Yeah so, I overslept yesterday and forgot to upload the chapter.
My fault gang.
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POWAAAA....
So, about Yuji's techniques. They will be much more powerful in accordance with the One-Piece world.
As for his height, he is 6'8'', as Robin herself is only 6'2''.
Yuji upscale is incoming.
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Thought of the day:
You can't break a person who draws their strength from God.
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Attendance Please:
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Nojiko moved through the corridor, her bare feet making soft, wet sounds against the cold stone floor. The weight of the unconscious marine, Izuku, pressed heavily against her shoulder. His blood seeped warmly through her clothes, leaving a trail of crimson drops behind them.
She rounded the corner and came to a sudden stop.
Three figures stood frozen mid-stride, as surprised to see her as she was to see them.
Usopp looked at Nojiko, his eyes darting between her hair, her face, and the blood-soaked Marine draped across her shoulder. "Wait… she has blue hair! Is she the one?!"
"I believe so," said Sanji.
Nojiko's grip tightened on Izuku's arm. Her feet instinctively slid backward as her body turned to shield the boy.
Seeing her on guard, Yuji raised both hands slowly and carefully, like someone defusing a bomb. His palms were empty, his posture open, and when he spoke, his voice was completely calm.
"Hey, hey… relax. We're here to save you. You're Nojiko, Nami's sister, right?"
Her sister's name struck her like a physical blow. Her eyes widened before she could stop them.
"Wh—how do you know her?! Who are you people?!"
"Miss," Sanji stepped forward, "we're your sister's friends. And, as my friend said, we're here to save you."
Nami's friends. The words were so foreign, so impossible, that Nojiko almost laughed.
"And why should I believe some strangers?!" she heard herself say, her voice harder than she felt. "You could be working with that bastard Arlong!"
Usopp rubbed the bridge of his nose. "Now, how do we convince her!?"
Yuji's eyes flicked to Izuku. Noticing his injury, his gaze hardened as he turned back to Nojiko.
"Look, we don't have time. The guy you're trying to save will die if he isn't treated quickly. So it's up to you, believe us or not. The truth is that we have no proof to show that we're here to take you back to your village."
The words landed like a slap in the face.
Nojiko blinked.
Usopp gaped in surprise.
Sanji's face twitched as he struggled to restrain his violent impulses.
"Oi, that's not how you talk to a woman, you bastard!"
"Not now, Sanji." Yuji silenced the chef with a single glance.
He looked back at her and waited.
Nojiko gritted her teeth and made her decision. "Fine. I have no other choice. Take me with you."
With that, the trio guided Nojiko and Izuku toward the exit. Sanji immediately took the marine boy from her and hoisted him onto his back.
They ran from the base with Nojiko in tow, while Yuji and Usopp handled any marines who tried to stop them. Soon, they burst out of the main building and approached the dock where the Going Merry awaited.
And then, they saw the crowd.
Dozens of people were being guided onto the ship by Luffy and Zoro.
"What the—!? Hey, Luffy! Zoro! What's going on? Who are these people?" Usopp called out.
Zoro turned. "They're people from around these waters who were being held in prison for... not good reasons."
The sniper looked at the group again, and Nojiko watched as understanding dawned across his face in stages: first confusion, then creeping horror, and finally a rage so pure it made his hands shake. "Don't tell me… they were being—"
Zoro nodded once. It was the heaviest nod Nojiko had ever seen.
Usopp's fists clenched. "Sick bastards. There's no difference between these Marines and the Black Cat Pirates… they're all animals."
"Buddy," Yuji said, placing a hand on his shoulder, "you don't know how close you are."
He looked at Zoro. "Are these the only ones in the base?!"
"Yes, Luffy and I freed everyone from the prison. And you won't believe this, but there were no real criminals or pirates being held here."
"I see."
Yuji turned back toward the base. The ruined gates, the scattered bodies of unconscious marines, and the dark windows staring back like empty eye sockets. The wind caught his pink hair and tugged at his clothes.
"This place, which should have delivered justice to these people, has only brought them pain and suffering. A place like this should not exist."
