"Are you sure about this? Even you coming along, Papa... Don't you have all kinds of work keeping you busy?"
"Nah, this much ain't a problem at all. Good chance to stretch my legs."
After receiving the Den Den Mushi call from Alice, I'd been about to head to the scene myself, but... when I mentioned I was going out for a bit, Papa said he was "coming along."
So counting the two I'd already asked to accompany me as close aides, Beauty and Blume, that made four of us total, now en route to the location.
"I can't help but think it's a bit much for both the Admiral and the Supreme Advisor to be this quick on their feet..."
"What's the harm? Long as it doesn't get in the way of work. I don't really get the details, but if it's enough to give Miss Alice trouble, having extra hands as a precaution can't hurt."
Hearing Beauty say that, Papa bit down on his cigar with a grin.
"That's about the size of it. My granddaughter's caught up in some kind of trouble... what kind of grandpa would I be if I didn't go help?"
"And the real reason?"
"I keep running into Sou around the Hideout and it's chipping away at my sanity, so I need a change of scenery."
Yeah, figured as much.
Mama has settled into the research division like she'd never left the frontlines for over thirty years. Even if from Mama's own perspective it's only been a few months, she's diving into everything with zero tension, zero reservation...
Also, the Laboratory and the Hideout are supposed to be in separate buildings with soundproofing installed, yet depending on where you are, her voice punches right through... Yeah, well... I can see how that might make it hard to relax.
And then the results she produces are absolutely ridiculous...
Starting with various pharmaceuticals, selective breeding improvements for Dials, research and development of various Weapons, improvement proposals for the assorted research Dr. Indigo has been working on...
And above all, that research. The Real Deal, the one that even Mama had kept hidden while conducting it.
If I tried to list everything, there'd be no end to it, so I'll spare the details.
Anyway, that's the kind of reason Papa tagged along, and... even by New World standards, we had a pretty excessive amount of firepower assembled.
We all boarded my ship, and using Papa's Powers, we flew toward the scene.
The location wasn't that far away, so it didn't take long to arrive... but something seemed off.
According to Alice's Den Den Mushi call, the battle with those "Pirates messing with our Territory" was supposed to be already over... yet clearly, right now, fighting was very much in progress.
Below us, several Pirate Ships were visible.
Two different Pirate Flags, so two Pirate Crews. Most likely those were the bunch causing trouble around here... I'd thought they'd been dealt with, but there were still more of them.
"Doesn't look like much from up here... Blume, you recognize those Pirate Flags?"
"Let me see... That's the 'Baychop Pirate Crew' and the 'Sunflower Pirate Crew.' Both are only mid-tier even by Paradise standards, so they're nothing extraordinary. As Sue says, 'doesn't look like much' is a fair assessment. However..."
"...The ones fighting them... wait, who's that? That ain't Miss Alice, is it?"
Beauty was right. The ones fighting both those Pirate Crews... at first I'd assumed it was Alice, but it didn't seem to be.
There were two of them. Just two people, taking on several Pirate Ships and hundreds of Pirates, and... dominating.
From this distance... both of them looked like young, cute girls.
"Oh, Mom! I was waiting... wait, Grandpa's here too?"
Oh, found Alice.
At the edge of my vision, I caught sight of her floating up toward us, drifting through the air with no wings or anything, just like Papa does.
Alice, who can float by using her Powers to Reverse gravity. But since that alone only lets her hover... she generates propulsion with Breath Dials built into her shoes to move around.
I'd watched her practicing under Shizu's guidance, learning from someone who flies using thrusters... and she'd completely mastered it now. Fully free to move in any direction.
"Good work, Alice. Getting right to it, but... what's going on here?"
"Um... sorry, I thought it was already taken care of, but it turns out those guys still had more allies... They came for revenge, basically. But then those two said 'We'll handle them' and charged right in."
"So... those two down there are the people you wanted us to meet?"
"Yeah, that's right. ...The fighting is sort of convenient, actually, the way things turned out... Mom, Grandpa, all of you... watch those two carefully! You'll see right away why I said this was 'no ordinary situation'!"
"?"
