Chapter 16

POV Ace

Syrup was happily enjoying her vacation and the look on her face when she realized she could…well, I just couldn’t tell her no. So it’ll be another depressing week of no-Syrup.

My employees who knew that I unofficially ranked higher than Garaki were avoiding me pretty well ever since my ‘girlfriend or something’ was gone for the week. Well…I’m not one to throw tantrums or put my stress on anyone else but I guess I was just oozing that atmosphere.

Still, I had things I needed to do and one of those things were really important. Syrup recently told me the truth regarding her strength…not really the local kind I found out. She didn’t explain everything but I managed to piece together the most important parts of her story and power.

How to begin...

Yes.

Both Syrup and I remembered as clear as day on what happened right before we were thrown into this world like a kid throwing his toy into the corner of his room. Both of us considered ourselves to be among the strongest in the world. Respected among our crew and feared for our influence and power around the world. Heck, there was a global war waged on my life.

But her...that god, that Supreme Being...

It was humiliating. It was humbling. It was terrifying.

We risked our lives each time we set out to sea but the notion that our lives could be taken so easily, on nothing but a whim, frightened us to the core...more Syrup than me.

She changed without even knowing it. The girl who sought freedom above all else was now prioritizing survival, not that I blame her or anything as I agreed with her. An experience like that would change anyone.

She created this massive organization to serve as a way for her to continuously gain more and more power as quirks centralized and as generations passed follow what Garaki said - focus into a single point, becoming stronger and stronger. If all else fails, she made contingency plans to use the entirety of the world shaking corporation as a buffer to hide her and myself while she, apparently, prays to another divine figure.

The said divine being having the one to have given her the power and opportunity to live and fight like she did in the first place.

Through some sort of divine blessing, she received three main abilities. First one being how she can always remain calm and impenetrable when it comes to her observation haki; a skill called Calm Mind. Quite self explanatory but even I could see the use of a skill like that. A perfect mental protection…even against yourself.

Next one was the secret to how she managed to grow and learn so quickly. Her mimic as she liked to call it. Basically the ability to understand how things work instantly and then reproduce it on her own if it’s possible. Wow…now that’s what I would call a cheat ability. No wonder she was getting so fast, especially after facing ridiculously strong opponents who should have been out of her range…and she somehow emerged victorious.

The final blessing was something that was truly groundbreaking. Limit Removal or rather a form of capture/instant death avoidance which had a ridiculous side affect of being perfectly fine after consuming more than one Devil Fruits.

Thinking back, this really did make a lot of sense. When Syrup first boarded the Moby Dick and told Pops to shove it up his ass…well, she used the overpowered Space manipulating fruit to take most of us down before Pops took matters into his own hand (quite literally too). Still, this would answer why did never showed any signs of the tell-tale sign of snow she is so fond of using today; another one would be that she wasn’t exactly lucky during our fight when she was supposed to be. She’s always lucky…probability and chance manipulation.

So this means she must have consumed another devil fruit after she fought with us and like a good devil fruit user, she immediately trained the fruit to the point of mastery. Typical Syrup behavior.

What this meant was Syrup had a way to continuously grow stronger and stronger and perhaps even gain traction. But what about me? I was still that same Fire Logia bound to the rules of ‘One Piece’.

This resulted in a rather heated discussion between me, Syrup, and the doctor as we looked for ways to grow stronger in this quirky world. The obvious answer came quite easily…get a quirk.

But not just any quirk. Unfortunately like real Devil Fruits, the apples GrandLine produced were only limited to one. After a couple of tests by the doctor we came to the conclusion that if we wanted to play it safe, I could consume one quirk to make it completely my own and inject 2 more as a side-line.

So basically…one fruit. One Quirk. It needed to be good…something that had the potential of continuously evolving so I could follow Syrup and never fall behind in our quest for total freedom and power.

The answer came rather easily. I wanted more like Syrup had, and what better quirk than one that can continuously take more? Thus, Syrup and I made Garaki spill all he knew about the quirk ‘All For One’ and immediately decided this was what we wanted. Not the original but our version of it. We didn’t want a dead man’s soul stuck inside my head continuously haunting my wet dreams…ewww, no.

Abusin—-I mena using GrandLine’s privacy code we looked into the medical records and information the company had stockpiled on suspicious individuals over the years. We weren’t able to find All For One but we got enough to get us a lead. A couple of kidnappings, happy interrogation sessions, and a couple mind extractions and truth telling quirks later we knew exactly what All For One was after.

All Might. The One For All.

Another good quirk. Perhaps I’ll think about getting that too after I acquire All For One.

Anyway, using that bit of information, we prepared our trap to lure out both apex predators of their respective worlds. Using the bait of All For One, we sneaked the news privately into the dumb hero’s ears. The man didn’t even doubt it as he immediately informed the Commission that he would need to leave for a short while.

This private bit of information we purposely leaked to a couple of lackeys that may have been connected to All For One. It was a gamble…but it paid off. The moment we saw a shift in the Underworld and mass cleansing happening near the region, we knew that someone powerful was there. Who else other than the evil overlord himself?

Bingo

The trap was sprung and Syrup crashed the meeting of the two in time and harvested All For One’s body. She told me she was considering killing All Might and getting One For All as well but that would just make it way too suspicious and inconvenient for other future trips and events.

Handing off the body to Garaki, we seedified the quirk.

Garaki: The quirk was cleansed as you have ordered. The new fruit will have no part or influence of my old master.

Good. But then I saw the old man fidget a bit uncomfortably.

Garaki: The thing is…All For One is an entirely new breed. The seed will grow like normal but the fruit will need to ripen for it to be perfect. It’ll need 6 years from now until you can eat it.

7 years…7 years… That was a long time. But was it really? With my new form of semi-immortality time was no longer an issue. I just needed to make sure nobody would know of this fruit being grown under the grounds of Japan until I had taken it.

Me: It’s fine Garaki. Just make sure that the results don’t disappoint me.

Garaki: O-Of course!

6 years worth of time to prepare myself for the most powerful quirk in this world. Well…I’ve got time to burn it seems.

Third Person POV

Location: Japan, The Hero’s Public Safety Commission Office

President: This is not going to be an easy mission…but we must entrust this mission to you.

?: I understand

Agent: The danger that GrandLine poses to our nation has become too large to ignore any longer. Despite their size, their outstanding level of technology and use of high-tier quirk holders have halted our efforts to keep some sort of leash on them.

President: We need you to enter their lines and earn their trust. We need you to find out exactly what you are doing…and if there is anything that would risk the safety of our nation…you understand right? Eliminate it, or if it is beyond your level then find a way to contact us.

The young hero raised his head. His eyes still on that bored expression, though on the inside there was turmoil he couldn’t show it. No…he promised himself to never show weakness to these people ever again.

His feathers shuffled uncomfortably as he imagined what his life would be like over the next few years to come. Being the largest corporation in the world…maybe it wouldn’t be too bad, assuming he didn’t get caught of course. Even the number three hero had a limit when it came to a mega—corporation.

Hawk: … Of course.

POV Samuel Smith, the COO of GrandLine. Appointed by Charlotte Syrup & Dr. Kyudai Garaki

As a former Hero for the French Republic, I knew that things weren’t all bling-bling as the news and media wanted the people to believe. There were people going missing everyday, Heroes taking money from villains to turn a blind eye, underworld dealings sending their own men into the Hero Business to gain more influence and so much more.

It was one of the reasons why I began working as a vigilante in my spare time. Taking off my uniform and cape, the chains of the law that held me were no more. As a Vigilante, I would go and remove the threat for good unlike my Hero duties where I needed to give the murderers the right to live and complain.