25 Figuring Out

(3rd POV)

Let's rewind a few moments after the crew finally reached the island and decided to part ways with Vanze to explore on their own.

The group walked to a different directions from Vanze, deciding to look around for survivors and inquire about what had happened on the island.

The island, once a haven of tranquility and beauty, now bore the scars of war. Even the town stood silent and somber, telling the haunting story of conflict and suffering as the group walked through its streets.

The buildings, once proud and grand, now bore the marks of artillery fire and shrapnel. Windows were shattered, walls pockmarked, and roofs caved in. The streets were littered with debris and rubble, as if the island itself had wept tears of broken concrete and twisted metal. It was as if the very fabric of the town had been torn apart, left to bleed and lament its losses.

Observing the dismal state of the town, one of the girls adorned with snake-like earrings finally broke the silence. "This is the most destroyed place we have ever visited. Just what happened to this place?"

The other girl, with long black hair and holding hands with a little girl, continued walking beside them, responding to her friend's inquiry. "Most likely, a war happened. No, it's more like a massacre. There is no sign of fighting, only destruction so far, the deeper we go into this town," she said while examining the town.

The little girl, with red and white hair and holding hands with the black-haired woman, looked around with a sorrowful expression. She tightened her grip while seeking comfort from her big sister.

"It's okay, Uta-chan, we're all here now," she said while looking down at her. She tried to console Uta, who was witnessing such a scene for the first time. Uta nodded after hearing her big sister's words.

They continued their journey, leaving the ruined town behind after finding no survivors there. The group headed towards the woods until the large-winged man suddenly sensed something with his Kenbunshoku Haki in the woods not far from them.

"There is someone there, it looks like they are being chased," he said, informing the group. Suddenly, without any notice, one of the girls with a giant kanabo started running swiftly in the direction the winged guy pointed.

"Yamato! Wait!" The girl with snake earrings chased after Yamato and disappeared rapidly from her current position.

"Azel, can you please chase Yamato and Hancock first? I will follow you shortly with Uta later," the black-haired woman instructed. The man named Azel nodded, spreading his giant black wings, and swiftly took off towards his companions.

"Um... Did I slow you down, Robin nee-chan?" Uta asked, lowering her head. Her vibrant self was not visible this time around after witnessing all these events; she seemed overwhelmed with everything.

The black-haired girl named Robin patted and ruffled her hair slowly, attempting to reassure her. "Nope, you didn't. We can walk slowly and take our time. The three of them are strong, so I'm not concerned, but Yamato tends to do reckless things, so I sent Azel to go after her, the same with Hancock. So you don't need to worry, Uta, fufufu," she said.

Uta raised her head and stared at Robin after hearing that for a while before finally nodding her head with a solemn expression. It was her first time witnessing the cruelty of the world and the strength of her big sisters and brothers. To avoid disappointing them, she vowed to be strong, not only in physical strength but also in mentality.

"Un, let's go then, Robin nee-chan." Uta replied. Robin, seeing Uta's expression becoming a little bit better compared to before, just smiled. She herself understood such feelings from her past, feeling relieved that Uta could find the answer herself.

Both of them resumed their walk toward the inner forest. Meanwhile, Yamato arrived first and saw a few women and children being chased by a group of strange men holding weapons, all with the same face and body structure.

Without wasting time, she accelerated using Soru toward their direction, gathering momentum with her kanabo to strike them forcefully.

Arriving in front of them, she caught them off guard and swung her kanabo so hard that it hit two of the pursuers, sending them flying into a tree and demolishing part of it. Yamato continued her assault on the one beside her when Hancock also arrived. Observing the situation, she shouted something to Yamato.

"Yamato! Leave some alive; we need to interrogate them." She reminded Yamato. Seeing there were only a few of them left while Yamato was dealing with the others, she chose the most effective way to deal with them. She finally unleashed her devil fruit power and fixed her gaze on them.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Several shots of guns could be heard and were aimed toward Hancock, but she just moved her head and body slightly while avoiding the bullets with her Kenbunshoku Haki. She stared at them and noticed her passive petrified power didn't seem too effective, and it irritated her.

"You mongrel! How dare you to attack and resist this concubine power!? You are wasting my time, Slave Arrow!" She declared.

