Chapter 198: Ancient Weapon (2)
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—Past—|
Everything was fuzzy and a thick fog was covering the area.
Blood. Blood was dripping on the sea from the sky where a giant man wearing an equally giant Straw Hat walked on the air by stepping onto blue half-transparent blocks. He was injured, a fist-sized hole was in his chest, yet he walked unfazed. Meanwhile, on his shoulder, a green-haired young boy sat. The boy looked no more than 10, and he had his hands pointing forward as more and more blue blocks appeared where the giant stepped on.
"Hey, Cap." The young boy called in a solemn tone, still, his hands raised and his eyes locked forward. The giant, who he called Captain, didn't answer but the boy knew he was listening. "What will happen after this…?"
The giant stopped on his steps. He paused for a moment before looking at the sky. With a strange but charismatic smile on his face, he chuckled softly. "Eh? It will be fine. We failed, but the next generation will succeed."
After a nodding his head, the giant continued walking while more blocks appeared in the air for him to step on. By then, a huge circular gap in the sea was in sight. Water was everywhere, the giant was walking above the sea. Yet the massive hole was there as if nothing. Water was constantly pouring into the hole, but it was not being filled at all.
"Hah. Can you believe this destruction?" The giant asked out loud. "He practically erased a part of the planet to oblivion. What a monster."
The child on top of his shoulder seemed unfazed by it. "Well, yeah. But don't you think we should hurry up? The crew is fighting that exact monster you're talking about. They won't be able to hold him off for long, Cap."
The Straw Hat wearing Giant chuckled at this but still nodded. "You're right." He released a breath as he noticed his wound acting up. "This is the last seal. The first one was above Mariejois, that man's home, and the second one was God's Valley. Now, this should be the last place."
The plan is to put three seals in a straight line, two supportive ones and one main which would be the one to hold the "beast" inside.
One seal is in Paradise, another above the Red Line (on Mariejois), and the last is in the New World. They would be used to seal that monster, Imu, in Mariejois. At first, the giant wanted to just put one seal on Mariejois, but he realised gathering the "keys" of the seal, the 'Ancient Weapons', at that place would be quite easy and the seal would be taken off quite soon. So he decided to put three different seals in three different places where the Ancient Weapons would be used as keys to undo the seal.
This way, it would be hard for anyone to free Imu since if they want to release Imu so that he can wreak havoc in the world again, the Ancient Weapons won't agree, but if a wielder of D wants to free Imu for the last battle between them, then the Ancient Weapons would agree and the battle would take place. Though the giant man only hoped that the next fight wouldn't be won by Imu again.
The giant man, Joy Boy, walked on the transparent plates made by the son of one of his crew members as he reached below the empty hole in the sea. Under the gap, a beautiful island the size of a big city was floating above the water that was being poured from the sea above.
This island is the remnant of the Great Kingdom, or what Joy Boy likes to call "Laugh Tale".
He had brought this island here just before he fought Imu. The Mermaid Princess had foreseen the future where they would lose, so he had taken preparations in case her predictions had come true this time too. As it is his home that he had built with his blood and sweat, he wished for it to stay safe from destruction. So he chose to keep this island hidden under the seal.
He then turned his eyes to the child on his shoulder. "So, Bart, are you ready to go into action?"
The child with green hair nodded. "Yes, captain."
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The process wasn't hard. Bart had to run around the island and surround it with his "Barrier" that he can make with his "Barrier fruit".
The plan is, Bart would create three barriers, two that he already did in God's Valley and Mariejois, and the third one was here. The barrier's power supply would be the one of here and God's Valley, while the main place where the barrier would be the strongest would be Mariejois.
These are permanent barriers, there is no way to break them, there is only one way to undo them each. In God's Valley, the barrier is hidden underground, so people would still be able to access the surface of it. And to undo the barrier, they would need "Poseidon" to undo it via special means.
The one in Mariejois is special too. There is an empty field there, Bart had to put a barrier around that field, where the Crewmates of Joy Boy was fighting Imu. One would need to use "Pluton" as the Key if they want to break that seal, but even then, the other two seals that are supporting the main seal would not allow it to undo itself.
And this is the third, the Laugh Tale that is hidden under the Gap in the Sea. Uranus is needed to unlock this seal. And while the seals in God Valley and Gap in the Sea can be unlocked via one Ancient Weapon, to unlock the seal in Mariejois, one would need all the Ancient Weapons and undo all seals.
