Nami never considered asking Shiki to save Cocoyasi Village.
After all, Shiki was someone who intended to destroy the entire East Blue.
Nami thought that if Shiki were to save Cocoyasi Village, the Arlong Pirates would likely be annihilated.
But the twenty-something villages under the Arlong Pirates' control would also likely be destroyed by Shiki, including Cocoyasi Village.
Therefore, Nami's plan was to stay with Shiki for the time being.
Then, through Shiki, she hoped to meet Arton.
Nami figured that since Arton's diary mentioned attracting Shiki with a navigator, Shiki would treat her, a skilled navigator, with some consideration.
However, in reality, after forcibly bringing her into his ranks, Shiki completely ignored her.
As for her plan to wait safely for Arton while with Shiki, it was far from realistic.
In the past few days, she saw Shiki collecting and studying beasts from various islands.
She also saw Shiki capturing pirates, bounty hunters, and even marines to test the strength of the experimental beasts.
Although Shiki said that anyone who could defeat the experimental beasts could live, he never actually honored this promise.
Even if someone managed to defeat an experimental beast by chance, they would ultimately face a second round of testing.
Nami could understand this, as Shiki wanted to keep his whereabouts hidden from the world.
If he allowed these survivors to return, he wouldn't be able to continue his research in peace.
After witnessing another brutal battle between humans and experimental beasts, where only two women survived, Nami, sitting in the audience, let out a long sigh.
"Such a cruel fight."
"Sigh, I wonder when Arton will find me."
"This is ten thousand meters above the ground. Can he really find this place…?"
Nami murmured to herself, shook her head, and opened the copy of Arton's diary.
She wanted to see if Arton had recorded any new entries, hoping to get a clue if he was coming to find her.
Although she felt a bit sorry for the two surviving women, she didn't have any way to help them.
But just then, Nami frowned slightly, her eyes instinctively looking at the two women remaining in the arena.
A familiar object seemed to have caught her eye.
"Is that a diary?"
"They also have copies of the diary?!"
Nami stared wide-eyed at the two victors in the arena.
Next to them floated diary copies similar to the one beside Nami.
The only difference was the slight variations in the text on the copies.
At that moment, just as Nami was looking at them, they were also looking at Nami.
"This is troublesome. If they have diary copies..."
"Then they must also be some of the heroines from Arton's works."
"If Arton finds out that they died here, would he be very sad?"
Thinking of this, Nami sighed softly, stood up from her seat, and quickly ran from the audience area towards the arena.
"Hey, buddy, how about ending today's experiment here?"
Nami approached a pirate responsible for testing the combat power of the experimental animals and said with a smile.
At this moment, the pirate was about to press a button on the platform, releasing a second batch of animals for the two remaining women to fight in a three-round match.
"It's Nami."
The pirate turned to look at Nami, a smile on his face as well.
"You just said to end the experiment here, is that Captain Shiki's order?"
There was a tone of respect in the pirate's voice towards Nami.
Although Nami thought she didn't count for much in Shiki's eyes, the reality was that Shiki treated her much better than he did ordinary pirates.
As a result, the pirate in front of Nami was quite friendly towards her.
"It's not the captain's order, I just think those two are about to collapse."
"Continuing the experiment now wouldn't be of any use."
"It's better to let them rest for a while, then have them join the others for a new round of experiments."
"Buddy, you don't want to go through the trouble of capturing the released beasts again later, do you?"
Nami said with a smile.
Hearing this, the pirate couldn't help but turn his head to look at the two women who were barely able to stand, leaning on their knees for support.
"You make a good point. Let's do that. This way, I can also take a break early."
The pirate smiled at Nami, then looked at the two women in the enclosed arena and spoke into the microphone on the platform:
"You two, now go back to your rooms."
The two women in the center of the arena glanced at each other, then began to walk towards the passageway.
As luck would have it, the passage was directly below the audience area where Nami was sitting.
"There's not much I can do to help you."
"If you manage to survive, you'd better repay me by giving me more opportunities to get close to Arton."
Nami thought to herself as she watched the two women with diary copies walk towards the passageway.
