The sky remained dark.
Within the Florian Triangle.
Aboard the Thousand Sunny.
The afro-haired skeleton had boarded the ship while everyone else looked speechless—and Usopp and Chopper trembled in fear.
"Yohohoho! I apologize for causing trouble for everyone with my ship. I am Brook, a man who has died and been reduced to nothing but bones. Please take care of !"
The gentlemanly skeleton radiated an oddly cheerful aura.
"WHO ARE YOU, EXACTLY?!" everyone shouted at once.
"Haa…" Sanji lit a cigarette.
"Our idiot captain already invited him to join the crew. Better get used to it."
"WHAT?!" the others froze in shock.
"So what exactly was the point of you going over there, Curly-Brows?" Zoro glanced sideways at Sanji.
"Tch! It would've been the sa if you went. We're just crew mbers. If the captain has already decided sothing, what do you expect to say?" Sanji replied while walking toward the dining room.
Suddenly—
Brook stepped closer to Robin.
"Beautiful lady, may I see your panties?"
The mont those words left his mouth—
Sanji vanished.
A leg appeared in front of Brook out of thin air.
BAM!
A huge bump instantly ford on Brook's skull.
"Luffy… do you really want this guy on the crew?" Sanji asked calmly.
Clearly, if Brook weren't under Luffy's protection, he might already be dead.
"Hahahaha! Don't you think he's interesting?" Luffy laughed loudly.
With his strength and perspective, sothing like that didn't bother him much.
The others still hadn't fully accepted Brook, but it was only because they didn't know him yet.
Looking at Usopp and Chopper clutching crosses in terror, Luffy grabbed them both by the collars.
"Let's head to the dining room. Sanji, dinner's ready, right?"
"Yeah."
Sanji followed behind him.
No one ntioned kicking Brook off the ship anymore.
Brook slowly stood up and rubbed the bump on his skull.
"Ouch… that really hurt."
"But… why do I feel so happy inside?"
He hopped happily into the dining room.
After decades alone in this cursed sea, this was the first ti he truly felt alive.
Dinner on the Thousand Sunny
The dining room was brightly lit.
"What a luxurious dining hall! This ship is absolutely wonderful! Yohohoho!" Brook praised endlessly.
anwhile, soone's head lifted higher and higher.
"Well of course! This is the SUPER dream ship I built!" Franky boasted proudly.
Clearly, Brook had flattered the right person.
Sanji stood at the stove with one hand in his pocket and a cigarette hanging from his mouth while he cooked.
"I'm really looking forward to this… I haven't eaten anything in decades."
"Every day I lived with the pain of an empty stomach, barely surviving."
Brook's voice lowered slightly.
Everyone fell silent.
Even Chopper, who had been terrified monts earlier, felt moved.
"Brook…"
"Yohohoho! But since I'm a skeleton, I don't actually have a chest or a back! Skeleton joke!"
Brook burst out laughing.
"Skeleton joke!!" Luffy clapped excitedly.
The others felt sympathy for him now.
The distance between them had quietly shrunk.
"Done!" Sanji broke the heavy mood as he placed dishes on the table.
"Forget everything else for now. Let's eat!"
"Octopus feast!"
Luffy grabbed his knife and fork imdiately.
"Brook, you have to try this. Sanji's cooking is the best in the world!"
"Even more satisfying than filling my stomach… is filling my heart!"
Brook devoured the food enthusiastically.
"Although skeletons can't cry… my soul is deeply moved!"
"Mmmph! Mmmph!" Luffy's mouth was stuffed full of food.
"Oh? That octopus—wasn't it just in the fish tank earlier?"
"Mmmph!"
"This ship is amazing! I've never seen anything like it!"
"Mmmph!"
"Please let tour it later!"
Their forks clashed in perfect rhythm.
They understood each other completely.
Nearby, Nami stared at her takoyaki.
For so reason… it suddenly didn't taste as good.
She glanced at Brook with mild annoyance.
"How can he understand Luffy so easily?!"
Brook's Story
After dinner, the crew gathered around and began asking Brook about his past.
"The Revive-Revive Fruit?" soone asked.
"Yes," Brook nodded.
"I actually died decades ago."
"The Revive-Revive Fruit allows a person to return to life after death."
"Many years ago, my pirate crew sailed into this cursed sea aboard the ship you saw earlier."
"But we encountered enemies far stronger than ourselves…"
"So naturally… we were all killed."
"At that mont, the fruit's power finally activated. Before death, it only made unable to swim."
"After death, my soul returned from the underworld."
"If I had returned to my body quickly, I would've revived normally."
"But because the fog in the Florian Triangle was so thick…"
"I got lost."
