“Stay a little farther away from here.”
Zoro mulled over Darkrai’s words, thinking about what Darkrai actually meant.
He hadn’t met Darkrai many times; the total number of words they’d exchanged wasn’t much either. Yet there was a weird feeling that they were kindred spirits, which Zoro himself couldn’t quite explain.
“He’s right. You’re a living person, so you’d better leave this place sooner rather than later. The Strongest Swordsman in the World can’t very well be a dead man, can he?”
“That’ll have to wait. There are still a lot of guys who came with me, but we all got separated. I’ll talk about leaving after I find them.”
Looking around at the unusually quiet surroundings, Zoro sheathed his swords. That attack from Darkrai had completely cleared out the nearby area, so there shouldn’t be any danger for a while.
Then he looked at Kuina in front of him and unfastened the Wado Ichimonji from his waist.
Although he practiced Three Sword Style, he was currently carrying four swords.
Kuina’s keepsake, the Wado Ichimonji; the Sandai Kitetsu and Yubashiri he’d gotten from the shop owner in Loguetown; and Shusui, which he’d found on Moria’s ship. Normally, he rotated between them depending on the situation.
Swords had their own tempers and characteristics. For example, in this land of the dead, Zoro could clearly feel that the Sandai Kitetsu was far more excited than usual.
“What are you doing?”
Seeing the Wado Ichimonji being handed to her by Zoro, Kuina couldn’t understand what he was thinking.
“This is your sword. Originally, I intended to carry on your will as I pursued that pinnacle, with this sword as my witness.”
“But since the land of the dead truly exists, I’ll find a way to make sure those newly arriving ghosts cannot forget me. So this sword, I think I’ll return it to you.”
“Then what about you?”
“I use Three Sword Style. Three swords are already enough for me now. In a few more years, maybe I’ll even research something like Four Sword Style.”
“And why do you think that I, as I am now, can still use it?”
Kuina’s hand moved back and forth along the hilt, but she couldn’t touch the physical blade itself.
“Just keep using it. The underworld has its own swords. When one day it can’t hold on anymore, maybe it’ll come back into my hands. Go find your companions first. It’s better to leave this place as soon as possible. If you drag it out too long, you might not be able to get out at all.”
Amidst the fog of the underworld, the two of them walked through unknown lands, talking about things that had happened after Kuina’s death.
“By the way, you really don’t have any twin sister or anything?”
“No. Why?”
“When I first went out to sea two years ago, I met a Marine in Loguetown who looked exactly like you, only she was kind of an airhead.”
“Maybe a cousin or something. Grandpa’s generation was pretty complicated.”
This story goes back many years ago. At the time, those people hadn’t created Shimotsuki Village yet. They were still in Wano Country.
Including Kuina’s grandfather, a group of twenty-five people led by Shimotsuki Kozaburo violated the rules and left Wano Country. Among them were a Wano carpenter named Minatomo, and Zoro’s grandmother, Shimotsuki Furiko.
However, Furiko and Kozaburo only shared the same surname. Their actual blood relation was distant to an unknown degree.
After arriving in the East Blue, these people fought a group of mountain bandits. After driving them off, Kozaburo, Furiko, and ten others stayed behind and founded Shimotsuki Village, while the remaining fifteen went elsewhere.
In a sense, Tashigi might also be from a branch of the Shimotsuki family, perhaps a descendant of those other fifteen. Of course, it was also possible that she was simply one of those uncanny lookalikes you sometimes find on the seas.
“Zoro, over here. The presence on this side is the one closer to the outskirts. You’re going the wrong way.”
“…”
Kuina could guide the way, but an awkward problem arose: she was a spirit. She couldn’t touch Zoro, so there was no way for her to physically correct his course.
As a result, Zoro’s direction of travel became extremely unstable. Even though Kuina did her best to adjust him, his path still deviated badly.
Zoro wasn’t the only one encountering a “childhood friend.” Another person rampaging through the land of the dead by relying on her own power was Charlotte Linlin.
The power of the Soul-Soul Fruit gave these ghosts physical form before her. Charlotte Linlin’s fists could smash them apart, and she could even absorb them directly, gaining more souls to create more Homies.
When she first entered the underworld, Germa’s sudden disappearance triggered a burst of rage in Charlotte Linlin. The surrounding souls scattered in all directions, fleeing these sources of danger just as they would Darkrai.
Before long, however, a group of special ghosts appeared. Charlotte Linlin’s ex-husbands.
To date, Charlotte Linlin had given birth to forty-six sons and thirty-nine daughters, while the number of her husbands had reached forty-three.
According to Charlotte Linlin’s habits, once a child was born, the husband became a being without any meaning. The best outcome for them was being abandoned by her.
Among these men, some left quietly, while others were relieved that they had escaped the jaws of death. Not all of Charlotte Linlin’s husbands had been willing, especially the later ones.
There were also some who were infatuated, such as her 25th husband, the father of Lola and Chiffon, who was buried in the Seducing Woods with only his huge head sticking out.
Besides that, many husbands had died outright. As for the cause of death, it was inseparable from Charlotte Linlin. Under the influence of such resentment, they even overcame their fear of the Soul-Soul Fruit and gathered together.