At the same time, she decided to try and find an opportunity to talk to these two diary copy holders face-to-face.
Of course, the priority was to ensure her own safety first.
Meanwhile, on the other side.
After returning to their cell, the two women with diary copies finally breathed a slight sigh of relief.
"Captain Hina, do you think we can still make it back alive?"
The speaker was Tashigi.
Not long ago, she had left Loguetown to follow Hina in search of Arton.
Unexpectedly, instead of finding Arton, they encountered Shiki first.
As a result, their group of marines was captured and forced to participate in Shiki's experiments.
After the experiments, only she and Hina were still alive from their marine group.
"Hina doesn't know either."
Hina looked at the Seastone handcuffs on her wrists and thought of all her fallen subordinates, letting out a deep sigh.
She never expected to go through something like this.
Even as confident as she was, facing the colossal figure of Shiki, she couldn't help but feel a bit disheartened.
Even though both of them had Arton's diary copies and could inform Gion and others about their experiences through the diary copies, they currently had no way of knowing their exact location.
Therefore, they couldn't provide an accurate address for Gion and the others to send help.
If they were still at sea, it would be better.
But the problem was that Shiki had taken them to an altitude of ten thousand meters!
Hearing Hina's words, Tashigi couldn't help but feel downcast.
Hina noticed Tashigi's low spirits, patted her shoulder, and whispered:
"We still have a chance to survive."
"Isn't Arton looking for Shiki? Perhaps he can accurately find Shiki."
"And Vice Admiral Gion and the others won't give up on us."
"Moreover, that orange-haired girl we saw earlier..."
"Although we don't know her exact identity, she helped us before."
"Maybe she will help us again later."
Upon hearing this, a glimmer of hope appeared in Tashigi's eyes.
Yes, Vice Admiral Gion hadn't given up on them, so how could she give up?
And that mysterious orange-haired girl.
And with Arton's abilities, maybe he really could find Shiki.
Things might actually improve soon.
With this thought, Tashigi immediately opened the diary copy.
Soon, she noticed new content in Arton's diary.
"Captain Hina, it's updated, Arton updated."
Tashigi whispered excitedly to Hina.
Hina, upon hearing this, immediately opened her own diary copy.
[After so many days of sailing, we finally reached our destination.]
[Speaking of which, Kaya has been giving me strange looks lately.]
[Could it be that she's fallen for me?]
[If she proposes, what should I do?]
[If I agree, wouldn't Carina and Uta be heartbroken?]
Kaya: "…"
Uta: "…"
Carina: "…"
[Let's get back to business.]
[We successfully found the destination Buggy mentioned.]
[There are indeed aggressive beasts here, and their appearances do resemble the animals that Shiki experimented on.]
[However, these beasts are defective, either with a disabled leg or a blind eye.]
[It didn't take much effort for us to deal with these monsters.]
[Unfortunately, I didn't find Shiki or any members of the Golden Lion Pirates here.]
[Buggy, on the other hand, did find some treasures as he wished.]
"How could this be? Am I going to be stuck with Shiki forever?"
Nami murmured to herself, almost nervously standing up.
On the other side.
Hina and Tashigi frowned deeply, momentarily at a loss for words.
[Just now, Buggy gave me a map that he found in the pile of treasures on the island.]
[Interestingly, the map describes an island floating in the sky.]
[In the East Blue, if there is a floating island, it must be one created by Shiki using his Float-Float Fruit ability.]
[Even more interestingly, the location of the floating island indicated on the map is directly above the island I am on.]
[I boldly speculate that Shiki's base is located ten thousand meters above this island.]
[The reason why there are defective beasts on this island might be because Shiki discarded them as failures from the sky.]
[This map must have been accidentally dropped by a member of Shiki Pirates.]
"Arton, did he find it?!"
Nami's eyes widened, staring intently at the diary copy.
"Great, Captain Hina, we have a chance."
Tashigi excitedly grabbed Hina's arm.
"Yes, no matter what, rest and recuperate, Tashigi."
"We might have to take action soon."
Hina's eyes gleamed sharply as she spoke to Tashigi.
***
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