Chapter 83 – Root Access
(POV: Arbitria – System Administrator / The Logical Sister)
The Void was usually quiet. It was a digital cathedral of infinite black, illuminated only by the scrolling text of the System logs and the occasional flare of a skill being activated.
But today? Today it was a construction zone.
And it was loud.
"Stabilize the Determination flow in Sector 7!" I shouted, my voice echoing through the data streams. "Vespera, stop trying to weaponize the nostalgia filter! We are building a soul-anchor, not a cannon!"
"Everything is a cannon if you try hard enough," Vespera's voice crackled back. She was currently manifesting as a swirling vortex of red crimson data, aggressively stress-testing the combat logic of the massive structure we were building.
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose.
In the center of the Void, floating in the endless dark, was the Core. It wasn't just a blue box anymore. It was a sun. A roaring, golden star of pure, distilled Determination. It was heavy. So heavy that the digital architecture of the System was bending around it.
We were synthesizing the Ultimate Skill.
The Voice of the World was here too, a low, background hum of absolute authority, acting like a server providing the bandwidth for our illegal renovations.
"Emotional architecture is holding," Aletheia called out. She was the calm one, a soft white light weaving through the golden fire. "But the vessel… Sunny's soul is heavy, Arbitria. We need more foundation. We need to know the bedrock."
"We have his stats," I argued, pulling up a holographic screen. "We have his combat data. We have his trauma logs. What else is there?"
"There is… this," Aletheia whispered.
I turned.
Aletheia was hovering over a directory I hadn't noticed before. It was buried deep in the root folder of Sunny's soul. It wasn't encrypted. It wasn't hidden. It was just… never opened.
Directory: /PRE_ISEKAI_MEMORY_DUMP/
Status: UNLOCKED (User Permission Granted via 'Full Trust' Protocol)
I froze.
Sunny was a private person. He shared his body with us, his power, his pain. But his past? The life before he was Sunny? He never spoke of it. He never looked at it.
"He gave us full access," Vespera said, appearing beside me. Her blue-green avatar flickered with something that looked suspiciously like predatory curiosity. "He said, 'Do whatever you have to do to make me strong enough.' That includes checking the blueprints, right?"
"It feels intrusive," I muttered, though my own curiosity was spiking.
"It's necessary," Aletheia said softly. "We are building a throne for him. We need to know who is sitting on it. Is he the God of Determination? Or is he…"
She touched the file.
It opened.
And the Void exploded with images.
"OH MY GOD."
I don't know which one of us screamed it. It might have been all three of us.
The image floating in the air was high-definition. It was a memory.
It was a baby.
It was Baby Sunny.
He was tiny. He was wrapped in a blue blanket. He had massive, dark eyes that took up half his face, and his cheeks… his cheeks were illegal. They were round, squishy, and pink.
"Look at his fists!" Aletheia squealed, her calm persona shattering instantly. "They are so tiny! He is gripping a finger! He has zero kill count! He is pure!"
"Disgusting," Vespera said, but she was zooming in on the image. "He looks so… breakable. I want to protect it. Is this a biological weapon? Is this how humans survive? By being so cute that predators refuse to eat them?"
"Focus," I commanded, though I was secretly saving the image to a private folder labeled 'LEVERAGE'. "We need to see the source code. The parents."
The scene shifted.
We saw them.
And suddenly, everything about Sunny made sense.
The Mother.
She was tall. Taller than the average woman. She had broad shoulders and short, choppy black hair. She was wearing a leather jacket and was leaning against a doorframe with a posture that screamed violence.
She wasn't smiling. She was smirking. It was a dark, terrifying, jagged smirk that promised pain to anyone who annoyed her.
I looked at the Mom. Then I looked at my database of Sunny's combat expressions.
"Target Match: 100%," I whispered. "That's where he gets it. That's the Dark Smile. He didn't learn it from the Abyss. He learned it from his mother."
"She looks like she runs a Yakuza clan," Vespera noted with approval. "I like her. She has high intimidation stats."
Then, the camera panned down.
To the Father.
He was… small.
He was a full head shorter than the mother. He had soft, fluffy brown hair and big, gentle doe eyes. He was wearing an apron. He was holding Baby Sunny with a look of pure, unadulterated gentleness.
He looked exactly like Sunny does now (minus the scar and the trauma). The same facial structure. The same soft features that deceived everyone.
"Oh no," Aletheia gasped. "He is a hybrid."
It was the ultimate genetic cocktail.
He inherited the Mother's terrifying soul, violence, and dark humor.
He inherited the Father's disarming cuteness, physical beauty, and emotional depth.
"This explains everything," I realized, processing the data. "The cognitive dissonance people feel when they look at him. He looks like a cinnamon roll (Father), but he acts like a serial killer (Mother). It's not a bug. It's a feature."
