Several days later, on Malad Island in the first half of the Grand Line, the whole place had gone mad.
Word had spread that Shakky, vice-captain of the Kuja Pirates and the most beautiful woman in the world, had appeared on the island. Civilians came. Pirates came. Even Marines from nearby bases came running after hearing the rumor.
At the harbor, someone had thrown together a temporary platform.
Shakky stood at its center.
At first glance, it almost looked like a fan event.
Look a little closer, though, and it felt more like an auction display.
"It's really Shakky!"
"She's gorgeous. How can anyone be that beautiful?"
"If she'd let me touch her hand, I'd die happy!"
"Hey, the women next to her aren't bad either!"
"That one with glasses... her presence doesn't lose to Shakky's at all."
"I like the one in the kimono. Is she from Wano?"
"Nah, the orange-haired one is more my type. That body is..."
As more and more people packed into the harbor, they started noticing that it wasn't only Shakky on display. Mrs. Yukinoshita, Eri Kisaki, and the other players standing at the side of the stage quickly drew attention too.
In this suffocating age, that was all it took to set the crowd writhing.
At center stage, Beam shouted, "Only people carrying a Devil Fruit get to come up and talk to Shakky! Everyone else stays below!"
The harbor exploded into noise.
If the rumor had only said Shakky was here, plenty of people might still have held back. In this era, ordinary people rarely left their home islands unless they were doing business. The kind who traveled from place to place were usually pirates or bounty hunters, and none of them were the obedient sort. They had rushed over to confirm whether the rumor was true.
Now that they had confirmed it, of course they wanted to make their move.
To them, Beam playing host, Makoto lounging in a chair at the side, and the rest of the group barely registered at all.
None of them had seen these people on wanted posters. As far as they were concerned, Makoto's group were nameless nobodies Shakky had hired.
"Hahaha! If Shakky's here, then I won't hold back!"
A man in a neat suit stepped out first. He looked polished enough at a glance, if you ignored the fact that he had four arms.
Standing beside Shakky, Gloriosa said, "Gil Basta. Known as the Four-Armed Freak. One of the most famous snipers in the Grand Line. Even Rocks tried to recruit him."
Bang.
Gil Basta dropped before he could take another step.
A huge hole had opened in his stomach. Blood poured out across the ground.
All those pirates who had been itching to rush the stage froze on the spot.
One of the best snipers in the Grand Line had just been sniped.
Heads snapped upward.
Yu Ishigami stood beside Makoto's chair, and sometime in the last instant his right hand had turned into a massive sniper rifle. Smoke still curled from the barrel.
"His hand turned into a gun? Is that the Weapon Fruit?"
Quite a few people there had seen a Devil Fruit encyclopedia before. They knew of a fruit that let its user turn their body into weapons.
Ishigami said coldly, "There are more idiots in this world than I thought."
He stepped forward two paces. His other hand transformed into a machine gun, and he opened fire on the crowd without warning.
Gunfire roared.
The pirates clearly hadn't expected anyone to be this deranged. A lot of them were caught off guard and shredded where they stood.
Others with a little real skill slipped through the storm of bullets and charged him head-on.
"Brat, you've gone too far!"
A man leaped up with a broadsword in hand.
He didn't even blink, simply letting the blade fall and sever his head clean off.
The surviving pirates below erupted in cheers.
The burly man with the sword threw back his head and laughed. "Did you think a man worth 170 million, Heavy Blade Quinn, would die that easily?"
Click.
The sound of a gun being cocked cracked through the air.
Quinn turned.
The headless body he had just cut down had raised its arm again. The black muzzle was already aimed straight at his forehead.
The pirates below were still pumping their fists and shouting when another shot rang out.
Then there were two headless corpses on the stage.
Ishigami's body, barely over five foot seven, remained standing.
Quinn, a giant of a man nearly three meters tall, toppled backward off the platform first.
Silence slammed over the harbor.
Every eye bulged toward Ishigami's headless body.
Then, under a sea of horrified stares, the machine-gun man walked off the stage. His right arm turned human again. With one savage yank, he tore a chunk of flesh from Quinn's corpse and dumped a heavy stream of blood over the stump of his own neck.
Seconds later, his head grew back.
The pirates in the audience weren't the only ones left speechless. Even the Kuja women onstage were staring.
Beam healing by drinking blood had already been disturbing enough.
This was worse.
Much worse.
He could recover from losing his head.
"L-Lord Nishikado... is he a Weapon Fruit user too?"
The speaker was a feathered bird-man dressed like a nineteenth-century London reporter, furiously flapping as he talked. He was none other than Morgans, the future president of the World Economy News, though right now he was only an intern at a tiny newspaper on this island.
