August 21, 1503, Age of the Sea Circle
While Orion was fully engaged in his conflict with Cipher Pol on Jewel Island, his subordinates and companions were finding themselves involved in various situations of their own.
In the West Blue, Yukimura was acting as Victoria Cindry's bodyguard at Orion's request. Over the past few months, Victoria had returned to her previous routine of participating in major theatrical productions, once again displaying her full talent as an actress.
The people of the kingdom had welcomed with great joy the return of the greatest star their land had ever produced, and they delighted in each and every one of her appearances in the theatrical performances staged by the acting company.
Since returning alongside Orion several months earlier, she had been touring the various cities of the kingdom, presenting a wide variety of plays with great success, and throughout all that time, a number of troublesome situations had arisen.
For stars like Victoria, it was nothing unusual to have all kinds of obsessive fans, who were obviously interested not only in her acting skills, but also in her breathtaking beauty.
For the men of the West Blue, Victoria Cindry was undoubtedly the ideal lover, the fantasy of men of all ages. When she had married Orion, the number of hearts that were shattered had been incalculable.
Even so, now that some time had passed since Victoria's marriage, and she had reappeared on the artistic scene without any trace of her damned husband, men had begun to nurture their hopes once more, believing that perhaps, with a bit of luck, they could make the actress theirs.
Although deep down they knew it was impossible for them to ever become Victoria's lovers, they could keep their hopes alive as long as there was even the slightest possibility.
For that reason, the enthusiasm of Victoria's fans every time she appeared in the theaters of the kingdom was truly overwhelming, which had given Yukimura plenty of work in his role as her bodyguard.
Although Yukimura stood near the lower end of the power hierarchy among Orion's subordinates, that did not mean he was weak overall. Compared to the ordinary soldiers found in the various organizations and kingdoms of this world, he was firmly within the ranks of elite warriors.
Especially after having trained alongside Kyros in Dressrosa—and being mercilessly beaten—his combat power had broken through the bottleneck that had previously held him back, reaching new heights. Even though his simple and minimalist style had not changed, he had achieved a qualitative shift in his level, pushing his "normal potential" beyond its limits.
Yukimura, with his serious personality and strong sense of responsibility, had carried out his duties as Victoria's bodyguard with great success, and over the past few months he had been a silent shadow, watching over the wife of his king, Orion.
To avoid any kind of rumors, he maintained a prudent distance from Victoria and rarely spoke to her unless it was strictly necessary. This had indeed prevented gossip from spreading, but it had also emboldened the men infatuated with the actress. Seeing that she was not accompanied by any man in a romantic sense, they began to try all kinds of tricks to get close to her.
Yukimura tolerated no transgressions in that regard, and over the past few months he had cut down numerous obsessive fans with his sword, those who had approached Victoria with negative and obscene intentions.
Little by little, he earned himself a reputation in the West Blue, and all of the actress's fans knew that she had a ruthless bodyguard, incredibly powerful, whose hand did not tremble when it came time to cut down anyone who went too far.
Although Yukimura did not attack every fan indiscriminately—only those he deemed a danger to Victoria—his reputation as a violent and merciless man spread quickly among the masses, which somewhat reduced the attempts to harass Victoria Cindry.
And it was precisely that reputation which caused one of the men obsessed with Victoria not to act rashly, instead waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
Absalom was a pathetic and despicable man. He had suffered greatly during his childhood, being a war orphan with no one to rely on. Throughout his youth, he had fought tooth and nail just to survive, despite his poverty, and eventually his personality had been warped by his harsh living conditions.
Because of his poverty, he had suffered from malnutrition from a very young age, and when that was compounded by his naturally poor physical constitution, the result was a frail and sickly body that became the target of mockery from everyone around him.
As the years passed and he grew older, the situation only worsened. He grew up in the criminal underworld, surrounded by all kinds of criminals and vagrants, an environment that was far from warm or kind to the weak.
From a young age, he had been the object of ridicule because of his body, but when he reached adolescence, the mockery became utterly unbearable for the still-forming mind of the unfortunate boy. What hurt him the most was the rejection from the opposite sex, who found him completely repulsive.
During the early years of his adolescence, he suffered traumatic rejections from every woman he had ever liked, which caused his mind to quietly collapse and begin to drift toward a far more dangerous way of thinking.
