I Am Mr. Five

Quivering and shuddering in a sweaty mire, her hips danced to jingles of frolicking hands. Digits speedily cavorting through her sensitive snatch in a plethora of noiseless flares; words failed her. Her mind stumbled, desperately attempting to reconcile two conflicting opinions. Her cognitive dissonance aided and abetted in deriving an amplified sense of sickening ecstasy, even as her lips parted and a punitive moan escaped traitorously from her lips.

It shouldn't feel this good –

Kami it shouldn't feel this good –

Her gyrating hips disagreed. Her wheezed breaths and soft whimpers assisted in vocalizing that disagreement. Fingers stroked moist wetness like sickles reaping rice-fields, and her back curved like a bow fully drawn. Spots and starlight danced in her vision, her own voice singing a melody she was unaware she knew. Sensations of infinitesimally small shockwaves bombarded her like an unfortunate pirate vessel in the midst of a marine armada. Her clenched teeth could no longer hold back the burst dam of treacherous desire.

She moaned.

Her legs danced inelegantly to the sound her voice and the evidence of her accomplished arousal. Latitude, longitude, time, location and reason were disregarded as she descended further into the chasm of pleasure, the depths perhaps grander than the very line they were on.

The sound of her own heavy breathing blended with that of crashing waves. Her body lay, exhausted, unwillingly and disloyally refusing to move. The reason for her exhaustion stood over her, thick sunglasses never removed from his vision, as his lips quirked, if only slightly, at her form.

"And to think, you almost missed out on all this."

Her cheeks burned hotly. Indignation overtook her mind at the reminder. "I… didn't know you could…"

"Make microscopic explosions?" he asked, amused. "Or, you didn't know that I could tone down my explosions to such a level that was non-damaging and non-lethal?"

Of course she didn't. How could she? Her memory still burned heavily with the scent and sight of an island covered in soot and ash. Of a fireball that extended to the heavens and curved back onto the land like the parasol of the devil himself. Of the one hundred unfortunate bounty hunters who had become but mere chunks of burning meat and bone and organs.

She shuddered in a way that had nothing to do with pleasure. Mr. 5, or as he now wished to be called, V, possessed the power to end armies and annihilate cities with as much nonchalance as a boy requested to fetch a pitcher of water. Perhaps even less, as she remembered that he was not even marginally worn out from casual decimation of Whiskey Peak.

And he's my partner –

The part of her that heavily desired to flee from him with her voice screeching to the high heavens until her mouth could produce no more saliva and her lungs intake no more air was curbed. Curbed, countered, by the part of her that saw an opportunity for wealth and riches and more beyond anything she'd possibly envisioned. She would etch herself to him like a shameful tattoo, and find herself reaping untold benefits for merely being his acquaintance and aid. She would live, as he had called her, a relatively parasitic existence. Or perhaps, euphemistically, like a fire-proof moth drawn to a conflagration.

All she truly had to offer him was herself. She'd possessed numerous reservations about the concept, all of which had melted away along with the afterglow of the dozen orgasms she'd had from his fingers. From just his fingers.

She'd never ever, in a dozen, hundred, or perhaps thousand years, consider the possibility of explosions having anything to do with sexual pleasure. Until miniature consecutive shockwaves rocked her insides with vibrations that sent her to nirvana.

"Come on." He said, spreading her legs shamelessly. "Round two. This time, with my tongue."

He licked his lips, and she watched as a small boom appeared on the edges of the muscle that lay in his mouth. She recalled, suddenly, that every part of his body could generate explosions, so that meant –

She was never going to enjoy sexual relations with normal people after this.

A long wet organ stroked against her delicate snatch with a series of silent tremors, and her legs clutched against his head as her body shook madly from ecstasy.

Her pleasured screams did not reduce in volume or frequency over the long night.

XXXXXXXX

Imagination was the building block that enabled everything. Finesse was the tool and handyman that utilized that imagination. Together? They were a tag-team of builders with the ability to build anything. As long as they were unlimited, what they could build, too, was unlimited.

