-Real World-
When the mysterious woman appeared on the Sky Screen and the character annotation materialized beneath her image, Portgas D. Ace felt his breath catch in his throat. That name Ann struck him like a physical blow.
My sister.
It turned out that his sister was so beautiful. Breathtakingly, impossibly beautiful. And five years in the future, she would consume the Mera Mera no Mi (Flame-Flame Fruit)—the same Devil Fruit that currently granted Ace his powers, that had defined his fighting style and earned him the epithet "Fire Fist." Brother and sister would share the same Devil Fruit across time, connected by flame and blood. There was something wonderfully fateful about that connection, something that felt almost like destiny.
However, when it came to actual mastery and application of the Mera Mera no Mi's abilities, Ace had to admit—however reluctantly—that his approach was crude by comparison. He was a reckless fighter who favored overwhelming offense, who believed that bigger flames and more destructive power were always the answer.
But Ann? The Fire Charm technique she displayed, weaponizing her beauty into a lethal ability? The defensive fire shield she formed with such elegant efficiency? These were applications that Fire Fist Ace, Whitebeard's beloved godson, was completely incapable of replicating. She had mastered aspects of the fruit he'd never even considered, developed techniques that lay far beyond his reach.
"Sis, where are you now?" Ace's voice emerged as barely more than a whisper, his eyes locked on Ann's image as it dominated the Sky Screen. "What is Buggy the Clown's conspiracy? Why did he hide you?"
The Sky Screen had lifted one layer of fog for Portgas D. Ace, revealing the existence of family he'd never known. But in doing so, it had created even more troubles and problems, raising questions that spiraled through his mind without answers. The young man who had just turned twenty found himself confused and overwhelmed by the implications.
If what the Sky Screen showed was true—and Ace had learned to trust its prophecies—then the child of the Pirate King had been caught in a massive conspiracy from the moment of birth. Even a straightforward, reckless man like Ace could detect the manipulation at work. He didn't know what scheme Buggy the Clown was orchestrating, couldn't see the full scope of the plan, but he understood instinctively that many innocent people would be caught in its web.
Ace raised his right hand toward the Sky Screen, toward his sister's image flickering in the air above. His fingers curled into a fist as he made his vow, his voice carrying absolute conviction. "Sis, I will definitely find you. Just wait for me."
He could do it. He would do it. The son of the Pirate King, who had longed for family affection his entire life, who had grown up believing himself alone in the world, must see his biological sister Ann while he was still alive. That had become his new priority, his new mission.
As for the traitor Blackbeard—Marshall D. Teach, who had murdered a fellow division commander and fled with the Yami Yami no Mi—well, Ace would let him go for now. There was no rush to capture and punish him. Family came first. Ann came first.
Vice Admiral Garp stared at the granddaughter he had never met, his weathered face creasing with concentration. Ann didn't resemble her mother at all—where Portgas D. Rouge had possessed a gentle, warm beauty, Ann's appearance was sharp and devastating, designed to destroy rather than comfort.
More disturbingly, even he—as an elder, as her grandfather—felt certain evil thoughts stirring when looking at her image. The realization left the old man speechless for a long moment, caught between shame and confusion. But he quickly suppressed those foreign impulses with a surge of his own Haki, crushing the Fire Charm's influence through sheer force of willpower.
The experience provided another perspective from which to examine this situation, however. The Sky Screen's image of Ann was too perfect. After observing for a long time, scrutinizing her features with a Marine's analytical eye, Garp realized there seemed to be no flaw on her whatsoever. Even the delicate freckles that had graced Portgas D. Rouge's face—small marks that had made her beauty more human, more real—were completely absent from her daughter's appearance.
Sometimes being too perfect was very abnormal. Almost... artificial.
"Could it be Buggy the Clown's doing again?" Garp muttered to himself, his hand moving unconsciously to stroke his beard.
The Hero of the Marines did not doubt Ann's true identity—she was undoubtedly another child of the Pirate King, Rouge's daughter and Ace's twin. There was nothing wrong with that fundamental truth. But Garp couldn't shake the feeling that since his "granddaughter" had become so impossibly perfect, so flawlessly beautiful, Buggy must have done something to the girl.
Using his darkest thoughts to speculate about Buggy the Clown's methods, Garp imagined possibilities that made his jaw clench with suppressed fury. Perhaps the Clown Emperor had transformed Ann into her current appearance just to satisfy his own twisted aesthetic preferences. Perhaps he had reshaped her into this weapon of seduction and forced the girl to recognize him as her godfather, binding her to his service through manipulation and control.
