【One Piece】Dawn in the Darkness

Chapter 472 Sabaody Archipelago Two Years Later

a tavern

A beautiful woman with long orange hair, wearing a striped bikini and blue jeans, sat quietly on a bar stool, listening to the bar owner talk about the state of the new world. She paid no attention to the chaos around her; her attention was now drawn to one particularly interesting piece of information.

"Marineford has moved to the New World?" Nami was somewhat surprised by this news. The last time she heard anything about Marine Headquarters was when Luffy and his brothers played a prank on them.

That was truly an absolutely insane prank. Before this incident, she had always thought of Luffy's two brothers as mature and steady older brothers, until that newspaper article completely shattered her impression of them. They were really crazy. Nami smiled, but she liked it.

"This was a decision made by the newly appointed Fleet Admiral. He swapped the original headquarters location with Branch G1 because he wanted to place the Navy Headquarters directly within the territory of one of the Four Emperors."

The tavern owner explained, then looked around and whispered, "In fact, most people believe it's because the previous Marine Headquarters was destroyed by those crazy pirates, and the newly appointed Fleet Admiral couldn't accept such an insult, so he moved away."

"Hahaha." Nami couldn't help but laugh. "So that's how it is."

"However, due to the lack of suppression from the Navy Headquarters, the Sabaody Archipelago has become very chaotic in the past two years."

The tavern owner sighed, poured Nami's glass some more wine, and glanced at the pirates causing the chaos nearby, whispering, "Miss, you should be careful. The Straw Hat crew is recruiting crew members right here."

Nami glanced at the group of imposters with some disgust, but did nothing. She had arranged to meet Usopp here, and she would teach those people a lesson afterward.

……

Shaki Tavern

"The first one to arrive is that idiot swordsman!?" Sanji exclaimed incredulously. He could already imagine the despicable smug look the foolish swordsman would give him. But before he could get angry for long, he heard the name of the person he cared about most, "Nami-san~ Where is Nami-san now!?"

"They said they had nothing to do, so they went shopping in town." Shakky chuckled, a cigarette between his fingers. "The fourth one to arrive was Franky, Usopp arrived three days ago, Chopper arrived yesterday, and then it's you."

"Brook is coming to this island to hold a concert today, which means that seven people, including you, have already gathered on this island."

Sanji was completely absorbed in his fantasy about Nami's costume change, but he still managed to spare a bit of attention for the news about his other crew members. When he heard that Brook was going to hold a concert here, he was immediately puzzled and snapped back to reality. "A concert?"

“That’s right, he’s a superstar now,” Shaki said with a smile.

"Only Nico Robin and Luffy are left." Rayleigh added with a smile as he looked at the newspaper, "It's already a very difficult thing to come back to this island."

"I never expected you to personally train Luffy." Sanji took a sip of tea, smiled at Rayleigh, and asked, "He must be incredibly strong now."

“I haven’t seen him for half a year, and I’m really looking forward to seeing him grow even more!” Rayleigh grinned and said, “The three of them have all become stronger than before, and I look forward to seeing news of them causing trouble again.”

"Three?" Sanji looked at Rayleigh with some curiosity.

“Ace and Lucci also trained with Luffy for a while,” Rayleigh replied with a smile. “Although the training period was short, I had nothing left to teach them.”

"Luffy's had a great time these past two years, huh?" Sanji grinned upon hearing this, then shouted angrily, "What the hell have I been living these past two years?! Transvestites, transvestites, all those damn transvestites! I hate transvestites!!"

……

"Did they shake them off?" Robin leaned against the corner, glanced at the relentlessly pursuing agents, and noticed they were completely gone. He then turned his attention to the poster in his hand, looking at Brooke's glamorous concert outfit with some confusion. "The King of Souls?"

……

"Oh, I see the island!" Ace exclaimed excitedly, placing a hand on his orange cowboy hat.

"I wonder if Luffy and Sabo have arrived yet," Lucci said calmly, gazing at the familiar Sabaody Archipelago ahead.

"Anyway, let's get to the island first." Ace grinned. "I wonder if Luffy has gotten any stronger since we last met."

“We could have gone with Sabo to pick up Luffy,” Lucci said, glancing at Ace who was speeding toward the island.

"Does what you're saying mean you're blaming me?" Ace raised an eyebrow at Lucci.

"If it weren't for some idiot dragging me into this, how could I have been grounded along with everyone else?" Lucci rolled his eyes at Ace. "My swordsmanship isn't good enough to be used for peeling potatoes."

"Isn't this all because of the prank you suggested?" Ace scoffed. "Who said we should pull a prank that would shock all the crew members before we left?"

"I didn't ask you to dye Marco's hair!" Lucci covered his face helplessly. He did want to play one last prank, but who knew that Ace would be so brave as to dye Marco's hair black.

“Isn’t that the most shocking thing?” Ace grinned. “You didn’t see everyone’s expressions. And I think Marco is repaying kindness with enmity. He seems to really like his black hair. It obviously makes him look younger.”

Lucci's lips twitched. "Yeah, he likes it a lot, so much so that he wants to ground us for two weeks."

"Oh well, we're out now." Ace laughed nonchalantly.

“Yeah, because I’ve been peeling potatoes for a week!” Lucky said through gritted teeth, then jumped ashore.

“I’ve been cleaning the deck for a week now.” Ace grinned and jumped off the ship, the two of them heading side by side to Rayleigh’s tavern.

“Sabaody is more chaotic than ever before,” Lucci said, looking at the town ahead. Unlike before, when it could maintain a semblance of beauty, Sabaody is now completely occupied by savage, uncontrolled pirates and criminals. The chaos is only on the surface, and the island has become a paradise of sin.

“It might be related to the Navy Headquarters moving to the New World.” Ace shrugged indifferently, then scoffed, “Those Navy personnel probably felt insulted and were eager to escape this place of shame.”

Lucci grinned, clearly remembering the great prank they had pulled back then. "We made a good impression on them, didn't we?"

“Maybe the impression isn’t strong enough, otherwise they wouldn’t have kept bothering us for the past two years.” Ace casually walked forward with his hands behind his head when a poster floated onto his face.