I stretched my hands out and yawned at the naked and sleeping form of Miss Valentine. We hadn't gone all the way, because I was getting a feel for her and also testing out interesting new applications of my power. Massive explosions were fantastically epic, beautifully majestic, and pant-shittingly terrifying, but minor, tiny explosions also had their benefits. From boosting my striking power, to the realization that I could generate vibrations with enough shockwaves – I really, really wondered why exactly the idiot who'd inhabited this body before me had not become a Yonko.

I reached for Valentine's blanket, shaking my head at the design of chocolate cakes all over it, before casting it over her sleeping body. She'd be out like a light for a while, courtesy of a full-night of consecutive orgasms.

My dick was hard, but I hesitated on going that far because I still didn't know what would happen if I got too excited and blew my load into her. Let's say, for example, into her mouth. The last thing I needed was to go from getting some great oral, to being covered in bloody chunks of brain matter.

I exited the deck of the Pop Rock Candy, which, I'd discovered from Miss Valentine, was the name of our sailing vessel. The clear night sky extended openly with more stars than I could possibly count, far more beautifully than literally anywhere I'd ever seen or known before. The stars were endless in their number, and the moon hung tranquilly amongst them.

The ship rocked and swayed softly, and my gaze reached out for the sights and the horizons. This world… It was beautiful. Aesthetically anyway.

The Grand Line was devoid of noise or distractions. No car horns or the irritating buzz of traffic. No thick smells of smoke and acrid pollution. No noisy children or someone playing loud angry rap music. Just…

The wind in my face. The cool sea breeze. The stirring of life beneath waters. The soft lashing and crashing of waves.

"…I never knew the ocean could be so… calming." Oh, the Grand Line was anything but calm, with sea-kings and vicious pirates, government conspiracies and a numerous, uncountable number of different fucked up things, part of which I'd no doubt be adding to… but regardless, finding myself on this ship, sailing through the ocean…

The wind picked up. Fast paced winds that howled like a pack of injured wolves.

"You couldn't let me just admire your beauty in peace for five bloody seconds, could you?"

I dashed straight for the rudder, checking the Log Pose attached to it to make sure it was still pointing in the way we were supposed to go, but swearing as I realized the Pop Rock Candy was swerving to the left. Starboard? West? Fuck whatever the correct nautical terms were, I didn't know them.

"Damn it… Valentine!"

Except, she was asleep and was going to remain asleep for a long, long while. It was up to me to steer us out of potentially dangerous waters.

Thunder crashed in the sky above us and I swore as I noticed the sudden storm clouds. It was crystal clear less than a few goddamned seconds ago, but I remembered from the Manga and Anime that the Grand Line had a fucked up weather that was considered unpredictable and insane, even by the inhabitants of this world. By my world standards, the Grand Line would probably make the most seasoned of sailors weep in frustration.

Winds coalesced into a god-forsaken cyclone that popped up directly in front of the ship and I lost every damn bit of my temper at the sheer bullshit speed that it'd formed. For fuck's sakes how did we go from a peaceful, clear starry night to this in a matter of seconds?

Sailing normally was out of the question. I didn't have the experience to sail in a calm sea with no breeze, and I wasn't going to suddenly learn how to maneuver a ship in the middle of a bloody typhoon. I locked the wheel into place to ensure the ship didn't spin too much, before exploding my hands and shooting myself up into the air, until I propelled myself forward and almost cursed at the insanity of flying towards a fucking hurricane.

If I fell into the ocean, it was game-over. I'd sink like a rock to the bottom, and die a pathetic second death. I pushed aside that thought and instead focused on the winds and particularly on the cyclone, before charging as much of my power as I could through my arms.

You see, I was a bomb human. I'd been thinking about it over and over and over again, and realized, nowhere did it state I was an explosion human, which would be a different, but slightly similar thing. The name of the fruit Mr. 5 had eaten had been the Bomb-Bomb fruit. It was true that all conventional bombs did was explode. Yes, but what exactly was an explosion? What was a bomb?