Invisibly, without even realizing it, Garp had taken advantage of the Clown once again—attributing to Buggy crimes he might not have actually committed, but which seemed entirely plausible given everything else the Sky Screen had revealed.
Throughout the world, after seeing Ann's appearance on the Sky Screen, countless men wanted to raise their hands to prove their innocence, to demonstrate that they were above such base reactions. But many of them simply couldn't manage it. They had no resistance to such an enchanting beauty, no defense against the Fire Charm's passive influence.
Beggars on the streets, ordinary civilians going about their daily lives, pirates sailing the seas, Marines maintaining order, and even Celestial Dragons in their palatial homes—all harbored dirty thoughts about the daughter of the Pirate King. Rich and poor, powerful and weak, good and evil—the Fire Charm made no distinction.
Everyone has a lustful heart. It was inevitable for most men and some women as well, an unfortunate truth of human nature. Ann herself could never have expected that after appearing on the Sky Screen for only a few minutes, she would become a female character that audiences worldwide would never forget. Within days, she would be recognized across all seas as the number one sexual fantasy object, her image seared into the collective consciousness of millions.
Most people were happy with this development, enjoying their fantasies and discussing Ann's attributes in taverns and marketplaces. But some were decidedly unhappy with the new arrival on the scene.
The question began to circulate almost immediately: Who was the most beautiful woman in the world—Ann or Boa Hancock?
This evenly matched debate would last for years to come. Fans of both sides would remain entangled in this issue indefinitely, arguing with passion until one side fell down exhausted or was completely eliminated through attrition.
Boa Hancock, who had never been directly mentioned by the Sky Screen before this moment, became absolutely furious when she heard Ann casually dismiss her as "that bad-tempered old woman."
The Pirate Empress was extremely sensitive about her age—a fact that her sisters knew well and carefully avoided mentioning. To hear herself described in such terms, to have her temperament mocked by this upstart beauty, was an insult beyond tolerance.
In her rage, Hancock overturned the massive dining table before her with a single violent motion. Exquisite tableware—porcelain plates worth more than most ships—and expensive delicacies prepared by the kingdom's finest chefs crashed to the marble floor. The crisp sound of shattering dishes spread throughout the palace, causing servants to freeze in terror and her sisters to exchange worried glances.
"Ann!" Hancock's voice carried through the halls like thunder, her Conqueror's Haki unconsciously leaking out and causing weaker-willed servants to collapse. "Where do you get such confidence? How dare you compete with me?" Her beautiful face contorted with fury, veins visible on her forehead. "Don't let me catch you on the sea!"
It was the first time in many years that the Pirate Empress had been so genuinely angry. The dialogue scene on the Sky Screen had completely broken through this woman's usually impenetrable composure. Hancock had always been extraordinarily proud of possessing the reputation as the world's most beautiful woman—that title was hers by right, earned through her overwhelming charisma and peerless appearance. Only by maintaining that supreme position could she feel worthy of her royal bearing, her status as Empress.
But she hadn't expected that five years in the future, some little girl would have the audacity to challenge her for that crown. Boa Hancock felt—after her initial rage subsided into cold analysis—that she was no worse than Ann in any meaningful way. The other woman was at most younger, that was all. Youth was a temporary advantage that time would erode.
But then the Empress felt something else: panic. Because the footage about the Dressrosa Incident was approaching its end, and the post-episode story had already begun to appear on the Sky Screen, explaining the aftermath and showing glimpses of the people and events that survived the catastrophe.
If Ann appeared more frequently in future broadcasts, if the world saw her repeatedly while Hancock remained absent...
The thought was unbearable.
-Broadcast-
Regarding the aftermath of the Dressrosa Incident, Admiral Gin returned from the King's Plateau in time to successfully rescue his Marine subordinates who had been transformed into wax figures by Galdino's Devil Fruit ability. His intervention preserved the backbone of the new Marine generation, saving dozens of promising officers who would have otherwise remained imprisoned in paraffin forever.
The Dressrosa operation had gone catastrophically wrong from start to finish. As the Admiral leading the expedition, Gin could not escape blame for the disaster. After returning to Marine Headquarters, he would almost certainly face severe punishment. Unfavorable voices criticizing his leadership would emerge again within the organization, questioning whether someone with his track record deserved to hold Admiral rank. Whether the Acting Fleet Admiral could protect him this time remained an open question.