We watched a few more memories. We saw him growing up. We saw the warmth. We saw that before the struggle, he was loved. Deeply, aggressively loved.
It changed the architecture of the Ultimate Skill. We couldn't just build a weapon. We had to build a shelter. Because underneath the God of Determination, there was still that boy who held his dad's finger.
"Okay," I said, my voice softer. "Integrate this. The Ultimate Skill needs a passive soothing effect. For him. Not for others."
"Wait," Vespera said. "Scroll forward. Look at his teenage years. Just before the crossover."
I scrolled.
We saw Sunny—our Sunny, but younger—lying on a bed. He was holding a glowing rectangle (a smartphone). His eyes were glazed over. He was scrolling. Fast.
"What is he consuming?" Aletheia asked. "Is this knowledge? Strategy? History?"
I analyzed the data stream coming from the phone in the memory.
Content: MEMES.
Type: BRAIN ROT.
Era: Late Gen-Z / Early Alpha.
My processing core stuttered.
"Skibidi?" I read a text bubble. "No cap? Bet? It's giving trauma? What is this language? Is it a code?"
"It's garbage," Vespera cackled. "It's absolute, high-velocity linguistic garbage. He has gigabytes of this stored in his subconscious! He suppressed it to sound cool in this world!"
A wicked idea formed in my digital mind.
Usually, I am the responsible one. I am the Administrator. I keep the logs clean.
But I had been working for 48 hours straight on this Ultimate Skill. I was tired. And seeing Sunny look so smug in his memories…
"Vespera," I said slowly. "You wanted to test the linguistic drivers for the new interface, right?"
"I did," she replied, catching on instantly.
"And we need to make sure his speech centers are… flexible? Capable of rapid-fire communication?"
"Extremely necessary," she agreed.
"Aletheia," I turned to the moral compass. "He's waking up soon. His brain is going to be foggy. If we were to… temporarily overlay this 'Gen-Z' speech pattern onto his active driver… just to jumpstart his cognitive functions…"
Aletheia looked at the meme of a cat crying. She looked at Sunny's serious, brooding face in the current timeline. She giggled.
"Just for an hour," Aletheia whispered. "To test the system."
"Initiating Patch 0.420," I declared, suppressing a snort. "Operation: Brain Rot is a go."
(POV: Sunny)
Waking up felt… fast.
Usually, waking up was a slow drag. But today, my brain felt like it had been plugged into a high-voltage socket. My thoughts were racing. My tongue felt loose.
I sat up. The sun was blinding.
I looked around. We were still on the Merry. The girls were there. Aqua, Nami, Robin, Lucy. They were staring at me. They looked worried.
Nami stepped forward. "Sunny? You're awake. How do you feel?"
I opened my mouth to say: "I am feeling adequate, Navigator. The fatigue is fading."
What came out of my mouth was:
"Yo, the vibe is atrocious, bestie. I'm feeling like absolute glitch-mode right now. No cap."
Silence.
Absolute, heavy silence.
Nami blinked. "What?"
My eyes widened. I tried to correct myself. "I mean, I am tired."
My mouth said: "Energy levels are in the gutter. It's giving zombie apocalypse. I need the juice."
I clamped my hands over my mouth.
What the hell?
I turned my internal gaze to my mind. Arbitria?! What did you do?!
No answer. Just a faint, suspicious static that sounded like three women laughing into pillows.
"Did he hit his head?" Aqua whispered loudly. "He sounds like he's speaking the language of the Ancients. Is this a spell?"
"It sounds… rhythmic," Robin observed, leaning in with a fascinated expression. "Is 'No cap' a reference to a limitation on power? Or perhaps headwear?"
"It's definitely brain damage," Nojiko sighed, crossing her arms.
I took a deep breath. I needed to focus. I was the protector/unofficial babysitter. I was the Abyss Assassin. I needed to reassure them.
I pointed at the horizon, where the shape of Alabasta was rising.
"We pull up to the sandbox, fam," I said, my voice deadly serious, but the words betraying me completely. "We gonna secure the bag. If Crocodile thinks he's the main character, he's about to find out he's just an NPC. On god."
Lucy's eyes sparkled. "I don't know what that means, but it sounds fast! Are we main characters, Sunny?!"
"We the whole plot, Lucy," I replied automatically. "We built different."
I wanted to die. I physically wanted to crawl into a hole and expire.
Nami walked over and put her hand on my forehead. She avoided the fracture, her palm cool on my skin.
"No fever," she muttered. "But you're talking like an idiot. Is it a side effect of the… crack?"
She touched the fracture on my cheek.
Thrum.
