"Young'uns up there"
"Who's this old lady?"
"You want an umbrella?"
"Umbrella?" I asked her.
"Ah, you see the island has a unique weather condition" She said with a creepy smile, revealing her broken teeth "If you want to safely land, you will need this umbrella with you, to protect you from the lightning bolts" she said, before one of the men behind handed her a big, weirdly shaped umbrella and she proceeded to show it to us.
"How do I know it's not a scam?" Just as I asked her, a lightning bolt struck at the place where she was standing.
*Thunder* surprisingly nothing happened to her nor the umbrella she was carrying.
"Alright, I'll take some just incase" She just smiled and proceeded to bring a dozen more.
"It's 10,000 berries for each"
"Isn't that a little too much?" Franky exclaimed.
"We have enough money, I'll take them" I said as I sent Diana down to retrieve them.
"Be careful, if they take too much damage, they might end up breaking" The old lady warned me before the boat started sailing away from us and the island.
'So, she doesn't live there, then that means the island is uninhabited…Obviously' I looked back at it and then ordered Ken to move the ship closer so we could land, but just as we started moving, we saw another ship approaching from the opposite side of the island.
"It's a pirate ship!" Yamamoto informed me while he was observing it with a spyglass.
"A pirate ship?... Let me see" I said, then proceeded to take the spyglass from him and looked at the ship's flag. The Jolly Roger was a white skull with two purple wings, and a white flame on each side of the skull.
"A familiar face just appeared…" I said while smiling.
"Hey, Ken. Give me the Log Pose for a second" I wanted to check out something.
'The needles of the other two island are jiggling so much, there is no way to know the direction where you should sail' I thought, since the magnetic fields of the New World islands are instable, you would need a Log Pose with three needles, so you won't get lost if something like this happens. The same thing for Eternal Poses, you would need at least three with to be safe 'That's why he's here, he must be trying to go back to paradise. It was mentioned that there is an island in the New World where you could do the ship's coating, it must be one of the other two'
I threw the Log Pose back to Ken and ordered him to get closer to the ship.
"Move to their side!"
"Right away!" Ken immediately carried out my order.
When we got close, we got a clear view to who is on board. The most prominent one, was an abnormally large humanoid creature with very distinct, devil-like features. He has two horns protruding from the sides, a pale skin and red long hair.
The one who was sailing the pirate ship, was none other than the future Warlord Gecko Moria, he wasn't as overweight as he was in the anime, but still fater than he should be.
He was standing near the helm with no signs of another living thing beside him. The ship was very big, though not as big as the Thriller Bark, but definitely bigger than our ship.
There was also a lot of zombies aboard, but no signs of Ryuma, John or Oars 'He must still be looking for strong shadows for them' I thought as I observed him from a distance.
"Zombies?" Calvin looked at them curiously "It must be some kind of devil fruit power".
"You're that rookie bastard, Ashen...The hell do you want?" Moria looked at me arrogantly.
"Moria, Moria, don't go around calling me a bastard…You don't want me to send you to where your comrades at, now don't you?" I said, trying to provoke him, which seems to work since he's facial expression changed right away when he heard that, and became furious.
"How dare you say something like that!"
"Ah sorry! You must still be grieving at their loss…Is what you must be waiting for me to say? You punk edge lord, get over it!" I said with a low tone of voice "Don't tell me you sailed throughout this sea not expecting that something like that might happen? If that's the case, then you must be the biggest dumbass I have ever seen in my life!"
'Nevertheless, I still respect him for the fact that he went to Blackbeard's territory alone to rescue his crew member' I thought.
"You little shit, are you deliberately trying to provoke my anger?!"
"Is it working?" I asked him with a smirk.
"You're damn right it is!" He said, as he was getting ready to jump to my ship and attack me.
"Sigh…Forget about that, and let's talk business" I said with a relaxed expression as I put my hand on my pockets.
"What nonsense are you spouting?" Moria was on guard.
"You have something that I want" I said with a smile "Shusui, give it to me" I said while stretching my palm.
He looked at me in shock when I said that 'He probably thought that no one knew about him stealing it from Wano, along with Ryuma's corpse'.
"H-How?...How did you know?!" he took a step back while asking me.
"I don't need to tell you, just give it to me along with everything valuable in your possession and I will let you leave" I said with a serious expression "since you keep crying about the New World, I don't want you to shit your pants or something".
"Don't be cocky, you just got here. You still haven't seen the true horrors of this place" He said while clenching his teeth, before he pointed his finger at me and shouted, "Now, don't get in my way, I'm going back to Paradise!"
"I know exactly how dangerous this sea is, not like a certain individual"
"Stop it with the trash talking and let's finish this matter, I can't spend another second in this damned sea!"
"I said, you can leave…After giving me your shit" I pointed my index finger at his ship's mast, and fired a concentrated heat beam at it, which caused it to explode and start a fire.