But all of that was concern for the future. Right now, at this moment, Gin had no mental energy to spare for political consequences. He was leading the surviving Marines in holding a celebration party alongside the Straw Hat Pirates in the ruins of Dressrosa. As the victorious parties who had survived hell itself, they deserved to celebrate—to use the most sumptuous banquet possible to wash away their emotional pain and honor the memory of the fallen.
Brook, the skeleton musician, had successfully completed his assigned mission. Working alone in the darkness beneath the palace, he had rescued all the dwarf who had been enslaved in the SMILE factory—hundreds of tiny people who had been forced to cultivate artificial Devil Fruits under threat of torture and death. Their liberation was one of the few unambiguous victories to emerge from the Dressrosa nightmare.
In order to thank these pirate benefactors who had freed them from bondage, the Tontatta tribe returned to their hidden island and retrieved all their treasured wines—rare vintages they had been saving for generations. They joined the celebration party in force, with Princess Mansherry using her Chiyu Chiyu no Mi (Heal-Heal Fruit) to tend to the wounded while her subjects served drinks and shared in the joy of freedom.
The ingredients for the banquet were prepared by the fish-man Marlin, a mysterious aquatic warrior who wielded an ornate trident. He called upon ancient powers tied to the sea god's legacy, commanding the ocean itself to respond. A tremendous number of deep-sea fish answered his summons, offering their delicious bodies to provide meat for the celebration feast. The variety was staggering—species that normally dwelt in the darkest depths, fish that surface dwellers rarely saw, all laid out for the taking.
There was only one person who carried the heaviest burden at the banquet, and that was the okama chef Sanji. Since none of the other survivors possessed any meaningful cooking skills—Marines were soldiers, not culinary artists, and pirates generally survived on whatever they could scavenge—the sole professional chef had to undertake the monumental task of preparing food for everyone.
In truth, this arrangement was also Sanji's personal insistence. He couldn't stand the industrial food that Franky produced through his automated cooking systems. The cyborg's mechanically-prepared meals were efficient and nutritious, certainly, but Sanji believed such food had no soul whatsoever. It was acceptable for filling one's stomach in an emergency, for staving off starvation when time was critical, but serving such soulless fare to others at a proper banquet? That would be completely unacceptable, an insult to the occasion.
Food that wasn't prepared by professional chefs with care and attention was nothing but garbage in Sanji's eyes—edible, perhaps, but unworthy of being called cuisine.
The okama chef worked tirelessly, his hands moving in practiced motions as he prepared dish after dish. Grilled fish seasoned with herbs. Stews made from the choicest cuts of sea king meat. Delicate pastries for dessert. Each plate was a work of art, each flavor combination carefully considered. Sweat dripped down his face, but Sanji's expression showed nothing but focused determination.
Meanwhile, Monkey D. Luffy was in rough shape. Because of using Gear Fourth during the battle against Doflamingo's string clone, his body was displaying extremely severe side effects. At this moment, he resembled a deflated balloon—his whole body reduced to skin and bones, his normally muscular frame collapsed inward until he looked almost skeletal. His head rested on the archaeologist Nico Robin's thigh, while the navigator Nami knelt beside him, fanning him with steady, gentle motions.
The captain was receiving devoted service from two beautiful women simultaneously, a situation that would have driven Sanji insane with jealousy under normal circumstances. But Luffy seemed completely oblivious to his enviable position. Instead, he kept repeating the same desperate plea over and over:
"Meat... meat... meat..."
Luffy urgently needed food to restore his body, to replenish the enormous caloric deficit created by Gear Fourth's massive energy consumption. He had eaten Franky's industrial food once during the immediate aftermath of the battle, and the experience had been so disappointing that he never wanted to repeat it. His stomach actively missed the incredible taste of meals prepared by Sanji's skilled hands—real food, made with passion and care.
The celebration party was not being held aboard the Thousand Sunny—the ship simply couldn't accommodate so many people at once without being dangerously overcrowded. Instead, the gathering had been arranged on a flat, open space within Dressrosa itself, a relatively undamaged plaza that had somehow survived the titan rampage and nuclear explosion.
Perhaps holding the celebration here, in this land that had seen so much suffering, was appropriate. Perhaps the laughter and joy could help dilute the overwhelming sadness that had soaked into Dressrosa's very stones, offering the island a moment of lightness amid the darkness.