Side: Third-person perspective
"Was that really alright, Boss? Making a promise like that."
"Hm? What promise?"
Back in his private quarters, Shiki answered without looking up as he poured himself a nightcap. Across from him sat Dr. Indigo—his trusted right-hand man, dragged into drinking with him as usual.
"About how you'll handle Miss. Promising there'll be no looting of civilians, and that you won't make her cooperate as a propaganda figure… It felt pretty far from the original plan."
"You think I'm spoiling her too much?" Shiki let out a low laugh. "Jihahahaha… Maybe I am. Normally I wouldn't even hear that kind of opinion. Anyone with the nerve to say it would get kicked across the room."
"If you kicked someone now, Boss, they wouldn't go flying. They'd just get skewered."
"But even so, it's fine." Shiki tipped back his drink and exhaled. "No—right now, that's exactly how it should be."
"And you say that because…?"
Shiki popped a snack into his mouth, then answered Dr. Indigo's question with a crooked, nasty grin.
"I told Sue earlier, too—this is going to be another stretch of laying low. And the plan we started with needs major revisions. Even if the damage was relatively minor, some of the island's facilities and animals took hits… and the Marines learned I'm still alive. After we even drove off an Admiral… Sengoku and Garp won't be relaxing their guard anytime soon."
"Even if I don't know the specifics of what you intend, having those two watching does make things difficult… Originally, we were aiming to trigger the plan twenty years later. That's about seven years from now. Are we wiping the original plan clean?"
"No. That continues." Shiki's answer was immediate. "The animals and S.I.Q are useful, no question. You can never have too much military power. Keep your research moving the same as always."
"Understood. Then the plan you're changing—what does that look like?"
"Like I said. Sengoku and the rest will stay on alert for a long time. They know how persistent I am." Shiki's grin sharpened. "Hell, they might not drop their guard even when the 'twentieth year' comes. So…"
"So?"
"So we'll attack in a way that makes being on guard meaningless."
He said it like it was obvious—and smiled again, pleased with himself.
"Fortunately, we just got our hands on the perfect piece for that kind of operation."
"You mean Miss."
"Yeah." Shiki's eyes gleamed. "Combat power, brains, ability, fame, future potential—no matter which one you look at, she's first-rate. And the Paper-Paper Fruit…" He clicked his tongue, almost admiring. "That thing can do an absurd amount. It'll shine in any situation. If you want to put it simply, it's a versatility monster."
"But Miss doesn't seem to have a good impression of your usual style, Boss… and you just promised you wouldn't use her fame as a tool."
"No problem." Shiki drained the cup Dr. Indigo refilled for him, then let out a satisfied breath. "Because I'm not breaking the promise."
"…Then how?"
"It's simple." Shiki leaned back. "I don't use methods she hates. I let her do things her way, without shackles. I get her cooperating comfortably—and I make sure that power serves my purpose to the fullest."
Dr. Indigo stared. "…Can you actually do that?"
"That's where my talent as a schemer comes in." Shiki shrugged. "I'll think it through slowly. I've got time. And honestly? I don't think the hurdle is that high."
"…Because she's your daughter?"
"I'm not saying she'll throw herself into helping me just because of blood." Shiki's voice dropped, amused. "Indigo—how did she look to you? Polite, gentle, sweet… aside from her strength, did she seem like just some ordinary girl you'd see anywhere?"
Dr. Indigo recalled Sue's face.
"Polite" was debatable, but "gentle" wasn't far off. Even though she was known as the "Pirate Literary Master," she carried almost no sense of being a "pirate" at all—so little it bordered on none. She'd never engaged in looting or the kind of violence pirates were infamous for. She'd even shown casual concern for strangers she'd only just met—people like the villagers on Shiki's island, under Shiki's rule.
Gentle, soft, ordinary. The image wasn't perfect, but it wasn't wildly wrong either.
But Shiki let out a muffled laugh, like he was amused at the very idea.