"You did it…" He looked at his ship's mast burning down before his forehead veins became more visible "Go to hell!" He shouted at me angrily, and then proceed to jump into my ship and the zombies did the same after him.
"Don't tell me you're trying to fight us with such mindless creatures?" Enel said arrogantly, while observing the zombies that were about to jump into the ship, before his stretched his arm towards them and sent a strong beam of electricity.
"GROOOWWLL!!!-*BAAAAM*" Enels attack managed to burn off a lot of them while dealing some damage to Moria's ship.
"What did you do?!" He looked back at the charred bodies of his previous zombies in outrage.
"Where are you looking?" I quickly drew my sword and imbued it with Haki, and proceeded to slash him horizontally, leaving a wide cut on his chest while sending him flying back towards his ship.
"*CRASH*…Damn it, unforgivable!" Moria slowly got on his feet, while dripping with blood. He immediately started absorbing the shadows from the rest of the zombie, making him grow in size.
"Captain, let me deal with him" Urouge said, as he jumped into Moria's ship, facing him. The later was at least five times bigger than him. Luckily, his ship was big enough that it didn't cause any trouble.
"Take this!" Moria attacked Urouge immediately, sending a strong right punch. The latter tried to block it, but he was smashed down under his giant fist.
"Kishishishi! How do you like that you bastard?!" He grinned maniacally at me "Now I'll beat up your crew member to death!" He said, releasing a swarm of bats from his body, and sent them flying towards Urouge.
"What a pain" The bats proceeded attack him at once, which he countered by smashing them individually, but they were numerous, fast and immortal so fighting them was practically a waste of time.
Moria took the opportunity since Urouge was distracted and started attacking him dealing a lot of damage, the latter utilized his devil fruit power to convert it into physical strength, resulting in his muscles to expand while enlarging his body.
When Urouge realized that he was just wasting his energy fighting the bats, he started ignoring them and targeted Moria instead.
"What kind of power is that?" Moria was surprised at Urouge's growth in size.
Urouge just smiled at him, and then proceeded to punch him in the stomach, managing to push him a few steps back, and then launched himself at him again while flexing his muscles and punched him in the same place.
"*BAM*…*Smile*…You think that's enough to take me down?" This time, Moria blocked his fist and proceeded to kick him back, and then sent the bat swarm towards him again. But this time, they encircled him, and then they turned into a large black box encompassing him "Brick Bat...Black Box!"
"What the-*CRASH*"
"Kishishishi!...Die!!" After that Moria started beating up Urouge without a stop.
"…"
"Should I interfere?" Calvin asked me in worry.
"No need" I said calmly, I was confident in Urouge's power since he was able to defeat a sweet commander in cannon, he should at least be able to beat up this mentally scarred creep, even if its twenty years earlier.
"That guy is the most durable person out of all of us" Enel stated with his arms crossed, he was watching the fight in interest, but he wasn't worried about his fellow Birkan at all.
"…"
"Die! Die! Kishishishi!" Moria kept smashing Urouge with his feet while he was still trapped in the box, until a fist emerged from it and grabbed him "Huh?..."
It took him a second to react before the box was destroyed, and a huge figure appeared "Inga Zarashi" Urouge started growing even larger than he was before, then proceeded to grab Moria's leg with both his hands and started spinning him around and sent him crashing into the back of the ship.
*CRASH*
"Aagghh!!...W-What a monstrous power!" Moria was shocked at Urouge display, but still got on his feet again and went charging at him.
"Man, you've roughed me up so much" Urouge got into attacking position. He moved his fist back ready to punch him "Retribution!"
*BAM* Their fists clashed against each other, while both tried to push the other one away.
"Damn it!" Moria was slowly getting pushed back so he proceeded to punch Urouge with his other hand, the later blocked it with his palm and the fight turned int a pushing contest before they both stepped back.
Urouge closed his eyes after that and used Observation Haki to sense Moria's attacks "Mantra" He proceeded to dodge the attacks one after the other, waiting for the right moment to strike.
Moria sent a strong right punch which Urouge easily dodged, before he moved closer to him and sent an uppercut punching his chin hardily, while using the former's momentum to bring him down. Moria didn't see that coming and lost his balance, falling face down.
After that, Urouge took the chance and rained him down with punches until the ground beneath them crashed and they both went down.
"I think that would be enough" I said as I was smiling proudly, and then proceeded to jump into Moria's ship.
I slowly walked past the pile of corpses towards the giant hole in the middle of the ship, before I jumped down on top of Moria, while pointing the tip of my sword at his neck "You look so fucking depressed, that's not the spirit of someone who wants to be a pirate king"
"You know nothing" He looked at me while he was lying down covered in blood and bruises and sweating nervously.
"Nah, I at least know that if you want to be the pirate king…You should aim to thrust through the heavens with your spirit" I said while grinning "Say…Why not join me? I will beat that overgrown lizard sometime in the future, you don't want to miss that, right?"
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Question: What do you think about Moria joining the crew or becoming an ally, since it's not too late for him to start training again and learning Haki?