The room was deathly silent as five of us looked at each other awkwardly. Like usual, Akane was the one to blame. I told her to arrange a room for the meeting while I managed to free the kids entrapped there. I just forgot how much of a sick sense of humor Akane had.
The room had a big table and five chairs as per my instruction. But also as a gift, she has chosen the room where she had killed the highest amount of Ceaser's goons. And she had also conveniently forgotten to clean up the bodies.
So here we are sitting in a room full of dead bodies and blood spatters all around us. It seemed like a set of horror movies with real blood and real dead bodies. I could clearly sense that Buggy was scared shitless. Crocodile had a disturbed look on his face. While Kuzan just looked at everything impassively.
"Akane, couldn't you have chosen a different 'cleaner' room?"
"Yeah. But what's the fun in that. We are a group of pirates, aren't we? We should at least look the part. I think the blood spatter design is nice."
I facepalmed hearing that. She was doing this on purpose for me hiding information from her. How petty can she be?
"Whatever. Just clean up the blood now, please."
"Okay, fine." She said a defeated tone. Did she actually like the blood spatters? Did she really like the sight of blood that much? Weird.
With a simple hand motion, all the blood in the room started moving and started to concentrate on a single point. After extracting all the blood in the room, Akane pointed the ball of blood towards the next room.
Now, the room looked a bit cleaner minus the dead bodies. Akane controlling blood raised a few eyebrows but the people in this room have seen way too many weird shit to get startled by a devil fruit power. Suddenly Buggy spoke, breaking the silence,
"Okay, I'm just going to say what's on everyone's mind. What's up with that crazy oni? And why does it seem that a massacre just happened here?"
"Name's Akane. You big nosed clown." Akane retorted.
"What did you say about my nose?" Buggy shouted as he got up from his seat.
"Now, now, let's not try to kill each other at the very first meeting we've had. We're not savages." I decided to nip the problem in the bud. I was not in the mood for hearing these two fight with each other.
Buggy noticed the subtle threat in my tone. He quickly sat down, not wanting to anger me any further. Akane also stopped aggravating him any further.
Seeing that they were calm now I clapped my hands,
"Now that we're all calm, let's begin shall we?Buggy, Crocodile and Kuzan should not need any introduction. You know each other from before." I shifted my attention towards Akane, "As far as I know, you don't know Akane. She's the Sin of Wrath and as you have already seen just now, her devil fruit powers lets her control blood. That's it for the introductions. Nobody needs to know the other one's life story. Now, anybody wants to say something before we start?"
Kuzan spoke up, "Where is Lust and Gluttony? I assumed that there will be seven members considering that the name of our organization is The Seven Sins."
"Yeah. Where are they?" Crocodile also agreed.
"Well, currently those two spots are open. I started putting together this group after Marineford War. So, fulfilling all the seven spots hasn't been finished yet. And as you can see, I don't recruit any useless member. Kuzan is a formal admiral who transformed the whole landscape of this island. Crocodile enslaved and tried to overthrow a whole kingdom. Buggy is a current Warlord of the Sea. And Akane destroyed this whole base within two hours with very little help from my part. Every single member of The Seven Sins has their specialty in which they excel in. And, I would rather keep a few spots open than fill it with incompetent people."
Seeing that my answer satisfied them, I continued,
"Now, the main discussion. I know that you all have your own goals and ambition. I said that I would not intervene in that. And I will not go back on my word. But, it has already been six months since the end of Marineford War. Our time of sitting idly by is over. As per the latest intel given to us by Buggy, Ace has managed to fend off Big Mom's invasion on Whitebeard Pirates territory. Ace is a very good friend of mine, but that doesn't mean that I'll just stand back while Ace takes the yonko position. But the good news is that, after how much damage that has been done to the Whitebeard Pirates after Marineford and clash with Big Mom Pirates, there is very little chance that they have enough manpower to actually fight on another war. And that means we are in the clear to take this oppertunity and capitalize on it. Which brings us to our main and most pressing opponent. Blackbeard." I spoke with caution in my voice as I tried to give them as much information as possible.
"Blackbeard has taken over Hachinosu. His crew is already strong on their own, but they are only truly dangerous when Blackbeard himself is present. You have already seen in Marineford that his devil fruit powers can easily nutralize the powers of another devil fruit user. But that's just the tip of the iceberg. Yami Yami no Mi has another function. It can take the devil fruit power of another user and give it to another person. Blackbeard himself can use two devil fruit powers at once."
"What the hell?" Crocodile barked.
"That cannot be possible." Buggy complained.
"They're right. A person cannot hold two devil fruit powers at once." Kuzan agreed.
"Did any of you ever wonder why Blackbeard was in Marineford? He could've easily fled after taking the impel down prisoners. You might say that he came to kill me beacause I killed his crew before. But even that doesn't explain why he came to Marineford specifically. If he wanted revenge then he could've easily got it after the war was finished. He's a meticulously careful schemer. He would never take that much risk without any proper reward. Why do you think he came back?"
An icy voice answered my question, "Gura Gura no Mi"
"Abosolutely right, Kuzan. He wanted to get the powers of Gura Gura no Mi after Whitebeard died. I knew this even before the war started. That was the reason why I tried to keep him out of the way from Whitebeard. As far as I know, he needs a dead body to absorb the devil fruit. Which gives us some wiggle room. But it also means that, none of you will even think about engaging with Blackbeard personally. Your haki simply isn't strong enough."
"So, we're going to attack Hachinosu? When?" Crocodile asked
"Two monthes from now."
"Why the gap?" Kuzan asked.
"That is actually related to this facility we are in. This is a facility that produces a chemical which is used to make SMILE fruit. A type of artificial zoan type devil fruit. And the main client of this devil fruit is Kaidou."
Faces turned tense after the mention of Kaidou.
"So, we just destroyed a facility that belongs to Kaidou." Buggy said with fear in his voice.
"Well, not exactly Kaidou. This facility belongs to Joker who works for Kaidou. Also..." A grin spread across my face as I spoke, "We didn't destroy this place. It was Big Mom Pirates who destroyed this facility."
Understanding spread across their faces as Crocodile clarified,
"So, you're going to initiate a turf war between Kaidou and Big Mom by pushing the blame on Big Mom Pirates."
"Exactly."
"Why do you want to do that though? You don't exactly have anything to gain from this."
"There are two things I gain, Crocodile. First of all, a turf war between two yonkos will ensure that nobody will interrupt us when we take over Hachinosu. And secondly, this will give us an opening."
"An opening?"
"An opening to take down both these powerhouses. A war between Beast Pirates and Big Mom Pirates will mean losses on both sides. And if we can win in Hachinosu, we will gain the yonko crew status. But why stop there? Don't you remember what Whitebeard said? A new era has began. So, why should these two powerhouses from the old era continue to terrorize the sea any longer? The new era will be reshaped and in the very epicenter, we will stand tall. An era of freedom and endless oppertunities. We are going to take it all."
I grinned like a madman as I spoke. My ambition being emmited to my crewmates. I might seem like crazy. But I didn't care. I'm not going to wait for anyone anymore. I've waited long enough.
"We're going to get the One Piece."