[18] The Key Piece

Chapter 18: The Key Piece

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There were certain things that Hashirama learned in this world that he didn't know were possible in his first life. One such thing was familial love; that he learned from both his own and the family of others.

Vivi Nefertari returned home fine since Hashirama had healed all her wounds, and the doctor's check-up confirmed her fine health afterward.

Yet, her parents couldn't be any less worried.

Both the King and Queen of Alabasta were sitting on royal sofas in a meeting room, frowning as they stared at Hashirama sitting opposite them.

This royal couple looked very favorably upon Hashirama. Beyond the fact that they were indebted to him and his sister, he was also like a nephew to them— a nephew who they one day wished to see as their son-in-law— so they surely didn't mind him sitting on the same level as them.

The frown in their well-defined faces was for another reason entirely.

Rather, King Cobra and Titi Nefertari both looked extremely displeased as Hashirama explained the scene from when Vivi got hurt; how an unknown woman had dropped from the sky and crashed right on top of her.

Hashirama went a bit more in-depth with the explanation, though he lied quite a bit. Rather than saying one of his Wood Clones got killed, he just lied that the clone managed to defeat them easily. He trusted them, but there was no point in giving them all the minute details; less so, the ones that were somewhat gory.

"Blasphemous."

After Hashirama finished his story, Titi was fuming. She tightly thinned her lips to hold herself back from cursing on the commoner's tongue.

"Such blasphemous acts…! I refuse to believe someone from our lovely kingdom did this. To me, it seems like someone hired a mercenary to assassinate the Princess."

Titi theorized as King Cobra nodded his head, starting to speak.

"Even though we have no animosity with any kingdom, it's unavoidable for people to target us when we are growing so well. The assassins must have been hired by one of the jealous kingdoms."

Both the King and the Queen seemed to believe that to be the case; that their daughter was attacked because of cold animosity between rival kingdoms. Only Hashirama knew the truth, but once again he didn't see the point in telling them the truth right away.

Being a Wood Clone, this Hashirama was not up-to-date with what the original one was up to, and therefore was unwilling to do anything that might cost him later on. Moreover, the truth would be revealed anyway after Sir Crocodile meets his demise.

"But, Hashirama,"

The Queen started speaking again, her frown melting away as a very gentle smile formed on her lips.

"Once again, thank you very much for looking after our daughter. She is a fool of her own who keeps getting into trouble, but sometimes dangers that she didn't wish to bring also lashes upon her. Thankfully, you are there to protect her… and I hope you will keep standing beside her until the end."

King Cobra gently put a hand over Titi to stop her from speaking any longer. Otherwise, he knew his wife would probably offer Vivi's hands in marriage right here.

"In any case," King Cobra cleared his throat. "I as well thank you for what you did today. However, I think you should take some rest now than to waste time with us old folks. You must be tired after using your powers and fighting thugs, please go and take some rest."

Hashirama stood up from his couch and smiled at the both of them.

"I will, thanks."

Then, he hesitated for a moment before he slowly said.

"About the two dead bodies of the thugs, by the way. I left them behind because of the situation at hand. I saw a sand storm brewing when I left, so at this point, that sand must have washed over them. Finding them would be impossible. No need to send troops."

"Don't worry about that, I would rather have their corpse burn under the sun than to bring them here and bury them. They deserve worse."

Titi said with a frown, while Cobra sighed and shook his head helplessly.

* * *

[At the same time]

As the sun rose in the eastern part of the sky, Hashirama the Main was running through the hot desert with Mikita on his back.

Mikita had previously used her power to grow overweight, and therefore was serving as training for Hashirama.

Under the hot sun, Hashirama wore only his pants, with the sleeves rolled up to his knees as his torso shone from the glistening sweat. He huffed and puffed as he ran fast, putting quick but precise pressure below his feet to jump on the sand before his feet could dig into the sand.

"Woohoo-!"

Though initially stunned and unwilling when Hashirama bought up this offer, the Mikita now cheered despite the sweaty situation.

Now, just as Hashirama was passing by an oasis in the desert, Mikita felt as if she was riding a superhorse, even as his hands were squeezing her thighs that poked forward from either side of his waist.

"Don't you think-" Hashirama huffed. "-you are having too much fun riding me?"

"Riding? Wha— dirty kid! Keep running!"

Immediately, Hashirama's feet stopped in their tracks, doing a hard break as sand lunged from beneath his feet and he slid a few meters forward.

Mikita's cheerful expression went pale, realizing her blunder, as she quickly began to apologize.

"It's a- a joke. I was joking!"

