South Blue – Marine base S-44
[Hototogisu pov]
The starch in my freshly pressed dress uniform felt entirely wrong against my skin.
It was crisp, clean, and smelled of industrial laundry soap, stark contrast to the phantom scents of roasting meat and tropical earth that still haunted the back of my throat.
I stood by the window of my private quarters in Marine Base S-44, watching the grey waves of the South Blue lap rhythmically against the stone seawall.
My muscles felt incredibly dense, almost heavy, yet entirely responsive.
The medical staff called it a miraculous physical rebound from the trauma.
I knew better.
It was the residual echo of the “Pulse.”
A firm, measured knock rattled the heavy oak door.
“Enter,” I commanded, adjusting the gold epaulets on my shoulders.
Commodore Rofi stepped into the room, his posture as rigid as the granite face he wore.
Under his arm, he carried a slim leather dossier.
My heart gave a traitorous, sudden thud against my ribs.
“Rear Admiral Hototogisu,” Rofi said, offering a crisp, textbook salute.
“I see you are fully recovered.
The base chief is pleased to have you back on active duty status.”
“Cut the formalities, Rofi,” I said, turning away from the window to face him directly.
“What did the South Blue registries turn up?”
Rofi’s jaw tightened, that familiar look of clinical pity flashing across his eyes before he masked it with professional neutrality.
He opened the folder, flipping through a few meager sheets of parchment.
“As per your request, I had the ensigns run an exhaustive search through the South Blue civilian archives, conscription lists, and the global Bounty Hunter registry,” Rofi stated, his voice flat.
“We looked into Karate Island specifically.
While the island does exist, we found no record of an active brawler or bounty hunter matching your description.
No ‘Victor’ in his mid-twenties with the specific combat capabilities or medical skills you detailed.
There is nothing, ma’am.”
The words hit me like a physical blow, though I refused to let my expression waver.
Nothing.
“Are you certain?” I pressed, my voice dropping an octave.
“No one associated with the name?
No one wielding jade-green chains, or a child-like companion?”
“Rear Admiral,” Rofi said gently, closing the file with a soft thud.
“The search was thorough.
There is no one.
The doctors were right.
Your mind built a savior out of nothing to keep you alive on that raft.
It’s time to let the fantasy go.”
I stared at the closed dossier.
The memory of the clearing, the fierce draws, the sheer arrogance of that brat, it all felt too visceral, too real to be a phantom of solitary psychosis.
But looking at Rofi’s skeptical gaze, I realized how insane I sounded.
A Marine officer chasing ghosts in the South Blue based on a delirium-fueled fever dream.
Before I could respond, a rapid, frantic knocking interrupted us.
“Come in,” I barked, grateful for the distraction.
A young ensign burst into the room, breathless, holding a sealed document bearing the heavy wax stamp of Marine Headquarters.
He saluted so hard his cap nearly fell off.
“Forgive the interruption, Rear Admiral!
Urgent dispatches from Marineford just arrived.
They are addressed to you, ma’am!”
I took the parchment from his trembling hands, breaking the seal with a swift flick of my thumb.
As my eyes scanned the elegant, uncompromising calligraphy, the remaining warmth in my chest evaporated.
By order of Fleet Admiral Sakazuki:
Rear Admiral Hototogisu is hereby reassigned to the South Blue theater, effective immediately.
Due to the catastrophic loss of the vessel 83a and the subsequent operational delay, the Admiral’s standing is under review.
To retain her current rank, she is mandated to apprehend a minimum of five high-bounty pirates within the standard calendar year.
Failure to meet this quota will result in immediate demotion and reassignment to a penal outpost.
I closed the letter, my knuckles turning white against the paper.
A year.
Five high-bounty targets in the weakest sea, effectively a demotion in all but name, wrapped in a threat of actual ruin.
Marineford wasn’t punishing me for surviving, they were punishing me for losing my ship and showing weakness.
“Bad news, ma’am?” Rofi asked, noting my tight expression.
“Orders,” I said, my voice hardening into steel as I shoved the paper into my coat pocket.
“I’m being sent to the South Blue.
I have twelve months to hunt down five major pirate captains, or I’ll be scrubbing decks at Impel Down.”
I looked back out the window, at the vast, uncaring ocean.
The mystery of Victor, the stone monsters, and the jade-green bird would have to wait.
I couldn’t afford to chase a ghost when my entire career, my identity as a Marine, was dangling by a thread.