The literal definition is that a bomb is an explosive weapon that uses the exothermic reaction of explosive material to provide an extremely sudden and violent release of energy. Sparing the boring details, an exothermic process is a little thing in thermodynamics that releases energy from a system (i.e. me) to its surroundings, usually in the form of heat, (the fire from my explosions), light, (the spark and flash that follows my explosions) or sound (the sounds from my explosions.) Pressure was also generated as a result of this, all of which when combined gave of the beauty that was an explosion.

Strong winds whipped at me as I exploded my feet and soared closer to the heart of the cyclone, the wind blurring in my ears as I brought up my hands in an X-Shape.

I essentially emitted three (technically four) different forms of 'energy' every single time I used my powers. I didn't know of any other devil fruits that could claim to do the same thing. It was even made more absurd when I realized the sheer speed provided by my ability to generate these different forms of energy. The standard C-4 extend at a rate of 26,400 feet per second (8,050 meters per second).

For reference, the speed of sound is only about 1,125 feet per second, or 343 meters per second. For additional reference, that meant that the speed of a standard detonation was Mach 24. For final, definitive reference, lowballing it, the slowest speed of an explosion was about 3000 feet per second, which is still Mach 2.

Where was I going with all this?

"November Fifth."

God himself applauded.

Ineffable blasts of kinetic energy and ear-drum shattering booms echoed across the vast ocean, dwarfing thunderclaps like a battleship dwarfed a floating cork. Shockwaves bombarded the flimsy typhoon, stripping away its contents like a street ruffian through the unsuspecting pockets of oblivious tourists. The clouds in the sky parted as though Moses himself had commanded them to abscond, and waves rose up in salute as shockwaves displaced water.

Less than two seconds after the release of my technique, the sea was as calm, if not perhaps calmer than I remembered. The sky once more revealed the beautiful twinkling stars, and I maintained a steady blast of explosions from my feet to hop in the air, glancing at my handiwork in satisfaction.

The sea was a dangerous foe, but once again, I found myself saved by the age-old maxim that provided words of wisdom:

There is no problem in the world that cannot be solved with the suitable application of explosive force.

As a Bomb-Man, I had plenty of explosive force to spare.

"RAAAAWWWRRRR!"

…And it seemed that I awoke the local Sea Kings with my explosion. My right eye twitched irritably beneath my sunglasses as three leviathans-in-goldfish-skin rose from the depths of the sea, dwarfing everything I'd ever seen in my lifetime. Seeing it on an animated screen or in the panels of a black-and-white book did not do justice to the creatures that would slap in the face of Ahab, and spit in the eye of Moby Dick.

"Jesus-fucking-Christ."

I knew these things was not even the largest Sea Kings alive. Yet, I hopped in the air like a gnat buzzing annoyingly in the earlobes of an elephant. The largest Boeing 747 in the world would be like a Chihuahua in comparative size. The Sperm Whale or the Great Blue Whales I'd seen in picture books and movies, would be sardines stuck irritably within the spaces of their teeth.

"…fuck you Oda."

Had I been anyone else, this would have been the moment I crawled into a fetal position, wet my pants consecutively and hoped that people attributed the stain to water splashes from the ocean. That sentiment doubled when the god-forsaken titan-goldfish leapt into the air at the same time in an attempt to swallow me into the deep black chasm that was their stomachs.

"…fuck you to hell."

Thus I found myself literally within the jaws of the beast(s).

"ALLAHU AKBAR."

XXXXXXXXXX

Alabaster

"…he what?"

He removed the cigar from his mouth. Lightly dropping it on the table before him, his gaze narrowed and his back straightened. He gripped the Den-Den Mushi tighter, even as he received the report from his agents.

"…the entire island?"

A grand mix of annoyance and irritation surged deep within him. "I see."

It was unfortunate, and had it been any other situation, he would have chosen to reward the agent with a promotion, but such a feat of destruction and carnage could not be swept under the rug easily. The lives of the members of the Millions on Whiskey Peak held no true value to him, but their income revenue did. More than that, the marines were already looking into the issue. The destruction of islands on the Grand Line did not occur frequently enough for it to be swept under the rug. The manner of the destruction being one so volatile was another problem.