Taking a deep breath, she kissed out a heart, then pulled the heart back with a hand. With a pop like that of a bubble, hundreds of pink arrows were fired, bombarding her opponents before petrifying them. The sheer number of arrows unleashed made this move particularly challenging to evade. This technique not only petrified anyone and anything it hit but somehow managed to freeze them in place, whether or not they were in motion.

The pursuers attempted to dodge the arrows, but it was too overwhelming, and eventually, they succumbed to being petrified; even the trees around experienced the same fate. Hancock instructed Yamato to hold back, but she was the one doing an overkill here.

Returning to Yamato, she had already finished incapacitating the last two men when suddenly, a final man hidden in the bushes behind her appeared and attempted to stab her.

Yamato appeared not to notice or was simply oblivious to her situation, letting her guard down. As the sword almost reached her, a big-winged man descended from the sky, swinging his sword to intercept the attacker and severing him into two parts from head to toe.

"You should be more careful, Yamato." The man who halted the attack was Azel. He swung his nodachi once again to clean the blood from it before sheathing it back at his side.

"Hehe, I knew you were watching up there and would stop him before I got stabbed. Thanks, Azel. But Hancock, it seems you're doing an overkill here compared to me. Look, I even brought these two guys alive for an interrogating session." Yamato said to Azel before walking to Hancock while dragging her two victims.

"Hmph! I just got carried away..." She turned her head away, refusing to admit her mistakes. Yamato and Azel just shook their heads, watching her antics.

Not long after, Robin and Uta also arrived while the others were already trying to calm down the women and children who were shocked seeing their pursuers defeated so easily by these newcomers.

"Thank you so much for helping us, young ladies. Without your help, maybe we will never see the next day," expressed one of the victims, shaking Yamato's hand in gratitude. The other survivors bowed their heads, also conveying their thanks.

"It's fine; we were just passing by and heard your screams, so we came to help," Yamato responded, scratching her cheek with a hint of embarrassment about receiving their thanks.

Observing that the survivors were now calm, Robin approached them and inquired, "What happened here, if you don't mind sharing? The town and the island look like they're in terrible condition."

"Sigh, we were being attacked. Early in the morning, there were a lot of explosions, and people with a similar look, holding weapons, attacked our island, killing and even kidnapping the survivors. We don't know which army they are from, but a girl with pink hair led them, crying and shouting to warn us to run away and hide from them. Everything happened so fast; we couldn't defend at all, and finally, a lot of people are dead, while some who are still alive are being captured by them," the survivor described the harrowing experience.

"Tsk, scum."

"How dare they to do that!?"

Sure enough, it made Hancock and Yamato enraged hearing their story, but Azel and Robin remained calm and analyzed it.

"A girl leading the attack is warning you while crying?" Azel inquired once more from the survivor.

"Yes, I was there when trying to help evacuate the citizens, and I heard she kept saying sorry and crying."

Robin, hearing the confirmation from the survivor, suddenly interjected and shared her guess. "Hmm, it sounds like she is doing it involuntarily. Because it doesn't make sense if she is bloodthirsty or apathetic to the thing she's doing while crying."

Robin said while approaching one of the guys that Yamato managed to knock down.

"So, you are saying she is being controlled? Don't joke around, Robin," Hancock said, trying to deny her friend's guess because it just sounded ridiculous to her.

"Who knows?" She replied.

Robin then ignored her while manifesting her power to grab and hold down the pursuer with a lot of hands so he didn't escape.

She glanced at Azel before asking him to do something. "Azel, wake him up with your fire." Azel seemed surprised but nonetheless started doing what she told.

A fireball suddenly appeared in his hand before he threw it at one of the guy's legs, and it burned the guy's leg. It did manage to wake him up, but the guy didn't scream at all. He tried to escape from Robin's power, but he seemed to ignore his leg.

The group watching this was dumbfounded by the man's action. It seemed like he didn't feel pain at all.

"Azel, do it again to the other one beside him," Robin said. She seemed to be trying to figure out what happened to this guy.

Azel did the same thing again while Robin held the other guy, and it resulted in the same action. Both of them were already conscious, but they just ignored the pain and tried to escape from the binding.

"What in the world happened?"

"This..."

Hancock, Yamato, and the survivors couldn't understand what they were witnessing now. Even Uta was hiding and hugging Yamato from behind. If someone was being burned, they would at least scream from the pain but...

"As I expected, they are not human," Robin concluded her suspicion after gathering enough proof. Her words brought a surprised gaze from the others.

