“An invitation to become a Shichibukai… Shouldn’t something like this be delivered by the Marines or someone from the World Government? Why was it brought over by just a bat?”
The letter bearing the World Government’s wax seal was placed on the table as the group discussed what had just happened.
“Who knows? None of us have ever been Shichibukai before, so how would we know the procedure? And why did that bat run off right after delivering the letter? It didn’t even wait for our reply.”
“Maybe it was afraid of Ginny. After all, it was only an ordinary bat.”
As for why a bat would be afraid of a vampire, they could not explain that either. But when the subject came up, Luna instead looked toward Ginny.
“Did that bat really leave?”
“It left ages ago. I’ve never seen a bat fly that fast before. But just to be safe… we should probably switch meeting rooms.”
As someone who specialized in intelligence work, Ginny had plenty of counter-surveillance awareness. The outside environment might still need to be searched, but once an Air Door was opened, the door world offered much greater secrecy.
However, there was nothing inside the door world, so the group could only sit on the ground.
“Queen was actually right—it really is an invitation to become a Shichibukai. But I haven’t seen any similar news in the papers, so how did the World Government know that Moria was defeated?
“Did they install surveillance on that island-ship?”
“That shouldn’t be it. If that were the case, they should’ve contacted us last month. Maybe Moria got his brain damaged by Kuma’s slap and reported it to the World Government himself, hoping they’d take revenge for him.”
Ginny felt that Luna’s theory was wrong, but in the end, they never reached an answer to that question. Compared to that, they were more concerned about whether they should accept the invitation to become Shichibukai, and also…
“But Kuma was the one who did the fighting. Why are they asking me to become a Shichibukai?”
“Maybe because you’re the captain. Everyone assumes the captain is the strongest person, and your bounty is much higher than Kuma’s, isn’t it?”
Yes, although Kuma had done most of the fighting against Moria, the one invited to become a Shichibukai was Luna. That was simply another stereotype of the sea.
If you were not the strongest fighter, how could you possibly become the captain?
Under this simple logic, Luna naturally ended up receiving the invitation to become a Shichibukai.
And just as Ginny had said, her bounty of 280 million Berries already made her the person with the highest bounty on the ship.
The photo on her wanted poster even made the source of Luna’s bounty obvious. In her Sulong form, she had single-handedly defeated a large warship led by a veteran Vice Admiral.
As for how that photograph had been taken, one would have to ask the people in the Marines’ Photography Department. Everyone there was a remarkable talent, with infiltration and covert photography skills that were second to none.
From mountain bandits worth a few hundred thousand Berries to monsters worth several billion, they could always capture a trace, unless they forgot to remove the lens cap.
“So… do we accept or not?”
The World Government’s letter was filled with the benefits of becoming a Shichibukai, from having one’s wanted status revoked to gaining the legal right to plunder. Various advantages filled most of the letter.
Only the final two lines listed the obligations of a Shichibukai: handing over a portion of plundered wealth as taxes and obeying mandatory summons from the World Government.
As an independent organization, although the Shichibukai were technically in the same camp as the Marines, in principle they only obeyed orders from the World Government. Even the Marines could not command them.
“If you can’t decide, why not ask Lord Nereus? Though I think the status of Shichibukai might actually be pretty useful. Maybe we could come into contact with some of the World Government’s secrets and steal more information.”
……
Not long afterward, inside Ryugu Palace, Nereus received a call from Luna.
“Captain, long time no see! There’s something…”
The apprentice from back then had now received an invitation to become a Shichibukai.
The old members from those days were still alive and well, but Luna alone remained especially attached to calling him “Captain.”
“If you personally don’t object to it, then accept. That status might come in handy someday.”
Thinking back to the Shichibukai of the original timeline—
Hawk Eyes, who had a fairly close relationship with Red-Hair; Jinbe, who remembered Whitebeard’s kindness; Hanafuda, who searched for Devil Fruits for Kaido; and Doflamingo, who later went into business with Kaido.
To exaggerate slightly, the organization was comparable to Black Organization. There was hardly a single normal person among them, and harboring their own ulterior motives was practically the baseline. [TN: Black Organization is from Detective Conan and its elite members all harbor ulterior motives.]
Buggy was the exception. Across the more than twenty years that the Shichibukai system existed, he could be considered the most unusual one.
“What? The World Government really did send them an invitation?”
Luna and the others were still sailing the seas, but Amphitrite had already returned to Ryugu Palace and had told Nereus about some of what happened along the way.
Although they had run into two Shichibukai, Amphitrite had not paid much attention to it.
That was also one of the slightly awkward problems with the Shichibukai. They certainly had a degree of deterrent power in Paradise, but against truly powerful forces, such as the monsters of the New World, Shichibukai who each fought independently did not pose much of a threat.
After all, many Shichibukai were losers of wars in the New World. Taken individually, they were still somewhat lacking.
And getting a group of people, each with their own agenda, to sincerely work together was basically impossible.
“Judging from the result, yes. Though there really aren’t that many pirates suitable to become Shichibukai. If they don’t publicly announce that Luna and the others defeated Moria, then in the eyes of other pirates, Luna’s group will seem somewhat ‘unknown.’
There might be a lot of pirates who want to step on them to make a name for themselves. In the future, they certainly won’t lack opportunities to gain experience.”
“Is that really fine? They might run into someone they can’t handle.”
“With the Paw-Paw Fruit combined with the Door-Door Fruit, that combination isn’t so easy to deal with. At the very least, avoiding danger is very simple for them.
Besides, they aren’t weak either. In a place like Paradise, they’ll be fine.”
The two casually chatted about the Shichibukai without paying it much mind.
Compared with the enormous Marines and World Government, or the great pirates of the New World, the Shichibukai truly did not amount to much. At most, they could serve as a more convenient channel for stealing information.
Meanwhile, in another room, Nanamo received part of the gold Chloe and the others had brought back from Skypiea and handed it over to Hermes.
Nanamo had a model of Shandora, the City of Gold. It had suffered a little damage previously, and in order to restore it more faithfully, she planned to use gold from there for the repairs.
At the same time, Nanamo was looking somewhat conflictedly at a wanted poster.
“Sis, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing. It’s just that sometimes I feel… maybe not growing taller isn’t such a bad thing.”
The wanted poster was none other than Charlotte Linlin’s.
If one compared the current Moria to the Moria of the past, it was still possible to find some similarities. But the Charlotte Linlin in that wanted poster and the Charlotte Linlin Nanamo remembered could practically be said to no longer belong to the same species…
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