The full moon hung high in the night sky.
While laughter filled the palace where Luffy and his crew were being honored, a very different atmosphere filled Rainbase, deep within Rain Dinners.
Crocodile sat motionless in his chair.
Because Smoker had never made it to Arabasta, nobody knew about his defeat. The Marines hadn't come for him. No headlines screamed about the Warlord's failure.
He was free, technically.
The Bananawani swam lazily across its bath, leaving faint ripples behind. The sound of water was the only noise breaking the silence.
The main door creaked open.
Daz Bonez walked in, and moved quietly to his usual seat and sat without a word.
A moment later, Miss Doublefinger entered and took her own position. Both waited for Crocodile to speak.
"Just the two of you made it back?"
Daz hesitated, then nodded slowly. He knew what that meant.
The organization's punishment for failure was always harsh, you only had to look at how promotions worked to understand that. Kill your superior, take their position. Fail your mission, face the consequences.
After a defeat like this, the smart move would be to run, and start fresh somewhere else. Staying in Baroque Works only meant facing discipline, possibly execution.
But he had come back anyway.
Crocodile exhaled a long stream of cigar smoke. So he still had loyal followers after all.
His gaze fell on Daz, and he noticed the scar running across the man's chest, a fresh wound that looked like it had nearly killed him.
"Was there a swordsman among them?"
Daz looked down at his chest, running his fingers along the raised tissue. He could still feel the bite of those three blades.
"Yeah. Strong too. At first, he couldn't cut through my steel body... but I think I became his whetstone. During our fight, he figured it out. Learned how to cut steel mid-battle."
Crocodile's eyes narrowed. He'd thought the Straw Hat kid was already an exception, someone who could grow stronger through combat at an impossible rate. But apparently, even his crew had that same freakish ability.
And then there was that other one. The man who could teleport.
He leaned back in his chair, lost in thought.
The Den Den Mushi on his desk suddenly rang, jolting him from his thoughts.
Purururu. Purururu.
He stared at it for a moment. The phone in his main office only rang for extremely important matters. And right now, after his plans had crumbled to dust, there were maybe five people who even had this number.
He picked up the receiver.
"Yeah?"
"This is the World Government. According to CP intelligence reports, the Devil Child is currently in your employment."
Crocodile's expression didn't change, but his grip on the receiver tightened. "So what? You calling to lecture me about it?"
"Not at all. We're not interested in Nico Robin at the moment. However, if you cooperate with CP operations and capture Princess Vivi and someone named Marcus alive, we'll keep this information confidential."
The message was clear. Cooperate, or they'd report his connection to Robin, and he'd lose his Warlord position.
"Vivi? Marcus?"
The voice on the other end sighed, as if dealing with an idiot. "Princess Vivi of Arabasta. Marcus, also known as the 'Miracle Builder' maker. Current appearance unknown, but he's confirmed to be a member of the Straw Hat Pirates."
Crocodile's frown deepened. "Why?"
"You don't need to know why. You only need to cooperate."
The cigar fell from Crocodile's mouth, landing on the floor. The atmosphere in the room turned heavy.
There was a long pause. Then Crocodile spoke, "Fuck off."
He slammed the receiver down.
Daz looked surprised. Telling the World Government to fuck off so directly? Even for Crocodile, that seemed like asking for trouble. Especially given their current situation.
But Crocodile had known the moment he lost to Luffy that his position as a Warlord was hanging by a thread. This call just accelerated the inevitable.
Miss Doublefinger stared at him. "Was it really smart to reject the World Government that bluntly?"
"Doesn't matter anymore."
"What?"
Crocodile stood up, stretching his shoulders. "Operation Utopia failed. Baroque Works is finished, just a name now. So you two don't need to fear the organization's punishment anymore. There's nothing left to punish you for."
Daz studied his former boss carefully. The man who'd been sitting in silence just moments ago suddenly had fire in his eyes again. Something had changed, though he couldn't pinpoint what.
"So what's the next plan?" he asked directly
Crocodile grabbed his coat from the back of his chair. "If you want to know, follow me."
Daz stood immediately.
Miss Doublefinger hesitated for just a second, then rose as well.
Seeing both of them stand without question made Crocodile release a breath. For someone who'd been betrayed and denied everything he'd worked for, having followers willing to stick around meant more than he wanted to admit.
They say you only see true loyalty when you've got nothing left to offer.
---
Under the cover of night, Arabasta's most prosperous casino transformed into sand and scattered into the wind. By morning, there would be nothing left of Rain Dinners except an empty lot.