"That's not it. That woman's 'ordinary' is just the surface." His grin turned darker. "No—more accurately, that's only one side of her. Inside her… the same 'pirate' potential I've got is sleeping properly. And at the same time…"
His eyes narrowed.
"…the same kind of madness she's got, too."
"And what are you basing that on?"
"She's got her own desire," Shiki said, as if stating a fact. "A desire that's hers alone. A desire she's already decided comes first—no matter what, no matter who it inconveniences. The difference is, unlike mine, hers isn't necessarily something that harms others."
He paused.
"But the day will come when someone tries to trample it. And what I want to see is what she does then." His voice turned almost delighted. "I can't wait. That's when Sue will truly raise her first cry—in the real sense. As the daughter of Shiki the Golden Lion."
"You think a day like that will come?"
"It will." Shiki's smile widened. "No—if anything… you could say it's already here."
Dr. Indigo blinked. "?"
"You'll understand eventually. You—and Sue herself." Shiki's gaze drifted, as if he were looking at something far ahead. "Who she really needs to bare her fangs at. What she truly needs to do to shed 'unfreedom' and become 'free.' For that coming moment… Papa will prepare."
Dr. Indigo lifted a brow. "You've really taken to that name."
"Surprisingly." Shiki chuckled. "Maybe I've got some actual familial affection for her after all. Jihahahaha… Alright. That's enough drinking. Tomorrow gets busy again. I'm counting on you, Dr. Indigo."
"Of course. Leave it to me. I'll meet your expectations."
"Good." Shiki swayed just slightly, then peered toward the mirror. "Jihaha… I might've had a little too much. My face is probably red as—huh? Why's there a chicken over there?"
"That's you!!"
Dr. Indigo's crisp retort cracked through the room.
Even while plotting for the future, the two of them were exactly the same as always—scheming, bickering, and somehow having far too much fun.
""Yes, sir!"" ← decisive pose
☆☆☆
Elsewhere—near the midpoint of the Grand Line, at Marine Headquarters.
In one of its rooms, Fleet Admiral Sengoku the Buddha spoke into a Den Den Mushi. On the other end was the man he'd entrusted with a major job not long ago… and who, unfortunately, had failed.
"I had Intelligence verify it. Not a single infiltrated operative came back. Contact cut off completely. I don't know how he did it, but it's safe to assume they were all discovered and eliminated."
"That's… unfortunate. If that's the case, then the party we had on the inside is gone too."
"Yeah. We're stuck. It'll be difficult to pursue him any further." Sengoku's tone hardened. "For now, the operation is over. Once your condition is confirmed, return to Headquarters, Aokiji."
"Understood. Though… I don't really have anything you'd call a wound."
At the very end of his clash with Shiki, Aokiji had been bitten by the flaming lion Shiki unleashed—then hurled off the island.
He fell into the sea.
For an ordinary Devil Fruit Ability User, that was the end. Ability Users were all helpless in seawater; their strength drained away, they sank, and drowning awaited.
But Aokiji had eaten the Ice-Ice Fruit—an Ice Human capable of freezing vast stretches of ocean in an instant. For him, the sea wasn't an absolute weakness. If he released cold before impact—or the moment he hit the water—he could freeze it and keep himself from sinking.
He survived.
But once he'd fallen, he had no way back to the Sky Island. He couldn't fly.
When he looked up, warships—warships that used to be warships—were dropping from the sky at intervals, along with enormous chunks of ice.
Seeing that, Aokiji understood at once: the mobilized fleet was gone. The operation had failed.
And at the same time, the stinging pain pulsing through his body—and the wrongness crawling across his skin—made him realize he hadn't been unscathed after all.
Just as he'd suspected in the middle of the fight, Shiki's "flame lion" had carried strange green fire. It wasn't ordinary flame; it was fueled by flammable chemicals, which was why Aokiji's cold couldn't extinguish it easily.