"What do you mean? Isn't he exactly like a human, Robin?" Yamato asked, tilting her head and looking confused; she didn't understand what Robin meant.

"He is human but also not a human. He is a clone soldier, if I'm correct. They are a genetically identical copy of a living or deceased individual who has been created for military purposes. These soldiers are often trained from birth and engineered to possess certain desirable characteristics, such as physical strength, agility, and intelligence. They are already being programmed specially for war; maybe that's why they don't feel pain even if they are getting hurt," she explained to the rest of the group, and as expected, they were really baffled after hearing it.

"No wonder my power doesn't feel too effective against them," Hancock said, realizing why they were not being petrified the moment they saw her. If a normal human saw her and lusted after her, they would get petrified; even if that person is strong and can resist, they would get charmed and petrified even a little bit. That's is how strong Hancock's devil fruit power currently is; it's almost reached an awakening state.

"Lastly, if my guess is correct, then they are from a Germa kingdom. Only they have these capabilities beside the World Government in this world," Robin confirmed the attacker behind the island's destruction.

"Germa? That crazy kingdom who likes to wage war? It's not surprising. We already talked about this on the ship not long ago," Azel said.

Robin is now contemplating their next plan on this island. Vanze is on the other side of the island and also needs to be informed about this discovery, but she approached the survivors first and told them to go back to the town. It is not safe being here, and the town seems empty after they scanned it with Kenbunshoku Haki.

The rest of the survivors also agreed, thanking them once again and set out to their town. The group watched them going away before continuing to talk about their next plan.

"So, what are we gonna do? Go search for Vanze first or trace back where these guys are coming from? Their base should be near here," Hancock questioned their next plan.

Azel, who has been listening all along, also shared his findings when he flew watching the previous fight in the air. "I saw their base; it's not far from here. But rather than calling it a base, it's more like their entire kingdom floating in the sea with the help of giant snails; it's stationed on a shore northwest from here."

"That sounds exactly like their kingdom from what I heard from the underworld informant on the previous island," Robin said. She is back holding Uta again, trying to soothe her after seeing the burnt corpses of the clones.

"Yosh! We are going there; let's give these people a beating. Vanze said it's fine as long as we find them first back then in the ship. So, let's go!" After finishing speaking her part, Yamato started running toward the direction that Azel had pointed out, leaving the rest of the group speechless.

"Damn it, Yamato, don't go around recklessly," Hancock cursed, feeling irritated after seeing the oni princess's behavior, but she still kept running after her.

"Fufufu, Azel, Hancock, please go after Yamato again, and if you see those scum, you know what to do," Robin said to both of them. They understood Robin's meaning and started heading toward the shore.

"Uhm... Is it alright to let Yamato nee-chan go first?" Uta asked timidly, she is worried about Yamato. They are attacking a kingdom right now, not just a random pirates.

"It's fine, Yamato is a strong girl, and there is Hancock and Azel with her. Let's just walk slowly while they are taking their time attacking the Germa base," Robin said while also heading to the shore with Uta.

"Un."

Meanwhile,

Not long after running towards the shore, Yamato could sense with her Kenbunshoku Haki that there is indeed a giant land floating in the sea with snails holding them on their back.

"Heh, got you." She used Soru to the maximum while gripping her kanabo tightly. She imbued her kanabo with frost energy and accumulated the power in it. The surrounding forest could be seen getting cold and frozen a little when she passed by.

When she finally reached the shore, she jumped so high using Geppo and readied her kanabo before swinging it downward to the giant snail and the sea.

"Mahoroba!"

Her attack hit the ground and caused the whole shore to be frozen, even the sea behind the snails. It covered the entire Germa kingdom with ice and snow. The soldiers who got close enough in the attacking range immediately got frozen into an ice statue. A giant glacier and ice land can be seen around the area.

Yamato, seeing her masterpiece, felt satisfied and headed toward the castle not far away from her and dropped down from the sky.

Boom!

She saw there were still a lot of soldiers stationed here and ready to fight her. It made her adrenaline pump up; she didn't care about anything right now besides fighting them. She stared at them while murmuring something that Vanze always said before a battle.

"Hehe, let's dance..." She said while smirking.

.....

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Note: please vote what you guys prefer more for the guild pet/mascot. I'm still unsure, but if you guys also have other option, feel free to share.

Digimon

Or

Pokemon