4:00 a.m.
Tatsuki had just finished a hard battle, and hadn't been asleep for long when a string of notification sounds woke him up.
After fully coming to, he realized people in the chat group were spamming him like crazy.
Tatsuki only shifted a little, but it was enough to wake Haruno, who was completely sprawled on top of him.
At Haruno's request, even after it was over, she still wouldn't let him pull his weapon out.
No choice—he spoiled his girlfriends. If Haruno wanted it that way, then that's what he did.
Even in its normal state, his weapon was more than enough to make Haruno gasp in awe.
"Hm? What is it, Tatsu-kun…?"
Haruno's eyes were foggy with sleep. The moment Tatsuki pulled his weapon out, she naturally felt it.
Tatsuki gently shifted Haruno to his side, apologizing softly. "I might have something to deal with. You go back to sleep."
Haruno was extremely considerate, immediately curling up on the side.
Kanae and Neko had even deliberately taken the guest room tonight to make space for her—what else did she have to ask for?
And she really was exhausted. Her head was heavy, and she'd honestly lost track of how many rounds it had been.
Just lying there, she closed her eyes, her breathing quickly evening out.
Tatsuki smiled a little. Haruno really was wiped out.
He opened the chat group. The one @-ing him was Nami.
Nami: "Tatsuki, Tatsu-kun, you there?"
Aqua: "Whoa, who's not sleeping at this hour?!"
Hai Xiaomei: "Um… time works differently in different worlds."
Aqua: "Oh. Yeah, true."
Furina: "Is Miss Nami dealing with something urgent?"
Furina, bundled in her blanket like a fuzzy caterpillar, smelled drama and instantly lost all sleepiness—wide awake and buzzing with energy.
Tatsuki: "I'm here. What's up? Tell me."
Nami: "Tatsu-kun, you're here! Thank god."
Nami: "So—like, we've already entered the Grand Line. We left Arabasta and sailed into the Florian Triangle."
Nami: "We thought we could just follow the Log Pose out… but something went wrong. Our ship got sucked into this huge 'ship' that didn't even feel like a ship."
Nami: "After exploring, we found out this is the Warlord Moria's giant ship—Thriller Bark."
Tatsuki: "Moria?"
Esdeath: "A Warlord like that Crocodile?"
Vivi: "Mm-hm! He's this long-necked guy who looks like a monster… and he can control zombies."
Emilia: "Did you run into danger?"
Vivi: "U-um… not really, actually."
Vivi: "We beat all the zombies… and Moria got defeated by Nami… uh… killed."
Shinobu Kocho: "Killed?"
Nami: "Well… I didn't expect him to be that weak even as a Warlord. I didn't hold back in time and just… ended him."
Esdeath: "..."
Kisara Tendo: "Then you handled it. There's no danger. Why are you looking for Tatsuki?"
Nami: "Robin said killing a Warlord has huge consequences, so I wanted to ask Tatsu-kun what he thinks."
Tatsuki: "Alright. I'll come take a look."
Nami: "Okay."
"Hmph. Tatsu-kun's coming right over."
Nami clapped her hands, glanced at the charred corpse on the ground, and muttered, "A Warlord, and you're this weak?"
Robin, standing nearby, nearly choked on silence. It wasn't that he was weak. It was that you were too strong.
…
"It really is Moria." Tatsuki appeared soundlessly at Robin's side.
Him suddenly speaking made her body stiffen for a second. In this eerie place, that kind of thing was honestly frightening.
"Tatsu-kun." Nojiko's eyes lit up when she saw him, and she almost threw herself at him.
It had only taken one time—one time, and she'd already been conquered by Tatsuki's gentleness and strength, but she still forcibly stopped herself—because Nami had already beaten her to it, launching herself into his arms first.
"Tatsu-kun, I missed you so much!" Nami greedily inhaled his scent.
Then she rose up on tiptoe and immediately went to war with his lips and tongue, completely ignoring everyone watching.
Vivi blushed so hard her face nearly steamed. Robin wasn't shy—she simply looked away politely.
After a few minutes, Nami finally ended it, and Nojiko dashed in to take the baton.
Only after quite a while Tatsuki finally had the breathing room to look at Moria's… ashes?
Yeah. A brutal way to go. Charred black like burnt coal.
Tatsuki felt a little puzzled. "Nami… what did he do to you?"
Nami huffed, irritated. "It wasn't him. It was one of his subordinates. Some freak who looked stitched together from a bunch of animals—muscles and limbs and crap. He could turn invisible too. I think he was trying to sneak onto our ship and peek, but I caught him and zapped him to death on the spot."
"Then this guy showed up with a zombie army. Nojiko and the others handled the zombies and his underlings."
"I thought all Warlords were insanely strong, so I went all-out… and then this happened."
"..."
A stitched-together weirdo—probably Absalom, one of Moria's men. The user of the Clear-Clear Fruit.
Tatsuki extended his senses. There were still a lot of people on this massive ship.
They were people who'd survived because with Moria dead, the Shadow-Shadow Fruit's effects ended and their shadows returned to their bodies.
Now they were either searching for a ship or trying to build one to escape Thriller Bark.
Tatsuki couldn't be bothered to deal with them, but inside the castle, there was one Heart-Voice that interested him.
Tatsuki snapped his fingers. A crying girl appeared in front of them.
"Waaah… Moria-sama got killed…"
Perona curled up on the ground, hugging a strange-looking doll as she sobbed. Her outfit was weird too. Pink twin-tails, a little crown on her head, and a wine-red umbrella beside her.
The five of them just quietly watched her cry.
A moment later…
She finished crying. She wiped her tears at last. "I'm running away!"
Moria-sama had been murdered—she had to escape fast.
"I have to be strong!" After pumping herself up, she lifted her head.
"..."
And saw five strangers.
One of them was the woman who'd killed Moria-sama.
"Eeeek!!!"
After one second of buffering, Perona exploded into a piercing scream. It lasted a full ten seconds before it finally stopped.
She stared around in a daze. "Why am I in the forest…? Did I sleepwalk?"
"Horohorohoro! I knew it! Moria-sama would never be in trouble—so this was a dream!"
Perona felt like she'd solved it, and she practically floated—literally floating up into the air.
"Too bad. You're not dreaming. Moria's dead. The body's right there." Tatsuki casually pointed at the lump of charcoal on the ground.
"…" Perona looked at the charcoal, fell silent, and tears started pooling in her eyes again.
Nami didn't want to hear more crying, so she asked Tatsuki, "She's Moria's subordinate, right? What do we do with her?"
Tatsuki rubbed his chin. "Maybe you can talk to her. She's a pretty special ability user."
"A Paramecia-type—Hollow-Hollow Fruit. A really unusual, interesting power. And, well… the fact that she was cute was also a major part of why Tatsuki considered her "valuable."
Yeah. That was Tatsuki's judge people by their face policy.
Robin's eyes flickered.
She caught the subtext—Tatsuki was telling them to try recruiting Perona.
So after she said a few things to Nami, Nojiko, and Vivi, they started trying to talk to Perona.
Tatsuki didn't interfere. Moria wasn't killed by him. And Perona had been picked up and raised by Moria—whether she could be brought over or not, Tatsuki had no clue.
That depended on their own ability.