If Victor was real, he was somewhere out there in that vast blue sea.
If he wasn’t, then I had a quota of blood to spill to keep my cape.
“Forget the search, Rofi,” I said quietly, turning back to him with absolute focus.
“We’re done looking for him.
Prepare a scout ship.
I have an empire of pirates to hunt.”
The Island – Zone 2 Border
[Victor’s pov]
I stood at the edge of the plateau, staring down into the misty green throat of Zone 2.
The wind was howling, but it didn’t feel like normal wind.
It felt like the island was trying to physically push me back to the “kiddie pool” of the outer rings.
“Great,” I muttered, adjusting the collar of my shirt.
“The air is literally telling us to piss off.
That’s a fantastic sign for our first day.”
Gammamon stood next to me, his claws digging into the dirt.
He wasn’t cracking jokes about strawberries anymore.
He looked like he’d just walked into a room full of people who wanted to eat him.
“It’s heavy, Victor.
My skin feels like it’s vibrating.”
“That’s just the neighbors letting us know they don’t like visitors,” I said.
I pulled out the black disk and tapped it.
One by one, the jade clones materialized.
The Sonic Tiger, the Exploding Stag, the Phase Wolf, the Rainbow Spider, the Hummingbird and the HoHo.
Usually, they looked intimidating.
Standing here, overlooking the big leagues, they looked like cheap plastic knock-offs.
They were mossy, static statues remnants of the first two months when I was just trying to keep my head above water.
“Look at them,” I said, pointing at the Tiger.
“A big cat that screams.
In Paradise, that’s a nightmare.
Down there?
That’s an appetizer.
We’re holding a pair of deuces and walking into a high-stakes poker game.”
“So we fold?” Gammamon asked, looking at me hopefully.
“Hell no.
We just cheat.”
Below us, a pack of Zone 3 raptors, the kind that used to give us heart attacks, decided to test the border.
They chased a deer into a grove of ancient, dark-red cedars.
They were fast, loud, and way too confident.
They didn’t see the Silken Widow-Maker.
It was suspended between two massive trees, its body almost invisible against the bark.
As the lead raptor jumped, it didn’t hit a web, it hit a single, shimmering thread.
The raptor didn’t stop, it just kept going, but its head stayed behind.
The thread had sliced through bone like it was warm butter.
Then, the spider moved.
It twitched its legs, and the entire web became a series of high-tension garrotes.
In seconds, the pack was just a collection of neatly sliced parts.
The spider used Haki to harden the threads, making them sharper than any blade I’d ever seen.
“Remind me never to walk through a cobweb again,” I whispered.
A bit further down, a clearing exploded.
A group of tusked boars, easily a ton each, charged a four-armed silhouette sitting in the mud.
The Gravity Gorilla.
The boars were fifty feet away when a purple ripple distorted the air.
CRACK.
The boars were flattened into the dirt so hard the ground cratered.
Their bones turned to powder in an instant.
The Gorilla hadn’t even looked up, it just sat there, its fists polished to a metallic, dark-purple shine.
“Gravity hacks and invisible threads,” I said, wiping a bit of cold sweat from my neck.
“And we’re walking in with a ‘Screaming Tiger.’ We are so screwed if we don’t upgrade.”
“Okay, new plan,” I said, ignoring the way my hands were shaking.
“The Tiger, the Stag, the Wolf, they’re done.
We need the big hitters.
We need that Gorilla first.”
“The one that just turned those pigs into pancakes?” Gammamon asked.
“That’s the one.
Not just for the clone slot.
If we’re going to survive the Grand Line, we need Haki.
And since there isn’t a Marine instructor around to give us a manual, we’re going to let that gorilla beat the basics into us.
We fight it until we either die or learn how to push back against that gravity.”
“No more holding back,” I said, retracting the stone statues.
The jade dissolved back into the disk, leaving us alone on the cliffside.
“No more hiding from Marines or playing pretend.
We’re going down there to take what we need.”
Gammamon sparked his claws, a fierce, nervous energy radiating off him.
“You sure about this, Victor?”
“Not at all,” I said, flashing a lopsided, sarcastic grin.
“But hey, if we die, at least we won’t have to listen to any more lectures about ‘Justice’.”
We didn’t wait for a second thought.
Together, we leapt.
We left the safety of the heights and dived straight into the heavy, suffocating canopy of Zone 2.
Word Count: 1601
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