Scars

The floor beneath his feet was perfectly still, so he surely wasn't aboard the Kuja Pirate Ship. In all likelihood, the empress and the others had returned to Amazon Lily. Was this the Kuja palace?

The voices stopped abruptly.

When he lifted the curtain and entered the main hall, he saw two rows of Kuja women warriors, every one of them pointing weapons such as snake bows and small cannons at him. Rindou, the pirate woman from yesterday with her hair in a bun, a cigarette in her mouth and her open clothes exposing her chest, was among them.

Green-haired Sandersonia and blonde Marigold were there too. When they realized the newcomer was the man from yesterday, both reacted by taking on their respective Snake-Snake Fruit forms. They glared at him, flicking their tongues with a hiss.

"Stand down, all of you."

An imperious voice came from behind the Kuja warriors.

At the far end of the palace hall, behind curtains drawn apart to either side, Hancock sat on a throne formed by the coils of her great white snake. Dressed in red with floral sleeves, she coolly ordered the women to stop.

She swirled a glass of liquor in her left hand, her legs crossed at leisure. The high-slit skirt fell open along her long, straight legs. The two alluring lines of her groin visible on either side of her silk belt were enough to send a person's thoughts wandering at a glance...

Her fair, beautiful waist was slender enough to encircle with one hand. Even sitting as she was, there wasn't a trace of excess flesh on her belly. Every inch of her skin radiated charm, displaying her flawless beauty. Her red dress was cinched at her upper waist with a patterned gold clasp, firmly supporting that full pair of...

With all the dirty thoughts in his head as proof, Ruidio was sure that if the empress hit him with a Love-Love Beam now, and he dared take the attack head-on, he would be petrified on the spot.

He had already used today's Satoru Gojo Mode. Without the Limitless barrier, Ruidio had come prepared: if the empress attacked at the slightest disagreement, he could only teleport back to the East Blue first and steer clear of her sweet attack.

Fortunately, the empress didn't continue being stubborn.

"You may leave us."

Hancock looked straight at Ruidio's undisguised gaze and gave a small wave.

"But, sister..." Sandersonia, the middle sister, hesitated at her side.

The empress neither looked at her nor responded.

Marigold, the youngest sister, tugged at Sandersonia's cape and left with the other Kuja warriors by the exits on either side of the hall. Before they went out, they lowered the curtains over the passageways.

Only Ruidio and Hancock remained in the vast hall, along with the great pink, spotted snake beneath her, coiled into a throne and wearing a horned skull helmet.

"Your hair and eyes have changed color."

Hancock took a sip of liquor. Her voice echoed through the hall, sounding especially cold. "Were you able to resist my Devil Fruit power because you took on that white-haired appearance yesterday? At the time, you... seemed to have some invisible force all around you, blocking me..."

"How I did it isn't important. What matters is you."

Ruidio smiled and walked toward the empress on her snake throne. "Are you ready to accept treatment?"

A wineglass came flying at his face.

Whoosh. Ruidio flashed forward with a Silent Soru. Glass shattered behind him with a crash, and he was already standing before Hancock.

"What exactly are you trying to do?" Hancock asked through gritted teeth, her ample chest rising and falling, her fair flesh trembling.

Even angry, she was flawlessly beautiful.

Up close, he could faintly smell the intoxicating fragrance on her. Together with her rippling, lake-like gaze, her work-of-art figure, and everything else about her, it formed a natural, indescribable charm that nearly bewitched the mind.

Ruidio smiled. "I want to strip you naked..."

What the fuck am I saying?

"...and look at what's on your back." Nice save, Ruidio. Nice save.

At those words, Hancock trembled all over, and her expression immediately turned frighteningly grim.

She sprang to her feet, pain and hesitation flashing in her eyes. "Where exactly did you learn about my... about this?!" she demanded sharply.

"Are you afraid?"

Ruidio looked straight into those beautiful, limpid eyes. "Afraid I'm a Celestial Dragon? Don't worry, I'm not one of those stupid pigs. I told you yesterday, I can see that scar in your heart, still bleeding..."

He took one of the dazed empress's hands, placed a gold coin in her palm, and closed her fingers around it.

[You have hired Boa Hancock for approximately 10 days]

"Let's go," he said.

Clutching the gold coin, Hancock asked in a daze, "Where?"

"To kill someone."

[You have chosen to deploy]

Fourteen years ago, aboard a slave ship, in the cell holding the young female slaves—

In the darkest corner, two younger sisters huddled in Boa Hancock's arms.

Little Hancock stared blankly at the moonlight streaming through the small round window in the bulkhead, tears streaking her filthy face...

Suddenly, as if from some unseen realm, the figure of a twenty-six-year-old Boa Hancock descended from above. With a sense of space and time twisting, she flowed entirely into her small, chained body in an instant.

"To kill someone."

The man's words still echoed in Hancock's ears. The scene before her changed abruptly. Had she really returned to that nightmare?!

Clink, clink. She raised her hands and saw the chains on them. Fear welled up as if by instinct, spreading through her body like a spiderweb, and she began to tremble uncontrollably.

As if sensing her emotions, her two sisters began to sob quietly.

Hancock took a deep breath and calmed herself.

Something wasn't right.

