[Zou]
Within the dark night, above the back of the ever-moving Zunesha, a huge bonfire was laid in the middle, brightening the area into a welcoming orange.
If looked closely, a huge number of people are seen to have gathered around the bonfire, drinking and mingling without any worry.
"No matter how much time has passed, it's still vivid to me as if it happened yesterday."
In the midst of the huge group lied Gaban, who said wistfully as he looked up, with his sunglasses still on him even during the night.
"The miraculous victory against Shiki the Lion. The occasional clash against the Whitebeard pirates. The countless number of adventures. Though it's difficult to say that we travelled throughout the entirety of the world,"
Gaban raised up the bottle of booze and gulped it down, before continuing his words,
"we are probably the ones who explored the most. And in that sense, I suppose that we can be considered as the pioneers of the sea, haha!"
If looked closely, one would find that Gaban's face was red. He swayed side to side with a wide grin on his face; he was obviously drunk.
"This old man, ha..." Dan facepalmed after inspecting Gaban's state, "He shouldn't be drinking this much at this age. His state is definitely not normal, and I can tell—"
"I don't need another Crocus with me!" Gaban, who heard Dan's words, groaned while slamming the bottle down.
Sighing, Gaban stated to Dan, "Youngster, I know very well how much time I got. One day, I will—"
"Blah blah, whatever. No excuses!" Dan snatched the bottle of alcohol from Gaban, "I'm not willing to see a patient further destroying his body right in front of me!"
Then, in front of Gaban's eyes, Dan chugged down the rest of the alcohol.
"...You just wanted to drink yourself." From the side, Carina commented with amusement.
"You…" Gaban angrily stood up and shouted, "You psycho of a brat!!!"
Dan grinned shrewdly,
"Heh."
"GAAAABBBBAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!"
Gaban screamed like a madman with his face reddened in anger. His arms were held by one jaguar-mink, Pedro.
"Please calm down, Gaban-san!"
"GABA! Let me go, Pedro!!! I have to show that kid who I am!!"
"…Huh." Nekomamushi stared at Gaban with a dumbfounded expression, "I haven't seen Gaban-san like that since the time in the Oro Jackson."
"Bohahahaha!"
Rowan laughed while wiping the tears from his eyes.
"What a nice doctor we got here." Carmen snorted.
"Uh…" Cavendish seemed to be confused, "If Gaban is as sick as he claimed to be, why would he drink from the bottle that Gaban drank from?"
"Seems like you forgot." Carmen replied with a sigh, "Dan is literally the lightning itself. No disease is capable of getting through him, when his body burns them all away in an instant."
"…Oh." Cavendish exclaimed with his mouth in an o-shape, before saying with a serious face, "Unless the disease learns Haki."
Nearby, Urouge was having the time of his life. With a ball on his hand, he grinned before throwing it up high in the air.
"Woof woof!!!"
Then came… Inuarashi, who madly ran toward the ball with his tongue elongated out of his mouth.
"Oh, aren't you cute, sahahaha!" As Inuarashi was busy with the ball, Urouge leaned down to the dumbfounded rabbit-mink, Carrot, and petted her head.
"Let me, ha… let me take good care of you…" Urouge'a huge face approached Carrot slowly.
"U-uh..."
Carrot unconsciously trembled, feeling creeped out by Urouge's behaviour.
"That's enough, monsieur Urouge."
However, Carrot met her saving grace, Alfred, stopping Urouge from whatever he was about to do,
"It seems that you're scaring her."
Urouge immediately backed off with widened eyes, "My apologies! It hasn't been much since I came down from the White Sea, and every single time I come across the novel aspects of the Blue Sea, I can't help but lose myself!"
But those words didn't enter Carrot's ears. All she managed to see was Urouge's huge posture towering over her. His fist alone was almost as huge as her, after all.
As various occurrences were happening simultaneously within the noisy Zou, Rowan finally spoke up with no trace of goofiness.
"Sorry for ruining the mood, but we don't have any time to waste here."
Within one day, the Grimheart pirates travelled all the way from Delta to Zou. There existed only one purpose for doing so: the Road Poneglyph.
Aligning the information from all four Road Poneglyphs reveals the navigation to the final island, Laughtale.
Within the hidden island, there lies the greatest treasure of the whole world: One Piece.