Secrecy was paramount to the goal of their operation. Secrecy that could not and would not properly be maintained when one of the members of Baroque Works chose to draw the attention of the world unto himself.

More so was the motivations. He did not trust individuals that he was uncertain of his ability to control or lead. Mr. 5's sudden boost in his competence and threat assessment could cause a change in his motivations. There was also the convenient fact that he'd completed his mission to order the assassination of the Princess, information which was vital and could not truly be trusted in the hands of such an individual.

Not that he trusted anyone, to begin with.

"…tell the rest of the Officer Agents, a kill order has been issued."

XXXXXXXXXX

Somewhere on the Grand Line

"I'd been wondering about why I'd gotten such a fantastic deal in exchange for nothing, and wondering if I'd gotten into heaven. But… now, it kind of makes sense that I'm in hell."

The gargantuan fishbone I casually sat upon did not respond. Nor did the smoldering eyeball. Nor did the other floating masses of heavily burnt fish. The aroma was indeed appetizing, but the taste was rather bland and the meat was cooked unevenly because… explosion.

The same explosion that generated winds and shockwaves capable of, of course, sending ships sailing off into the horizon. As of after defeating the Sea-Kings and regaining my bearings, the Pop Rock Candy was nowhere in sight. I couldn't even pick up any clues or details as to which direction the ship might have sailed into. That is of course, assuming the ship hadn't somehow sunk to the depths of Davy Jones' locker.

It'd been a few hours, and I found myself stranded on a giant fishbone, the remnants of one of my defeated adversaries.

"Fantastic."

Rather than moping around or patiently hoping and waiting that a passing ship would discover me somehow, I crossed my legs and sat as calmly as I could on a fishbone floating through the ocean, as my idea factory began to mass produce potential blueprints offering solutions.

I remembered from the anime that Devil Fruit abilities could be stretched to the logical extremes if one possessed enough finesse and imagination. For instance, Doflamingo, the bloody dude who could fly by connecting strings to clouds. Let's not even forget Crocodile himself, Mr. 0, whose ability to control sand was somehow extended to being capable of drying anything he touched and evaporating the water from it. That was tiers above what Gaara from Naruto could do, and Gaara was a demon. Technically.

Then there was God Enel, one of my favorite one piece villains. His Goro-Goro Mi enabled him to become lightning, and he could move as fast as lightning, create thunderclaps, and even superheat gold to the point of shaping it into a giant, perfectly spherical ball… in a matter of seconds.

"That's true…"

Heat wasn't lightning. It was an aspect of it, but I remembered that scene from the anime clearly. Enel superheating gold to trap Luffy's arm. The fine-tuned control needed to generate enough heat to superheat gold to its melting point, and then shape it while in the middle of battle was absurd. Then again, he had his Mantra to –

I stopped. "…Mantra. Or rather… Haki."

I can't believe I forgot about it.

I sat up straight as I tried to remember the name and the details. "Kenbunshoku Haki… I think it was called. That's the Spider-Sense one… isn't it? It's a mouthful. I think I'll just stick to calling it Mantra instead."

I remember there was some hype about a guy using it to see the future. Charlotte Kurikuri? Something like that. The last arc I remembered was Doflamingo's and Cesar's – and it was mostly bits and snippets. Likewise with the Vinsmoke arc. The only reason I even knew there was something like that was when I noticed Sanji's name suddenly having a surname in Google searches and filters. He was engaged to one of Big Mom's daughters… I think?

Focus! I slapped my cheeks calmly as I tried to remember. Mantra. Haki. How does one go about using it? Enel was probably the one person in this world with the greatest mastery of it in terms of sheer range. He could pick up electromagnetic waves in the air and overhear conversations and every single thing around him.

"…waves huh?"

The sound of the crashing waves of water all around me filled up my hearing. The birds and seagulls. The wind gently whispering in the early morning sun.

I tore off a portion of my shirt, ripping the clothing material from my arm until it was big enough and thick enough to be properly utilized. I wrapped it against my eyes, tightening it as hard as I possibly could. Slowly, I inhaled, taking a deep, measured breath, counting, and then I exhaled.

