November 18, 1496, Age of the Sea Circle
Doll finished her morning classes, put her books aside, and hurried out into the garden.
Julia was beside her, ready to help her with anything she needed.
Since Orion had left months ago, several things had changed.
For starters, Julia had become her personal servant, at her request. Furthermore, following Orion's advice, Doll had decided to tell her only friend about her hidden passion. She had shown her her treasure, and Julia had shown great curiosity about the strange music recorded on the tone dial.
Now, the two girls' relationship was closer than ever, and Doll was very happy to have opened up to Julia.
The two girls went to the garden and tended to the plants. The beautiful purple flowers were as strong as ever, adorning the landscape and making the place look majestic. Furthermore, the rest of the flowers had begun to bloom, and the large garden was an amalgamation of all kinds of beautiful colors, a true wonder to behold.
Doll wished Orion could come visit her, and see her garden, which she was so proud of, in all its glory. However, she knew this wasn't possible because of the pirate attacks that had been happening all over the place lately.
She spoke with Orion daily, and he had told her that the situation wasn't very favorable in his small town, which had already been attacked by pirates several times. Luckily, Orion had recently discovered how to stop the pirate attacks for a while, which had given the small town a bit of a respite. Although he hadn't told her what solution he'd found, she was very happy that her friend was okay.
After tending the plants, Doll took Julia's hand, and together they walked toward the large tree where her treasure lay. They had built a kind of hideout nearby, where the two girls would spend time.
They took the Tone Dial hidden in the tree trunk and went to their hideout. Upon entering, they came face to face with Doll's rock collection.
This was a new hobby the elegant girl had recently taken up. Whenever she was walking through town and saw a rock she thought was beautiful, she would bring it back to add to her collection, and the whole place was now filled with rocks, many of which seemed like ordinary rocks, but she said they had the spirit of Rock!
Julia simply accepted the changes that had taken place in the girl, because she believed they humanized her. In her eyes, Doll was no longer a distant figure from another, more ethereal world, but simply an elegant, yet sweet and clumsy girl, who had both strengths and weaknesses.
The two girls sat listening to the Tone Dial song, and Julia asked:
"Have you spoken to Orion today?"
Doll shook her head with her classic elegance.
"No, I was thinking of calling him before lunch. He's traveling and isn't keeping to his normal routine. I don't want to call and disturb him when he's busy," Doll replied.
"I'm sure he wouldn't mind being interrupted by the most beautiful girl in South Blue!" Julia teased her.
Just as Doll was about to reply to her friend's playful words, a loud explosion sounded in the distance.
"What was that?" Julia said uncertainly.
Boom!!
Another explosion sounded in the distance, and then another. Suddenly, a large number of explosions echoed, completely shattering the tranquility of this spring morning.
Even the sound of the Tone Dial was drowned out by the sound of the explosions.
"They seem to be the city's defense cannons," Doll said thoughtfully.
The two girls left their small makeshift base and looked into the distance. Columns of smoke could be seen in the distance, and the sound of the cannons continued.
"Doll, something out of the ordinary must be happening. Do you think it's an attack from the other cities?" Julia said with fear in her voice.
"It's possible," Doll replied, looking at the columns of smoke.
Conflicts with the other two cities over the area's natural resources had been increasing lately, but it was very rare that they had decided to launch a direct attack on the city. Usually, the fighting that occurred between the cities' armies occurred in the disputed areas, and the city of Beru hadn't been attacked by its neighboring cities for decades.
The two girls hid the Tone Dial in the tree and ran toward the mansion.
Before they arrived, her family's personal soldiers surrounded them and said in tense voices:
"Miss Doll, the city is under attack. Your father has asked us to protect your safety! It would be best if you went to the underground shelter for now."
Doll was surprised to hear the soldier's words. Evidently, the situation wasn't that simple, for her father to have given such an order… The city must probably be in real danger of falling into enemy hands.
The two girls were led to an underground shelter within the mansion grounds. Doll's mother was already there, speaking worriedly through the den den mushi.
"How is this possible?! Do they want to start a war to the death?" Doll's mother, Vivian, exclaimed excitedly.
"The armies of both cities are being supported by "Scarlet Blaze" Blake's pirates. This time the situation is very serious!" Doll's father, Ken Korn, said through the den den mushi.
"Ken, wouldn't it be safer for us to flee the city?" Vivian said, almost in tears.
