Chapter 359: The Forest Fruit, Aramaki
Brook could not help smiling as he looked at Boa Hancock's face, so openly hungry for approval.
The women of Amazon Lily were usually raised by their mothers alone. A kingdom of warriors, proud and self sufficient, where a father's shadow rarely existed long enough to matter.
Yet Hancock, for all her steel and pride, still wanted what Kikyo had, the warmth of being cherished from both sides.
Should he tell her his name?
Her adoptive father already knew she existed. Not only that, he had been watching her closely for a long time.
Hancock's entry into Brook's training camp was not just Brook's decision, it was also that man's request.
"Of course," Brook said lightly, his tone warm. "But we're still searching. Don't rush."
He raised a finger, as if delivering a lesson.
"And even if we find it tomorrow, you're still young. Some fruits don't show their real teeth until the user grows into them."
Brook was actively hunting the Paramecia Love Fruit, the one that could elevate Hancock into the most beautiful woman in the world.
After everything he had learned from the Yomi Yomi no Mi and the Yami Yami no Mi, Brook no longer treated the World Government's Devil Fruit Encyclopedia as scripture. To him, it was a poisonous textbook, useful for reference, but never to be trusted completely.
That so called Paramecia might not be a Paramecia at all.
Maybe the Love Fruit was truly the Snake Snake Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Model Medusa.
After all, her two sisters had been forced to eat Snake Snake Fruits by the Celestial Dragons. Why would Hancock alone be labeled Paramecia?
And the connection between "love" and petrification had always felt strangely convenient.
Back in the original era, Hancock led the Kuja Pirates on their first large scale plunder, earned a bounty of eighty million, and was invited to become a Warlord almost immediately.
Had the World Government recognized the abnormal danger of petrification from the beginning?
Or had they simply wanted her close, where they could leash her if needed?
"Really?" Hancock's eyes shone. "Then I'll be waiting for Master Brook's Devil Fruit gift."
The fruit Brook personally chose would not be ordinary.
She would climb until she stood beside figures like Queen Linlin, King Shakky, and Sister Hel.
"Master Brook!" Yamato leaned on her little mace, hands on her hips, grinning like she had already conquered the world. "My Thunder One can knock Inosuke away now. Teach me Thunder Two!"
Her white hair bounced as she laughed. Kaido often fought Uncle Oden, so she wanted to suppress Inosuke the way her father suppressed Uncle Oden.
"Hmph! Shameless!" Kozuki Inosuke snapped back, eyes blazing. "If you didn't have a Devil Fruit, you wouldn't beat me!"
He clenched his fists hard enough to tremble.
He wanted his father to find one of Wano's guardian beast fruits already. He did not care if he never swam again.
As long as he could crush Yamato.
"Yo ho ho," Brook laughed. "Being strong right now doesn't mean you're truly strong."
His gaze turned sharp for a moment, teacher to student.
"Yamato, don't get arrogant. Inosuke, don't get discouraged. Work harder."
Then he glanced at Yamato again.
A silly little girl, yet somehow developing into a full tomboy.
No, no.
That needed correction.
His beloved fifth daughter Kikyo wore a small red snake from Amazon Lily around her body. She loved bows and arrows since she was little, already resembling a shrine maiden archer.
"Kikyo," Brook asked gently, "what ability do you want?"
Kikyo answered without hesitation.
"I read the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia. I like the Sealing Fruit. I want to seal enemies with one arrow, control them for everyone."
She was kind hearted. She did not want to kill in close combat. Blood and torn flesh made her stomach twist, so she chose distance, a snake bow for long range, and sealing to restrain rather than slaughter.
"No problem," Brook said softly. "Dad will do everything he can to find it."
At the pace the world was moving, there was a real chance the final war for unification would arrive before Kikyo became an independent warrior.
If so, she might never have to face the cruelest battlefield.
Brook turned to Nico Robin and Nika.
Both were quiet, thoughtful, and far too sensible for their age. The kind of children a teacher worried about the least, because they carried their own discipline like a second spine.
"Today," Brook announced, smiling, "I'm taking you to Beast Island."
Six sets of eyes widened.
"I want to show you what real hunting looks like. Whatever you catch, you can eat. If you catch nothing, you go hungry."
"Awesome!" Inosuke laughed. "I can kill a giant wild boar by myself!"
"Tch," Yamato scoffed, lifting her mace proudly. "Your ambition's too small. I'm eating dinosaur meat!"
"Ah, you bastard!" Inosuke exploded. "Then I'll kill an evolved beast!"
Hancock, Kikyo, Robin, and Nika all joined Brook in teasing them.
"Keep talking," Brook said, amused. "A Lapin rabbit might chase you two around in circles in a minute."
Then, without wasting another breath, Brook opened a void gate.
The sky folded.
The world flipped.