If this was a dream, it was a little too real...

Clink, clink, clink. She crossed her hands, gripped the iron cuffs fastened to the chains around her wrists, and tried to use the Love-Love Fruit's power. The chains actually turned to stone.

Crack, crack... Little Sandersonia and little Marigold heard the sound and saw that the chains on their sister's hands and feet had turned into shattered stone, falling onto the floor with a clatter. They were stunned.

"Sister, how did you...?" While they were still marveling, Hancock swiftly petrified the chains on their hands and feet as well and tore them apart.

Free again, little Sanda and little Mari were at a loss for a moment.

"Has your fruit power already awakened?"

At some point, the outer door to the cell had opened. The person standing there looking at them was that man!

Hancock took her two nervous sisters over and kicked the bars at the entrance, shattering the part of the iron cell that had been petrified. She helped little Sanda and little Mari out through the stone opening, the two of them cautious and unaware of what was happening.

"What is this?" Hancock looked up and asked. "A dream?"

Ruidio smiled. "Think of it as a dream." He pointed upward. "Since it's a dream, isn't there something you want to do?"

Hancock bit her lip, then said, "Sanda, Mari, stay close to me."

She leaped up and kicked the floor above into chunks of broken stone. Soon, cries of alarm and shouts rang out from above the hole in the petrified floor.

Little Sanda and little Mari didn't know what to do, and they didn't dare speak to Ruidio. They sniffled, then lightly jumped up one after the other through the stone hole their sister had made overhead.

Chapter 56: Scars

[Chapter opening serial: Executive Vice President Miss All Sunday 6: "I see"]

[Robin and Olvia arrived on the island. After asking around, they met up and compared what they had learned, reaching a conclusion: the nobles here were worried that tales of the Revolutionary Army would mislead the populace, so they had deliberately spread rumors containing a mixture of truth and lies.]

"..."

Ruidio looked up at the hole in the stone. The commotion above soon died down.

The empress had been fed the Love-Love Fruit by the Celestial Dragons while she was their slave. So she shouldn't have had a Devil Fruit power while she was still on this slave ship.

Did that mean the people brought into this "space-time mission" didn't undergo "mental transmigration," but instead... something like their original bodies merging into their past selves?

Thinking this over, Ruidio leaped through the hole in the floor.

He glanced at the stone figures of the thugs on this level, their expressions varied, then followed another hole the empress had kicked through above and soon reached the outermost deck.

Saint Shepherd Sommers had been petrified in the night, frozen in the act of drawing his sword.

"Sister, are you all right...?"

Little Sanda and little Mari stood on either side of Hancock. Bloody cuts from thorns covered both her arms, her flesh torn open.

"I'm all right." Hancock was still pale, but she gave a wan smile as she looked at the petrified member of God's Knights. She looked behind her as Ruidio walked over.

Bang!

Ruidio punched through Saint Shepherd Sommers's petrified chest. Inside the broken opening, an intact steel heart could be seen, still beating strongly.

New flesh could faintly be seen slowly growing on the steel heart, as though it meant to abandon Saint Shepherd Sommers's petrified body and regenerate an entirely new one...

A few minutes later, Ruidio and the Boa Sisters were aboard a small boat, drifting on the sea.

"..."

Hancock held her two wailing sisters and silently watched the slave ship recede into the distance.

"Thank you. I feel much better," she said softly.

Whether you're better or not isn't for you to decide!

Ruidio glanced at the system's mission interface. There was no notification that it had been completed.

[Mission requirement: Take the three sisters Boa Hancock, Sandersonia, and Marigold and escape from that nightmarish ship, then return immediately to the Kuja Pirates or Amazon Lily.]

Ruidio hadn't taken the empress straight back by deployment. He wanted to test first whether the mission had a time limit, and how long "immediately" meant.

Under the starry sky, a lone boat drifted on the dark sea as a cool breeze blew gently.

The two Boa sisters gradually quieted, silently wiping away their tears between hiccuping sobs.

Searching for something to say, Ruidio asked, "Your two sisters seem pretty skilled too. How did you get caught by the slave traders?"

Little Sanda and little Mari were on the verge of tears again. Hancock patted their trembling backs and said, her voice unsteady:

"It was our first time going to sea with the Kuja Pirates. We'd never seen people from outside before, and everything made us curious and excited... until a strange man suddenly appeared on the ship... I believed his lies too easily, and just like that, I fell into his trap...

"It's ridiculous, isn't it? We were captured so easily that the others on the ship, even the previous Snake Princess, never noticed when we disappeared... I... I'm sorry, Sanda, Mari. I'm not a good sister..."

At that point, she bit her lip hard. Unable to hold them back any longer, tears poured from her eyes.

"Sister..." Little Sanda and little Mari were too choked with tears to speak, scrambling to wipe the tears from Hancock's face.

And so, Ruidio held Hancock's cold, trembling hand and listened quietly as she poured out the anger, regret, self-reproach, pain, and even resentment in her heart.

Without either of them noticing, Hancock's head came to rest against his chest, her tears soaking his shoulder.

Only about ten minutes passed before a system notification appeared: `[This mission has failed. Returning...]`

Back in the present—

The Calm Belt, Amazon Lily—

Kuja Castle, the empress's hall—