"By the ti I finally found my body a year later…"
"All that remained was this skeleton."
"So… you're technically human? No—wait… maybe not human… anyway, you're not a monster, right?!" Usopp trembled while holding a cross.
Zoro leaned forward at the table.
"Then explain sothing."
"Why don't you have a shadow?"
"Don't try to lie to ."
He pushed one of his swords slightly out of its sheath, the blade glinting coldly.
"No… shadow?"
Everyone looked down.
Cold sweat broke out instantly.
The fighters entered combat mode.
Usopp and Chopper hid in the corner.
Nami clung tightly to Luffy's arm.
Brook sighed.
"My missing shadow has nothing to do with being a skeleton."
"It's a long story…"
"My shadow… was stolen."
He looked at Luffy as if trying to engrave his image into mory.
"Mr. Luffy… thank you for inviting onto your ship."
"But without a shadow, I can only survive in darkness."
"I'm sorry… I cannot accept your offer."
At that mont, Franky spoke.
"I want to ask you sothing."
"Please."
"You're a talking skeleton. If you went out into the world, you know what people would think."
"You've spent decades alone on that ship."
"If it were , I'd have gone insane from loneliness."
"So why?"
"Why did you keep living?"
"What kept you going for so long?"
Brook fell silent.
After a long ti, he lowered his head.
"Long ago… our pirate crew left a companion behind sowhere."
"We promised that one day we would return."
"But soon after… we were all wiped out."
"I failed to keep that promise."
"So now that I'm still alive…"
"I have the duty to fulfill it."
"It's been fifty years since then."
Franky's eyes widened.
"Fifty years?! How do you know that companion is still waiting?!"
"What right do I have to assu they stopped waiting for us?" Brook said quietly.
"What if they truly believed in our promise?"
"Imagine the loneliness they must feel…"
"Thinking we betrayed them, yet still hoping we'll co back."
Tears stread down Franky's face.
Usopp and Chopper were crying too.
No one feared Brook anymore.
"Mr. Luffy," Brook said seriously.
"May I ask you a favor?"
"If I die here…"
"Please tell my companion… not to wait anymore."
"That companion we swore to et again at the entrance of the Grand Line…"
"Its na is—"
"Laboon."
"LABOON?!" Zoro, Sanji, Nami, and Usopp shouted.
"You an the whale at Reverse Mountain?!" Nami asked.
"You know him?!"
BAM!
Luffy suddenly slamd the table.
"I'm not agreeing to that."
"If you want to keep your promise…"
"Then go do it yourself."
Luffy pressed down his straw hat.
"Co out."
"You've been watching us for a while."
A white ghost slowly appeared.
"Zoro."
"Got it."
Zoro dashed out of the dining room.
In the dark fog near the looming island, he scanned the area.
"So… invisibility?"
"Interesting."
His eyes glowed red as he focused.
The world seed to peel apart before him.
Then he saw it—
A man with a leopard's face standing at the bow.
"You've got so guts."
Zoro drew Sandai Kitetsu.
This ti he didn't slash.
He thrust.
Moving at blinding speed, Zoro drove the blade straight through the man's chest.
"AAAH—!"
Even as the sword pierced him, Absalom couldn't understand how he had been found.
Monts later, the crew stepped onto the deck.
Before them—
A gigantic island lood in the mist.
Luffy was still holding the white Negative Ghost.
"Dead?" Luffy asked.
"You didn't say you wanted him alive," Zoro replied.
"Whatever. Dead is fine."
Luffy crushed the ghost in his hand.
"Tell Gecko Moria this."
"The Straw Hat Pirates are officially declaring war on one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea."
"Tell him to wait for us."
Luffy adjusted his straw hat and smiled.
"No objections, right?"
The crew grinned.
"Of course not."
Luffy turned to Brook.
"Once we get your shadow back—"
"Join my crew."
"Yes, Captain Luffy."
The fog hung like ink-soaked cotton around towering black masts hundreds of ters tall.
Rusty anchors were tangled with the bones of sea monsters.
Before them stood—
Thriller Bark.
A land of terror.
And the battlefield to co.
A voice echoed in Luffy's mind:
[Chain Quest Triggered: Warlord Hunter]
Defeat or kill current or forr Seven Warlords of the Sea.
Rewards: Unknown (each defeated Warlord grants a reward).
Special Reward: Observation Haki Gift Pack
Requirent: Defeat all current Warlords. Progress 0 / 7
Current Warlords:
Dracule Mihawk
Bartholow Kuma
Boa Hancock
Donquixote Doflamingo
Marshall D. Teach (Blackbeard)
Jinbe
Gecko Moria
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