My body was immune to explosions. That meant immunity to the deafening sound waves generated by them. If I wasn't immune to the sound, I'd have long since gone deaf or possess permanent hearing damage each and every time I detonated myself. I could also generate shockwaves, and although they had 'waves' in their name, shockwaves were not necessarily the same as soundwaves. Shockwaves surpassed the speed of sound and travelled faster than sound did. Regardless, my sound still travelled.

I focused sharply on my hearing. Just my hearing. I doubted I'd pick up how to use Mantra in a day, even if I did essentially have the knowledge and framework of how it was supposed to work. No – learning Haki would be a long term project. However, for the shorter, more immediate term, I could cheat.

Controlling the destructiveness and the size of my explosions was something I learned to do to fool around. Yet, I channeled that control into a type of 'bomb' that I needed to create. A bomb that lacked heat or light, but had one type of 'energy' backing it. I felt it run throughout my entire body, rippling slowly with potential energy. Then, I charged this energy into my ears and eardrums. I focused my powers unto my inner-ears and tuned out everything else.

"Dark Night."

BOOM!

PING!

I felt the explosion of nothing but pure sound propagate from my eardrums outward in a spherical dome. A normal man would be rolling on the floor and clutching his bleeding ears at this point, but I was anything but a normal man. The sound waves extended far, and I –

I could hear.

The sound waves bounced off objects as they travelled, and I could… hear them. The numerous objects in the vast open sea. Rocks, stones, birds in the air, fish in the sea – for that singular, brief moment, I lived like a bat, picking up the sound of anything and everything within my vicinity as the explosion continued to travel.

"Now for the sequel…" I charged up smaller, tinier, explosions at frequencies most people would fail to hear. "Dark Knight Returns."

BOOM!

BOOM!

BOOM!

PING!

PING!

PING!

Satisfaction rushed through me as I eventually picked up the sounds of sails flapping in the air, at least several hundred meters away the manner in which the echoes bounced back to me informing me of the length and details of the ship to absurd levels.

Human Echolocation was a thing most people did not know existed. I only learned about it one late night of watching Discovery Channel and waiting for my latest fix of Mythbusters, the guys who explode stuff…. For science. Instead, I got Penn and Teller Tell A Lie and learnt about the curious case of Benjamin Underwood, the real-life Daredevil who'd been diagnosed with retinal cancer from age two, and learnt how to 'see' using echolocation.

"Random trivia facts are now becoming vital information to my survival." I chuckled at the realization. "Can't wait till I eventually figure out a use for knowing about the enlarged clitoris of a female hyena."

Picking up different sounds, I momentarily paused in contemplation about that.

"Now that I think about it…" Even if I didn't know anything about the One Piece world, a person from my world would be a scholar here.

I was a run-of-the-mill average joe whose intellectual prowess was limited to amateur Chess competitions and several bored nights of clicking 'random page' on Wikipedia. My IQ was just slightly above average last I checked, and the only reason I knew so much about explosions was because they were explosions, and I was a hot-blooded male who grew up watching Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone leap away from the glorious balls of fire with a damsel in one hand and a sweaty muscled body that I gullibly believed I would get when I grew older.

I could only imagine what would have happened if a genuine Nuclear Physicist, or even a regular Physics grad-student had been put in my place instead. There were probably ideas and prospects that I didn't even know existed that these individuals would make use of. But, let's get back to the sheer knowledge at the power of the layman, majority of which have had access to the grandest archive of collective human information at the push of a button on a small black mirror.

Medicine? I knew about basic antibiotics and first aid. About sanitation and the importance of sterilization. I knew about botany and zoology from some casual watching of Born Survivor and the Animal Planet.

Cooking? Please, even if I couldn't expertly recreate it, it wasn't like I haven't seen enough shows on Food Network to remember some recipes and put them to decent use.

Music? I'd had access to over ten thousand songs and different instruments and styles that this world did not even know existed. I could play some songs on the piano, the flute, and the guitar.

