Go back to
the past?
At those words, a flash of disbelief crossed Ozz's eyes, quickly chased by excitement.
Whoosh.
In the blink of an eye he was in front of Vegapunk. The scientist barely had time to blink before a pair of scarlet eyes, bright with predatory light, filled his view.
"Hey, Vegapunk, when you say go back to the past, do you mean what I think you mean."
This world has plenty of rule-bending powers. Spatial tricks are a dime a dozen, and even time is not unheard of. Lady Toki's Paramecia, the Toki Toki no Mi, can send people and objects forward to a future point, but only forward, never back.
Ozz had once toyed with a stupid idea. What if he stayed young and crashed the Supernova generation alongside Luffy. The notion died as quickly as it came. Not realistic. Much better to grow into a monster and steamroll.
That gaze of Ozz's looked like it could eat a man whole. Vegapunk gulped, stuck his tongue out in a nervous tic, and took an involuntary step back.
"Do not be hasty."
He mopped his brow. That reaction was a bit much.
He raised the odd device in his hands. It was roughly spherical, but irregular, like a lumpy star.
"To be precise, I got lucky. Among the Devil Fruit users the World Government captured and froze, I found one with a very special ability. It does relate to time, but the limitations are severe."
As Vegapunk spoke, Ozz pieced the rest together.
He knew the pattern. For centuries the Government has frozen the truly dangerous users instead of killing them outright, to stop those strange Fruits from respawning somewhere in the wild. Let some ambitious fool eat one, and the threat returns. So like Boundman Bullet in Impel Down's Level 6, there are plenty of ghosts down there with names no one remembers.
From one such specimen Vegapunk extracted Green Blood, then burned mountains of money and cranked through obscene amounts of engineering.
The result was a pseudo time machine.
"You are saying the constraints are heavy."
Vegapunk nodded earnestly.
"That is right. As far as I know, perfect time travel is essentially impossible, Toki Toki no Mi aside. And even with Toki Toki, you can only push into the future, not rewrite the past. The same applies here. Which is why I asked whether you wanted to go play in the past, not truly return to it."
That brought up the old paradox.
If Ozz went back and strangled his infant self, he would never grow up, which means he could not go back to do the strangling. Contradiction baked in.
"So. There are rules.
First, the past cannot be changed. No matter what you do, all you create is a branching timeline, a parallel world.
Second, you cannot travel to a period after you were born."
In other words, no dropping into any year after Ozz's birth. That placed the cutoff shortly after God Valley. Old Gick returned home and found a newborn Ozz.
"Third, there is a time limit. When time is up, you snap back to this world. You cannot bring anything back."
Ozz rubbed his chin. Stringent, but it was time. Treat it like a sandbox. Go mess around. Nothing here gets broken.
He still had one question.
"What is the limit."
Vegapunk thought, tapped on the casing, did a quick series of calculations, and gave him a number that sounded more like weather than physics.
"In theory, the stronger you are, the longer you can remain, because you can channel more of the Fruit's force. For someone like you, Mr. Ozz"
"Between one and two years."
""
Ozz had braced for a day. Maybe three.
A year or two.
Now that was interesting.
A long trip.
Vegapunk added that Ozz could pop back early if he wanted. Ozz did not. It was only Sea Circle Calendar 1505. The stories he wanted to poke were still a ways off. No need to rush. Compared to that baby-brutal era called the Worst Generation, the era of true monsters tugged at him more.
"No rush. I need to put my house in order first."
He would be vanishing from the sea for quite a while. With an empire this sprawling, you leave a note. Otherwise half the world would declare him dead by lunchtime.
Brrrr brrrr.
In Vegapunk's lounge, Ozz cooled his pulse and dialed the first number. Little Hawk.
A moment later a pair of razor hawk-eyes appeared on the Den Den Mushi's face.
Click.
"What is it, Ozz."
On his plank boat Mihawk had just lit a few moody candles. He glanced at the snail. The slightly upturned corners of its mouth said Ozz was in an uncommonly good mood.
"Nothing urgent, Little Hawk."
A service robot handed Ozz a chilled drink. He could not quite repress the smile.
"I am calling to say I will be gone for a while. I need you to keep an eye on my people."
Mihawk frowned in mild confusion. This man was always drifting somewhere. Where could he possibly be going.
Still, after so many years, Mihawk did not pry.
"How long."
The question alone moved Ozz. Classic Little Hawk.
Most dependable king's right hand.
"A year or two. I will not be appearing on the seas during that time. If the underworld, the Kingdom of Moradus, or Fishman Island hit trouble, I am counting on you. The others will help."
Mihawk nodded without fuss.
"I understand."
He looked down at the black blade Yoru. Scarlet lightning crawled along the steel.
"This sea will not fall into chaos."
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