Nami, Simplified Version

"An illusion, an illusion. It has to be an illusion."

Bearded Man still had his wits about him. Forcing down his panic, he hurriedly turned and shouted at the other Marines, "Stop dawdling! Get up and warn the villagers! Save as many as you can!"

With that, he took the lead, running toward the houses on either side.

There was no time to waste. That meteorite would hit before long.

They couldn't stop it. All they could do was warn everyone as quickly as possible and save whoever they could.

Kuta's expression had turned thunderous.

He realized it wasn't a meteorite at all, but an island.

He could even make out ruined houses and trees on top of it.

"Someone definitely fucking did this! Since when do Knock Up Streams happen one after another?"

Just a few days ago, he'd been talking about how unlucky Corgi Island was.

He hadn't expected karma to catch up with him so soon.

He could guarantee that all five of them would be safe when the island fell.

But...

He turned to look at the Marines behind him and the villagers pouring out of their houses, running around like headless chickens.

From farther behind him came the sounds of children crying, adults cursing in panic, and people colliding in the chaos.

There was no way he could let this island fall.

"Kuta."

Hearing Kuina call his name, Kuta turned and met her slightly panicked gaze.

She wasn't worried about herself. She was worried about the town.

If that island fell, at least ninety percent of the people here would die.

"Can you do anything?"

She had always believed there was nothing Kuta couldn't do.

She believed he could pull it off this time, too.

Kuta reached up and rubbed his head. Looking at the rapidly approaching fireball, he spoke firmly.

"I'll do everything I can to keep it from hitting the town."

Then he added gravely, "We can't let it get any closer. Otherwise, even if I cut it to pieces, the villagers will still suffer heavy casualties."

As he spoke, he vanished, leaving only a large basket of fruit to drop to the ground.

But nobody cared about the fruit now. They were all staring anxiously at the sky.

Kuta teleported beside the island, his mind racing as he stared at the enormous mass.

Catching it would be easy for him. Catching all of it was the problem.

This was a sizable island, not a small meteorite. His Space Domain could still only control an area within a twenty-meter radius.

With the highest-level Haki techniques, smashing this thing would actually be simple.

He had plenty of Haki now, but its quality and his technique still fell short of the highest level.

When Haki was used at its highest level, it could inflict Internal Destruction on an enemy.

This technique, which let Haki flow like gas and eventually strike and destroy an enemy from within, was called "Ryuo" in Wano Country.

Unfortunately, this ultimate Haki technique required extensive actual combat to master.

Having spent all his time holed up in the dojo, how could he have mastered a technique like that?

In fact, he had gotten the method for practicing Ryuo from Koshiro long ago.

But that hadn't done him a damn bit of good.

Without extensive combat experience, even King Luffy couldn't master Ryuo.

Now there was only one option left: cut the island to pieces through sheer strength.

He could teleport around the island hundreds, even thousands of times in an instant.

He could unleash White Slash and Thousand Slashes to slice it apart.

But this method gave him pause.

It would consume an enormous amount of stamina.

The moment he teleported into the air, he had discovered numerous islands among the clouds above.

And on the island in the very center stood a figure radiating a lionlike presence, with the overwhelming air

of a ruler looking down on the world.

The instant he sensed that presence, he knew who it was.

The East Blue, a lionlike presence, floating islands.

If those clues weren't enough for him to figure it out, all those years of watching One Piece would have been wasted.

Of all the times that old bastard could have shown up, he had to pick now.

He might even have come specifically for him.

"Just my fucking luck."

A flicker of anger crossed Kuta's dark face.

If the man wanted him, why not come fight him fair and square? What the hell was with throwing an island at him as a greeting?

And if he had to throw one, fine! But why throw it at an inhabited island?

Watching the island fall past him, Kuta pushed aside his resentment toward Golden Lion.

There was no time for any of that now.

He would deal with the old bastard later. He was confident he could beat him even after exhausting much of his stamina.

Staring at the rapidly falling island before him, Kuta's pupils abruptly contracted, nebulas swirling in his eyes.

He gripped Zankū's hilt with his right hand and silently activated Teleportation.

