Once the strange island made up of dozens of ships connected together drew close enough to the Vogue Merry, we were finally able to make out the figures moving across the decks. The tension around us had become almost palpable, but no one had made a move yet when a booming laugh rang out from the nearest vessel.
"To think I offered a genuine fortune to find you... and here I am stumbling across you myself. At least this saves me from paying those useless bounty hunters."
The voice was deep, commanding, and above all far too pleased with itself. Standing at the bow of the ship was a man nearly three meters tall, his imposing build alone enough to distinguish him from everyone around him. He towered over us from the prow, standing perfectly straight with the confidence of someone who already considered this encounter settled.
Behind him stood four people who immediately caught my attention. Three boys had features similar enough to Sanji's that their family connection was obvious at a glance, right down to their infamous spiral eyebrows. Their hair, however, made them easy to tell apart: one had blue hair, the second green, and the last red.
A young woman with pink hair stood among them. Unlike the three boys, whose attitudes shifted somewhere between arrogance and amusement, her expression was much harder to read. She mostly watched Sanji, then Kazuki beside him, without saying a word.
And behind them...
"Oh, that's worrying," Usopp muttered.
Around a hundred men occupied the deck in perfect order. Same height, same proportions, the same almost expressionless faces. I could barely distinguish more than five or six physical variations among the entire force, as though someone had simply mass-produced several different models.
Clones.
More identical figures were visible aboard the neighboring ships, which meant the hundred standing in front of us probably represented only a fraction of the forces present. Despite their numbers, none of them spoke or made a single unnecessary movement. Their discipline contrasted so sharply with that of an ordinary pirate fleet that even Zoro had completely abandoned his usual nonchalant expression.
Sanji, however, seemed to see only one person.
"Why are you looking for me... Father?"
I turned my head slightly toward him.
I had heard Sanji furious before. I had seen him threaten enemies, insult Zoro with almost artistic creativity, and fly into rages violent enough to literally burst into flames. And yet, I had never heard so much venom concentrated into a single word.
At his side, Kazuki immediately tensed.
There had still been a hint of apprehension in her eyes a few minutes earlier, but it disappeared the moment Sanji spoke. She stepped half a pace forward until she stood exactly beside him, shoulder to shoulder. She clearly knew this man and, more importantly, she had decided she wasn't going to let Sanji face him alone.
The man observed their closeness without his expression really changing.
Still, I noticed his gaze linger on Kazuki for a second too long.
Surprisingly, Luffy didn't ask a single question.
He simply walked over to Sanji and took his place on his left. His usual smile was gone, and the shadow cast by his straw hat partially concealed his eyes. Aspida immediately followed him, floating near his shoulder before positioning itself between Sanji and the Germa ship, ready to intercept the slightest attack directed at its wielder or our friend.
That simple movement was enough.
Without a single order being given, we all repositioned ourselves around Sanji. Kazuki remained on his right, close enough that their shoulders almost brushed, while Zoro and Kuina stepped forward. Neither of them had drawn their swords yet, but their hands were already resting on their hilts, and their stances made it perfectly clear that they wouldn't wait for a second warning if an attack came.
Nami moved to stand near me. Her fifty-two card soldiers hadn't been deployed yet, but her hand was already poised to summon them at the first suspicious movement. Farther back, Usopp retreated until he had a clear line of fire toward the enemy deck, with Kaya naturally taking position beside him to protect the sniper if anyone tried to close the distance.
Charles and Kratos positioned themselves behind Luffy, ready to intervene from the second line. Charles was already holding his weapon, while Kratos methodically studied the surrounding ships, probably more concerned about the number of enemies capable of encircling us than the hundred soldiers directly in front of us.
Koby positioned himself just behind Zoro and Kuina.
Since awakening his Armament Haki, he had become more confident, but he had also progressed enough to understand that confidence and recklessness were two very different things. So he remained slightly behind the two swordsmen, fists clenched, ready to reinforce the front line the moment it became necessary.
As for Dextremih and Xurok...
I briefly glanced toward the spot where they had been standing only a few seconds earlier.
No one was there.
A faint smile nearly appeared on my face despite the situation. Dextremih had clearly decided that standing in the middle of the deck waiting for hostilities to begin would be a tremendous waste of her skills. And if Xurok truly wanted to learn from her, then he was probably receiving his first real field exercise.
I returned my attention to the gigantic man.
He regarded our formation with obvious contempt, as though the fact that an entire crew had gathered around Sanji meant absolutely nothing.
"You're asking what I want, Sanji?"
His voice easily carried over the waves separating our two vessels.
"I want you back."
Sanji gritted his teeth.
The man continued with icy calm.