And from the pain spreading through him now, he'd also realized it had properties that were harmful to the human body.
To be safe, he'd gone to a military doctor. No severe toxicity was found. He was told to watch it for a few days, and if nothing abnormal appeared, he could return to duty.
"If it's nothing serious, good." Sengoku's voice was calm, but heavy. "Shiki is persistent. If he was planning something, I doubt he'll abandon it after this. We'll keep our guard up for a while. At the same time, he's cautious. He likely won't show his hand for at least a few months… possibly years. That doesn't mean we can relax."
"If he'd just disappear, that'd be perfect. Maybe he'll drop dead from some illness."
"Garp said something similar. 'Go be a legend somewhere and stay quiet,' he said."
"Fair enough. And… I'm not making excuses, but we did break quite a bit. He should be hurting, at least. So he won't move for a while."
Then, as if remembering the fight's final moments, Aokiji added in a lightly teasing tone:
"That lion head he used near the end had all kinds of junk mixed into it. Maybe he yanked it from all over, but there was rubble, glass shards, even something like garden trees… it was a mess. Did he blow up part of his own base or something?"
Sengoku gave a brief laugh. "Sounds like he was desperate. A lion packed with glass shards… you were the right one to take it. A normal Marine would have been shredded. That's lethality."
"Yeah, true. Oh—and the last one that fell into the sea with me had a lot mixed in too. I froze it with the ocean, but there was paper everywhere, frozen along with it. Maybe it was soaked with chemicals and used for fueling the fire."
"…Paper, hm." Sengoku's tone shifted, faintly thoughtful. "All right, Aokiji. I'm heading into a meeting. I'm cutting the call. The rest—tell me directly when you return."
"Understood. Thanks."
The call ended.
Sengoku set the receiver down, gathered his documents and writing tools for the meeting, and—
"…Paper, huh…"
He muttered it like something had snagged in his mind.
☆☆☆
Side: Sue (Present)
Alright.
Let's call the flashback done for now.
Though… I should at least give a rough idea of what happened after that—how I ended up spending time under Shiki's roof.
Basically, things went the way I'd been told. After that, I became a provisional member—more like a temporary add-on—of the Golden Lion Pirates.
But it wasn't like I was taking orders to go raid places. I only helped within what I was willing to do: cooperating with interrogations using Heaven's Door like earlier, assisting with weather forecasting, that kind of 'if I can help, I help' work.
Sometimes I helped with Dr. Indigo's research, too.
I'm going to sound like I'm praising myself, but Shiki wasn't wrong—apparently my brain came with pretty high specs. Just by tearing through the books in "Mama's" room, I could absorb the knowledge smoothly and make it mine.
More than that… watching the information pile up inside me was fun in its own right. I got addicted to it. It reached the point where I was basically chanting, 'More. More,' while I read.
Of course, having a huge amount of knowledge doesn't instantly make you a great researcher. The 'how to use it' part needs experience to match, and you can't fake that.
So at best, I was like Dr. Indigo's assistant—throwing out ideas, offering opinions. That was what I could do.
If anything, I might have been better at the other kind of work: going out, visiting places firsthand, and bringing back materials.
It happened surprisingly often while traveling—running into something that made you go, 'Wait, that might be useful.' Whenever I brought those things back to the lab, Dr. Indigo did usually look pleased.
…The smile was always a little complicated, though. Like he was happy and suffering at the same time, because it meant extra work.
Still, I'm pretty sure I brought back enough valuable materials to justify it.
One of them was "dragon bone" from the East Blue. Not some immortality panacea or anything, but a raw material for a really solid nutritional supplement.
At first it was just a small amount we got by accident, but once it became clear it was the real deal, I took the three Fish-Man girls and went back to properly mine more.
Another haul that made Dr. Indigo just about dance was from Crown Island in the Grand Line.
That island's guardian—the "Kirin Raian," some winged lion monster with golden horns—came at us. We dealt with it, and that's how we got the material.