Crocodile, his remaining subordinates, and the last remnants of Baroque Works vanished without a trace.
When word reached the palace that Crocodile had left Rainbase, Koza felt a massive weight lift from his shoulders.
Luffy had promised that Crocodile wouldn't cause any more trouble, but promises were just words. The guy was still a Warlord, still had a Logia Devil Fruit. If he'd decided to come back after Luffy and the others left, Koza knew Arabasta wouldn't be able to stop him.
And right now, with the new government being established, they had enough problems without adding a vengeful Warlord to the list.
Igaram walked into Koza's temporary office carrying a stack of reports that looked like it could crush a man.
Koza took one look and felt his brain try to escape through his ears. "How did it pile up this fast?"
"We don't have enough manpower, and all the issues from the civil war have been festering for years. Now everyone wants them solved immediately."
He pulled out one report form. It was covered with a dense list of problems waiting for his attention.
Food distribution and water management were actually the easier issues. What made him want to bash his head against the desk were the promotion requests flooding in from everyone who'd fought in the rebellion.
And this was only day two.
People wanted land. They wanted titles. They wanted to become the new nobles, just like the ones they'd helped overthrow.
"Just like Cobra warned me," Koza muttered. "People like this show up in every generation. If we start handing out titles freely, we'll lose the people's trust in a heartbeat."
He pulled out a piece of paper from his desk drawer, a document he'd received that morning from Marcus. According to him, it wasn't something he'd come up with himself, just a system he'd copied from somewhere else.
"Let's govern according to this instead."
Igaram took the paper and scanned its contents. His expression turned complicated. "This is going to make a lot of people unhappy."
"Would you rather we just keep doing things the old way? If we don't try something new, society can't move forward."
Igaram spread his hands and went to carry out the orders.
Left alone in his office, Koza leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling.
"I wonder how Marcus is doing right now..."
---
Yuba.
An oasis destroyed by sandstorms, now little more than a memory buried under dunes.
"This was supposed to be a trading hub?" Marcus stared at the desolate landscape. He'd seen it in the anime, but seeing the real thing was different. The destruction was way worse than he'd imagined.
Nanohana, now that was where the action was. The perfume city, the port city, the center of commerce. But rewind three years, and Yuba had been the crown jewel of Arabasta's economy.
Pirates rarely bothered with Yuba. It sat close enough to the Sandora River for decent transport, and while moving goods wasn't super efficient, safety mattered more. In an age where pirates were everywhere, merchants valued their lives over speed.
Then the sandstorms came. And with Crocodile's reputation keeping even the boldest pirates in check, trade gradually shifted to Nanohana instead.
Cobra and Vivi climbed down from the sand sled.
"Has it really deteriorated this much?" As king, Cobra had never personally visited Yuba after the disaster. He'd only heard reports that the oasis had vanished, but words on paper couldn't capture the full scope of destruction.
Now he was seeing it with his own eyes.
Vivi looked like she was about to cry. She'd visited Yuba before the catastrophe, when it was lively and beautiful. Seeing it reduced to this wasteland hurt.
An old man emerged from one of the half-buried structures, moving slowly through the sand. When he spotted Vivi and Cobra, his whole body started trembling as he shuffled toward them.
"Your Majesty..."
Cobra rushed forward to steady him. He'd known that Koza's father was here somewhere, but seeing Toto, once a robust and cheerful merchant guild president, reduced to this withered husk of a man was shocking.
Marcus sighed at the scene. He looked down at the sand beneath his feet and pulled out a diamond shovel from his inventory.
He'd come here to solve one of Arabasta's lingering problems: the desertified cities. Because of Crocodile's meddling, multiple oases had vanished. His goal was to restore them and create livable environments again.
"Please stand on the blocks I'm about to place and don't move. Whatever happens next, just stay put."
He gave the warning before getting to work. He activated Vein Mining, aimed the shovel at the sand below, and started digging.
Toto watched in confusion as the young man swung his shovel, but the sand didn't seem to decrease at all. He was still trying to figure out what was happening when, CRACK!
The shovel in Marcus' hands shattered into pieces, and the ground instantly hollowed out beneath them.
"What the—?!"
Before he could finish processing what was happening, the empty space was immediately filled with countless dirt blocks rising from below. Then, to his complete astonishment, standardized cubic buildings began shooting up from the ground like they were being fast-forwarded through construction.
"What... how...?"