Normally, creating indestructible barriers isn't possible even with the "Barrier-Barrier fruit".
Bart's barrier works this way – as long as he has stamina left, the Barrier would be indestructible. However, if a person with enough power keeps hitting the barrier, again and again, his stamina consumption would rise and soon he would lose consciousness.
Even then, if he somehow managed to gain unlimited stamina, the barrier would still vanish after he would die, so that's a problem since his Captain seemed to be sure that the next Joy Boy won't be appearing before Bart's death. So he made Bart create a special type of Barrier that can store 'energy' like a battery and would use the energy to keep the barrier active.
As for who had enough 'energy' to be used as a battery for possibly a few hundred years? That's where Joy Boy himself came into play.
"Captain, I still think it's better for you to just travel to the future with Toki and then settle scores with Imu. This is a waste of time."
Joy Boy ignored the child and touched the blue barrier that covered the whole island from all sides. Currently, because of the barrier, the island has become hidden under the water that is being poured down, so from above there, nothing can identify that something is under the hole in the sea.
Joy Boy looked at Bart and beamed at him. "I have already decided, Bart. Though when will you leave? I think this is the best time."
The child snorted. "No need to worry about that. I can just cover myself in a ball of barrier and jump in the sea, I would be automatically bounced upwards because of the water pressure." He answered as the Straw Hat wearing giant laughed.
"Haha, smart kid." He looked at him with adoring eyes. "Ahem, either way, I am gonna start." Saying this Joy Boy touched the barrier as purple energy jumped up from his hand. "Ohh, I can feel the sucking force. It's working."
Currently, his Haki was travelling through the barrier and strengthening it, also travelling through the wireless thread between the three barriers and straightening them too.
Joy Boy maintained his smile as he took off his hat with his other hand and pushed it on the child's head that covered his whole body. "Keep that as a gift."
The boy peaked out of the hat with a deadpan look on his face. "What would I do with this giant ass hat?" This caused Joy Boy to blink.
"Ah, yes, you can't wear it. How silly of me." He tilted his head for a seconds before smiling. "Wait, I remember Jasmine making a small hat from the loosened straws of my hat." He reached out for his pocket as a very small hat, at least compared to his hands, came out. He then pushed the hat down on Bart's head. "Well, now it's good."
After doing so, he again grabbed the giant hat and put it above the child's head, covering his sight in the darkness. He said, "Don't come outside. I am sure you won't like the scene you'd see. And by the way, keep this hat as a gift too, okay?"
There was only a silent, "Yes." from under the hat as Joy Boy stopped laughing. He looked at his hand, his fingers that were slowly becoming sickening to look at, the skin drying and bones slowly becoming clearer.
"Also… Bart," Joy Boy's voice was heavy. "Tell everyone from the crew to put a D in the middle of their children's names. I am sure they know what the D means."
Another silent yes came from under the hat. This time, the voice was quivering.
'...!!'
This was the moment when the fuzzy and foggy view became fuzzier, foggier. As a huge breath filled HIS lungs, Luffy jumped up from his bed.
"Haaah!" He took a deep breath as he looked around with wide eyes. "What was that?"
Immediately the door of his room opened as a blonde woman appeared inside, a worried look on her face. "Captain, is everything all right?"
"Ah… I think I just had a nightmare." Luffy blinked. "Haiyaa, but I can't even remember what it was about."
Luffy stretched his arms and shook his head. He thought he had had this dream before too, but he couldn't remember at all what the dream was about. "I think it was about... Boy Joy?" Luffy said as he shrugged. "Anyway, I am hungry!" Luffy jumped from his bed. "Sanji, I want meeeat!"
He was about to run past Honey Queen but he noticed the bounty poster in her hand. "Eh? Who's poster is that?"
"Oh, you're interested?" Honey Queen said. "You know the recent Emperor of the sea, the Sky Emperor?"
This had caused Nami and Sanji, who was sitting on the deck, to perk their ears up.
"He got a bounty increase." Luffy hummed hearing her. What Honey Queen said caused him to freeze. "It's 4.2 Billion bellies, above Red-Haired Shanks."
It wasn't only Luffy as even Nami, Sanji, Ussop and even Zoro froze. They haven't even heard of such a big number before now.
What type of monster has that type of bounty?
Luffy's mind already forgot about the "Nightmare" and rather focused on something else. "What did you say his name was? Sky King or whatever?"
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A/N: Accidentally posted the same chapter, sorry about that.