Apparently I just needed to watch those two fight.
I still didn't fully understand the situation, but as instructed... I decided to observe the two-versus-hundreds battle unfolding below.
Now then, what exactly was there to see...?
Oh, bit late for this, but let me describe the two of them in broad strokes.
One was a girl with short white hair. Age... maybe high school age? Height-wise, within normal human range... with a really good figure.
The weapon in her hands was a glaive... or rather, was that... it had a dragon head ornament on the blade portion... wasn't that a Green Dragon Crescent Blade? The kind of weapon you see in Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
The other one had long blonde hair... also a girl. Her age, height, and figure were about the same as the first.
Actually, it was hard to tell from this distance, but... their faces looked similar too. Sisters?
This one's weapon was a sword. And the blade was jet black... a Black Blade?
The edge had a slight curve giving it a saber-like appearance, but it was overall slender for that. It had a knuckle guard too, so it didn't feel like a Japanese-style blade...
Each had boarded a different Pirate Ship and was putting on quite a show.
Both were strong... the Pirates coming at them couldn't put up a fight at all. And on top of that... both of them were using Armament Haki, albeit lightly.
This was still the First Half of the Grand Line. Haki Users should be quite limited in number here.
Yet I didn't recognize either of them... with skills like that, even if they weren't Pirates, as Bounty Hunters or something... it would be strange if they weren't at least somewhat well-known, yet I had no memory of them.
And of course, I didn't think they were Original Work characters either...
As I was thinking this, the two of them suddenly glanced up in our direction.
Had they noticed? That we were watching... could they possibly use Observation Haki too?
Then the two of them, on separate ships, exchanged glances and gave a small nod.
In that single instant, some kind of eye contact had been completed.
I couldn't tell if it was related to them glancing at us, but...
"...Mom. Grandpa, everyone. It's about to start. Watch."
Beside me, Alice... murmured that with a solemn expression.
Before I could ask "Watch what?", the situation below shifted.
Suddenly, the girl with the Green Dragon Crescent Blade... kicked off the ground (or rather, the deck) hard and threw herself off the Pirate Ship.
I thought she'd fall into the sea, or maybe dive in, but... in that instant, something like a cloud appeared out of thin air with a poof, and the girl landed on top of it.
She didn't fall through. Like an Island Cloud, she stood on it. Riding a cloud through the sky.
'A Milky Dial!? No, wait, in the Blue Sea, Milky Dial clouds shouldn't hold their shape... The improved version Mama's working on isn't finished yet either... And it's a strange shape, isn't it? Like flames.'
While I was thinking all this, she did something astonishing.
Still riding the cloud, she held the glaive in one hand... and with the other hand, pulled back her clenched fist as if drawing it to the opposite side... wait, hold on? That stance was...
The next instant, she swung her fist out in a backhand motion and...
A massive boom echoed.
A sharp cracking sound followed.
As if she'd punched space itself... cracks appeared in the air.
And from there, a shockwave erupted... blowing the Pirate Ship to smithereens.
"...!!!?"
I couldn't believe my eyes.
Beside me, Papa, Beauty, and Blume all had the same reaction. Eyes wide, mouths hanging open, faces that screamed "impossible."
Wasn't that just now... Whitebeard's... the Tremor-Tremor Fruit's Powers!?
The earthquake ability, punching space to release a shockwave.
Right now, by unknown means, Blackbeard had "stolen" it and made it his own. So how could that girl use it!?
I thought maybe it was a similar but different ability, but...
"...Papa?"
"...No doubt about it. That's Newgate's Powers. The output's still well below his, but..."
Papa, who once sailed on the same ship and knew that power intimately, said that. Said it with absolute certainty.
...Which meant the chances of it being something else were vanishingly small.
So then, how...?
An Artificial Devil Fruit, like SMILE or TABOO? Or...
And the surprises didn't end there.
The glaive girl left the shattered ship behind and approached another vessel.
This time she gripped the glaive with both hands, wound up with a wide mid-level swing... and brought it down in one stroke.
A Flying Slash... no, that didn't even begin to cover it!? Dozens upon dozens of wind scythes erupted with power and range far beyond any mere Flying Slash, shredding the target ship to pieces.