Then Nojiko saw the blood.
A cut on Yuji's palm began to seep blood. Blood rose from both hands, defying gravity and swirling together into a sphere the size of a baseball that hovered between his palms.
He clasped his hands together around it and pointed toward the base.
"Piercing Blood: Super Cannon!"
A supersonic jet of blood tore from between his palms and struck the main building. It punched through reinforced concrete like wet paper, shattered interior walls, and blasted through everything in its path, carving a path from the base's edge to its center until it reached the building's heart.
Then, it stopped.
Yuji lowered his hands and glanced at Zoro, who was staring with wide eyes.
"Let's go. We need to put some distance between us and the base for what I'm about to do next."
Zoro nodded, dazedly.
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The Going Merry pulled away from the dock, her sails catching a wind that seemed almost eager to carry her away from this place.
Nojiko stood near the railing with the other civilians. Beside her, a woman clutched a child to her chest. The child stared at Yuji's back.
Yuji walked to the stern. The entire ship watched him, his crew, the freed prisoners, and Nojiko.
He raised his right hand.
And he snapped his fingers.
"Supernova."
Inside the base, the blood he had fired was not idle. It had pooled in the center of the structure, gathering into a giant crimson sphere that pulsed once, twice, and then began to shrink. The compression was violent and unnatural, as if matter collapsing into itself until it reached a threshold that reality itself seemed to protest.
And then—
BOOM.
The explosion was a vivid red, a deep, arterial crimson that engulfed the main building entirely and stretched hungrily toward the dock. The light was so intense that Nojiko could see the bones in her own hands as she raised them to shield her face.
Then the heat arrived.
It rolled across the water in a visible wave, boiling the sea's surface into steam. When it struck the Merry, it hit like a solid wall. Nojiko's skin prickled and stung.
And then, silence.
When Nojiko lowered her hands, the main building had vanished, erased so completely that only the foundations remained, visible, clean, and bare, like a socket missing its tooth. The water surrounding the island churned and steamed, while a thin red mist hung in the air.
Nojiko pressed a hand over her mouth. For seven years, she had regarded Arlong as an immovable force, an unstoppable monster capable of crushing buildings and tearing ships apart. Now, he seemed pale in comparison to what she had just witnessed.
'Just who are these people?!'
Usopp's jaw moved up and down like a broken hinge. His finger trembled as he pointed at the first mate. "H-how did you do that!?"
Zoro was sweating profusely. He had sparred with Yuji dozens of times and lost every single match. But those losses never mattered, not as long as he could narrow the gap between them. Now, he realized just how wide that gap truly was.
"Freak of nature," he muttered.
But Luffy—
Luffy's reaction was immediate, radiant, and completely fearless.
"SUGOIIII!!!" He launched himself at Yuji, a rubber-limbed projectile of pure excitement, and began shaking the taller man with enough force to rattle his teeth. "Yuji, how did you do that!? Are you a Devil Fruit user too!? What kind of power is this!? Tell me, tell me, tell me…"
Nojiko stared at them, at the boy captain who had just watched his subordinate vaporize a building full of men, responding only with childlike wonder. She looked at the crew, who seemed more curious about their first mate's powers than horrified by the destruction he had caused.
These people were insane.
And her sister had chosen them.
What poor Nojiko didn't know was that Luffy was simply following his big brother Ace's code: "A good enemy is a dead enemy."
Yuji blinked, clearly surprised by his crew's reaction. He saw no disgust, no fear, and no moral recoil in their eyes, only curiosity.
So he gave them a thumbs-up and promised to explain when Nami was with them.
They all nodded and postponed the topic for later, much like how people might delay a dinner reservation.
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Half an hour later, the Going Merry docked at Cocoyashi Village.
The villagers were already there, watching as Zoro lowered the gangplank to make way for the people he and Luffy had rescued.
Women with hollow cheeks. Children who blinked at the sun as if they had forgotten it existed. Old men with wrists still marked by bruises from the shackles. All of them slowly leaving the ship.