It took less than ten minutes.
The city that had been buried under sand for years now stood tall again, completely restored.
"Oh? There's magma under here?" Marcus sounded surprised and thoughtful. He paused, clearly considering something.
Then, to Toto's shock, a hot spring-style building materialized out of nowhere.
"What?!"
But the surprises weren't done. Cherry blossom trees bloomed in the middle of the desert, their square petals somehow making the whole scene even more surreal.
But nothing could be more square than Toto's expression at that moment.
"This can't be real!"
He rubbed his eyes, feeling completely dazed. What had just happened in the span of ten minutes?
Cobra patted Toto's shoulder reassuringly. "You'll get used to being shocked after a few times. Trust me."
After all, when he'd first seen Katorea's floating water pyramid in the sky, his mind had been blown way harder than this.
Toto pointed at Marcus with a shaking finger. "This shouldn't be possible! How is he doing that?!"
Vivi had wandered over to the hot spring Marcus had just created and was reading the signs with a puzzled expression.
"I can understand the men's bath, women's bath, and even mixed bath... but what's this '♂+♀' entrance supposed to be?"
Marcus turned around and answered with complete seriousness. "That one's definitely gonna be the most popular."
Vivi looked confused but decided not to push the issue.
"It still feels kind of bare though. Like it needs decorations or something."
"Can't help it. My abilities only go this far. You'll have to add the small touches yourselves later."
In regular Minecraft, you could decorate beautifully using various features and mods. But without pistons, he couldn't replicate most of the complex decoration tricks he knew. As for furniture mods... he didn't even want to think about those. He was terrified that unlocking one furniture mod would open the floodgates to hundreds more, and then he'd be stuck sorting through endless variations of chairs and tables.
In just one hour, an entire city had risen from the sand. There were even black-and-white checkered roads running through it, giving the whole place a distinctly modern feel.
"This is incredible!" Toto kept rubbing his eyes like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Yuba has been reborn just like that!"
Cobra couldn't help but shake his head.
Vivi, who'd watched the entire construction process, was equally impressed. "That's it? You're done? Usually you work until past midnight on these projects."
Marcus nodded proudly. "As I keep developing my abilities, things get faster and more efficient."
Vivi found herself asking the question that had been nagging at her for a while now. "What is your Devil Fruit's name?"
"Hm… you could call it the Human-Human Fruit, Model… Herobrine? Or maybe the Cube-Cube Fruit, if you want something more official-sounding."
Vivi thought for a long moment. She'd loved reading since childhood and had studied the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia extensively, and she was sure she had never come across anything like a Human-Human Fruit with a "Herobrine" model. The name itself didn't ring any bells, it sounded more like something made up than an official classification.
But she remembered seeing the Cube-Cube Fruit mentioned, its ability was supposedly to transform objects into blocks. Yet the description had never indicated anything this miraculous.
Then again, he had mentioned "development," so maybe whoever had documented it originally never explored its full potential. After all, new Devil Fruits were still being discovered, and their powers clearly depended heavily on the user's imagination and creativity.
"By the way, you mentioned before that you could erase an island's magnetic field from the Grand Line's Log Pose network. Is that really possible?"
Marcus looked at Vivi, surprised by the sudden topic change. "You've thought about this seriously? If I do that, Eternal Poses and Log Poses won't register this island anymore. Fewer and fewer people from the Grand Line will be able to reach Arabasta. Foreign trade will basically vanish unless people use Vivre Cards."
Vivi glanced back at Cobra and Toto, who were still chatting behind them.
"If it's possible, then I think we should do it. Arabasta sits at the very front of the Grand Line. Pirates show up here every single day. Even if Crocodile leaves like we expect, and even if Koza refuses to rejoin the World Government as a member state... if pirates keep arriving, the peace we just fought so hard for will get shattered. Arabasta will be dragged back into battles."
She had a point. On the Grand Line, magnetic fields were the symbol of every island, the only way ships could navigate from one place to another.
If an island lost its magnetic field, the result was simple: no ship could find it again using normal navigation methods.
The good side? No more pirate attacks, no more uninvited guests bringing trouble.
The bad side? No merchant ships would be able to locate Arabasta within the Grand Line either. Only pure chance would bring visitors here.
Marcus thought about it carefully. Actually... there was another way to handle this. Through his Nether Portals, even if the island was erased from the magnetic navigation routes, they could still trade and interact with the outside world. The portals could connect Arabasta to other locations, bypassing the Log Pose system entirely.