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"I am Kyoma,"
In the eyes of the onlookers, she looked undeniably cute.
Kyoma held back the urge to pat her head. While she was adorable, he felt somewhat uncomfortable with the current situation. Although each crew member was endearing and charming, there was a problem.
As a captain determined to sail the seas, he felt rather embarrassed.
His three current formal crew members couldn't exactly project an intimidating presence. They were more likely to be mistaken for lost children than pirates.
Kagura, the first one he'd summoned, stood just over 1.5 meters tall and could barely be called a young woman. She was actually the tallest among them.
The second, Klee, measured nearly 1.3 meters in height, half a head shorter than Kagura. Anyone who saw her could immediately tell she was a child.
As for the third, Kanna, her dragon form looked magnificent and imposing, but after transforming into human form...
Kyoma's mouth twitched as he observed Klee and Kanna comparing heights without him noticing when they'd started, while Kagura acted as referee.
"Klee, stop standing on your toes."
"And you, Kanna, was it?"
"The ground over there is slightly uneven. Stand a little to the left."
Kagura pressed down on each small head with one hand, fulfilling her referee duties with utmost seriousness.
Kyoma covered his face with one hand.
The scene looked incredibly heartwarming. If he were a passerby who spotted them comparing heights on the street, he'd find it cute and sweet.
However, when he considered that these were his three crew members, the future suddenly seemed uncertain.
In the future, when they reached the New World, where someone else became the Pirate King, would he become known as the captain of the smallest crew in history?
"This is fine. Everything is fine…"
****
Finally, the height comparison ended. Klee won with a slight advantage.
Klee felt excited, thinking she'd finally gained a younger companion.
But after Kanna revealed her age, both she and Kagura stopped celebrating.
"Me? This year I should be around 400 years old... I can't remember clearly." Kanna's voice came out soft and matter-of-fact.
"400 years old?" Klee stood stunned.
She thought of the gods on the Teyvat continent. As far as she knew, their Mondstadt Wind God Barbatos was only about two thousand years old.
Kagura also looked shocked.
She counted on her fingers, and the more she calculated, the more dismayed she became. Her expression showed clear disappointment.
"Doesn't that mean you're the oldest of us?"
After Kanna's arrival, Kagura had noticed she stood about the same height as Klee and estimated she wasn't very old.
She'd entertained thoughts of being the leader among the three.
But now, those hopes seemed dashed.
"But you're still a young dragon, right?" Kyoma suddenly interrupted.
He remembered that dragons in Kanna's world possessed unusual lifespans, functioning as a nearly immortal race.
"Well, compared to humans, I should be about nine years old." Kanna looked at Kyoma with surprise, not expecting him to understand.
Then she returned her gaze to Klee. Judging from their similar builds, she felt Klee should be her first friend.
"Nine years old, one year younger than Klee. Does that make Klee the older sister?"
Klee's voice rang with energy.
She took Kanna's small hand, hoping Kanna would call her big sister Klee.
"Not a sister. A friend." But Kanna corrected her seriously.
"Kanna doesn't want to call Klee 'sister'..." Klee looked disappointed, but she quickly rallied.
She clenched her fists, her small face filled with determination.
"We are friends. But Klee will definitely work hard to become Kanna's older sister."
"Friend." Kanna's eyes widened slightly.
She'd been acknowledged as a friend. She'd actually made a friend. That voice hadn't lied to her.
Kanna's facial expression remained largely unchanged, but internally, she felt extremely happy.
She allowed Klee to hold her hand while the tail behind her swayed with obvious pleasure.
"You actually have a tail. That's amazing." Kagura spotted the small dragon tail.
"Well, she is a dragon, so having a tail is quite normal, isn't it? And Kagura, didn't you notice Kanna has dragon horns as well?"
Kyoma pointed to the top of Kanna's head, where two white, sharp horns curved upward, and another two downward.
"Wow!" Hearing this, Kagura and Klee exclaimed simultaneously.
After receiving Kanna's permission, the two of them touched the small horns, which made Kyoma smile.
****
On the way home, they inevitably passed through a market district. After witnessing scenery she'd never encountered before in the Sabaody Archipelago, Kanna finally revealed her nature as a dragon, with an extremely strong curiosity about everything.
First, she wanted to put everything she saw into her mouth: bubbles floating up from the ground, leaves from the Yarukiman mangrove, even some children's toys.
Second, she wanted to play with everything she encountered: a pirate's machete on the street, bubble cars passing by, flying fish gliding through the air.
Especially the flying fish that flashed overhead. If Kyoma hadn't stopped her in time, Kanna's eyes would have lit up, and she might have transformed into a dragon to pounce on it.
In short, throughout their journey, Kyoma apologized to many people.
He was even forced to fight the pirate whose machete Kanna had taken. It was during this confrontation that he truly felt the power of his enhanced body.
With just one punch, without even using [Armament Haki], the pirate who stood over two meters tall and claimed to have a bounty of several million Berry was directly sent flying more than ten meters away.
"All aspects of my body's functions have increased by at least five or six times."
He felt confident that the punch which had just knocked the pirate away could also break Drake's [Iron Body] technique.
If he wrapped his fist with [Armament Haki], even a Zoan-type fruit user like Drake wouldn't dare take it head-on.
This represented only his combat power in human form.
After using [Dragonization], his various physical abilities would multiply several more times.
Combined with the defense and strength of a dragon body, the explosive power and recovery of the Night Rabbit bloodline, the agility of elf heritage, and the [Pyro Vision] from Klee, he himself didn't know the full extent of his current strength.
The only drawback was that he wasn't a pure-blooded dragon after all.
Like a Zoan-type fruit user, he had to constantly consume stamina when maintaining his complete dragon form.
However, unlike Devil Fruit users, he wasn't weakened by seawater.