"Because you belong to me. And even a failure like you can still be useful."
Silence fell over the Merry.
I immediately felt something change beside Sanji.
Luffy had raised his head.
It wasn't particularly difficult to provoke our captain. Messing with his food usually worked quite well. Threatening his crew worked even better.
But insulting one of his friends like that had clearly struck something much deeper.
"SANJI DOESN'T BELONG TO ANYONE, AND HE'S NOT A FAILURE!" Luffy shouted.
Then the air itself seemed to tremble.
I sharply turned my head toward him just as an invisible pressure exploded from his body.
Conqueror's Haki.
It still wasn't something Luffy had completely mastered. Despite his training and the considerable help provided by the Apprentice Rings, he was still unable to calmly unleash it on command. However, when his emotions became strong enough to trigger it naturally, he was finally beginning to control its direction.
And this time, all of his anger was aimed straight ahead.
The invisible wave swept across the space separating us. Several hundred clones aboard the different ships collapsed almost simultaneously.
The huge man himself staggered.
Barely.
One foot slid back a few inches, and his expression tightened before he immediately regained his balance.
But the four behind him...
Nothing.
Not a trembling knee.
Not a surprised look.
Even the young woman with pink hair remained perfectly upright.
I frowned.
Their resistance to Luffy's Haki wasn't what bothered me most. After all, he was still far from mastering his power, and sufficiently trained fighters could certainly resist such an imperfect manifestation.
It was something else.
Their hearts.
Ever since I had gained this ability, I had seen all kinds of things. Bright hearts, dull hearts, damaged hearts, hearts filled with anger, consumed by fear, or so dark they were almost revolting. Even Meredith, before becoming Dextremih, had possessed a heart whose color immediately revealed that something was deeply wrong.
These four had none of that.
Their hearts were... transparent.
I blinked and focused my vision more intensely, thinking for a moment that the distance was interfering with my perception.
Nothing changed.
I could clearly make out something where their hearts should have appeared, but there was no real color to them. No hatred toward Sanji. No anger after Luffy's attack. No concern at seeing some of their soldiers collapse.
Not even the arrogance their expressions seemed to display.
It was like looking through perfectly empty glass.
"What the hell..." I muttered.
Nami turned her head slightly toward me.
"What?"
I didn't answer immediately.
"I can't see anything in their hearts. No color at all," I finally said, shocked.
For the first time since gaining the ability to observe hearts, I was facing something I had absolutely no idea how to interpret.
It wasn't kindness.
It wasn't cruelty.
It wasn't even the absence of a heart.
They definitely had one.
But behind their smiles, their eyes, and their expressions...
I sensed nothing.
"Don't bother trying to understand it, Jordan," Sanji suddenly said.
I tore my gaze away from those four strangely transparent hearts and looked at him. Sanji had perfectly understood what had disturbed me. His anger was still there, flames still licking around his legs, but something far more painful now hid behind his eyes.
"That man over there took all of that away from them," he continued, gesturing toward his father with his chin. "Their emotions, their feelings... everything that could stop them from obeying. Out of all his children, I'm the only one who turned out differently, thanks to my mother. She made sure I could still feel all of those things."
His gaze briefly shifted toward his brothers and sister.
"They... are the weapons he wanted to create."
For several seconds, I said nothing.
I looked at the man's four children again, and their transparent hearts suddenly took on a far more sinister meaning. They hadn't been born this way. Someone had deliberately altered his own children until he had erased a fundamental part of what made them human.
Then my gaze settled on their father.
His heart, on the other hand, was anything but transparent.
I could clearly see the darkness saturating it.
"You're a disgusting monster."
The man frowned slightly, but I didn't give him time to answer. Shadows began crawling across my body as my feet slowly left the deck of the Vogue Merry. I simply rose into the air, without wings or any support, quickly gaining enough altitude to put some distance between myself and the ship before fully unleashing my Zoan transformation.
My body literally exploded in size.
My arms and legs thickened into monstrous limbs ending in enormous claws. A long armored tail emerged behind me as my face stretched into a gigantic crocodilian maw lined with rows of fangs. Black plates spread across my body, covered in jagged protrusions and streaked with cyan-blue lines that began glowing like energy flowing beneath my scales.
My transformation continued until I stood nearly thirty meters tall.
I remained suspended in the sky above the Vogue Merry. My legs hung slightly beneath my massive body while my long tail swayed behind me, and my sheer size now cast an enormous shadow across part of the ship.
Several of the clones who were still conscious looked up at me.
Even from this height, I could see their formations shifting.
My jaws slowly parted, revealing the bluish glow illuminating the depths of my throat.
"And none of us are going to let you take him back!"