Genzo pushed through the crowd, his scarred face unreadable, until his eyes landed on the blue-haired young woman at the back of the column.
"Nojiko!?"
His voice cracked on the second syllable.
Nojiko heard the familiar voice and looked toward Genzo. Her eyes welled up with tears. She ran to him and hugged him tightly.
Genzo hugged her back and held on tightly, his hat forgotten on the ground, his shoulders trembling with the silent sobs of a man who had spent too many years being strong.
"Nojiko!?"
A second voice, much softer, called her name.
Nami stood at the edge of the crowd, her orange hair catching the light, with Luffy's straw hat still resting on her head. Tears streamed silently down her face, shimmering like silver.
"Nami!"
Nojiko whispered her sister's name softly.
And then Nami threw herself forward, covering the distance between them in a desperate, graceless stumble, and crashed into Nojiko's arms.
"Waaahh… I was so scared… I thought I would never see you again!"
Nojiko held her tightly, her own tears falling into Nami's hair. She made no effort to wipe them away.
"It's okay now, little sis... I'm here, and I'm not going anywhere."
She pulled back just enough to look at her sister's face and smiled through her own tears. She wiped Nami's cheeks with the back of her sleeve, just as she had done when they were children.
"Looks like you're still a kid, huh?"
Nami hiccupped and did not protest.
Nojiko's smile widened into a grin. "And it looks like you've made some crazy friends too!"
At that, Nami went very still. She pulled back, her eyes finding the crew standing apart from the villagers' reunion, watching with the awkwardness of people unsure if they belonged in that moment.
She walked toward them slowly, her orange bangs covering her eyes, while Luffy's straw hat cast her face in shadow.
The navigator stopped in front of her captain.
"Oh, Nami, you're awake… How are you—"
She hugged him.
Nami wrapped her arms around Luffy and sobbed into his chest.
His eyes went impossibly wide. His hands flailed, uncertain where to land. "Oi, Nami, are you okay? Is something wrong? Did someone make you cry? Just tell me, and I'll kick their ass for making my navigator cry."
But Nami shook her head, pressing her face against the worn fabric of his vest, and muttered something so quietly that only he could hear.
"Thank you."
"Huh?!"
She pulled back and looked up at him, her face streaked with tears and snot, yet adorned with a smile so bright it hurt to look at. "Thank you for everything. Thank you for saving my village. And thank you for bringing my sister back."
Luffy stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, his face broke into that idiotic grin.
"Oh, that... shishishishishi... you don't need to thank me for that! After all, you're my crewmate. It's my responsibility as captain to look after you all. So, no worries."
Nami's eyes widened, and for the first time in seven years, she allowed herself to believe it.
"Yeah," she said, her voice cracking with joy. "I'm your crewmate."
She turned and opened her arms to the others, Yuji, Zoro, Usopp, and Sanji, a silent invitation that lingered in the air.
"Hehehe…" Usopp rubbed the back of his head, embarrassment mingling with a warmer feeling in his chest.
But Yuji pushed him forward and wrapped his arms around Nami without hesitation.
Zoro looked away, irritated. "Is this really necessary?!"
Sanji slapped the back of his head. "Come on, moss head, don't be such a tsundere." Then he joined the hug.
"Oi, you wanna die or something?!" Zoro snarled, baring his shark-like teeth.
But Luffy's arm stretched out and yanked him into the pile.
"Shishishishi… Zoro is a tsundere."
"Stop calling me that."
The crew laughed, the kind of laughter shared by families: at each other and with each other.
And Nami... Nami laughed too, caught in the middle of this strange, violent, and ridiculous tangle of people who refused to let her go.
She looked around at their faces: Luffy's cheerful, simple grin; Yuji's warm, brotherly smile; Usopp's boisterous laugh; Zoro's reluctant smirk that fooled absolutely no one; and Sanji's gentlemanly smile.
Seven years of struggle. Seven years of pain. Seven years of waking up every morning and choosing to survive.
And now, finally, impossibly—
She was at home.
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Like the chapter, then please share your powerstones with me.
See you in next chapter....
Peace out.