For an instant, time seemed to freeze as countless Kutas appeared around the island.

They all drew their swords at once, unleashing countless enormous silver-gray slashes at the island.

Then all of Kuta's afterimages merged into one, leaving him standing where he had been, as though he had never moved.

His slightly labored breathing, however, proved that he had.

Clink!

It was the sound of a sword sliding into its sheath.

"Swift Thousand Slashes!"

His voice broke the frozen moment.

The falling island suddenly stopped in midair, countless dazzling rays of light bursting outward from its center.

Then, with a deafening boom, the island exploded, breaking into countless tiny stones that shot in every direction, trailing fiery red tails.

Kuta stood quietly in place, steadying his breathing as he prepared to face Golden Lion, who was flying toward him.

The shock wave from the explosion automatically parted around him, like water meeting a blade.

Hearing the earth-shattering explosion, the fleeing villagers and Marines all stopped and looked up.

They saw a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.

The plummeting meteorite suddenly exploded, and dust instantly filled the entire sky, plunging the world into darkness.

Then countless tiny stones burst out of the billowing dust.

Trailing long, fiery red tails, the stones shot outward like meteors.

It looked like a gigantic firework, breathtakingly beautiful.

And where the meteorite had been, a figure could be faintly seen amid the dust.

"Wow! Is that a god?"

"It has to be! Only a god could do something like that!"

Having narrowly escaped death, some villagers clutched their heads and sobbed, others laughed loudly, and still others collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

Bearded Man stared blankly at the sky, then suddenly crumpled to the ground as though all his strength had drained away.

The feeling of surviving certain death brought him back to twenty years ago.

In his daze, something suddenly occurred to him. He turned toward Kuta's group and froze again when he realized Kuta was missing.

Then he looked up at the figure in the sky and murmured:

"You really are terrifying, Silver Hair Kuta."

A simplified version of Nami

A-Luo dry-heaved for a while.

Suddenly, the nausea in his stomach rapidly faded, and a power unlike anything he had ever felt surged through his body.

It made him itch all over, swiftly transforming his entire body.

Seeing that A-Luo had stopped retching, everyone watched him curiously.

A-Luo trembled on the ground, then rapidly swelled. Before long, he had become an enormous, jet-black ant.

Ahua and Ahua stared at A-Luo, now a black ant, in shock.

It was their first time seeing anything so bizarre.

A living, breathing human had gained a devil's power and actually turned into an insect.

Kuta and Kuina took it a little better. They were curious, too, but not shocked.

Off to the side, Indigo let out a chuckle.

He had seen plenty of transformations like this. There was nothing novel about it to him anymore.

Once A-Luo became an ant, he gained a basic understanding of the Ant Devil Fruit's true uses.

Excitedly, he rose onto his hind legs. His head changed first, then his body, and he swiftly became an ant-man with four pairs of arms and two antennae on his head.

"Wow! That's amazing."

Watching A-Luo transform, Ahua immediately lunged at him, reaching for the antennae on his head.

But as though he could see the future, A-Luo stepped aside first, easily dodging Ahua's reaching hand.

"Oh?"

A gleam flashed through Kuta's eyes when he saw A-Luo move.

Watching A-Luo, he suddenly shot a hand toward his head.

And once again, as though he had seen it coming, A-Luo dodged Kuta's hand in advance.

A-Tao's cigarette-holding hand froze in midair, while Ahua stood behind A-Luo, staring at him in shock.

He didn't know what this ability to predict the path of an opponent's attack was.

But he often saw Kuta and Kuina use it, so he assumed it was an ability reserved for the strong.

He didn't know what it was, but Indigo did.

Indigo studied A-Luo curiously, a trace of shock on his face as well.

"Observation Haki?"

"It's not Observation Haki. It should be the enhanced perception that comes with the fruit." A hint of amusement flickered in Kuta's eyes as he watched A-Luo. "But with perception this strong, he should be able to awaken real Observation Haki fairly quickly with some training."

"Oh..."

Even though it wasn't true Observation Haki, Indigo was still deeply shocked.