My now much deeper voice thundered across the sea, powerful enough to reach the surrounding ships.
"Sanji is our crewmate!"
"OF COURSE HE IS!" Luffy immediately shouted from the deck.
Zoro gave a fierce grin as he slid one of his blades slightly out of its sheath.
"You'll have to get through us first."
"And I seriously doubt that would be a very good idea," Kuina added calmly, resting Masamune on her shoulder.
"Absolutely not!" Usopp shouted, already drawing his magical bow and preparing to fire.
Koby, Charles, and Kratos voiced their agreement in turn while Kaya remained beside Usopp. Nami simply looked up at me with a small smile before returning her attention to the enemy, ready to deploy her army at the slightest movement.
Sanji remained silent.
But his expression had changed.
His anger hadn't disappeared, not even close. Yet for several seconds, his gaze slowly moved across each and every one of us, and a genuine smile eventually appeared on his face.
Not his usual charming smile, nor the one he used to hide what he was truly feeling.
A genuinely happy smile.
Kazuki noticed it too.
She gently wrapped her arms around him and pulled him against her. Sanji gave a small start of surprise before returning the embrace, briefly closing his eyes as she rested her head against his shoulder.
"You heard them," she murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. "You're not alone against them anymore."
Sanji tightened his arms around her slightly.
"Yeah..."
Above them, I slowly turned my head toward the man who claimed he could take our crewmate back as though Sanji were nothing more than an object that belonged to him.
My blue eyes glowed brighter.
"So if you really want Sanji back..."
My claws flexed.
"Come and try."
The huge man remained silent for several seconds, his expression hard as his gaze moved from Sanji to Luffy, then rose toward my gigantic form suspended in the air. The collapse of some of his clones and our categorical refusal didn't seem to frighten him, but the tension in his jaw clearly betrayed his irritation.
Without taking his eyes off Sanji, he finally pulled a Den Den Mushi from his coat. He raised the receiver to his mouth and spoke a few words too quietly for us to make out. A response came almost immediately, and then he hung up with a calmness I didn't like at all.
One second later, the sky exploded.
Dozens of rockets launched simultaneously from different vessels making up Germa's mobile island. They soared above the fleet before bursting into a deafening succession of red, green, blue, and yellow lights. For several seconds, I almost felt like I was watching the beginning of an enormous fireworks display.
Except this was clearly no celebration.
Across the entire fleet, the effect was immediate. Hundreds of figures appeared on the decks, metal doors opened along the hulls, and formations of clones began moving with mechanical precision. Orders echoed from ship to ship as the enormous floating kingdom gradually seemed to awaken all around us.
From my position in the air, I had a perfect view of everything.
"Well..." I muttered as I took in the number of soldiers appearing. "Looks like we managed to piss off an entire nation."
Judge calmly put away his Den Den Mushi.
He then stepped to the edge of his ship and raised his head to look at me before turning his attention back to Luffy and Sanji. His voice rose above the commotion, amplified by several Den Den Mushi positioned throughout the fleet.
"I am Vinsmoke Judge, Supreme Commander of Germa 66!"
His name echoed from one vessel to another.
Judge spread his arms slightly, as though presenting the entire army surrounding us.
"Since you refuse to return what belongs to me and have chosen to stand against Germa..."
His expression hardened.
"It seems war is what you want."
He paused briefly.
"Then war is what I'll give you."
Behind him, his children reacted immediately.
The three boys broke into eager smiles almost simultaneously. The red-haired one cracked his knuckles, the green-haired one was already stepping toward the edge of the ship, while the third watched our group with excitement he barely bothered to conceal. The prospect of a fight seemed like excellent news to all three of them.
The young woman with pink hair was the only one who didn't share their enthusiasm.
Her face took on a helpless expression.
For a brief moment, her gaze moved from her father to Sanji, then rose toward me. She seemed perfectly aware of the direction the situation had just taken, but unlike her brothers, she clearly found no enjoyment in it.
On the Merry, Sanji gently pulled away from Kazuki.
"Always the same..." he muttered.
Kazuki immediately moved back into position beside him.
Luffy, meanwhile, slowly looked up at the hundreds of soldiers deploying all around us.
Then a smile appeared on his face.
"A war?"
He adjusted his straw hat on his head.
"Okay."
Sanji abruptly turned toward him.
"Luffy, that's not supposed to make you happy!"
"But he wants to take my cook."
"IT'S ALWAYS YOUR STOMACH TALKING!"
Even in the middle of an armada preparing to descend upon us, several people on deck burst out laughing as Luffy managed to lighten the mood.
(Author's Note: Oh my God, another cliffhanger! Where will it ever end? ^^ If you behave yourselves, I'll update again tomorrow.)