Momousagi, I've Completed the Mission

"Are you saying..."

When Shizi spoke again, her voice could no longer hide its trembling, "That infant... is Rouge's child?"

"I'm not sure. I'm just telling you what I saw."

Noah shook his head and said calmly, "When Vice Admiral Garp did that, he was quite open about it. He never avoided those of us on the same ship."

"Even the adjutant on board at the time only knew the baby was named Ace; he didn't even have a surname. Perhaps he was just an orphan of war that Garp saved. He's done that sort of thing plenty of times, hasn't he?"

"No, no..."

Shizi's emotions suddenly flared, and her voice rose an octave, "With Garp's personality, if it were just an ordinary orphan, he would have kept him to be raised by the Navy. How could he possibly have gone out of his way to send him to the East Blue..."

"But what about Rouge?" she muttered to herself, looking lost, "Where is she? Is she still alive? Why hasn't she ever contacted me?"

The answer to that question was somewhat cruel. Noah didn't want to answer directly, so he sighed softly, "If you want to know so badly, why don't you ask Vice Admiral Garp yourself?"

"Even if I were mistaken, or if that Ace was just a coincidence, are you really going to let your previous prejudices against Garp stop you from verifying this possibility, however slim it might be?"

"Garp..."

Shizi's gaze fell upon the Den Den Mushi on the coffee table.

After a long, silent hesitation, she finally chose to pick up the receiver and dial a number that was both incredibly familiar and yet felt like a stranger's.

Brrr-brrr~

After a long wait, the call was connected. Noah heard a familiar, booming voice ring out, filled with dissatisfied grumbling: "Hey, who is it? It's the middle of the night! Don't I need to sleep?"

Sleep my foot. I can clearly hear you crunching on senbei.

Noah rolled his eyes in his mind—if he were capable of doing so.

"It's me, Garp."

Shizi spoke in a low voice after a long silence.

"..." The other end of the line went suddenly quiet, followed by a dull clatter, as if a whole basket of senbei had fallen to the floor.

Then, under Noah's bewildered gaze, Shizi suddenly held the Den Den Mushi several dozen centimeters away, her face expressionless.

"Shizi!!???"

The next moment, a deafening roar exploded, nearly blowing the roof off the house, "Hey! Is it true? Did I hear that right? It really is you, Shizi! Hahaha, why are you calling all of a sudden!"

The voice was full of surprise, though Noah couldn't tell, as he had been temporarily deafened by how close the receiver had been.

After a bout of ringing in his ears, when Noah could finally hear clearly again, he saw the Den Den Mushi shedding tears and snot, vividly mimicking Garp's facial expressions:

"...Three years, it's been three whole years! Tell me, why haven't you contacted us for so long? The last time I called you, you hung up right away, making me wonder if I'd offended you somewhere..."

"..."

Watching the snot flowing from the Den Den Mushi, Shizi silently moved it a bit further away before speaking softly: "Rouge was my foster daughter."

The voice on the other end of the Den Den Mushi stopped abruptly.

A moment later.

An incredulous shriek, at a volume much higher than before, suddenly resounded through the entire living room again:

"Eh?????"

Noah suddenly leaned back, lying limply on the floor, staring blankly at the inverted starry sky outside the window—this time, he felt he was truly deaf.

He couldn't hear anything, couldn't feel anything, and couldn't even sense the passage of time.

However, when he withdrew his gaze from the stars in the night sky and looked back at Rear Admiral Shizi across the coffee table, he saw her covering her mouth slightly, her eyes brimming with tears.

The misunderstanding should be completely cleared up now, right?

He suddenly smiled. Seeing two old friends who had fought side-by-side for years against a world plagued by pirates reconcile was a truly wonderful thing, especially when he was the one who had brought it about.

Things really do need to be spoken aloud. If everyone could just communicate proactively from the start, where would there be so many misunderstandings in this world?

But then again, one couldn't really blame Shizi, could they?

Noah looked leisurely toward the night sky again. The dark clouds had dispersed at some point, and the moonlight spilled over the earth.

Whether it was years ago or many years later, who could have predicted that before death arrived, at the moment life was extinguished, in the dark, bottomless depths of Impel Down, The man viewed by many as a scourge and scum, the Pirate King Gol D. Roger, would grin and trustingly entrust his wife and child to the very man who had been hunting him to the death since the fall of the Rocks Pirates—Garp?

In a sea area thousands of kilometers away.

A warship carrying two hundred new recruits from the Elite Training Camp was heading at full speed toward Citrus Island.

In a room on the second floor of the ship, the sound of the shower suddenly stopped. Momousagi stepped out wrapped in a bath towel, wiping her wet long hair with a towel as she stood before the mirror.

Through the hazy mist, the mirror reflected her own incredibly familiar, exquisite features. Purity and allure were blended just right; a slight smile was enough to stir anyone's heart.

"It's actually a bit strange to be back to normal all of a sudden..."

Momousagi stared quietly at herself in the mirror for a while, then suddenly shook her head with a laugh. She went into the bedroom to change into her pajamas and get ready for bed.

She had showered for a long time this time because her skin felt sticky and had a faint, lingering smell of sweat, as if she hadn't washed for two days and nights, which made her sensitive self feel very uncomfortable.

Truly, no one could have foreseen this...

Recalling the moment a few hours ago when she suddenly reverted to her original body, Momousagi felt somewhat speechless—

That stinking Beaver-Cat was truly unreliable; how could its ability suddenly fail and revert after only a few days?

Considering that the Beaver-Cat was not human after all, its control and development of the Devil Fruit were limited, and its innate racial shapeshifting talent could only be maintained for a short period, Momousagi could actually barely understand this point.

—But why, when they switched back, did it not return their consciousnesses to their respective bodies, but instead just reverted their bodies to their original forms?

If that had been the case, at least the person remaining at Shizi's house would have been her, not Noah in his male body.

The furious tone in Shizi's voice when she hung up the Den Den Mushi still lingered in her mind, making Momousagi offer a silent prayer for Noah.

Although it wasn't entirely her fault, there was no doubt that the young man had been thoroughly screwed over by her this time.

When they met again in the future, she would have to sincerely apologize first, and then find an opportunity to make it up to him.

As for the mission to persuade Shizi to return to Headquarters, that went without saying; Momousagi sighed, for she knew better than anyone that this matter was a complete and utter failure.

She was lying on the bed, thinking silently about this, when a slight vibration suddenly came from the head of the bed.

"Hmm?"

Momousagi turned her head and looked instinctively, discovering that the source of the sound was actually the miniature Den Den Mushi she had placed by the bedside.

Who would be calling at such a late hour?

She had a vague, ominous premonition in her heart, but she still answered the call immediately.

Before she could even speak, the voice of the young man, which had become all too familiar over the past few days, rang out from the other end:

"Hello, Rear Admiral Gion, you remember what I said before, right? To repay your kindness in teaching me, persuading Rear Admiral Shizi is a duty I cannot refuse..."

The voice paused, then seemed somewhat smug, suddenly becoming inexplicably punchable:

"The mission is considered done now. Although the possibility isn't high, I still want to ask, considering how perilous this mission was, when I get back, shouldn't there be, um... you know, some kind of extra reward?"

Third update, this makes up for the missed update from the day before yesterday. Goodnight, everyone~