Combat? In theoretical knowledge there were very few people in this world who could surpass me. It wasn't like they'd even know about Tae Kwon Doe, or Aikido, or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, or just the straight up lethal submission maneuvers and boxing techniques that I'd seen and remembered from watching Muhammed Ali, Brock Lesnar or Connor McGregor. That's not even mentioning fictional techniques that could be utilized.

The only gaps in my knowledge were in Geography, Archeology and Cartography. It was not bad, because some people couldn't cook or fight to save their lives, and others didn't even know the difference between and antibiotic and an analgesic. My major flaw was the inability to navigate or sail to save my life.

"… a person from the real world is a bit too knowledgeable in many, many aspects." I rubbed the side of my face, shaking my head and turning my 'gaze' out to the sea.

"I could probably use this knowledge to do a lot of good… but…" I snorted. "Most likely the World Government would try to take it and use it for their idiotic concept of justice."

I wasn't going to bother trying to do something so annoying. Making the world a better place was best done to a world that had the potential to become a better place. The vast sea, insane monsters and deep-seated corruption were things that could not fade away overnight. It'd take decades, and I wasn't about to spend my second life wasting away trying to improve this cesspool of a world.

"A shame they don't have internet or videogames here. I'm going to need a list of frivolous things to buy once I start raking in the gold."

My ears twitched as Dark Knight picked up movement in the water. Low frequency soundwaves bounced off of the object enabling me to make out its shape and form. An animal? No – yes – and animal… but… there was a person on it.

Female. Slender. Wearing a hat. The animal as well was wearing a hat. The animal was… smoking a cigarette? I had to momentarily remind myself that this was a world of mermaids, fishmen, and sapient animals, no matter how absurd it sounded.

There are waterfalls that flow upward, and cities in the sky. Your definition of absurd is in dire need of an update.

I guess it's time to put my business face on.

XXXXX

She'd seen him from quite afar, using her powers. An odd sight, he made, sitting comfortably on the jagged white spine of a recently deceased Sea King. She could tell how recent it was from the sight of the large chunks of meat that were left in the ocean surrounding him, and the chunks she'd seen before approaching.

She contemplated her orders, momentarily, and then remembered the unholy sight she'd seen at Whiskey Peak that brought back uncomfortable memories of her childhood. The fact that it was, genuinely, one person capable of truly producing that much carnage unsettled her. She would have instructed Banchi to avoid moving towards his location, had she not noticed the rough blindfold placed against his vision. Or had she not heard him muttering softly under his breath as his body seemed to be absolutely still.

Banchi approached him cautiously, the transportation turtle warily moving slowly towards him, no doubt as cautious as she felt. The blindfolded man merely sat still, his legs crossed as though he was in a meditative position. Despite surrounded by so much water, the likes of which were he to slip and fall into the ocean would mean certain death, he did not seem bothered.

"Miss All-Sunday."

Her official codename escaped his lips in a smooth enunciation. There was something odd about the manner in which he pronounced it. The manner in which he spoke it, as though understanding a joke a spirit had whispered into his ear.

The fact that he had not taken off his blindfold, yet, identified her and tilted his head in her direction made her curious, ever so slightly, and at the same time, it made her wary. "Mr. 5."

He tilted his head in slow acknowledgment. "Your turtle… is wearing a cap, and smoking a cigarette."

She turned to Banchi, indeed, of course, the transportation animal enjoyed his eccentricities. "So it seems."

Mr. 5 let out a silent breath. "Rather daring of you to approach me." The topic changed on a dime and she allowed herself smile.

"Is that so? Is there any reason I have to be afraid of you, Mr. 5?"

The blindfolded man nodded sharply. "You were present at Whiskey Peak."

How did he –

"I do not believe you would choose to annoy Mr. 0 by eliminating his partner." She said, leaning back into her seat. Mr. 5's 'gaze' followed her, and it made her slightly more unnerved. There was no plausible explanation for why or how he'd detected her presence on the island.

"No, I would not." He acquiesced. "Not unless Mr. 0 makes the mistake of attempting to eliminate me."