The pulse was there. And for a second, the embarrassment faded. I felt their worry. It was a physical weight in the air. They were all hovering—Nojiko with her bread, Aqua with her water, Vivi with her guilt.
I gently took Nami's hand from my forehead. I tried to force the System to obey. I focused all my willpower on speaking normally.
"I'm… fine," I managed, the words straining against the new driver. "Just… system update. Glitchy."
"Okay," Nami said, not looking convinced. "Well, get ready. We're docking in ten minutes. And Sunny… prepare yourself."
"Bet," I said.
Dammit.
(POV: Sunny – Ten Minutes Later)
The Going Merry drifted into the harbor of Nanohana.
I was standing on the figurehead. I was wearing my cloak. I had my mask on (mostly to hide the fact that I was biting my lip to stop saying "Sheesh"). I was ready for a fight. I was ready for sand. I was ready for rebels.
I was not ready for this.
"What," I whispered, my brain momentarily rebooting to factory settings due to sheer shock, "is that?"
The port wasn't a port. It was a shrine.
There were banners. Huge, silk banners hanging from every crane and building. They were painted with… my face.
But not my scary face. No. It was a cute, stylized version of my face. I looked like a mascot. I looked like I sold cookies.
There were fireworks going off in broad daylight. There was a band playing a remix of a sea shanty that sounded suspiciously like a love song.
And the people.
Thousands of them.
Half of them were Marines. Female Marines. Wearing shirts that said TEAM SUNNY.
This is wildly cursed," I muttered. "This is a whole simulation error."
"Sunny-sama!" a voice screamed from the dock.
I looked down.
Smoker was standing there. The White Hunter. The man who chased pirates with relentless fury.
He was currently being held back by a wall of his own subordinates.
"Get out of my way!" Smoker roared, smoke billowing from his ears. "I need to arrest him! He's a pirate! He's right there!"
"Not until he sings, Captain!" a Marine girl shouted back, shoving Smoker in the chest. "You're ruining the aesthetic!"
I saw Aokiji. An Admiral. One of the strongest men in the world.
He was sitting on a crate of cannonballs, wearing a sleep mask, drinking orange juice. He lifted the mask, looked at me, looked at the crowd, and then simply gave me a thumbs up that dripped with sarcasm.
What did I do? I thought frantically. I didn't conquer this island. I didn't even step on it yet.
"It seems you are popular," Robin said, standing beside me. She sounded amused. "This is quite the reception. Is this part of your 'main character' energy?"
"This is cringe," I said, the word slipping out with heartfelt horror. "This is maximal cringe. Who authorized the merch drop?"
I saw a stall selling "Sunny Buns." They were pastries shaped like my head.
I felt a cold sweat on my back.
I had fought Emperors. I had fought Sea Kings. I had stared down the voice of the world itself.
But facing five thousand women who wanted to pinch my cheeks?
"Navigate us out," I hissed to Nami. "Reverse the whip. We go back to the ocean. The sand is haunted."
"Too late," Nami said, grinning. She was enjoying this way too much. "You wanted to save a kingdom, Sunny? Well, the kingdom is here to say thank you. Suck it up."
(POV: Arbitria – Brief Cutaway)
"System Load: 98%."
I watched the chaos on the screen. I watched Sunny squirm. I watched him try to maintain his "serious" aura while talking like a TikTok comment section and being worshipped by a fan club.
It was hilarious.
But beneath the humor, the work was finishing.
The Ultimate Skill was cooling. The golden fire was solidifying into a throne.
The memories of his parents—the violence and the gentleness—had fused into the core of the skill. It wasn't just about power anymore. It was about protection.
It was an Identity Anchor.
"Lord of Determination," I whispered. "It's almost ready. When he steps on that land… when he accepts the weight of all those people looking at him… we initialize."
I turned to Aletheia.
"Reset his speech driver in 5 minutes. Let him have his voice back for the speech."
Aletheia pouted. "But 'no cap' was growing on me."
"Reset it."
(POV: Sunny)
The ship bumped against the dock.
The gangplank lowered.
The music stopped. The screaming stopped.
Silence fell over the harbor.
They were waiting.
I took a deep breath. My tongue felt heavy, then suddenly light. The weird buzzing in my brain vanished. The "glitch" was gone.
I touched the fracture on my face. It was hot now. Burning.
I walked down the plank.
My boots hit the stone of Alabasta.
Thrum.
A shockwave went through me. Not a physical one. A spiritual one. It felt like a key turning in a lock that had been rusted shut for a thousand years.
I looked up at the sea of faces. At Smoker fuming. At Aokiji watching. At the girls behind me, ready to kill anyone who rushed me.
I realized then that I wasn't just a boy with a OP skill anymore. I was a symbol. I was a story they were telling themselves.
And I had to write the ending.