thugs.
So were they a disposable pawn? Or… a way to buy ti?
'…I've got a bad feeling about this.'
There's a lot I still don't know, but one thing is clear: I need to move.
"Sorry, Stella. I'm leaving right away. Nothing good will co from staying here… in fact, I feel like sothing bad is about to happen."
At the very least, getting here was part of the mastermind's plan.
If that's true… then there's more. This isn't over. I need to get off this island, now.
I'd been talking while walking, and by the ti I said it, I'd reached the beach at the island's edge.
I pulled out the ship I'd been storing inside my body and set it onto the sea.
With a loud splash, it surfaced and bobbed… swaying for a while before settling.
"Be careful, Sue. I don't know who did this, but… I don't think it ends here. This has never happened before… I have a really bad feeling."
"I get it. I've got a bad feeling too. Let's hang up for now. Once I catch my breath, I'll call you back and we'll ta—"
A chill crawled down my spine.
"…What—?!"
In that instant, I felt the most violent sense of dread in my life and threw myself away on instinct.
Almost at the sa ti, the ground where I'd been standing exploded.
A deafening roar. A surge of heat so intense it felt like it would peel my skin off.
"Hot—! What the hell… is that…?"
The sight in front of stole my words.
"…Huh…?!"
Flas roared skyward.
Black smoke billowed.
The place I'd been standing was gouged out as if the earth itself had been torn open… and the ship beside was burning, shattered beyond recognition. All from that single explosion.
It wasn't a ship anymore. It was a ship-shaped lump of charcoal.
Inside the hull had been paper clay and a Breath Dial—custom-made so I could fly freely through the sky with my ability.
Papa had given it to as a commorative gift when I finally mastered control of Conqueror's Haki…
I'd traveled everywhere with it. Slept on it with my daughters. It ant sothing to .
Damn it.
But I don't have ti to mourn.
Right now, I need to deal with the crisis rushing in on .
…Though whether I can deal with it at all is… beyond "hopeless." It's closer to pure despair.
In front of was a sea of fire.
And beyond that—spreading wider and wider—an ocean of magma.
Staring at it, I couldn't help thinking the sa thing over and over.
'Wait… no way. You've got to be kidding …! Of all tis—now?!'
…The thought had crossed my mind earlier, just for a mont.
To pull off deception at this level, it would have to be a massive underworld organization—or else the Marines or the Governnt.
So I'd considered the possibility that pursuers might show up here—Marines, or Cipher Pol.
And in that brief list of candidates, one na had flashed through my mind… 'that man.'
I dismissed it almost imdiately. Soone like that wouldn't co out for small fry like . And would the Governnt or Marines even bother with this kind of covert sche?
I figured it was more likely so other kidnapping syndicate.
…And yet.
Here we are.
"I was told there weren't any ships docked anywhere on the island, and it struck as strange. So that's what you were doing… You've got a remarkably convenient ability, little girl."
A deep voice rolled across the air.
A voice I absolutely did not want to hear right now. Damn it—more than Luffy's, even… I knew it. I knew exactly who it was.
There was no way I could mistake it.
…I wanted it not to be true, but—
Because the owner of that voice was the one person in this One Piece world I absolutely must never run into.
Parting the flas and black smoke—and the magma itself, as if pushing through curtains—a single man stepped forward.
He was nearly three ters tall.
A crimson suit over a body so powerful it was obvious even through the fabric.
A face more vicious than most pirates, with the kind of hardened features that looked like "ordinary civilian" had never been an option.
A hat pulled low, and a coat emblazoned with the word Justice—proof of his status as a Marine.
And above all, his body seed to glow red-hot, bubbling as if it were molten from within, radiating murderous heat that scorched everything around him—the power of magma.
After all that, anyone who knows the One Piece world would know who stood before .
The mad dog of justice who would kill civilians—or even fellow Marines—without hesitation if he deed it necessary.
The man who, after the Summit War, succeeded the retired Fleet Admiral Sengoku and rose to the very top of the Marines.
And most infamously, the man who took Ace's life—Luffy's beloved older brother and one of the original work's most popular characters.
"Don't even think about running or resisting, little girl. Submit quietly and let yourself be bound… or you'll end up with more than burns, you hear?"
Marine Headquarters Admiral Sakazuki.
Also known as "Akainu."
A Logia-type magma human with the Magma-Magma Fruit.
In this world… for , a Paper Human… he was the worst opponent imaginable in every possible way.
To be continued...
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