She didn't flinch. Didn't move. Didn't do anything except allow herself to smile lest he somehow gleam the truth from her. His 'gaze' turned away.

"Of course, I doubt he'd do such a thing."

She almost relaxed her tensed body. Almost.

"How many of them are alive?"

The question stopped her in her tracks, almost making her lose control of her expression. "You perhaps mean the Billions? I believe –"

"No. Not them." He said immediately. "The Straw Hats."

Her lips coiled into a tight smile. "You killed them all, didn't you?" He didn't respond, making the silence uncomfortable. Despite being at a higher rank than he was, this conversation did not feel like she was a superior officer talking to her subordinate.

She'd worked with numerous criminal organizations in the past two decades. She knew, occasionally, that instances would occur in which her leadership or command would be questioned. It happened far too many times, and in those situations, she always maintained her cool and utilized her powers to quell any doubt or uncertainty. On the Grand Line, might made right. It was survival of the fittest, and it always had been. The very ocean and sea itself showed no mercy to the weak, and only the strongest from the Four Blues could ever hope to sail on it and survive.

The problem was, however, that she was not the stronger one in this encounter. Mr. 5, despite being a subordinate, possessed firepower that was inhumanly superior to anything she'd be capable of producing. He was a living bomb. Caution had to be exercised against a person who could but shrug, and reduce her to gory chunks.

"Can you outrun an explosion?" he began, almost casually. "Should I clap, you would be gone before you heard the sound."

Her smile tightened further. "Is that a threat, Mr. 5?"

"No." the blindfolded man shook his head. "Factual statements are not threats."

His 'gaze' fixed upon her, unerringly and unnervingly. She could not make out his eyes as they were obscured. His expression was as blank and unreadable as his thoughts. She disliked it. She'd preferred him to be a boisterous individual, or perhaps even a braggart, for those types of people were easy to read and easy to know what buttons to push and what not to push. His silence made him all the more dangerous.

He was a bomb with neither a timer nor a fuse. One that no one knew the conditions that would detonate it.

"How many of them survived?" he repeated.

"I just informed you –"

"Ckya Blyat."

She couldn't see.

A sharp, piercing sound nearly punctured her eardrums as her vision went completely white. Her sense of sight and hearing robbed from her in a dual-pronged explosion of light and sound. Her ears rung heavily with a thick whining sound even as she tried to force herself to be capable of seeing again. She stumbled backwards on her vessel, and Manchi made a whining cry that made it clear that the cry that made it clear that the creature had also been heavily disorientated from the assault.

She extended her arm forward and created a pair of eyes and ears on it as quickly as she could –

"Cyka Blyat."

She regretted the action immediately. The heavy ringing sound in her ears multiplied a dozen times over, and she felt her vision worsen from the additional blast of light. She felt blood leak from her damaged eardrums from the cumulative damage, and grit her teeth hard as she tried to blink away the numerous spots in her eyes. Worse was her inability to hear anything other than the disorienting high pitched sound. She dizzily grasped for something to balance herself, only to fail and slip.

Terror burned through her as she crashed into the ocean and felt her strength vanish.

Water rapidly began filling her lungs as she lacked the strength or proper orientation to as much as struggle against the current. The salty seawater burned at her eyes as she found herself unable to move, her hand, frantically reaching up to the surface in a desperate gambit to survive.

I – I can't die here… die… like this – no – not like this –

A warm hand roughly grabbed her wrist. With a jerking motion that almost disconnected her shoulder, she found herself pulled out of the ocean halfway, coughing and vomiting out the water that she'd swallowed as she wheezed and gasped for air.

Her hips and below was still submerged within the ocean, and she couldn't muster up the strength to move, yet alone use her devil fruit. It took everything she had to raise her gaze upwards, and to meet the blindfolded stoic face of Mr. 5.

"How many?"

"A-a-all of them." She said between desperate breaths.

"All." He repeated, and she felt his grip on her wrist tighten.

"Yes." She said quickly, grimacing at the pain. "But they're not in one piece. Some are missing a leg. An arm. An eye. Parts of a stomach. They're headed to find a doctor as soon as possible."