When he was sixteen years old, he unleashed all the darkness and morbid desires within him, attempting to rape one of the women in the city where he lived. However, with his weak body, he was unable to overpower the combative woman, who beat him brutally, leaving him on the brink of death.
Perhaps it was fate, or the gods taking pity on his suffering—at least from Absalom's point of view—but the fact was that while he was recovering in one of the local prisons after his attempted rape, the young Absalom encountered something that would change his life forever: a Devil Fruit.
That a legendary Devil Fruit had suddenly grown on one of the fruit trees inside the prison was nothing short of a miracle, and without thinking for even a second, he stretched out his weak arms and firmly grasped that fruit which would alter his future.
After that, Absalom's life improved greatly. With his new powers of invisibility, he was able to take whatever he wanted in the world without anyone being able to stop him.
He began by stealing money and jewels that were easy to sell, and for the first time in his life he was able to indulge in dining at a luxury restaurant, alongside nobles from high society.
However, the depraved Absalom was not satisfied with food and money alone, because deep within him there was something that mattered more than anything else: women.
Despite the innate weakness of his body—or perhaps precisely as a way to compensate for the insecurity caused by that frailty—Absalom possessed an intense libido and a desire to possess the most beautiful women. There was nothing that gave him more pleasure than the idea of subduing a woman beneath his body, even if he had to use force to do so.
At this point in his life, he did not think at all about the possibility of finding love, and the only thing he wanted was to dominate every beautiful woman he encountered, as if doing so might fill the emptiness in his heart.
In this way, with the help of the Suke Suke no Mi, Absalom began to terrorize the most beautiful women of his home island. Despite his physical limitations, he was able to ambush them at their most vulnerable moments, thus achieving his goal of "making his own" any woman who caught his interest.
For an entire year, Absalom destroyed the lives of countless women in his homeland, until rumors finally began to spread about the existence of a serial rapist who could turn invisible.
Once rumors about his abilities began to circulate, it became far more difficult for Absalom to continue committing his despicable crimes, so he simply decided to leave his home island and venture out into the wider world, with the ambitious goal of making the most beautiful women in the world his own.
Now, Absalom was an eighteen-year-old youth, and he had arrived in the prosperous kingdom where his new target resided: Victoria Cindry.
He had learned of the existence of this famous actress almost a year earlier and had decided to come immediately in search of her, hoping to make her his woman. Just thinking about the beautiful actress, coveted by all men, moaning beneath him, made Absalom feel his weak body fill with energy, while drool poured from his mouth in great amounts.
His plan had been to use his invisibility powers to attack Victoria immediately, just as he had done many times before with other women, but Yukimura's presence caused him to stop before even attempting it, terrified by the idea of dying in the process.
In truth, Absalom had witnessed the tremendous power of Victoria Cindry's bodyguard firsthand. He had gone to the actress's residence with the intention of raping her just one day after arriving in the kingdom, but just as he was approaching her window, Yukimura appeared like a specter and, with a single sword strike, eliminated another obsessive fan who had harbored an idea similar to his own.
The other man had been hidden near the window, and Absalom had not noticed his presence, which proved that he was no amateur. Even so, Yukimura had been able to detect him immediately and eliminate him without mercy, right before the terrified eyes of Absalom—who was in his invisible state.
After that experience, Absalom felt a deep fear of ending up like that wretched fan and decided to observe the situation prudently instead of continuing to pursue Victoria Cindry recklessly.
To the surprise of the invisible pervert, in the days that followed Yukimura eliminated a large number of men just as he had before, and in every instance he appeared out of nowhere and without warning, as if he could sense the presence of others without even seeing them.
With great frustration, Absalom was forced to cancel all his plans of making Victoria Cindry his own, but he had not given up entirely; he would simply have to try harder to achieve it.
Over the following months, he contented himself with watching Victoria from a distance and masturbating while imagining the moment he would rape her. In addition, he would also slip into her home when she was not there, stealing her underwear or ejaculating on her bed.
This had caused great discomfort for Victoria, who immediately decided to return to Count Cindry's residence, where security was far stricter and Absalom found it much more difficult to carry out his perverted acts.
Yukimura, on the other hand, knew that an enemy was lurking around his king's wife, and he was seething with rage at the thought that someone was committing such acts right under his nose. In his mind, the serious subordinate of Orion swore that he would catch the culprit and send him to the other world without mercy, although over the following months he found no trace of Absalom.
