In the 43rd year of the Konoha calendar, at the massive outer gates of the ancient Kingdom of Loulan.
Looking at the formal welcoming committee lined up along the sandstone entrance, Darian noticed two royal women standing at the very front: a mature, breathtaking woman dressed in regal leader's robes, and a young, red-haired girl standing beside her.
Seeing the grand entourage, Darian initially assumed they were waiting to welcome a high-ranking foreign diplomat. Not wanting to awkwardly barge through a state ceremony, he gestured for the exhausted Grass Ninjas carrying his sedan chair to step aside.
To his surprise, the Queen of Loulan gracefully stepped forward, her daughter Sara following close behind.
"Forgive the interruption, but are you Lord Darian?" the Queen asked, bowing her head in the unique, formal greeting etiquette of Loulan.
Having a monarch bow to him with such profound respect—even if her kingdom consisted of a single, towering desert city—made Darian feel slightly self-conscious. He jumped down from the sedan chair, scratching the back of his neck.
"I am Darian, yeah. Hello," he replied. "How exactly do you know my name?"
The Queen of Loulan offered a serene, mysterious smile. "I cannot disclose the full truth just yet, my Lord. But our lineage has been waiting thousands of years for your arrival. Please, follow me."
Her cryptic words left Darian completely bewildered, while the four Grass Ninjas carrying his chair looked at each other in sheer confusion.
Realizing he had reached his destination, Darian gave a dismissive wave to his captives. "Alright, you four can beat it."
The moment they received the order, the Grass Ninjas didn't hesitate for a single second. They turned and sprinted away across the dunes at maximum speed, desperate to escape the monster who had casually slaughtered their village commanders.
Led by the Queen and greeted by citizens lining the streets, Darian walked through the towering, bronze-pinnacled city toward the central spires sealing the Dragon Vein. Along the way, the Queen shared the rich history of her nation—how Loulan had survived in the harsh desert for over a millennium thanks to the boundless, primordial energy flowing from the earth below.
Whenever Darian pressed her on how she recognized his face, she merely chuckled softly, offering vague hints about long-lost prophecies.
Passing through the heavy stone doors at the base of the main tower, Darian walked into a massive, cavernous hall. The moment his eyes landed on the ten-meter-tall stone monument standing in the center of the room, he froze in absolute shock.
The statue carved into the bedrock was unmistakably him.
'Why the hell is there a giant statue of me in an ancient desert kingdom?' Darian thought, his mind racing.
"Why is my face carved into your temple?" Darian asked aloud, pointing at the monument.
"I am deeply sorry, my Lord, but there are details I am forbidden from revealing to you out of temporal order," the Queen said apologetically, stopping at the edge of a massive, glowing pit. "I only know that you have come seeking the power of the Dragon Vein. Once you claim it, the truth will reveal itself."
The Queen began forming a complex sequence of hand seals. Below them, a massive seal flared to life, and a torrent of thick, violet space-time chakra surged upward like a geyser.
"Please, Lord Darian," she urged softy. "Step forward."
Although he didn't fully comprehend the paradox unfolding around him, Darian's combat instincts told him that this energy was his ticket out of the elemental nations. Looking at the raging purple aura—so similar in nature to the Rainbow Mist—he jumped straight down into the pit without hesitation.
The moment his boots cleared the edge, the immense space-time chakra of the Dragon Vein violently surged into his body. His modified, rubbery cellular structure absorbed the raw cosmic energy like a parched sponge.
It was a process of intense absorption and cellular transformation. Soon, every single cell in his body was saturated to absolute capacity. As the violet chakra continued to force its way inside, Darian felt an intense, crushing pressure building in his chest, as if his physical form were on the verge of detonating from the overload.
Just as he feared he had jumped in too recklessly, a powerful, gravitational suction manifested deep within his core. His internal energy center acted as an anchor, drawing the wild Dragon Vein chakra inward, compressing the massive volume into a localized singularity before a spatial vortex swallowed him whole.
As the violet energy settled at the bottom of the pit, the Queen of Loulan stood at the edge, watching the spot where Darian had vanished.