A sigh was heard on the other end, and then Ken's resigned voice sounded.
"I'm afraid it's impossible. We're completely surrounded by the enemy. Right now, the city council has decided that digging in and waiting for reinforcements is the best option. We've already requested help from the Marine, so all we can do is wait and see. With our defenses, we should be able to stave off an invasion for at least a few days."
Doll listened to her parents' conversation and took out her den den mushi. The situation was serious, and she didn't know what was going to happen, but for now, she wanted to tell Orion about the predicament she was in. He was very wise and always gave her all kinds of advice; perhaps he would have an idea of how to proceed.
She dialed Orion's number, but the call didn't connect. She tried again and again, but to no avail; there was no way to reach Orion.
Without losing her patience, she kept trying. She wanted to hear her friend's voice, knowing that only that would calm her at this moment.
............…
Orion stood with his arms crossed, watching Ina, who hung her head in shame.
After Orion "kidnapped" Ina, he had gone to the treasure location, where, after searching for almost a day, he found what he was looking for.
He happily loaded the gold he had obtained, which according to the system was worth approximately 100 million Berry, onto the ship and, together with Ina, set off back to Pacific Town.
As for the Devil Fruit, it was in a small chest, which he carried in his arms at all times. The value of this Devil Fruit was far greater than the rest of the loot, and he didn't dare take his eyes off it for even a second, for fear of an unforeseen accident.
Everything had gone well during the voyage, and he was in a very good mood. However, everything changed this morning.
Orion had gone to sleep, warning Ina to wake him up in case anything happened. However, the girl didn't wake him all night, and he was able to sleep peacefully and rest his exhausted body.
In the morning, when he woke up, he was horrified to find that his precious Devil Fruit was gone!
The chest was empty, and there was no trace of the fruit!
He immediately asked Ina what had happened, and she told him the truth with her head down.
She... She had eaten the fruit while he slept!
Orion nearly fainted from the anger that filled him; he couldn't believe he had been betrayed like this by little Ina!
Now he looked at her with his arms crossed, and she hung her head, ashamed of her actions.
Orion sighed.
"Why did you do it, Ina? There are enough rations on the ship. If you were hungry, you could have eaten something else," Orion said with some resignation. Now that the fruit had been consumed, there was nothing left to do, and his question was mostly to release some of his frustration.
"No—I don't know. I opened the chest out of curiosity, but when I saw the fruit, something inside me compelled me to eat it, and before I knew it, I'd already eaten it," the girl said, almost in tears.
She knew how much the fruit meant to Orion, from the way he had carried the chest from the moment he found it.
Orion didn't get angry with the girl upon hearing her words. Instead, he looked thoughtful, remembering something his teacher, Roger, had told him.
Once, when Roger was talking to him about Devil Fruits, he had told him that he felt that these fruits were much more mysterious than people gave them credit for, almost as if they had a strange affinity for certain individuals, and although he hadn't elaborated too much on the subject, those words had been indelibly etched in Orion's memory, and now, as he listened to Ina's explanation, he couldn't help but draw a parallel between his master's comments and the situation before him.
Could it be that a higher power had acted to make Ina eat the fruit? Or was the girl just a troll?
He had no way of knowing, and decided that for the moment he didn't have enough information to come to a conclusion. He would jot it down in his notebook of unsolved mysteries about this world. Perhaps, if he went to Ohara and completed the mission to study the knowledge of this world, he would find an answer to this and other questions he had.
Orion placed his hand on the girl's head and stroked her hair lovingly.
"Well, what's done is done. Don't worry too much, Ina, I'm not mad at you," he said calmly.
Ina looked up and saw that Orion didn't really seem to be angry. Her eyes immediately filled with tears, and she threw herself into his arms, crying sadly and begging for forgiveness. The girl's emotions had still not stabilized after the tremendous trauma she had experienced, and any small matter could destabilize her.
Orion spent a while calming her, and finally, after a few minutes, the girl stopped crying.
"Let's see what your Devil Fruit can do. Do you feel anything strange? Like an extra power within you?" Orion asked with great curiosity.
The system indicated the name of the fruit, but hadn't given him a description of the powers it granted. It had only told him that this Devil Fruit wasn't compatible with the system, and that only 5% of its power could be extracted, and he wouldn't gain any extra abilities, just a few SP.