In the past, they were rivals in love, but after death, their shared status as ex-husbands instead led them to form an alliance—dubbed the “Husband Avengers”—in an attempt to take revenge on Charlotte Linlin.
Naturally, this was utterly meaningless. Without the Soul-Soul Fruit, Charlotte Linlin’s “iron balloon” body wouldn’t have been able to display the near-invincible defense it had in the outside world under these conditions.
But with the Soul-Soul Fruit, things were different. Their alliance amounted to nothing more than a bunch of weaklings banding together. Even with Fish-Men, the Longarm Tribe, the Snakeneck Tribe, and other demi-human races mixed in, it still meant nothing. If anything, it simply gave Charlotte Linlin a chance to mow them down effortlessly.
At the same time, some people were grappling with questions of life philosophy.
“Cora-san, Doflamingo has already fallen, but the aftereffects are still there.”
“Law, since you were able to come here as one of the living, your illness must have been cured, right?”
“Y-yes.”
“That’s enough. I don’t need you to avenge me or anything. You still have a wonderful life ahead of you. There’s no need to let revenge entangle you for your entire life.”
In his spirit form, Corazon no longer had that strange makeup on his face, looking much more handsome, and he was currently advising Law.
“But Cora-san, you—”
“Hatred isn’t everything. Live well. That way, my efforts won’t have been in vain. If you can never move on, wouldn’t that mean I’ve hurt you all over again?”
Corazon hoped Law could let go, but some things aren’t so easy to let go. Even with the encouragement of the person involved, Law found it hard to break free for the time being.
There were countless souls in the land of the dead. Not everyone could meet the person they wanted to see. Kin’emon and Kanjuro, at least, did not.
The soul of the great man Oden was currently embarking on a brand-new grand adventure in the underworld, with no intention whatsoever of worrying about matters of the mortal world.
While the living were striving toward their own goals, Darkrai had also found his destination.
“I knew there was something wrong with that sea. It wasn’t me.”
Feeling the dense aura of the underworld around him, Darkrai was certain that this time he hadn’t taken the wrong path. The surrounding souls were no longer souls like Kuina, who possessed self-awareness; they were more like soldiers being controlled.
Sensing Darkrai’s appearance, these souls let out a chorus of shouts and then closed in on him.
Looking around, souls densely packed like dumplings in a pot were surging toward Darkrai from all directions.
Even though any soul that came close to Darkrai was instantly purified, the ones that followed showed no fear. Compared to living beings who could still feel terror, these were truly a legion of the dead.
“Stop blocking my way. All of you, get lost!”
Darkrai raised both hands above his head, and a black-hole-like mass of energy gradually expanded above him. Countless purple energy spheres then flew out from it.
The energy mass in Darkrai’s hands had turned into a heavy firepower emplacement, continuously unleashing torrents of fire in all directions, forcibly carving a path through the sea of ghosts.
Even with their numerical advantage, they couldn’t get close to Darkrai.
As time passed, some stronger individuals began to appear.
These were no longer mere cannon fodder. They were already able to touch Darkrai’s body. Under the cover of the cannon fodder, two stronger individuals darted out from either side and grabbed Darkrai’s arms.
At the same time, another soul flew up from below. For beings without physical form, sky and ground alike were places they could exist. The soul that suddenly burst up from beneath held a sharp blade, aiming to pierce Darkrai’s body from below.
But from Darkrai’s originally empty lower body, two legs suddenly extended, demonstrating what a scissor kick was, and immediately afterward, two more black spheres appeared in Darkrai’s hands.
With ease, he bound the souls near his hands. Black energy formed a cage, and the souls trapped inside instantly fell unconscious. Their contorted expressions showed they were facing something terrifying.
In truth, they had already fallen into a nightmare. As the nightmares ravaged their minds, the energy within these souls was continuously absorbed by Darkrai, replenishing what he had expended in battle.
After that, Dark Pulse transformed into two chains in Darkrai’s hands, skewering many of the attacking souls together.
Facing what seemed like an endless tide of the dead, Darkrai’s patience was exhausted. His legs vanished once more, and another black sphere appeared in his palm.
Dark energy flowed within it. Even in the underworld, its color was unimaginably deep.
Within that ultimate darkness, a faint glimmer of light gradually bloomed.
Under these circumstances, that glimmer was no different from a lighthouse in the dead of night. The souls in the distance surged toward Darkrai like sharks that had smelled blood.
And at that very moment, Darkrai hurled the glowing sphere in his hand.
The instant it left Darkrai’s control, the energy compressed to the extreme inside began to run rampant. The originally fist-sized black sphere expanded several times over in a short span, continuously devouring the surrounding souls.
Even brushing against its edge caused the affected part of a soul to instantly disintegrate.
When it expanded to a certain extent, instead of firing energy spheres like before, it detonated outright.
After a soundless flash, a spherical zone of emptiness appeared once again with Darkrai at its center.
Even the souls that had previously shown no fear now came to a halt. Some unknown force behind them tried to urge them forward, but to no effect.
During this time, Darkrai had already advanced quite a distance. The explosion had cleared out a vast area. Now, he could finally see what he had come here to find.
Though only a corner was exposed, that faint purple aura was unmistakable, the Ghost-type Spooky Plate.
“Living one, you should not have trespassed here. There is still time for you to leave now.”
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