He seemed somewhat mollified by that. "And the Princess. She's still alive."

"Yes. She's -"

He let go of her, and her eyes widened as she began sinking again. "It's the tru –"

"Mr. 0 has a kill order on me." He said. "Yes or no."

Her head had nearly dipped back into the ocean as she coughed out her response. "Y-yes!"

He caught her by the wrist again, only partially bringing her out of the ocean. She couldn't even muster the strength to raise her head and look at him, yet alone use her powers.

"Mr. 0's true identity is the Shichibukai, Crocodile."

Her blood ran cold.

"Yes or no."

She hesitated. Her wrist slipped in his hand. If she told the truth, Crocodile would find out, and it would mean her death. If she didn't, Mr. 5 would drop her into the ocean and she would die regardless. The only difference was whether or not it was better to die now, or die later.

His hand let go of her.

"Yes!" she yelled out as she crashed into the ocean once more. His grip tightened again, holding her firmly, the only thing preventing her from drowning, the only thing saving her life, was his grip.

If she could just grab him –

Pulling him into the ocean with her would lead to both of their deaths. But, if the alternative was being at his mercy –

He brought her fully out of the ocean, holding on to her with but a single hand, still blindfolded as he was, he leapt off the fishbone and jumped unto her transport, dropping her on the seat casually.

"Apologies." He said. "As the 79,000,000 Beli Devil Child, Nico Robin, one cannot be too careful in ensuring the veracity of your words." The announcement of her true name and bounty made her freeze.

"Have a pleasant day."

BOOM!

She rose her hands in defense, expecting the explosion of heat to overtake her. Rather, she watched as Mr. 5 propelled himself into the air, and with a sickening crack of displaced air and pressure that signified the occurrence of an object breaking the sound barrier, he vanished off into the horizon, a small trail of steam and smoke all that was left of him.

XXXXX

It was open season on the officer agents of Baroque Works.

I spun in the air, controlling the blasts of sound and heat that propelled me forward at ludicrous speeds, knowing full well that the normal body of a human being was not designed to handle the velocity. My blindfolds were still in place, and I navigated myself using my Dark Knight. The world would have been an indistinct blur were I to rely on eyesight while flying faster than sound.

Robin was a rather fun character, one of my favorites on the entire Straw Hat Crew. The only problem I had with her was that she was far too perceptive. The type of person that I did not want on my crew or near me, because I would no doubt give away hints about my otherworldly origins. Aside from that, no matter how much my 'second head' wanted me to see how the real deal compared to the numerous hentai doujins, I relented because I had a form of respect for her.

That, and it'd be better for me to wait until the moment in which she decided to throw away her life before I approached her with any such intentions. I wasn't sure how the timeline would proceed now, but if Luffy and friends were still alive, there was the possibility that she might still end up –

Oh, wait, that's right. I'm going to kill Crocodile, not Luffy. So, no, she won't be joining the Straw Hats in this timeline.

My 'gaze' locked down on the familiar form of the Pop Rock Candy, and I reduced the force of my explosions in order to slow down. I hovered a bit above the ship, creating contrasting blasts to bring myself to a full stop, before slowly descending down on the deck of the vessel.

"Mr – uh, I mean, V-sama?"

Miss Valentine stood, her brows arced high as she glanced up, no doubt trying to find out where I'd come from.

"Mr. 0 has put a kill order on us."

I watched as she froze in her tracks. "H-he – he did? B-b-but – why –"

"Because it's expected of villains to send an assassin, and then kill the assassin once he's completed his job in order to tie up loose ends." I explained simply, before finally pulling off the blindfolds. Miss Valentine's hair was a frazzled, and I noticed she was wearing a tank-top over her yellow miniskirt.

"So before we get to the next island, and before we head to Alabaster, I'm going to train you, to become the level of a Marine Commodore at the very least."

"T-train me… er, V-sama, why would you…?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I said, allowing a smirk on my lips. "I can't have a First Mate that's weaker than Marine cannon fodder."

…

Miss Valentine slowly blinked. Once, twice, a third time, before the words seemed to register in her head.

"A…. What?!"