However, today was finally the day Absalom would make his move. He had been planning his attack for months, so now that the moment had arrived, he was growing impatient.
Using his powers of invisibility, he had managed to steal a small fortune in this kingdom, enough to finance his perverse plans.
To begin with, he had hired Victoria's acting company to perform a private show at his grand mansion, and in addition, he had incited a large number of fans obsessed with the actress to act aggressively toward her, giving him the opportunity to take Victoria while her bodyguard Yukimura was occupied dealing with the mob of perverts.
At last, the theater company arrived at Absalom's mansion, and a large audience attended as his personal guests. The play began without incident, until at a certain moment a whistle sounded, signaling the time to act, and a large portion of the guests lunged toward the stage to seize Victoria in their arms.
Absalom had spent a long time identifying the most obsessed fans of Victoria, and the most despicable among them. What he needed was a mob of perverts like himself attacking the actress; only then would he have the chance to act amid the chaos.
Victoria saw the men with eyes full of lust running toward her, and she did not freeze. Abandoning the stage, she ran toward where her personal guard was, while Yukimura covered her retreat, mercilessly cutting down the degenerate men with his sword.
Victoria ran toward the exit, where her other guards were stationed—soldiers of the Cindry family, led by Yukimura—but before she could reach them, she felt her legs lose all strength and collapsed to the ground, unable to get back up.
Little by little, she felt her body growing weaker, and at that very moment someone lifted her into their arms and ran off with her. Victoria was somewhat confused by the effects of the drug Absalom had just used on her, and she could not understand why her body was floating through the air with no one there, when she could clearly feel that someone was carrying her.
Breathing heavily with excitement, Absalom extended his ability to Victoria's body, making her invisible and successfully completing her kidnapping. Running at the fastest speed his weak body would allow, he reached a remote area of the great mansion, behind a mountain, where there was a natural spring fed by a river flowing down from the distant mountains.
Then, unable to restrain himself any longer, he threw Victoria Cindry into the waters of the natural spring, dispelling the effects of his ability. The two people who had been invisible until then appeared once more, and Absalom reveled in a job well done.
Staring at the beautiful actress's breasts, visible through her soaked clothes, Absalom felt his desire overflow, and immediately stripped off his clothes, standing completely naked.
"Victoria Cindry, it's a pleasure to see you in person," Absalom said with a perverse smile.
"I'm sure you must be having trouble staying afloat with your muscles affected by the relaxation drug. But don't worry, I'll save your life if you ask me to make you mine," the perverted man added, looking down at Victoria with superiority.
This was the feeling he had been seeking. He did not only want to possess Victoria Cindry, the most beautiful and famous woman in the West Blue; he wanted her to beg him to fuck her. Only then would his twisted mentality find the comfort and satisfaction it so desperately sought.
However, to Absalom's surprise, Victoria would never utter such words, and she would rather die than be defiled by such a villain. With her lips pressed together, Victoria looked at Absalom with eyes full of contempt and disgust, while struggling to stay afloat.
That gaze deeply wounded the delicate ego of the perverted youth, who immediately felt a profound humiliation and decided that he would fuck Victoria Cindry in such a brutal way that she would be forced to beg for mercy.
Absalom took a step forward with a grim expression, but before he could take another, Yukimura fell from the sky like an enraged bull, attacking with a single swing of his sword.
"AAaahhhh!!!" Absalom's scream of pain echoed throughout the area, and the erect penis of the perverse man flew through the air. Yukimura's attack had been utterly brutal, severing Absalom's lineage in a single stroke.
Without wasting a second, Yukimura launched another sword attack, cutting across Absalom's torso, though it failed to be fatal because the perverted youth stepped back by sheer chance at the last moment.
The grievously wounded Absalom fell backward into the river nearby, instinctively activating his ability to turn invisible at the same time.
Yukimura saw that his enemy had disappeared, but he was still able to perceive his location thanks to his rudimentary use of Observation Haki. He had also noticed Absalom's movements and Victoria's abduction through his Haki, and for that reason he had ignored the mob of perverts in order to pursue Absalom.
