BOA HANCOCK'S POV
I stood tall, my posture statuesque, but inside, my chest was a storm.
I hadn't been defeated in battle till now. Truly. Now I've lost—and that was worse.
My eyes stayed on Hope, distant across the smoking field. His strikes had been swift, methodical. Not once had his gaze lingered on my beauty, not once had he faltered beneath the Haki I laced into every movement, every glance.
He hadn't looked at me like a man. He looked at me like a threat.
It unnerved me more than I dared admit.
"Who is he?" I muttered to myself, clenching my gloved fists.
"Someone who doesn't see us as disposable," said a voice from behind which belonged to the left hand of the captain—Min-ah, walking slowly, measuring steps like a shadow with weight.
I didn't turn and my mood was sour because of Hope. "That should comfort me?" I responded in an irritated tone.
Min-ah's tone was casual yet her message was very cryptic. "It should terrify you. Because when someone stops playing the game, the board no longer matters."
I looked at her sideways ignoring her cryptic word play. "What is it you want from us?" And directly asked.
Min-ah smiled. "Not obedience. Just clarity. You, Boa Hancock… were enslaved by the people who claim to be 'gods.' Tell me—did they ever apologize?"
That struck harder than expected. They know about my biggest secret. 'I remember. Hope said it before….' I recalled.
'Before in the room earlier. I didn't say and ask anything because there were too many people and it's dangerous if too many people know about it.' I thought.
"H-how did he and you know about it and how many more know about it.," Boa whispered in seriousness.
"No one except a few. But you want a closer," Min-ah replied softly, knowingly. "That rage in your bones—that King Haki that pierces the world—comes from what they did to you. And you've been channeling it into survival till now." My jaw tensed.
Min-ah leaned closer, her whisper sharp as obsidian. "What if you could aim it higher?"
A long silence passed. As I thought, 'He neither blackmailed me nore sold me out or showed any sign of hostility yet he had an advantage both in combat and reason yet he did nothing funny…..'
Then I said, not to Min-ah but to myself, "If he's lying… I'll kill him."
'If he wanted to harm me he might have done it by now his action speaks louder.' I concluded.
Min-ah only smiled which provoked me even more yet I controlled my aggressive side. "Then stay. Find out."
REIJU'S POV
I pressed my fingers to my ribs, wincing as I sat against a broken palm tree.
I'd bled before. But this… was different.
Not from the wounds. From what I'd seen.
Hope hadn't fought like a man trying to prove something. He fought like a man burdened by the truth—and weaponizing it.
"You're not kidnapped," Min-ah had said. "You were gathered."
The words echoed. I hated how much they made sense, their actions made sense. "I am not my father, I have will, emotions and soul." she whispered.
But wasn't I the creation of my father?
Germa's legacy flowed in my veins—science, cruelty, control. Even my siblings embraced it. I wore it like chains.
When Hope's eyes met mine during the battle, it hadn't been with pity.
It had been recognition.
As if he'd seen the struggle behind my poised silence. The poison in my blood. The ache of wearing power I never asked for.
"You're what your action and choice you made not what created you," he had told her during the duel. "You're reined in. Take the leash off."
I hadn't responded then. But now… the leash burned or I felt like I had more of a purpose. "Reiju," a voice said gently.
It was Nami. Bruised, exhausted, yet smiling with an odd, glinting warmth. He has more motion than me yet it make me jealous.
"He doesn't want slaves," Nami admitted, sitting beside her. "He wants people who've been crushed… and still have guts to stand back up against all odds."
I looked at her straight in her eyes, the wind lifting my pale pink hair.
"Do you believe him?" I asked. To see an answer which indeed I found.
Nami nodded with pure confidence. "I was there when he walked away from the Navy. From the World Government. No one else did. Only Hope." My gaze turned skyward.
I thought of Germa, my home. Of my brother's laughter as people screamed. Of my father's calculated indifference. Of the way I smiled through it all.
And for the first time… I imagined something else. Fighting to break it all apart. Surety, certainty and clarity as he said it.
I stood.
But out of the simple, impossible Hope that I could choose my own story.
KALIFA'S POV
I adjusted my shattered glasses, smearing blood across the cracked lens.
I had always been precise—clean, calculated, professional. CP9 trained me to believe justice was a blade: sharp, unwavering, righteous.
And yet…
The way Hope moved during the battle—it wasn't technique. It was truth made motion. His strikes weren't meant to kill. They were meant to expose my weakness, mistakes, faults and opening.
I remembered the moment he turned my Shigan aside and whispered, "You're still chasing orders that don't exist anymore."
He could have killed her then.
Easily.
Instead, he turned his back.
Not out of disrespect… but invitation and trust.
His words and actions make me feel strange emotions that I never ever felt before.
I sat with that word, invitation, as if it were a strange fruit she'd never tasted. It mocked the world I came from—a world where value came from silence, subservience, and secrets.
I looked up at Hope, still speaking to the crew, his voice distant but solid like the tide. Min-ah stood beside him, weaving poetry and cryptic revolution like a serpent in silks.
"I executed traitors once," Kalifa whispered. "Now I wonder if I was just silencing witnesses."
A different kind of justice called to me now.
Not clean. Not perfect. But real.
And suddenly, that mattered more than anything.
PERONA'S POV
I sat cross-legged in the shadow of a broken statue, my ghosts floating protectively around me like anxious bats.
"Stupid Hope," I muttered, pouting. "Stupid speech. Stupid scary dragon woman with her pretty voice."
I didn't like how much of it got to me.
Being kidnapped was supposed to be traumatic. Instead, it felt like… being seen and chosen.
When I launched my most powerful ghosts at Hope, he didn't flinch. His Armament Haki dispersed them like fog under moonlight. But he didn't smirk. He didn't laugh. He nodded.
Like he understood my sorrow and loneliness.
Like he knew what it meant to be alone in a castle full of shadows.
I hated it.
"No one ever listens to ghosts," I muttered, hugging my knees.
Then Hope had said "Everyone here is a victim of their sponsored terrorism."
That hit.
Too hard.
Her father had died for nothing. The people of Thriller Bark abandoned her like a curse. Even Moria never really cared. She was just useful.
But here, in this twisted crucible of will and power, I found something I hadn't felt in years: weight.
She mattered.
Even if I didn't want to admit it yet.
"…If I stay, I want a castle," she whispered.
One of her ghosts booped her on the head.
"…Fine. And a family too."
HIYORI'S POV – The Mask Cracks
I stood at the ship mast, watching the waves lash the sand as the sun began to set. My mask lay beside me—a white-painted face that had hidden pain for far too long.
Hope.
The name was like a blade of ice down her spine.
He had spoken of Wano. Of the name I hadn't heard in years—Black Star.
I remembered that name whispered through the court a few years ago during a performance. A ghost who moved through the night, sword drawn, mouth shut, helped the weak and poor.
A man who never killed for power. Only for balance.
And now he stood here, offering something far more terrifying than freedom.
A great cause.
I wanted to scream. To cry. To run. But I stayed rooted, because for the first time in my life, the vengeance boiling in her veins had a direction, a sense of purpose.
Hope's words hadn't been poetic like Min-ah's. They were raw, bitter, and jagged.
But they were true.
I picked up my mask, stared at it.
"It was never meant to protect me," I said aloud, voice
cracking. "It was a cage. To endure. To depend and suffer"
She crushed the mask in her hand.
Let the world see me now. Stronger and powerful.
Let them all.