In the next heartbeat, Brook led the six newcomers from the sky above Cake Island straight to the sea near the Eighteen Hell Islands, to Beast Island.
Their survival training would last several days.
And it would not be gentle.
…
Marine Headquarters, Marineford, Recruitment Office.
A young man stepped inside with a cigarette in his mouth.
His upper body was bare, and a tattoo ran across his left side, reading:
Dead River Heart.
Sunglasses hid his eyes, but not his arrogance.
"Even if I can't become an admiral," he said, voice rough and certain, "then I'll become a vice admiral."
His name was Aramaki.
A Logia user.
The Forest Forest Fruit.
A man who preached absolute justice.
In the training grounds, he had already demonstrated the fruit's terrifying nature. The forest he created was a living source that could stand beside the sea itself. That belief made him feel like he was nature incarnate.
Enemies with special abilities should fear him the way they feared drowning, because his forest could drink them dry, stripping away their nutrients until nothing remained.
With the Forest Forest Fruit, he was nearly immortal.
No one could erase the wild, savage domain of "nature."
A rear admiral in charge of recruitment had watched the display with widened eyes and a sweating brow.
"My righteous man," the rear admiral said hurriedly, half flattering, half pleading, "the World Government needs powerful people like you to uphold justice."
He lifted a hand, calming the air.
"But admiral is not a seat we hand to a newcomer. Still, I will fight for you to become a vice admiral immediately. Earn military merit, and promotion to admiral will be right around the corner."
"Haha," Aramaki laughed, satisfied.
"Fine. Vice admiral works. I'm new, after all."
The cigarette ember glowed as he tilted his head.
"But I'll earn the most merit, faster than anyone, and I'll become the next admiral."
He was confident.
Navy Headquarters was bleeding talent. The era was collapsing into chaos. That meant opportunity for men who wanted to climb.
And as for why Aramaki joined the World Government instead of the Universal Government?
Because he hated pirates.
A "cleaned up" Universal Government was still built on pirate hands.
Pirates were pirates.
And he despised the Universal Government's preaching about coexistence, peace, and equality among all races.
This world needed hierarchy.
Humans advanced by stepping on the "lower" races.
-----
With the number of Celestial Dragons plummeting and their value as symbols of power nearly erased, the Holy Land's old structure had begun to rot from the inside.
Still, for the sake of the Twenty Kings and the myth they represented, Imu did not strip the Celestial Dragons of their title as World Nobles.
He simply hollowed it out.
Their privileges, their funding, their authority, all of it was cut down until they were only slightly better off than the kings of the allied nations. A gilded crown with no teeth.
And with the Celestial Dragons no longer needing an entire army of guardians, the Divine Knights lost their purpose as well.
Only one old member remained.
Divine Knight Sagon.
Now he had a new name, and a new seat.
Navy Admiral, Paladin Sagon.
With the recommendation of Fleet Admiral Kong and Sengoku, and after Sengoku personally did the ideological work on Garp, the final obstacle vanished.
Without the Celestial Dragons blocking the appointment, Garp finally stopped refusing.
He agreed to take the mantle.
The Navy's three admirals gathered once more, standing at the pinnacle of Marineford like a restored symbol of power.
Sengoku.
Paladin Sagon.
Hero Garp.
Beneath them, a new generation of vice admirals surged forward, hungry and sharp.
MacArthur. Bogart. Aramaki. Onigumo. Momonga. Dalmatian. Stolberg.
Names that carried the scent of gunpowder.
Most of them were hawks, men who worshipped iron blooded justice and believed mercy was simply delayed execution.
Even though the Universal Government was expanding at an absurd pace, Marineford still looked down on the so called new navy.
In their eyes, the World Government's three admirals were unquestionably stronger than the Universal Government's three admirals.
What made them choke on that pride was the betrayal they saw everywhere.
Former colleagues now wore different uniforms.
Tsuru. Gion. Tokikake.
People who should have been court martialed were standing as admirals and vice admirals under Brook's banner.
Even Zephyr, once a Navy Admiral, had become the chief instructor of the Universal Government.
To the hawks, it was unforgivable.
So, in a high end restaurant in Marineford, Vice Admiral MacArthur arranged a welcome banquet, eager to gather new blood into his camp.
His main target was the young and terrifyingly talented Aramaki.
With a circle of hawkish vice admirals pressing close, Aramaki was quickly absorbed into their faction, almost as if the table itself had swallowed him.
And MacArthur, already drunk on ambition, leaned forward and hissed like a snake.
"To be honest, I want a man of iron blooded justice like you to become an admiral," he said, voice venomous. "I have no problem with Sagon. The Four Elders appointed him."
His eyes narrowed.
"But that old bastard Garp? He's not worthy of the admiral's coat."
The room quieted, the kind of silence that begged for someone to say something uglier.
MacArthur obliged.
