Lost

Several of the Five Elders looked at one another. One of them spoke up. "Lord Imu, didn’t you already turn him to ashes?"

"He should not be dead…" Imu said with a frown. "I did sense his presence again just now. Although I don’t know why it vanished so suddenly, his resurrection and retreat must have both relied on Devil Fruit abilities!"

"I cannot stray too far from my main body, and it was injured in that battle as well. It will need at least several months to recover."

"In that case, it can only be left to you."

As soon as he finished speaking, Imu turned and walked deeper into Pangea Castle. The Five Elders looked at one another, troubled expressions appearing on their faces.

"What should we do? Is that guy really still alive?"

"With Lord Imu’s power, if he sensed that the man was alive, then he must be alive. Within this range, Lord Imu’s senses are the sharpest."

"But… are we really going to bow our heads to pirates?"

"There is no need to make this matter public. Let those outside speculate all they want. We only need to secretly sound out the Navy."

"When the time comes, we can say that the pirate was killed long ago and ignore whatever anyone else says."

"Even if that Plunderer revives, he likely would not dare come to Mary Geoise again."

"Good, we’ll do that!"

Navy Headquarters, Mary Geoise.

Sengoku stared solemnly at the intelligence in his hands. A moment later, Garp, who was picking his nose while eating snacks, and Tsuru, wearing a gentle smile, walked in.

"What is it, Sengoku? Why did you call us here for an emergency meeting?" Garp flicked away what he had picked from his nose, sending it onto the head of Sengoku’s pet goat.

Yet this time, Sengoku did not fly into a rage. He merely shot Garp an irritated look and said coldly, "Take this intelligence and read it."

Garp scratched his head. "You know how I am. I can barely recognize half these words. Read what?"

Rolling his eyes, Sengoku swallowed the curse words rising in his throat. Even if he cursed Garp for being an illiterate old fool, the man would only look proud instead of ashamed.

Vice Admiral Tsuru chuckled as she picked up the intelligence. After one glance, her expression gradually turned grave.

Setting down the report, Vice Admiral Tsuru looked at Sengoku and asked, "Is what it says true? That Plunderer is so powerful that even if all of us mobilize, we still could not handle him?"

Sengoku nodded silently, then finally let out a sigh.

"You may not know this, but when I first became Fleet Admiral, I once went to Holy Land Mary Geoise. There, I vaguely sensed a monster so powerful it defied belief!"

"As the user of the Great Buddha Fruit, you know what my perception and wisdom are like."

"The feeling that person gave me back then was that even if every one of the Navy’s highest-ranking combatants mobilized, we would still be no match for him!"

"Yet according to this intelligence, Mary Geoise suffered a considerable loss this time… That shows just how powerful this Plunderer is."

Vice Admiral Tsuru frowned deeply. As the user of the Buddha Fruit, Sengoku indeed possessed abilities that were almost supernatural. Therefore, even if his perception was slightly off, the error could not be large.

Moreover, even without taking Sengoku’s judgment into account, the fact that the World Government had ordered the Navy to avoid a pirate at all costs—unless there was some other scheme behind it—could only mean that pirate was so powerful that even the World Government understood the Navy was absolutely no match for him, perhaps not even of any use at all.

Otherwise, given the World Government’s nature, so long as the Navy had even the slightest chance of winning, they would order it to press forward regardless of losses. They would never consider the Navy’s casualties.

As he watched Sengoku and Tsuru discuss the matter, especially after hearing that a pirate had actually caused havoc in Mary Geoise and made the World Government order the Navy to avoid him at all costs afterward, Garp stretched his neck out while munching on a doughnut and looked at the report in Tsuru’s hands. Though he claimed he could not recognize all the words, Garp had served in the Navy for so many years that he could recognize most of them and barely piece them together.

"Whitebeard Pirates… Plunderer… losses… strict surveillance… no action without orders…"

"So the World Government suspects we can’t handle this brat called Yota?" Garp asked in astonishment.

"If you read that correctly, then that is exactly what the World Government means." Sengoku frowned. "There is another matter as well. How exactly did this Plunderer eat so many Devil Fruits?"

"Though the sea is full of strange things… this guy has far too many Devil Fruit abilities."

"According to the intelligence, the abilities he has revealed include healing, devouring, some kind of dark element, controlling soil and water, powerful bursts of strength, summoning energy armor, manipulating gravity, transforming into a giant dragon, and a substitute!"

"Many of those abilities cannot possibly be connected, so they are clearly multiple Devil Fruits."

"The only question is, how many Devil Fruits can he eat?"

Sengoku spoke with a furrowed brow, but Garp raised his hand at that moment.

"Hey, Sengoku, you seem to have forgotten something. The Three Admirals are currently… guarding that Yota over at the Sabaody Archipelago, right?"

Sengoku’s expression changed drastically. "Quick! Call them back immediately!"

So where was Yota now?

"Where exactly am I?" Yota sat atop an ice sheet he had created with Ice Release, frowning.

When he had first clashed with Imu, Yota had seized the opportunity to throw out a space-time coordinate kunai.

With all of Yota’s buffs active at the time, even he had no idea how far that coordinate had flown. Besides, Mary Geoise was seven or eight thousand meters high, and the two had been fighting roughly a thousand meters in the air.

Everyone knew that the higher up an object was thrown from, the farther it tended to fly. With a flick of Yota’s hand, that space-time coordinate kunai had shot away at several times the speed of sound.

He had no idea whether it had flown hundreds or thousands of kilometers. In any case, by the time Yota used his space-time ninjutsu to transfer himself there, he had already fallen into the sea.

Fortunately, besides his Pirate World abilities, he still had Chakra from the Naruto World as a backup. Otherwise, even though his body modifications gave him some ability to breathe underwater and his physical strength made the seawater’s suppression less severe, swimming in the sea was hardly a pleasant experience.

Using Chakra to activate the Rinne Tenseigan, he forcibly pushed the seawater aside and flew into the air. Only then did Yota discover that he had arrived in an unknown stretch of ocean—there were no islands anywhere in sight.

Thus, Yota could only create a sheet of ice on the sea for the time being and use it as a foothold.