Suddenly, a heavy, warm arm wrapped casually around her waist from behind. A man stepped up beside her—a version of Darian who was noticeably taller, broader, and radiating a far more terrifying aura than the one who had just jumped into the pit.
Without a shred of shame, his large hand slid upward, giving her firm, regal breast an intimate, possessive squeeze through her silk robes.
"Lord Darian... please don't do this here," the Queen murmured, her cheeks flushing a deep crimson as she leaned back into his broad chest. "It wouldn't be good if Sara saw us..."
"Haha! What's there to be afraid of?" Darian chuckled darkly into her ear. "She's already seen everything—both what she should have seen and what she definitely shouldn't have."
In an infinite, pitch-black void, Darian slowly dragged himself back to consciousness. His stomach let out a loud, hollow growl; judging by his metabolic hunger, a day or two had passed during his unconscious transit.
Floating in the dark, Darian looked down at his hands. Even in the absolute absence of ambient light, his own body remained perfectly visible to his senses. He floated weightlessly in the void, yet an invisible atmosphere allowed his modified lungs to breathe comfortably without the threat of explosive decompression.
Turning his body around, Darian spotted two massive, swirling halos of light suspended in the dark void.
One portal radiated a brilliant, seven-colored chromatic light, while the other burned with a deep, pulsing violet glow.
The seven-colored vortex was massive—easily wide enough for a ship or a bathhouse to pass through seamlessly. The purple vortex, by contrast, was currently only the size of a small bowl, though Darian could feel it actively drawing ambient energy from the void to slowly expand its boundaries.
Looking at the floating, luminescent portals, a concept from his past-life knowledge immediately clicked in his mind: The Astral Color Pools.
Darian finally understood the nature of the dark space. This mysterious void brought him to the One Piece universe, acting as a cosmic hub that captured unstable space-time rifts across the multiverse. The Rainbow Mist was a temporal rift from the Grand Line, while the Dragon Vein was a spatial rift from the Naruto world. By anchoring these rifts, the void constructed permanent portals between dimensions.
Realizing the potential of this space, Darian began frantically swimming through the dark void, his eyes searching every corner of the blackness.
He was looking for a third pool—a path leading back to Earth.
He pushed his physical limits, kicking through the weightless void until he was sweating and gasping for air, but no matter how far he searched, no other chromatic portals appeared in the black expanse.
"Aaargh!"
A furious, echoing roar tore from Darian's throat, bouncing uselessly off the infinite darkness.
Despair washed over him. Without an Astral Pool connecting to his original universe, it meant he could never return to his old life on Earth.
"Damn it! Damn it all! How the hell is there no portal for Earth?!" he cursed, slamming his fists into the empty void.
After searching the darkness several more times and coming up completely empty-handed, Darian exhausted the last of his physical energy. Resigning himself to his reality, he turned toward the large, seven-colored portal and stepped through the chromatic light.
The Grand Line — Near Ruluka Island
It had been a single afternoon since Darian vanished into the Rainbow Mist. As the sun began to set over the horizon, it cast a warm, golden glow across the calm sea.
After failing to locate Darian on Ruluka Island, Nami and the crew had navigated the Little Fish back out to the exact oceanic coordinates where their captain had originally disappeared. According to Henzo's research, this specific sea floor was the most likely location for the spatial anomaly to re-anchor itself.
Apart from Nami and Carmen, who were visibly anxious about Darian's prolonged absence, the other women aboard the vessel appeared relatively unbothered. After all, most of them had been claimed by force; it was a miracle they hadn't disbanded the crew the moment he vanished. However, Henzo's research assured them that the Rainbow Mist merely displaced individuals temporally, and that Darian would inevitably reappear once the space-time continuum stabilized.
Aboard the Little Fish, the lanterns flickered to life as night fell. In the galley, Carmen worked attentively on dinner, her mind occasionally wandering. In the main cabin, Nami sat at the table, intently studying Henzo's charts alongside Robin, who analyzed the spatial data with quiet fascination.
Out on the deck, Paula and Alvida lounged in plush armchairs, sipping wine in the evening breeze. Near the bow railing, Marianne peered earnestly through a pair of heavy brass binoculars, scanning the calm waves alongside Mikita, who kept a quiet watch over the darkening ocean.
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Give me powerstones.
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