"I suspect it was Garp, along with his son, Dragon, that traitor and criminal, who helped kidnap Zephyr's family."
He slammed his glass down.
"Crimes like that are disgusting."
His words came too smoothly, like he had practiced them.
When Zephyr was captured, MacArthur had specifically ordered that Zephyr's wife and children be brought under control. Yet somehow, they were taken away anyway, swallowed into Brook's shadows.
Even the families of Tsuru, Gion, Kake, and the other defectors had vanished.
MacArthur convinced himself it was because Garp protected them.
He even suspected Sengoku.
But Sengoku and Garp still held the greatest prestige in the navy, so MacArthur could only stew and bite his tongue in public, furious in private.
Recently he had also been speaking with Sagon, planning to mold that former Divine Knight into a hawkish pillar.
Sengoku and Garp were too soft, too slow, too obsessed with "morality" while the world burned.
"What?" Aramaki's voice rose before he could stop it.
He looked genuinely shaken.
"A Navy hero would do something like that?"
MacArthur nodded as if it were obvious truth.
"Brother Aramaki, you don't know him. That old bastard Garp is close with Zephyr. He's also tangled up with that traitor Tsuru."
He spat the words like poison.
"He never cared about rules. He relies on strength to bully the rest of us who actually uphold righteous justice."
Then he delivered the final blow, the one he knew would stick.
"And his own son, Dragon, that rebellious lieutenant general, is the leader of the Revolutionary Army."
MacArthur sneered.
"That whole bloodline is criminal. Natural enemies of God. The D clan."
Aramaki's impression of Garp collapsed in real time.
Under Admiral Kong's pressure, Marineford had quietly restricted discussion of Garp and Dragon's relationship. Most newcomers did not know the truth, and the government's newspapers rarely touched it.
Aramaki had always assumed it was a rumor.
Now it sat in his stomach like rotten food.
"So Admiral Garp really has a criminal son," Aramaki muttered, disgust curling across his face. "That's… vile."
Seeing the hawks around him seething, Aramaki had no choice but to follow the flow and curse Garp as well, even if part of him still struggled to accept it.
MacArthur smiled, satisfied, then leaned closer as if sharing a secret that would change the future.
"Brother Aramaki, we're going to visit Admiral Sagon. We'll invite him to become our leader."
His eyes burned with calculation.
"Once that's done, we can dethrone that old bastard Garp."
He raised his glass, toasting a dream.
"And you will be the new admiral."
Aramaki lifted an eyebrow and glanced at MacArthur.
He had wanted to become the leader of the hawks himself.
Now MacArthur was telling him to find a boss to put pressure on him first.
What a waste of time.
Aramaki stood up with clear disinterest.
He did not want to play politics. He wanted to hunt pirates and revolutionaries, pile up merit, and step into the admiral candidate seat by force of results.
Against absolute power, schemes were just smoke.
MacArthur watched Aramaki's back as he left, his expression darkening like a storm cloud.
Then, moments later, he forced a chuckle and turned back to the table, eager to keep building his camp.
His next target was a rising star, a new Rear admiral with terrifying momentum, a "little monster" who had already awakened two types of Haki at a young age.
Vergo.
Nineteen years old.
Already famous for capturing pirates in bulk, stacking merit like coins, and completing missions with an almost frightening success rate.
…
Baldimore, Grand Line.
Monkey D. Dragon stood in silence, eyes scanning the faces of his commanders.
Strong, yes.
But not strong enough.
Not yet.
At twenty five, Karasu commanded the North.
At twenty five, Bartholomew Kuma commanded the South.
At one hundred thirty eight, Moria commanded the West.
At thirty one, Ivankov held the Grand Line.
And Dragon himself, thirty three this year, still carried the weight of the East on his own back.
It was almost time to find a wife and have children.
And it was definitely time to return to the East Blue and choose an Eastern Army Commander.
Otherwise, continuing to serve as East Commander himself would grind him down, slowly and relentlessly.
Were there other members of the D clan in the East Blue?
Of course there were.
Loguetown had the Gor family.
Foosha Village had the Monkey family.
It was not just Garp's line, not just Roger's line.
They were simply hidden deeper, many of them changing names and living quietly as ordinary people, burying their teeth and waiting for the right era.
The last time Dragon returned to the East Blue, he encountered a carefree black haired girl on a remote island near Loguetown.
She called herself a beast hunter of the Golden Family.
Gold Paulina.
Her appetite was so outrageous that even Dragon felt embarrassed beside her. She could devour several tons of meat in a single meal, and her raw, untrained strength was like an uncut gem.
Dragon could already see it.
With a little training, with the awakening of Haki, she could become the strongest force in the East Blue.
But then Dragon's investigation dug deeper, and the name "Golden Family" began to shine with a dangerous light.
Golden.
Gold.
Gol D.
Was this… Roger's bloodline?