Fortunately, he had made the right decision, ensuring that his mission to protect his king's wife did not fail, although he was far from satisfied with his own performance on this occasion. Even though he had prevented Absalom from taking advantage of Victoria, he had not been able to stop her from suffering at the hands of the pervert, and so Yukimura reproached himself for his incompetence.
If it were not for the fact that he still had matters to resolve at this moment, he would have imposed a punishment upon himself and contacted Orion to offer his own head as an apology for his grievous failure. To be honest, Yukimura was extremely serious and severe, especially with himself.
Raising his sword and focusing his Observation Haki, Yukimura located Absalom, who was being dragged downstream by the mountain current. He was ready to finish him off immediately, but before he could do so, he noticed Victoria Cindry's condition and once again scolded himself for not having his priorities straight.
What mattered most right now was not killing Absalom, but making sure that Victoria was safe.
After being thrown into the natural spring by the invisible pervert, Victoria had been struggling to stay afloat despite the fact that her muscles were numb and unresponsive. Finally, after a few brief moments, she reached her limit and was on the verge of drowning.
For that reason, Yukimura had no choice but to forget about the perverted Absalom and move at full speed to rescue his king's wife.
Jumping into the spring, Yukimura grabbed Victoria by the arm, helping her find her footing and thus preventing her from meeting a tragic end. In truth, the spring was not very deep, and the only reason she had been in trouble was because she could not control her own body.
Yukimura pulled Victoria out of the water, and after making sure that she was all right, he let out a relieved sigh, thinking that at least he had completed the mission entrusted to him by Orion.
Even so, he could not help but look into the distance with a hint of irritation, thinking that he had let the culprit escape due to his own lapse. Frowning, Yukimura took out his Den Den Mushi to call Count Cindry's soldiers and request their assistance in transporting Victoria back to her parents' home.
Once Victoria was safe, he would take care of hunting down the damned invisible man and cutting him down mercilessly with his sword. Glancing at Absalom's severed penis, which had been left behind on the ground, Yukimura felt a small measure of consolation, thinking that at least his enemy had not escaped unscathed.
…
While Yukimura was busy rescuing Victoria Cindry, Absalom had been dragged by the river all the way to the distant coast of the island. Fortunately for him, the cold river water had helped prevent his death by causing his blood vessels to constrict.
Although his life was not yet out of danger, at least his death had been delayed long enough to grant him another chance, and if Orion had been present at the scene, he would undoubtedly have conjectured that it was once again the "universe" openly acting to protect the original timeline as much as possible.
The invisible Absalom drifted down the river, half-conscious and undetectable to anyone, until he finally reached the shore, where a gigantic ship had dropped anchor in the deserted bay.
There stood a man who was able to detect his presence despite being unable to see him, and that man was none other than the Warlord Gekko Moria, who had come to this island to visit Doctor Hogback, the surgeon who had operated on his neck many years earlier after he had been gravely injured in his fight with Kaido.
Moria observed the half-dead man drifting down the river with interest, and with a macabre smile he used his shadows to pull him over, tossing him onto the rocky ground like a bag of trash.
"Kishishishishi! What an interesting fellow. His ability could be very useful!" Moria said with a broad grin, as he picked up a heated iron he had been using to cook pieces of meat over a bonfire by the shore and pressed it against Absalom's groin, cruelly cauterizing his wound and leaving him permanently transformed into a eunuch.
Then, using his shadows, he kept the battered youth alive as he lay before him, all the while thinking about how to persuade Hogback to join his crew as the surgeon who would create his zombie army.
The current Moria was completely different from the one Orion had encountered years earlier. He had already shaken off the depression of being crushed by Kaido, and although he no longer possessed the confidence he had as a rookie, he once again harbored ambitions for the future.
Now that he was a Warlord, his desire was to form an army of zombies and return to the Grand Line once more. Given enough time, he would amass the strength necessary to reclaim a place in this world, and the first step in his plans was to recruit the most famous surgeon in the West Blue, the very man who had treated him years ago.
What Moria did not know was that Hogback had been eliminated by Orion, and so his plans would be thwarted. Even so, the Warlord would not give up, and the change introduced by Orion into the timeline would lead him to seek out a renowned doctor elsewhere, altering the original history even further.
Still, considering the chance encounter between Absalom and Moria in this place, it could undoubtedly be said that the gears of history continued to turn in a predetermined direction. It would fall to Orion to completely change the fate of this world.