Although Rowan didn't know what exactly the One Piece is, he had a glimpse of it through the memory of 'Vasilia Endra.'
'A weapon capable of subverting the whole world.'
"We need to see the Road Poneglyph in your possession."
Nekomamushi and Inuarashi instantly froze upon hearing Rowan's words.
Gaban's eyes narrowed as if him being a drunken man was naught but an act.
"Kaidou, Big Mom, and... Shanks." Gaban slowly opened his mouth,
"With all three of them dead, there is no one to stop you from the path to the One Piece. You somehow learned that in order to acquire it, the four Road Poneglyphs are required... even without reaching the faux final island of the Grand Line, Lodestar. Conveniently, the only person capable of interpreting the ancient context, Nico Robin, is with you."
Gaban then asked,
"What is the reason? For what purpose are you seeking for the One Piece?"
Rowan didn't hesitate. He immediately replied with certainty,
"To end the World Government."
His final enemy. Until Imu is gone, he won't be able to live in peace.
Even more, the Revolutionary Army will invade the Mariejois within a week.
'A tide bigger than any other is coming.'
Rowan could feel Imu's presence. And he could tell, that no one but he was able to go on par with the latter.
If so, why hasn't he sent the letter to Dragon telling him to stop?
'As if that would work.'
What kind of person will be able to stay calm when his or her child is suffering under the enemy's hands?
"Are you saying that you can win?" Gaban said dryly, "Against the god of sea? Even though you aren't the Joy Boy?"
"Why, I didn't know that you were a religious man." Rowan responded impassively, "But let me correct you one thing."
Rowan turned his eyes in one particular direction, the direction in which Imu was located at.
'Are you seeing me as well, Imu?'
"That man is anything but a god."
The orb-like being that he saw before his reincarnation was closer to a god than what Imu ever will be.
"...The Poneglyphs are the concentrated information on the ancient history, carved by the Kozuki clan of Wano." Inuarashi spoke up warily, "Joy Boy entrusted them and us with guarding the door to the Laughtale. He said that one day, he will return and fulfill his promise of freeing the whole world."
"Joy Boy, he is the only one allowed to see the Road Poneglyph. Captain Roger said so himself. No matter how important this matter is to you," Nekomamushi gulped, but said nonetheless, "we can't give you access to it."
Rowan sat by silently after having listened to their refusal.
The minks all stopped whatever they were doing, and watched Rowan with nervousness within their minds.
"...Welp, too bad then, I suppose."
However, in contrast to their worries, Rowan simply smiled without any concern.
Subsequently, he stood up from his seat,
"Guess it's time for us to move then."
Under the dumbfounded eyes of the minks and Gaban, Rowan turned to Carina, "Is everything ready?"
"Yep!" Carina nodded confidently.
Prior to their departure from the Delta, the Grimheart pirates took the Eternal Poses of Whole Cake island and Wano. Simply put, there will be no trouble in regard to the navigation after Zou.
"W-wait." Gaban held his hand up, "You are giving up just like this?"
Honestly speaking, Gaban was expecting a clash. He was expecting himself to be killed. But...
"The owners said no. And it's not like you guys were trying to oppose us or anything." Rowan shrugged, "We are the pirates with the standards of our own."
"Though I'll be taking this, this, and this." Carmen added on while holding onto the peculiar bottles of spices.
"And this as well!" Dan said as he held onto a small bottle of a transparent liquid, "A special medicine that can grant an instant heal, albeit with side effects... can't miss this."
It all happened in an instant. Right after Inuarashi and Nekomamushi said no, the Grimheart pirates got back on their ship, and...
left just like that.
"I'm confused right now." Gaban whispered in disbelief, "What are they thinking?"
___________
"Three more to go." Rowan stated with a grin as he held onto a sheet of paper—the copy of the Road Poneglyph from the Zou.
"Well done, Robin."
How was this possible? There existed two steps in achieving such means.
First, Rowan's eyes. He, after having fully awakened his ocular ability to its maximum potential, was able to sense the 'intent' of non-living objects; though he didn't know, the ability was exactly the same as the 'Voice of All Things' that extremely few individuals were able to possess. Using this ability, he immediately identified where the Road Poneglyph was hidden.
