Returning to the Body

"Hina!"

Just then, a somewhat stern voice suddenly came from outside the door.

The two people in the room were startled. When they looked up, they found Shizi had appeared at the doorway at some point. She glanced at the photo frame, then looked at Hina, her brow furrowed tightly.

Hina looked at her blankly, her eyes full of confusion.

Seeing this, Shizi sighed slightly, her voice softening: "It's getting late. Go take a bath and get some rest. Your sister Gion and I have some things to discuss."

"Eh? But Hina also wants to..."

"When adults are talking, children are not allowed to eavesdrop."

"Oh..."

Hina had no choice but to leave the bedroom obediently. Only after her silhouette disappeared into the second-floor hallway did Shizi shake her head, close the door behind her, and sit on the edge of the bed in front of Noah.

"Sister Shizi..." Noah could roughly guess the current state of mind of Rear Admiral Shizi. After hesitating for a moment, he took the initiative to break the silence: "This Portgas D. Rouge..."

"That's right, it's the one you're thinking of," Shizi said faintly. "The wife of the Pirate King Gol D. Roger, the woman who, three years ago, was pregnant with Roger's posthumous child and died under the pursuit of the Navy."

Died under the pursuit of the Navy?

Noah was stunned, his gaze unable to hide his astonishment.

What kind of claim was this?

If he remembered correctly, didn't Rouge escape the Navy's pursuit with great difficulty, give birth to Ace on Baterilla in the South Blue, and then pass away from exhaustion and blood loss?

"Surprised, aren't you?"

She took the photo frame from Noah's hands, looked at the little girl with a bright smile in the photo, and gently brushed the dust off it, her gaze soft and filled with a trace of reminiscence:

"Rouge, although she had no blood relation to me, I always regarded her as my own, treating her like my own daughter."

"It's a pity that this child's personality began to turn rebellious after her eldest uncle passed away. Not long after she came of age, she left home to travel, and there was rarely any news from her afterward."

"It wasn't until several years later that she contacted me again to apologize for her willfulness back then, and she also said that she had found the love of her life in the South Blue and was already pregnant."

"I was so happy back then, wishing her a happy marriage over the phone. Later, I kept thinking about her, looking forward to the day when she would bring her child and husband home to reunite with me."

When Shizi said this, she put down the photo and said with a touch of self-mockery, "But a few months later, the Headquarters began ordering the pursuit of Roger's family and orphans, and it was only then that I learned the lover Rouge had mentioned was none other than that Pirate King, Gol D. Roger."

"What an ironic story, little Gion."

Noah pursed his lower lip and remained silent.

He wasn't actually surprised by this in his heart. Before Shizi entered the room, after hearing the name Rouge from Hina, Noah had roughly guessed the story behind this series of relationships.

As a Deputy Chief of Staff of the Navy Headquarters, a veteran who had been in the same era as Garp and Zephyr, and having adopted a half-daughter who, after a chance encounter with the Pirate King Roger, ended up becoming his wife.

It was very melodramatic and bizarre, but also a common trope.

However, calculating it this way, the age gap between the two seemed a bit outrageous.

How old was Rouge when she traveled in the South Blue and met Roger? Twenty at most?

But at that time, Roger had already disbanded his pirate crew, and he was fifty-three years old—practically half an old man.

For two people with such huge differences in age, experience, status, and strength to come together in the few months they knew each other, it was truly rare.

Perhaps... this was the power of love.

Noah didn't want to judge this May-December romance too much, but he always felt something was strange.

--Since Roger knew he had a terminal illness and didn't have long to live before he disbanded his crew, why develop a relationship and leave behind a widowed mother and an orphan, helpless and miserable in this world?

If not for Garp's secret assistance, the mother and son, Rouge and Ace, might not even have had the qualifications to survive.

Perhaps... this was just the way a pirate's brain worked?

He couldn't understand it anyway. Right now, he just wanted to figure out if Rear Admiral Shizi leaving Marineford exactly three years ago, at the time of the Pirate King Roger's execution, had anything to do with the Navy sending people to hunt down Rouge.

This kind of approach of cutting weeds and pulling up roots, implicating the innocent, was likely something many in the Navy Headquarters detested.

What's more, for Rear Admiral Shizi, the one being hunted was her half-adopted daughter.

If she developed a rift with the Headquarters because of this and resigned to return home, it would make sense.

But what did this have to do with Garp?