Orion felt it would be a waste to use the Devil Fruit just to gain SP, so he decided not to do anything with it and keep it in the chest.
Now that Ina had eaten it, he wanted to see what this fruit's abilities were.
Ina nodded and extended her hand, which suddenly transformed into a large pair of scissors before their astonished eyes. She herself had been amazed by her own power!
Orion saw the scissors emerging from Ina's arm and thought, "No, that's it? Is it the Scissors-Scissors Fruit? It transformed her into Edward Scissorhands?"
His disappointment was apparent, since having scissorhands didn't seem to be a very useful skill. However, he tried to stay positive.
"Ina, what if you try to cut something?" Orion said, trying to determine the power of this ability. If it could cut strong objects like a sword, then it wouldn't be a useless skill.
Ina tilted her head thoughtfully and tried opening and closing the scissors' blades, but that innocent movement caused a major incident.
The tips of her hands, which were now scissors, cut into the floor of the ship, which immediately split in two before the incredulous eyes of the two.
When the ship was cut in two, a fantastic scene appeared. The ship began to grow exponentially, until it became a gigantic galleon!
It was the ship belonging to "Scarlet Blaze" Blake's fleet, which Orion had used to take the hostages back to Algaraman.
The great galleon was cut in two, and both Orion and Ina fell into the sea.
"Duck!" Orion shouted, seeing the situation they were in.
Ina was sinking at high speed, leaving only a trail of bubbles behind her. The weakness of Devil Fruit users truly made it very difficult for them to travel at sea. Orion didn't know how the pirates who had eaten Devil Fruits dared to go out to sea, when a simple mistake could end their lives.
Luckily for them, Orion had no problem swimming, and he immediately moved at high speed and took Ina in his arms, pulling her to the surface.
*Cough cough*
Ina coughed up the water she had swallowed and breathed greedily.
"What a mess," Orion said, looking at the large ship that had been cut in two by Ina's strange ability.
The reason his small sailboat had transformed into a galleon, on the other hand, had nothing to do with the girl's skill, but with his own.
He had thought it was a waste to leave such a fine ship behind. After all, perhaps he could use it in the future when he had his own armed forces. So he had decided to undo the camouflage on his cutlass "Ace" and re-cover it with bandages, trying to use his "Art Coating" ability to reduce the size of the gigantic ship and make it more manageable for him, traveling alone and without a crew.
The result had been a resounding success, and the small boat he had created with his skill was perfectly functional.
This experiment had given him new ideas about how to use his "Art Coating" skill. Until now, he had focused on using this skill only by concentrating on form, not functionality.
For example, he could transform his sword into a clock, but the clock didn't work and was merely a blank "image."
This was because he had no knowledge of watchmaking, so he couldn't draw a working clock in detail; otherwise, he could probably do it. Or rather, he definitely could!
The fact that he could create a small sailboat with his skill proved that it was possible to create objects that weren't just "blank images" but could function flawlessly.
The foundation of everything was his knowledge. The reason he could make a working ship but not a clock, was because he had copied his previous ship exactly, and he had sailing knowledge that allowed him to understand how it worked. Of course, it also helped that the small sailboat didn't have very complex technology in its design.
Still, Orion couldn't help but fantasize about the things he could draw with his ability in the future. Perhaps this ability could be more than just a support ability, and become part of his offensive arsenal!
As for why his ability had suddenly dissolved, it was probably because Ina had cut the ship in two, causing it to lose its shape and return to its original appearance. Or at least that was his guess.
Orion spent another 100 SP and attempted to merge the two halves of the ship with his skill, returning it to its original state, but the system wouldn't allow it, as it considered the two halves of the ship to be two different objects, and his skill only allowed him to change the appearance of one object at the time.
Orion sighed, thinking it was truly a waste of resources to have this fabulous ship destroyed in such a stupid way.
With no other option, he used his skill on one of the ship's halves and transformed it into a small sailboat just like the one they had been using to travel just a moment before.
As soon as Orion set Ina down on the deck, the beast in his pants began to move.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the small den den mushi, which was coughing and spitting out seawater; these snails weren't very water-resistant.
Finally, the animal stabilized, and the incoming call was connected.
Through the den den mushi, Doll's worried voice echoed in his ears.
"Orion! You finally answered. I think I'm in trouble. My city is under attack."