Then she swung once more, and this time flames surged along with the slashes... reducing the already battered ship to cinders.
And she wasn't the only one delivering shocks.
The other one, the blonde girl with the sword, was just as astonishing.
Cutting down Pirates one after another, she glared at the surrounding Pirates who were cowering at her overwhelming strength, then flashed a grin and said:
"LIFE or DEAD?"
"...!? That's impossible... Soul Pocus!?"
Next to me, Papa was even more stunned than before, but... so was I.
That was Big Mom's ability. The Soul-Soul Fruit's... the question that steals an opponent's Soul.
If the person asked "cowers" before the one who asks...
From the bodies of the Pirates surrounding the girl, something jelly-like... Souls began seeping out.
Without missing a beat, the girl slashed through them with a single sweep of her sword... severing them from the Pirates themselves.
Several of those Pirates, their lifespans perhaps drained entirely, collapsed and stopped moving.
Furthermore, from that blade... whether this too was some kind of ability, dozens of bats appeared and flew outward.
About half of them grabbed the severed Souls drifting through the air and carried them back to the girl.
The other half... bit directly into the Pirates, and... the bitten Pirates shriveled up before our eyes, becoming wrinkled husks... and they too collapsed and stopped moving.
Had their blood been drained dry? But even so... something about the way it happened seemed different...
Regardless... this was definitely "no ordinary situation."
The Tremor-Tremor Fruit and the Soul-Soul Fruit... they were using the Powers of Devil Fruits whose current users were already known, and on top of that... each of their weapons appeared to be displaying abnormal abilities of their own.
The Green Dragon Crescent Blade one had now fired off lightning too... that made flames, wind, and lightning. Three elements. And the power was clearly beyond anything achievable with Dials or the like.
The Black Blade one... bats? What even was that? I couldn't make sense of it. There was absolutely no way that was some kind of Dial mechanism.
Could those weapons have been given Devil Fruit Powers through the method of "feeding" a Devil Fruit to an inanimate object...?
Neither made any sense, but especially the Green Dragon Crescent Blade... was there really a Devil Fruit out there with such a diverse arsenal of attacks...?
While I searched for answers that wouldn't come, the two girls' rampage continued.
Shattering ships with earthquake shockwaves, shredding them with vacuum blades, electrocuting with lightning, incinerating with flames.
Stealing lifespans with Soul Pocus, sending bats from the sword to feast on the remains.
One had devastating firepower, the other went straight for their very lives.
Overwhelmingly powerful, utterly merciless... and completely unknown.
...I could understand perfectly well why Alice had said she "couldn't handle this" and "couldn't make the call," and had come crying to me without hesitation.
'...But still... it kind of looked like those two started showing off their abilities on purpose once we arrived. They were clearly aware of us, and kept glancing up this way while fighting... I wonder why?'
As I watched the very last ship being smashed to pieces before my eyes, the Pirate Crews annihilated... those were the thoughts running through my mind.
***
Before long, we... landed on a nearby island.
There, we stood face to face with the two who had just been wreaking havoc on those Pirates.
My impression was about the same as from a distance... both of them had different hair colors and lengths, but... both had great figures and were on the taller side. Cute faces... so similar they could be twins.
No, they might actually be twins. The strong difference in their hair and the slight difference in their eyes made it harder to tell, but... they were similar enough for that.
Not white hair, but platinum blonde in a short cut, carrying the Green Dragon Crescent Blade.
Golden blonde with long hair, carrying the Black Blade.
The two of them had put away their weapons and stepped forward before us with solemn expressions.
Now then, we'd ended up watching a battle scene right from the start, and seen all manner of things that couldn't be ignored, but... originally, these two had wanted to meet me.
Just as I was about to ask what they wanted, and before that, who they even were...
"...Sniff...!"
For some reason, the long-haired blonde girl suddenly teared up in front of us... or rather, in front of me. Wait, what? Out of nowhere?