Since the cards were already on the table, Noah didn't care about the taboo Garp held for Shizi anymore. He prepared to lay his cards on the table and ask directly about the reasons from three years ago.

But just at this moment, a dull "thump" sound suddenly came from outside the door, accompanied by a little girl's cry of pain.

"It's Hina!"

Shizi and Noah's expressions changed, and they both rushed out of the room and ran downstairs.

When they reached the hall, the two looked left and right and found the bathroom light was on, and the sound from just a moment ago had come from inside.

"Hina, what's wrong?"

Noah knocked on the bathroom door. After a long while, there was no response from inside, and his heart sank.

Shizi, standing to the side, was already full of anxiety and unease. After trying to turn the doorknob twice and finding it locked from the inside, she didn't hesitate and kicked out with all her might.

With a loud boom, the wooden door burst open, shattering into pieces.

"..."

Noah stared, dumbfounded, at the wooden door that had been pulverized into dust. It wasn't until the thin, elderly woman charged into the bathroom like a war god that he finally snapped out of his daze.

He was about to follow right behind her, but then he suddenly remembered something. He hesitated for a moment, then stopped in his tracks and waited silently at the bathroom door.

A moment later, Shizi walked out of the bathroom cradling Hina's small body in her arms. She came over to the sofa and carefully set the girl down.

Hina was wrapped in a bath towel. Her face was pale and weak, but she seemed to be in decent spirits, and it didn't look like there was any major problem.

"What happened, Sister Shizi?" Noah asked, letting out a sigh of relief.

"She slipped while bathing and fell into the tub. Thankfully, she didn't lose consciousness."

Shizi stroked Hina's cheek and said with a hint of reproach, "You child, you have to be more careful. You scared both me and your sister Gion half to death."

"I'm sorry, Grandma Shizi."

Hina's voice was still a bit weak, and her gaze was dazed. "I don't know what happened either. I was just taking a bath when I suddenly felt like I had no strength left. My foot slipped, and I fell..."

"Are you feeling unwell?" Shizi frowned. "I recall you're on your period these past few days. Did you fail to control your cravings again and sneak some cold drinks from the fridge?"

"No, I didn't."

Hina shook her head quickly and pointed to the dining table nearby. "I haven't eaten much these past few days. I just ate a few strawberries that Sister Gion brought over after I came down from upstairs."

"Oh, right."

She suddenly remembered something and made a bitter face. "Those strawberries were all quite delicious, but one of them seemed to be rotten. It tasted really foul, so I took one bite and threw it away. Could it be that I got a stomachache from that?"

Rotten?

Noah instinctively glanced at the trash can beside the coffee table. There was indeed a strawberry in there with only one bite taken out of it, but... why did that strawberry look different from a normal one? It even had spiral patterns on its surface.

Patterns?

He exchanged a look with Rear Admiral Shizi. Both of their expressions changed at the same time, and they blurted out in unison:

"A Devil Fruit!"

Noah bent down, picked the strawberry remains out of the trash, and held them up for a closer inspection. His head immediately began to ache—the patterns were dense, the texture was rough; there was no mistake, it was definitely a Devil Fruit.

He recalled that when he bought the strawberries yesterday, he had just finished a system mission and his mind was entirely occupied with points. He had let the vendor pick them out for him and hadn't paid any attention to whether there was anything unusual among them.

As a result, he had muddled his way into bringing it to Rear Admiral Shizi's house, and it had been muddledly eaten by little Hina...

How could such a coincidence happen? Could it really be the Ori Ori no Mi?

Noah muttered to himself. Just as he was about to toss the remains of the Devil Fruit back into the trash, he suddenly noticed that Rear Admiral Shizi and Hina on the sofa were both looking at him with strange, scrutinizing gazes.

What now?

He was puzzled, thinking he had something on his clothes. He instinctively looked down, and he was instantly stunned.

Within his line of sight, there were no stunning, undulating hills, nor a waist that could be held in one hand, but rather the tall, sturdy body of a man—a body he was all too familiar with.

Noah finally understood why Shizi and Hina were looking at him with those expressions.

In the spacious living room, the silence was so profound that a pin drop could be heard; only the faint ticking of the clock echoed through the air.

"..."

In this bizarre atmosphere, the corner of Noah's eye twitched.

After a long while, he finally raised his head with difficulty, looked at the expressionless Rear Admiral Shizi on the sofa, and managed to force out a sheepish, awkward laugh:

"Cough, so, how about this—should I go on a long journey now and find that fruit vendor to demand a refund and compensation?"