Pirate Empress Boa Hancock

Dim firelight, the gentle rocking of the ship, and the hard feel of wooden planks.

"Big Sister, I think he's awake."

"Is that so? Let me see."

Sephiroth felt someone pinch his cheek several times.

The moment he opened his eyes, he saw a cute girl with long straight black hair, a white cape draped over her shoulders, and nothing but a red short top and miniskirt on her body.

Beside her stood two equally beautiful girls in short tops and skirts, one with orange hair and the other with green hair.

Sephiroth raised his right hand, which was shackled in metal cuffs, and called out weakly:

"Water...!"

Hearing that, the black-haired girl hurriedly brought over a wooden bowl. She helped the boy sit up and carefully fed him the soup inside, little by little.

Judging by the taste, Sephiroth guessed it was fish soup, but there was not a single piece of meat or bone in it.

Grrr!

As the fish soup entered his stomach, the hunger in the boy's belly was instantly awakened, producing an embarrassing sound.

"You must be starving!... Here!"

The black-haired girl covered her mouth and laughed softly as she handed him a piece of black bread.

"Thank you!"

The dry, hard texture of the black bread made Sephiroth frown slightly, but with hunger gnawing at his stomach, he had no choice.

He washed the black bread down with the remaining fish soup, swallowing it bite by bite.

After finishing the food, he finally recovered a bit of strength and looked at the three girls.

"My name is Karl D. Sephiroth. What are your names?"

"My name is Boa Sandersonia."

"My name is Boa Marigold."

"My name is Boa Hancock. I'm their older sister."

"Boa Hancock...!?"

The first two names had only sounded somewhat familiar to Sephiroth, and he had not recalled anything yet. That was until he heard the black-haired girl introduce herself.

Only then did he stare at Boa Hancock in shock, gradually overlapping the proud queen in his memories with the inexperienced girl before him, and overlapping the two-dimensional character with a real person.

"How awful~! Why are you looking at me like that?"

The current Boa Hancock possessed none of the arrogance or willfulness of the future Pirate Empress Boa Hancock.

When the boy stared at her, she even shyly turned her face aside, not daring to meet his gaze.

"Ahem! I just thought your name was very special...

Hmm! You'll definitely grow into a great beauty someday."

Sephiroth noticed the strange looks in Sandersonia and Marigold's eyes, and only then did he awkwardly shift his gaze away.

After all, the most beautiful woman in One Piece from his previous life had appeared right in front of him. He could not help feeling surprised.

As an old One Piece fan, Sephiroth's fondness for the black-haired girl instantly soared, while his guard dropped considerably.

It felt a little like a fan who had always chased after celebrities suddenly having their favorite idol appear before them one day. Even though the other person had never had much to do with them before, they inexplicably felt an enormous sense of affection...

Still, in his previous life, Sephiroth had lusted after her... Ahem!

"Hmph! Even if you praise me like that...

I still won't be happy!"

Boa Hancock lifted her chin with a tsundere expression, but the slight upward curve of her lips betrayed her true feelings.

The current Boa Hancock had not yet endured the sunless days of slavery, so her personality had not been warped. Having left Nine Serpent Island for the first time, she was still somewhat naive and was, at heart, just an ordinary girl.

"This ship... is it a slave ship?"

Sephiroth tugged at the metal shackles on his wrists, a trace of gloom flashing through his eyes.

The three girls also wore metal shackles identical to his own.

The cabin where the four of them were held was sealed by metal bars. The kerosene lamps in the corridor were the only source of light in the cabin.

Aside from a toilet bucket for waste, there were only four wooden bowls in the cabin. There was nothing that could be used as a weapon...

At his words, a trace of despondency appeared on Boa Hancock's pretty face.

"Yes, this is a slave ship..."

She had never imagined that on her first voyage, while the three sisters were conducting a patrol mission aboard a Kuja Pirates ship, human traffickers emerging from the sea would knock them unconscious with drugged handkerchiefs.

By the time the three girls woke up, they had already been locked inside this cabin.

If she had not been so overconfident at the time, believing herself to be a qualified Amazon warrior and refusing the accompaniment of the other crew members, this would never have happened...

Boa Hancock did not dare think any further about what fate awaited them.

Sephiroth yanked hard on the chain attached to his shackles, helplessness appearing on his face.

Although, after eating the Vampire Fruit, he could clearly feel that his strength, eyesight, and hearing had all improved.

But...

With his current strength, he still could not break the iron chain on his shackles.

If the fruit I ate had been a Logia, how great would that have been... I could have turned into an element and escaped these shackles directly.

As Sephiroth was thinking this, he felt something strange happen to his body. His hands seemed to have an urge to split apart on their own.

Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!...

Under Sephiroth's astonished and delighted gaze, his hands actually split into Black Bats that flew into the air and continuously flapped their wings. The shackles fell onto the deck with a Clang!

"This is... Devil Fruit power?"

Boa Hancock let out a soft cry, and delight flashed through her eyes.

They had hope of escaping!

Boa Sandersonia scratched her green hair and asked with a puzzled expression:

"When those people captured you, they actually didn't use Sea Stone handcuffs?"

"Sea Stone is a rare mineral. Other than the Marines, very few people possess it." Boa Marigold explained.

Under Sephiroth's mental control, he discovered that he could command the bats as easily as moving his own arms.

"Sephiroth, can you control those bats and have them retrieve that ring of keys over there?"

Boa Hancock pressed herself against the iron bars and pointed toward the end of the corridor, over three meters away, where a ring of keys hung on the wall.

"There's no need to control the bats to get them. I can go out and fetch them myself..."

As he spoke, his body transformed into a large swarm of wing-flapping bats, slipped through the iron bars, and reassembled in the corridor.

Standing in the corridor, Sephiroth glanced to the side and found that besides the cabin they were in, there were three other cabins on this level of the ship. One of them was empty.

The other two cabins each held a rare and exotic animal. One was a small elephant with tiger fur, while the other was a dog with ram horns and a sheep's tail.

Sephiroth could not name either of these animals. They had even gone beyond the bounds of his common sense.

In the end, he could only sigh that the world of One Piece truly had every kind of bizarre thing imaginable.

His idea of finding helpers had completely fallen through, leaving the silver-haired boy somewhat disappointed. Still, he quickly retrieved the ring of keys, opened the iron-barred door to the girls' cabin, and released them.

What surprised Sephiroth was that he actually found the key to their shackles on the ring.

After unlocking the girls' shackles, he finally spoke.

"Do you know anything about the enemy?"

Boa Hancock crossed her arms and said in a deep voice:

"When we were brought aboard, we saw nine of them. They all carried long swords and guns..."

(

I'm not going to write the protagonist awakening right after eating a fruit, becoming invincible, and beating the Four Emperors senseless.

Even Luffy ate the Sun God Nika Fruit and still got bullied by mountain bandits.

Kurozumi Orochi ate the Mythical Zoan Yamata no Orochi form and was still worthless...

If I wrote the protagonist crushing everything and steamrolling every enemy right after eating a fruit, that would be far too ridiculous... (¬ω¬")

Also, the protagonist's character arc will gradually change as the plot develops, shifting from an ordinary person's mentality into that of a warlord in chaotic times, along with an old pervert's personality...)