Although the main objective was his Devil Fruit, avoiding a disaster in the process didn't change anything.
Shyarly was left speechless.
Then she heard Luffy ask:
"You're really not the user of some Prophecy-type Devil Fruit?"
"Natural ability," Shyarly replied calmly.
But her thoughts were still on Shiki.
What she had seen was East Blue destroyed, transformed into a sea of flames. Countless kingdoms lay in ruins, people were weeping, and Shiki stood laughing uncontrollably in the sky.
Everything she saw was on the verge of happening.
Unless there existed a very special anomaly capable of interfering with her prophecy.
Looking at Luffy—that anomaly was him.
"Your abilities are amazing! Why don't you join my crew?"
Luffy instantly extended an invitation. The power to foresee the future was just too outrageous.
"I refuse!"
Shyarly flatly rejected him, saying angrily: "I don't want to be a pirate."
"Yeah?"
Luffy laughed, secretly thinking that the next time he came to Fish-Man Island, he might just kidnap her.
"Farewell, then."
With that, he turned and left.
Shyarly watched him disappear through the doorway and couldn't help but murmur:
"Can you really stop it?"
She didn't know.
She couldn't predict Luffy's future.
---
Straw Hat docking port.
Once Luffy returned, everyone was ready to depart.
"Goodbye, Neptune, Shirahoshi, Fukaboshi… by the way, where are the other two?"
Luffy stood on the deck of the Sunny, waving as he bid farewell to the people of Fish-Man Island.
(If I remember right, there should be two older brothers.)
"Luffy, Manboshi and Ryuboshi are busy driving off pirates…" Fukaboshi explained. "Because of Whitebeard's death and his words before dying, the number of pirates arriving at Fish-Man Island recently has been more than ten times higher than in previous years."
"Remember to hang the Straw Hat flag all over Fish-Man Island. I want to see if there are any pirates bold enough to cause trouble after that."
Luffy grinned and waved at them.
Suddenly, Shirahoshi stepped forward, pressed her hands against the Sunny's side, leaned her face closer, and shouted:
"Luffy, you must come back!!"
"Got it, I'll come back. Next time, don't cry. And be careful about summoning the Sea Kings."
"It's a promise!"
"Fine, I'll remember."
After making a pinky promise with Shirahoshi, they finally bid farewell to everyone on Fish-Man Island.
Luckily, Luffy was rubber—most people couldn't even reach to make such a promise with Shirahoshi.
From the shore, Neptune waved:
"Safe travels, Luffy! Give my regards to Garp!"
To descend to Fish-Man Island, they had relied on Laboon's strength.
But to ascend, they used the regular passage.
At the Immigration Department, mermaids covered the ships in bubble-coating and attached buoyant wooden blocks.
Pulled upward by those floats, the ships rose toward the New World.
Jinbei and the Sun Pirates had long been waiting, and after meeting up with the Sunny, they officially joined the fleet.
"Luffy, let me lead the way. If you hit a special current, you could be swept off course," Jinbei called out.
Soon, under Jinbei's guidance, the ships entered the New World without encountering any serious danger.
---
The New World.
Above the sea.
Riding the rise and fall of the waves, one pirate ship after another surfaced.
With a boom, the bubbles coating their hulls burst rapidly.
On the Sunny's deck—
Nami studied the new Log Pose.
The three needles pointed in different directions, while the central one kept trembling back and forth, quivering lightly.
"Luffy, which island are we heading to? There are three choices, but the middle one looks like the most dangerous."
Luffy clearly remembered two of the islands the needles pointed toward.
They were Punk Hazard and Thunder Island.
The most dangerous one was, of course, Thunder Island, shrouded in storm clouds that ceaselessly struck the land with lightning.
Each island represented 10,000 Adventure Coins.
In the future, if he had the chance, he planned to visit them all to earn those coins.
As for the original story, Punk Hazard was where the Straw Hat crew first landed.
That island had no magnetic field, which was exactly why the government had chosen it as a secret research base.
"Speaking of which, Sengoku should be retiring soon, and those two will have to fight eventually."
The Marines leaned toward Aokiji, but the World Government favored Akainu.
For the position of Fleet Admiral, the two would inevitably clash.
Thinking of this, Luffy pulled an Eternal Pose from his pocket and handed it to Nami.
"We'll go to this island first."
"This is…?" Nami blinked in surprise. "An Eternal Pose to… Elegia?"
She read the text on the pointer's frame aloud.
"Elegia?" Vivi's eyes widened. "I've heard of it—the Capital of Music. A very famous island, but it was destroyed in a disaster ten years ago."
"What kind of disaster could wipe out an entire island?" Nami asked in shock.
A battle between Yonko, perhaps?
"It was Shanks the Red-Haired's doing…" Robin glanced at Luffy and said softly, "He wasn't a Yonko yet at that time, but for some reason, he led the Red-Hair Pirates to destroy the island completely. After that, the government issued a bounty of billions on his head."
Hearing this, every girl on the deck turned their eyes to Luffy.
Everyone knew about Luffy's connection with Shanks.
"There were reasons," Luffy said. "I'll explain slowly on the way."
After a pause, his tone grew serious:
"Unlike Paradise, the New World is ruled by the Yonko. And now, only three remain."
"There are so many powerful people here that moving around without Haki is almost impossible."
"That's why, first, we need to find a base and train!"
The base had to meet two conditions.
First, the World Government couldn't know about it. Elegia was no longer marked on maps. It was listed as a destroyed island, and now it was uninhabited.
Second, the environment had to be relatively safe. It couldn't be like Thunder Island, where lightning struck day and night, making even sleep impossible.
Elegia fit both requirements perfectly.
Of course, there was another reason as well.
He wanted to rush there to see his childhood friend!
"In any case, spread the word to everyone. Our next destination is Elegia!"
---
End of Chapter
"Hmph. If you really want to be useful, then entertain me, try to throw those pathetic power stones at me. Let's see if even your insolence can amuse a king."