Before the conversation even started, this girl looked like she was on the verge of being overcome with emotion, and I couldn't help but be taken aback. ...I'd had so many things to ask, things I needed to ask, and I'd been planning to hear them out with as composed a demeanor as possible... but this caught me off guard.
That said, she clearly hadn't intended to throw off my pace or anything. It really did seem involuntary... and the white-haired girl beside her scrambled to intervene.
"Hey, what are you doing, Iris! We're about to ask them to hear us out and you..."
"I know, I know, Snow... but seeing her right in front of me... I couldn't hold it in... because, because..."
"Mom is... really, truly alive...!"
'...Excuse me?'
...Mom?
Um... who, exactly?
It felt like she was looking at me while saying it... wait, me?
...No no no, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Papa and the others were all looking at me, but as you well know, I'm single, and I have no memory of taking in a new "daughter," okay? Sometimes Blume and others jokingly call me "Mom," but... my daughters at present are Suzu, Leona, and Alice right there. Three, and only three.
And yet, calling me their mother... but somehow, it didn't feel like they were making things up, either...?
What on earth were they actually saying...?
As for the two of them, the white-haired girl called Snow had been trying to calm down the blonde girl called Iris, but since the sobbing wouldn't stop, she apparently gave up and let her be for the moment, deciding to begin the explanation herself.
"I apologize for this state of affairs. Iris... if you could set this one aside for the moment... I, Snow, shall handle the explanation."
"...Fine, I suppose... There's a lot I want to ask, but first, what did she mean just now? I... don't recall having any children besides the ones I'm raising now."
Maybe, just maybe, this was one of those situations where someone famous suddenly discovers they have "relatives" coming out of the woodwork, imposters claiming to be my daughters... but no, it didn't feel like that either, strangely enough.
I sensed no malice. If anything, what I was picking up from them was... pure goodwill? That's what my Observation Haki was telling me.
"We will, of course, explain that as well. However, the content is so fantastical that if we simply told you outright, there is a strong chance you would not believe us... so could you please look at this first?"
What Snow held out was a single book.
Fairly thick, somewhat old and worn-looking, but what on earth...
"...!?"
Looking at the cover of the book she offered... I froze.
Alice and Blume, peering over from the side, looked at the book after me... but they only got puzzled expressions.
"Huh, this... the author's name, isn't that you, Mom? Does that mean you wrote this book? But..."
"...I don't recall you writing a book like this, Sue?"
"...I didn't. Not yet, anyway..."
"? What do you mean?"
Without answering Alice's question, I flipped through the pages of the book I'd been handed.
Even speed-reading meant skimming, but for getting the gist, that was enough. ...I could feel the furrow between my brows deepening the more I read.
'This title... this story... even the character names, all of it...'
Finally, I checked the publication date printed on the inside of the back cover.
"...? What's this, the publication date is... a year from now?"
"..."
Normally, you'd think it was just a printing error, a strange date that meant nothing.
As Beauty had just blurted out, the listed publication date was roughly one year in the future.
But if this wasn't a mistake or anything of the sort...
If they were carrying a book published on that date, then... they couldn't possibly be...
"You, of all people, should recognize the contents written in that book. After all, what's there is... something you, as you are now, have not yet written. Something that should exist only as ideas inside your head... a story that would originally be published one year from now, on that very date. And..."
"For us, it's a book that was read to us over and over since we were little... a book full of memories of you. We've reread it hundreds, thousands of times until it's falling apart... but it brings back our days together with Mom... it's our treasure."
The blonde girl, Iris, her sobbing finally subsided, continued from there.
Stubbornly using the word "Mom" without change... her eyes still brimming with emotion, looking straight at me... she said that.
Wait wait wait wait hold on hold on hold on hold on... seriously? Seriously, is that what this is!?
Well, sure, if "that" were the case, then I suppose what I'd just witnessed could technically be explained... but even so, this was just too...!
But then, right after that.
Snow and Iris. The two who looked so much alike... gazed straight into my eyes and declared clearly:
"I am Venerdi Toto Snow. She is Venerdi Toto Iris. We are twin sisters, and... as you may have gathered from our names and what we've just told you..."
"We are... your daughters, who have come from twenty years in the future...!"
To be continued...