As it happened, the rumor of Shakky being on the island had been spread by him.
Makoto didn't answer.
Ishigami raised the machine gun again. Muzzle flashes bloomed as he swept the crowd once more.
He was in a foul mood.
Ever since coming back, Beam had been boasting to everyone that he'd taken an arrow for Makoto. Ishigami couldn't shake the feeling that he'd been shown up.
"Wait! Wait!"
By the time the pirates were nearly wiped out, one of them finally screamed, "I have one! I brought a Devil Fruit! I really did!"
Only then did Ishigami stop firing.
Barely holding down his temper, he jerked a thumb toward the stage.
Get up there.
The nameless pirate scrambled onto the platform on hands and knees. The moment he got close to Shakky, he swallowed hard, eyes burning, then hurriedly pulled a treasure chest from behind him.
He opened it.
Inside sat a Devil Fruit shaped like a mushroom.
"This fruit..." Utaha Kasumigaoka murmured. She had bought a Devil Fruit encyclopedia in town the day before and was wearing a pair of glasses as she flipped through it now. "Hm... Human-Human Fruit."
Makoto turned his head. "And?"
Utaha blinked at him. "And?"
"What model?"
Megumi Kato glanced at the entry and answered from beside her, "No model. It only says Human-Human Fruit."
Makoto was speechless.
Then he rounded on the pirate and cursed, "Are you messing with me?"
He knew that fruit.
It was the one Chopper ate.
Among Human-Human Fruits, some were absurdly strong, like Sengoku's Human-Human Fruit, Model: Buddha, or the Human-Human Fruit, Model: Sun God, the official cheat ability Oda himself had endorsed.
But there were weak ones too.
Like Chopper's ordinary version.
Like the one sitting in front of him now.
Makoto almost couldn't believe it. The bastard system had dropped him into a point forty years before Luffy's era, and the first fruit he found was this low-tier thing.
The nameless pirate went pale. "M-My lord... is there a problem?"
The pupil of Makoto's right eye spun.
Amaterasu ignited.
The pirate burned to ash where he stood.
He had never planned to let any of these pirates walk away alive in the first place.
Shakky was the bait.
This was pirates preying on pirates.
Morgans swallowed and looked over the harbor carpeted in blood and chunks of flesh. Then he turned back and said carefully, "Um... Lord Nishikado, everyone's dead. There probably won't be anyone else coming today."
Makoto clicked his tongue. "Keep spreading the story."
Morgans nodded over and over.
If it were anyone else ordering him around, he would have squeezed them hard for payment.
Makoto was different.
One look was enough to tell he would become a major figure sooner or later. For a man like that, a favor mattered far more than money.
So from the moment Makoto first asked him to handle things, Morgans hadn't charged a single berry.
After a moment's thought, he offered a suggestion. "My lord... if people only get to look, I don't think that'll attract enough of them. The temptation's a little... limited."
Makoto lifted a brow. "What, should I offer a night with her to anyone who brings me a Devil Fruit?"
Shakky's eyes flew wide.
Damn it. Makoto probably wasn't actually going to make her entertain customers, but once a rumor like that spread across the sea, where was her face supposed to go?
"T-That's a bit too much, my lord. Shakky has too many admirers across the ocean. If you do that, things could get dangerous..."
Morgans wiped the sweat from his face with a feathery hand.
This man was even crazier than he'd imagined.
Makoto thought it over again, then said, "Fine. Then whoever brings me a Devil Fruit gets one kiss from Shakky. That's the plan."
"No!"
Shakky rejected it at once, voice sharp.
What did he take her for? First a kiss, then sleeping with strangers... was she some cheap whore from a pleasure district?
Gloriosa hurried to smooth things over. "Mr. Nishikado... that's not a good idea. If you push Shakky into killing herself, then everyone loses."
What a pain in the ass.
Makoto thought it over one more time before making his final call. "Fine. Spread the word first. Same as before. Lure the pirates in, kill them, and take their Devil Fruits."
Morgans, Gloriosa, and the others fell silent again.
So that was the plan.
He was going to make enemies of every pirate on the sea.
None of Makoto's women had any objection, though, not even Megumi and the others. After spending several days in this world, they understood it well enough. As far as they were concerned, pirates were murderous scum who burned, stole, and slaughtered for a living. If a slaughterhouse trap was waiting for them, then fine. Dying that easily was already a kindness.
As for Ishigami, there was even less to say.
Who was Yu Ishigami?
Makoto Nishikado's most dependable war dog. If Makoto gave the order, he probably wouldn't even blink if he had to shoot his own parents.
When they returned to a restaurant on the island, they found the Akizuki sisters, Ran Mouri, the Nakano quintuplets, and a crowd of other players waiting inside.