Well. "Dealt with" is doing a lot of work there. We only knocked it out, so it wasn't dead. And it attacked us first, so it was self-defense… though, yes, we did wander into its territory, so maybe I shouldn't be too smug about that.
Either way, a few horns snapped during the fight. I brought those broken pieces back as spoils, and apparently they were full of unknown components.
I kept bringing things in like that, and when I could, I helped with the research around them.
As for my position—my existence—Shiki did what he'd said he would. He only told a small number of trusted executives, and that included the fact that I was his biological daughter.
Some people went, "If Shiki-sama says so, we obey." Others hesitated—"Is she really his daughter?" "That's too sudden to believe."
A few apparently decided I must be Shiki's mistress or something.
…I mean, with the age gap, I can see why their brains would jump there. Unfortunately.
Shiki's answer to all of it was exactly what you'd expect from a pirate: "If you've got complaints, prove it with strength."
Simple. Forceful. Physical.
And the target they were told to "prove it" against was… me.
If they didn't like me being accepted, they could test my strength first—so I ended up standing out front and taking challenges from the crew.
Worse, Shiki would egg them on with stuff like, "If you win, you can do whatever you want with her," which, yes, made a certain type of idiot charge in with extra motivation.
But once I fought them all and flattened them, the problem went away. They accepted me.
Some of them were genuinely tough, but the "level-up" I got from fighting Shiki helped more than I expected.
After I proved myself with strength, the petty remarks and hostile looks stopped. Pirates, for all their chaos, do seem to respect hierarchy—if you clear the 'proper steps,' they treat you accordingly.
…The fact that "proper steps" can be interpreted as a fist is absolutely something you could argue about, but I'm not opening that door right now.
Anyway, once I had a place in Shiki's hideout on Merveille, I stayed for a while—partly to keep an eye on my body, since Dr. Indigo said I might be "awakening" as a "superhuman."
During that time, I helped Shiki when needed like I said, and sometimes he trained me.
Not just basic combat, either—though that was part of it. As a senior Ability User, he gave advice on how to control and strengthen powers. And then there was Haki.
After the recent fight, we found out I had the potential for Conqueror's Haki, so I started learning how to handle that too.
Stacking that on top of what I'd learned from Rayleigh, and getting to learn again from a great pirate who lived in the same era and clashed with the Pirate King… that was an enormous advantage for me.
Honestly, I was excited.
I planned to put everything into it. I wanted to see how far I could go.
Also, apparently the training was a kind of rehab for Shiki, too. The fight made him realize he'd gotten rustier than he thought, so he was trying to get his old instincts back.
Alright, Papa. Let's do our best together.
…That said, I never knew how long that relationship—or that life—would last.
Like I've said over and over, I was only "provisionally" part of the crew.
I'd been vague about that when Shiki explained things to the executives, so it wasn't stated clearly… but if this crew ever started feeling like it didn't suit me, I fully intended to leave. That part never changed.
I wasn't going to force myself to stay somewhere that didn't fit, even if blood was involved.
How long would I stay here?
How much would I blend in?
That… no one knew yet.
…And that was how my life as 'Shiki's daughter' began.
So what did it end up looking like?
Present day.
"Yo! Papa, I'm back!"
"Oh, welcome home." Shiki glanced over. "What the hell—if you were coming back, you could've at least called on a Den Den Mushi. I didn't prepare food."
"It's fine, it's fine. I ate already. More importantly, I've got a small favor… I picked up someone who looks like they might be good. Can you keep an eye on them for me? Only if they seem useful."
"You…" Shiki sighed. "How many times have I told you not to pick people up like stray dogs and cats? …Well, the people you've brought me so far have had a pretty good hit rate, so fine."
"Sorry, sorry. Oh—and I brought a souvenir again today, so I'll drop it off with Dr. Indigo."
"Oh. That, at least—thanks. Always."
"Anytime."
…Yeah. That's basically how things are.
To be continued...