Shipwreck

"Alright, then let's take a look around Red Hair's territory first," Yota said with a nod. "That's more sensible than charging straight into Whitebeard's territory right now."

Ace chuckled, clearly unconcerned by Yota's caution. More accurately, he had gotten cocky and was overdue for a real, brutal beating!

Back when he dueled Yamato one-on-one in the original story, he had found it unbelievable that someone as strong as Yamato was not the captain of the Beasts Pirates. That alone showed just how limited his horizons were.

Unlike Luffy, who encountered Kizaru and Rayleigh one after another at the final threshold before entering the New World. Then, as captain, Luffy took part in the Summit War and truly understood just how powerful fighters on the level of the Four Emperors and Three Admirals were.

That was also where Luffy had been fortunate. Without the incident at the Sabaody Archipelago, the Summit War, and two years of grueling training, if they had entered the New World without a hitch, it would probably have ended in tragedy.

Likewise, if Ace had recognized the strength of the Three Admirals and Four Emperors early on, then laid low for a few years, perhaps his encounter with Whitebeard would have been a different story.

But Yota had no intention of warning him. After all, joining the Whitebeard Pirates would be where Yota stood to gain the most.

"Alright! In that case, the Spade Pirates set sail!"

"Hey, Ace, where exactly are we?" Yota asked Ace with a completely baffled look.

As a ninja, Yota had learned some knowledge about astronomy for navigating in the wilderness. After crossing over into the Pirate World, he had also picked up some basic sailing skills.

So after sailing through the New World for some time, he began to sense that something was wrong. While most navigational knowledge was useless crap in the New World, where even the stars could not be trusted, he could still tell whether they were heading toward their destination.

The smile on Ace's face grew a little strained. "Well... maybe... perhaps..."

Yota's expression gradually changed, and he gave him a dead-eyed stare. "Tell me. Are we lost?"

Ace nodded awkwardly, and Yota slapped a hand over his face.

Damn it! When he had first entered the New World, he had just decided that Ace was the only reliable person in the Spade Pirates, and then this guy immediately let him down!

Did heaven send you here just to mess with me?

Getting lost in the New World was no small matter. More importantly, following the pull of a Permanent Pointer generally meant traveling along safer routes. Amid the New World's ever-changing climate, those routes could at least be considered somewhat milder.

But once they strayed off course, the weather changes could truly kill people. Forget icebergs falling from the sky—even meteorites raining down or the sea flowing backward would be perfectly normal.

In even more extreme cases, they might be sailing along when an undersea volcano erupted, turning the seawater into lava and wiping out the entire ship!

However, just as feared, disaster struck. Before Yota could say anything else, he felt the entire ship jolt violently.

"This is... an Upstream Current!" Both Yota and Ace went pale. The other members of the Spade Pirates were in even worse shape, but there was no time for anyone to react. In an instant, Yota felt the entire ship rise several hundred meters into the air. It was still climbing, and by conservative estimates, it would reach a height of over a thousand meters.

From that height, it did not matter whether a ship was made from Adam Wood or Wapol Metal—it would smash into a pile of scrap. If even a palm-sized fragment remained, that would already speak highly of its quality!

"Ace!" Yota looked at Ace and suddenly roared, opening his mouth wide at the same time.

Ace reacted instantly, turning into a mass of flames and plunging straight into Yota's mouth.

Then Yota's huge mouth swallowed his entire body. When he leaped back out of his mouth, his legs had become mechanical limbs like Iron Man's.

Blazing flames burst from beneath his feet, launching Yota into the air. Once the Spade Pirates' ship had reached its highest point and, driven by inertia, separated from the ocean current and begun to fall, Yota—or rather, Yota Ace—shot beneath the ship, preparing to hold it up.

Then came a crack. Yota Ace's hands sank into the bottom of the ship, and he immediately cursed inwardly. "This is ridiculous! What's with those supermen in movies who hold up airplanes? Wouldn't they just snap the plane in half?"

"Something about a biological magnetic field, maybe? Right, I've got it!"

Jet-black Armament Haki spread from his hands, quickly covering more than half the underside of the ship. Strengthened by the Armament Haki, the ship finally stabilized.

But holding up such a huge ship while maintaining Armament Haki, even someone as powerful as the fused Yota Ace began to feel unable to keep it up.

"I need to put the ship down quickly... Damn, a sea tornado!"

A massive waterspout formed in almost a single second. Yota Ace could only stare in stunned disbelief as it swept up the entire ship, leaving behind nothing but a scream.

"My head is spinning..." Yota slowly opened his eyes, feeling utterly weak. At this moment, the Munch-Munch Fruit's ability had been released because his stamina was completely depleted, so he and Ace had long since separated.

After all, they had only temporarily modified and fused together, rather than permanently merging. If Yota permanently merged living people, his own personality would fuse with Ace's into one.

Of course, perhaps before that could happen, the clash between the two Devil Fruits would make them explode on the spot.

Yota recalled someone once saying that the Munch-Munch Fruit could fuse two Devil Fruit abilities. But that fusion was only temporary. If one permanently altered their body, the two Devil Fruit powers would still conflict within it.

Temporary fusion, meanwhile, continuously consumed Yota's stamina. Once his stamina was exhausted, they would naturally be forcibly separated.

Struggling to lift his head, Yota discovered that he was on a beach.

Not far away, the Spade Pirates' ship lay tilted to one side, completely stranded on the shore.

At the moment, half of Yota's body was submerged in seawater. Fortunately, even though he had no strength left, the Chakra within his body still gave him a little ability to move.

After all, seawater and Sea Stone weakened stamina but had little effect on Chakra, so he quickly crawled to his feet.