Several days had passed since they arrived in the world of One Piece, but not a single one of them had gone off on their own.
Even the veteran players didn't dare move recklessly in a place this unfamiliar.
Sticking close to Makoto was the smartest option.
"C-Commander... water."
Miyuki Shirogane approached with a tray in both hands, practically trembling.
For a fresh new player like him, if he wanted to keep eating under Makoto's protection, he had to make himself useful.
The problem was that aside from being great at exams, Miyuki didn't really have any standout skills. All he could do was carry drinks, run errands, and try to stay visible.
"Next time, send your sister."
Makoto took the water and had a sip.
Miyuki's narrow eyes flew wide.
If anyone else had said that, this siscon would have kicked them on the spot.
But this was Makoto.
He didn't have the nerve.
To be fair, Miyuki had actually misunderstood him. Makoto wasn't interested in his little sister. He simply preferred being served by a sweet-smelling girl rather than a man, even for something as minor as handing over water.
Honestly, Makoto's impression of Miyuki wasn't bad. Like Hachiman Hikigaya, he was one of the few actually normal male leads from the slice-of-life anime Makoto had watched in his previous life.
"Senpai, how'd it go? Did you find anything good?"
The moment Makoto sat down, Moeha Fujiwara and Kokoro Katsura, two of his eager fangirls, bounced right over to him.
As for the seat in his lap, Nayuta would always have first claim.
As long as this empress lives, the rest of you are concubines.
Not that Nayuta was likely to die anymore.
Makoto gestured for Beam to open the chest.
The moment everyone saw the strange fruit inside, shaped like a giant mushroom and covered in bizarre swirls, they all crowded around it.
Sonoko Suzuki said, "That's a Devil Fruit? It looks so weird."
Airi Akizuki said, "You get superpowers if you eat it, right? Then what was all our hard work for?"
Marina Akizuki shook her head. "You can't say that, Airi. Didn't Makoto mention it before? If you eat one of these, you lose the ability to swim."
Yui Yuigahama added, "That still sounds rough. If you ran into a water-style user, like one of those ninja-types who specialize in water powers, that'd be a huge problem."
Itsuki Nakano asked, "Does it taste good?"
The room went still.
Every eye turned toward her.
Itsuki, with the faint baby fat still clinging to her cheeks, blinked innocently under the sudden attention.
Why was everyone looking at her like that?
Wasn't it normal to be curious about how a weird fruit tasted?
Ichika and the others all slapped their foreheads.
Itsuki... could she please stop letting her glutton instincts take over at times like this?
Everyone else was focused on the superpower part, and she was the only one worried about the flavor.
Makoto couldn't help smiling.
Back in his previous life, people had argued endlessly over the Nakano quintuplets. Team Ichika. Team Nino. Team Miku. The five sisters had practically split the fandom into five warring factions.
Makoto had always leaned more toward Miku, but if he absolutely had to choose...
Well.
It was fine...
Ah...
He liked all five of them just the same.
Among the quintuplets, Itsuki really was a special case.
When her four sisters were falling for the male lead, she was eating.
When the others were battering each other bloody over him, she was eating.
Even when three of her sisters were crying their eyes out after he chose Yotsuba in the end...
She was still eating.
And she had been the first one to meet him, too. She was practically the sort of person who got handed the script and threw it away on purpose.
That earned a bit of Makoto's respect.
Competing over a man wasn't strange, but if you were going to fight over one, shouldn't you pick someone impressive?
As for the male lead in The Quintessential Quintuplets, he wasn't as much of a degenerate as Tomoya Aki, but Makoto couldn't think of many strengths either.
He was the standard harem war protagonist. Average family. Average personality. And the same disease every one of those male leads had: a pile of girls liked him, and he just pretended not to notice and refused to choose.
His name was... Fuutarou, wasn't it?
Makoto muttered the thought aloud.
Back when he watched the anime, all his attention had been on the quintuplets tearing into each other. He barely remembered the guy at all.
The fact that he could still remember the first name was already impressive. He had completely forgotten the family name.
"Huh? Commander, were you calling me?"
A voice rose from the crowd.
Makoto looked up and saw a young man with bangs shaped like an upside-down bowl.
Makoto fell silent.
Well, damn.
There had been too many transmigrators this round. He hadn't noticed him at first.
So this bastard was here too.
But what caught Makoto's eye even more was the tall, cold-faced beauty standing beside Kotonoha Katsura.
She had waist-length purple hair, a cool, striking face, and a pair of eyes with a faintly seductive slant to them. Even in Shuchiin Academy's slimming black school uniform, she couldn't hide those lush curves.
Holy hell.
Is that Saeko Busujima, the standard waifu of every dimension-hopping fanfic?