Uninvited Guest (Ticket)

Night fell.

The sky glittered with stars, and the sea looked dreamlike. From time to time, fish leaped from the water as they playfully chased one another.

Unbeknownst to anyone, an island-like mountain, ghostly in appearance, suddenly floated eight hundred meters above the starry sky, faint lights flickering atop it.

On the Kuja Pirates' ship, Norse was teaching Hancock how to make flour-based dishes, completely unaware that an uninvited guest had arrived.

"Cook, once you add water to the flour, you need to start kneading it."

"Cook, that's not how you knead it. If you want the noodles pulled from the dough, or the steamed buns made from it, to taste good, you need to put some strength into it and knead it repeatedly."

"But... but I still don't know how to knead it. Why can you knead it so well?"

"How about this? I'll teach you the simplest and fastest way to learn. Think of this dough as someone you want to knead. You can imagine caressing them, or kneading them when you're angry."

"Th-then... like this?"

"Yes, yes, yes, that's exactly it. You're quite teachable. That's how flour dough should be kneaded." Seeing Hancock continuously kneading the dough on the counter with her slender hands, Norse was finally relieved that she had gotten the feel for it.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!

Suddenly, the entire ship shook violently. Caught up in her enthusiasm for kneading dough, Hancock lost her balance and fell straight into Norse's broad embrace.

"Ah~~ What... what just happened?"

Half-lying in Norse's arms, Hancock's heart began racing wildly. Deep down, she actually wanted to thank that sudden disturbance.

"Don't worry. I'll make sure everything's fine."

A reassuring smile appeared on Norse's face. "Cook, keep going. We still need to eat the ramen you pull later. I'll go out and take a look."

"Norse, this is bad! We may have been ambushed by enemies—countless falling rocks are dropping from above!"

Gorud rushed in and spoke anxiously, but when she saw Hancock's flushed face, she immediately seemed to become a different person. Grinning, she said, "Hehehe... Sonia and I can handle it ourselves, actually. You two carry on, carry on!"

"Carry on my ass. At first, I thought we'd been attacked by Sea Kings, but now it looks like I have to act. The source—or the enemy—is above us. Can you two handle that?" Norse rolled his eyes at Gorud. She was still so young, yet her mind was full of dirty thoughts.

High above, eight hundred meters over the sea, beneath the starry sky—

"Boss, let's go, let's go! We can piss them off to death if we show off and leave right away!"

A rather odd pirate lackey stood before a somewhat terrifying bald old man, his face full of excitement. A fierce eagle perched on his shoulder.

"Why run? It's rare for me to come out and have some fun. What the hell are you scared of?"

The old man had a thick cigar clenched between his teeth, filling the surrounding air with dense smoke. He did not care in the slightest about the countless rocks he had just dropped onto the Kuja Pirates' ship below.

"Boss, if they discover our presence, our whereabouts will definitely be exposed. We spent ten whole years disappearing into the shadows, and your East Blue revenge plan is only halfway complete. To be safe, shouldn't we just show off and leave?"

"What's there to worry about in the middle of the night? I'm going down there and making their entire ship float up here! Zehahahaha... I hear the captain of the Kuja Pirates is an unrivaled beauty."

"Boss, when did you start liking that sort of thing? Aren't you afraid you'll throw out your back?" The pirate lackey looked utterly bewildered, seemingly not very afraid of the old man before him.

"You bastard, is that what I was trying to say?"

The old man's hooked brows twitched in anger. But remembering that he had only brought this one fellow along for this errand, he held back the urge to smack him flying and said:

"Whether she's beautiful or not means nothing to me. What I value is her abilities. I hear she's even awakened Conqueror's Haki. Zehahahaha... Looks like I've found a promising prospect on this trip."

"I see! Boss wants to forcibly recruit them as his capable subordinates." The pirate lackey suddenly understood, completely unaware that the old man had just wanted to beat him to death.

"Hmph. It seems that after taking the IQ Gene Drug, aside from becoming a little deranged, your intelligence hasn't been affected too badly?" The old man looked down at his subordinate with disdain.

"Hehe, Boss, I've already undergone my second transformation after taking the IQ Gene Serum. Now I can freely enter a half-beast form, so it hasn't affected my brain or intelligence much." The pirate lackey answered foolishly.

"Very good. Once we return, I'll have Indigo prepare the third-stage IQ Gene Serum for you. If you successfully undergo a third transformation, there'll be great benefits in it for you."

BOOM!

At that moment, a terrifying force shot upward. It was as though the floating island beneath their feet had suddenly gained the weight of ten million pounds, plunging rapidly downward!

The old man and the pirate lackey on the floating island immediately steadied themselves. But if it continued falling at that speed, their island ship would inevitably be buried in the sea.

"Hmph! Zehahahaha, this is interesting!" The old man's golden hair danced wildly as he slammed a domineering palm onto the island ship beneath his feet.

BOOM!

An invisible shockwave swept through the starry sky, while another unseen force seemed to envelop the entire island ship. It instantly stopped the floating ship from descending and even began forcibly lifting it higher.

"Huh? I can't pull it down anymore? Then I'll have to go up and see who has the audacity!" Norse clenched his fists.

He had just released his Observation Haki to sense the starry sky and had indeed detected an unknown object and signs of living heat above. But when he used the Sun's gravitational pull to drag it down, another force had forcibly canceled it out.

"Norse, be careful."

"And hurry back! Big Sister is making ramen for us!"

"Don't worry. I think I already know who it is. I'll go meet them first."

After leaving those words behind, Norse transformed into what seemed like a blazing sun and shot upward. In an instant, his radiance lit up the starry sky, forcing Gorud and Sonia below to squeeze their eyes shut, not daring to open them for a long while.

"Hm? Light? Light so dazzling that it can't be looked at directly?"

From the island ship, which had already risen to a height of one thousand meters, the old man's shocked and incredulous voice rang out. "You bastard, didn't you say the ship below belonged to the Kuja Pirates? Why is there a trace of that old bastard Kizaru?"

"Huh?!! How is that possible? That really is the Kuja Pirates' ship! Two giant snakes like Sea Kings are pulling it—there's no way we could be wrong!" The pirate lackey on the island ship looked completely baffled.

At the same time, he finally felt a little fear toward the old man standing before him and immediately said cautiously, "Captain, since that old bastard Kizaru came alone, why don't we..."

"Hmph! If we've run into Kizaru, the user of the Glint-Glint Fruit, then there's no way we can escape in time."

As soon as Golden Lion Shiki said this, his aura surged skyward, carrying the majestic dominance of a lion's roar shaking the seas. "Of course, we can only bury him beneath these waters and keep my whereabouts from being exposed too soon. Otherwise, Garp and Sengoku will be hounding me again, ruining the major plans I've laid out."

"Golden Lion Shiki, so it really was you!" Norse had already charged upward, soaring even higher than the floating island more than a thousand meters in the air.

He was still like a blazing sun incarnate, releasing countless dazzling rays throughout the starry sky. The pirate grunts on the island ship below, along with the old man with a cigar clenched between his teeth, immediately raised their hands to shield their eyes, not daring to look directly at that blinding light.

P.S.: I've read everyone's sun-related ideas in the comments section. I'm genuinely impressed, and I'll use some of them when the time comes.