Then followed the execution. As the party was being held in the middle of the Zou, Robin used her ability to grow an eye within the hidden cave where the Road Poneglyph was held. Gaban wasn't able to sense what Robin was doing thanks to Rowan's active interruption.
"Imagine what they will think when we reach the final island." Carina chuckled as Prominence flew in the middle of the deep night, "Only then will they probably realize."
"Uh... are you sure that this is a language though?" Dan, who was standing behind Rowan, squinted his eyes toward the sheet of paper, "Looks like a doodle to me."
"The island where all paths converge into one. Star-shaped. The beginning of the end. Straightforward." Robin said calmly, "That's what the context stated. According to the information here..."
"Lodestar." Alfred said in realization.
"Though we aren't sure how 'Lodestar' is supposed to help us in reaching the Laughtale, we've gotten one step closer to One Piece with this information." Urouge grinned in excitement.
"Neigh!"
"Farul says that he feels the same." A pebble next to Farul said in a monotone.
"Straightforward from the Lodestar." Rowan muttered, "Reaching the Red Line, or to be more specific... the Reverse Mountain."
"But from the opposite side." Carina hummed, "A cave of some sort?"
"Nothing is set for now." Dan shook his head, "Let's focus on finding the other three Road Poneglphs first."
"*Yawn*"
Cavendish yawned with visible fatigue, "Agreed."
"So, I suppose that our next destination is," Robin said knowingly, to which Rowan nodded,
""Whole Cake.""
___________
[Mariejois]
"A mass movement... how interesting."
On top of the huge throne lied Imu. With his legs crossed and him leaning his face onto his hand, he smiled wickedly.
"From the three Blues and Paradise... arriving here, Mariejois, from the different sides at once." Imu muttered in intrigue, "The Revolutionary Army's work, perhaps?"
In front of Imu, one burly man, Kong, was kneeling deep down as his whole body trembled in fear.
"And the Marine being more useless than ever, I see." Imu stated with an enigmatic gleam within his eyes, "A dog biting on its own master... how incapable."
"I-Imu-sama..."
The king who silently controlled the whole world up until now... though Kong once wondered the possibility of someone being above the Five Elders, he never expected it to turn out to be true.
And it was the most ruthless individual that Kong has ever come across—it was as if Imu wasn't able to hold even a tickle of emotion within himself.
Just like the depth of the sea, Imu was the man colder than any other.
Imu sighed as if the previous amusement has died down into mundane boredom, "And what of the matter of the Warlords?"
"Y-yes! Dracule Mihawk, Bartholomew Kuma, Edward Weevil, Capone Bege, and Basil Hawkins have arrived at Mariejois! Gild Tesoro, however, is currently occupied with the previous Marine, Kuzan, and was unable to make it!"
"Mihawk. Ah, yes. Mihawk indeed." Imu, as if unbothered by any other words that came out of Kong's mouth, exclaimed, "Sometimes, I can't help but forget that I had a son, but such is the flow of the time. The unmemorable weakling that I've seen once in my life has now become a little more capable... though it seems that he still is a bug just like any other."
Imu stood up from his seat and began to walk away, uncaring of Kong who didn't dare to move from his position.
"I will give one day." as he was walking, Imu's fearsome eyes shifted to Kong, "Within the day, the Marine headquarter is to demolish its own building and join the force in the Mariejois.
And don't think for once that it is due to the lack of force—for this is my final grace to your pitiful souls."
Then exited Imu, which allowed Kong to finally release the breath that he was unconsciously holding.
Then, he raised his wrist where the mini Den Den Mushi was found, before speaking into it,
"Is Lindbergh here?"
Lindbergh, the commander of now-ruined South Blue's Revolutionary Army. Dragon, knowing that Lindbergh is a cat-mink, believed for sure that he is the faithful official of the Revolutionary Army.
However, in truth, he was an ambitious fellow. For the sake of achieving a new level of science through Dr. Vegapunk, he was ready to betray his own organization. Additionally, he believed that there was no way that the Revolutionary Army had the capability to defeat the World Government, especially since its history has gone over 800 years.
Now, with many refugees of the South Blue on board, Lindbergh arrived at Mariejois instead of Baltigo.
"Heh, I'm already here, commander Kong."
And unknown of this fact, the Revolutionary Army was sailing to the Mariejois.