However, Hashirama had stopped for another reason entirely. Just now in Alubarna, his clone had un-cast itself, and therefore all its memories came rushing back to the main here.

'Things went smoothly at that end of the country.' Hashirama noted. 'My clone left a letter behind saying I would fix the tree problem in Yuba and therefore will be gone for a while, so the King and Queen shouldn't worry too much in my absence.'

The one person who would be worried (and mad), though, will be his older sister whom he hadn't called yet since she left. She as well hadn't called him, most likely due to stubbornness.

Hashirama decided to reach Rain Base city first and then call Tsunade from there.

"Uh… are you sleeping with your eyes open?"

Mikita slowly said as Hashirama frowned. Slowly, as she was sitting on his back, her arms hesitated to grab his neck if what she questioned was right. To her, it seemed that something happened to this tree-like brat, probably because of the rising sun, so she was about to take the chance to score a game.

Hashirama, though, finally got mad at her.

"You are seriously making me regret my decision to let you live."

Hashirama grumbled, finally annoyed by her antics.

Stopped by the side of an oasis as they were, Hashirama spun Mikita around to bring her to his front and then pushed her down on the grassy terrain beneath his feet.

A turtle slowly ran past the duo, stunned by the sudden movement, while something moved in the small lake beside them.

Hashirama pushed Mikita to the ground, her arms locked above her head, and stared down at her with a slight frown.

"Why the hell are you still trying to kill me?"

"Ahh­­­-"

"You do realize that Miss All Sunday will kill you in a future where you somehow manage to kill me, right?"

Mikita closed her mouth, looking away from his green eyes. Soon, when she struggled a little but failed to break free from his grip, Mikita blushed ever so slightly when his bare, chiseled chest entered her vision.

It wasn't every day that she was pushed down by a hot guy, whom she was also aiming to kill just a moment ago. Her sick psychopathic mind found this situation hotter than it should have, as more blood rushed to her face to give it a hue of bright red.

"This sick person," Hashirama exclaimed. "Does this situation turn you on? You know, I am once again thinking of killing you."

That did make Mikita flinch as her face paled. Death was one thing her sick brain still feared. Mikita gulped and looked into his eyes, meekly, like a little puppy asking for forgiveness.

"I am sorry," she said. "I didn't think this through-"

"No matter what, Mr Zero will kill you now that you know his true identity. So if you were planning to betray Miss All Sunday by letting Crocodile know about this, then I hope you'd give up on that unless you want to die."

"…."

"Listen, you pervert,"

Hashirama leaned down to face and breathed right over her nose, causing Mikita's body to tremble involuntarily.

"Be loyal for me, like a good little puppy, and you'd get money, fame, power—everything you wish for. As well as," Hashirama's hand reached out to choke her by the throat, causing her blush to grow. "Things that your dirty perverted mind needs. I need you in this battle, and if you let me use you as I please then you get everything that I just spoke of."

Mikita's face was bright red, yet her eyes shone when he declared the offer. She was smart enough to determine that he wasn't bluffing; if he could indeed defeat a Warlord, then he had more than enough power to grant her the exact things he talked of.

Mikita wanted to deny some of his claims, though, such as the 'needs of her dirty mind'. But being choked didn't allow her that freedom of speech. Slowly, she looked back into his green eyes that matched her own, and then she nodded.

"Good girl," Hashirama patted her right cheek and said with a smile. "I am going to use you quite harshly in this battle, do remember, but now that you have nodded twice I don't care about your consent any further."

* * *

Mikita was for sure out of her wit when she tried to figure out what Hashirama meant, exactly. Even Mikita herself knew that her Devil-Fruit abilities were not the best. So how Hashirama planned to use her in the upcoming battle didn't click in her head.

But Hashirama knew her importance. He was confident in his abilities, but he lacked Armament Haki even now; as well as Water Style Jutsus that would have been a perfect counter to Sir Crocodile.

He lacked Armament because he has always been more focused on his Wood Style, going far enough to base his fighting style on these Wood powers—along with putting great effort into replicating certain Jutsus from the Naruto Fandom. Therefore, he had only recently gotten the time to train on his bodily powers such as Armament Haki.

As for his Water Style, perhaps saying that he 'lacked' this might be the wrong term to use. Rather, that power existed as did his chakra, but Hashirama didn't know how to use it.

For sure, since he had Wood Style, he also had Earth and Water Release Chakra Affinities, as Wood Style was a mixture of these two. However, until now Hashirama was yet to perform any water or earth Jutsus. He tried a lot of times, but they just didn't work.

Hashirama hypothesized that it was the lack of Hand Signs, as Chakra wasn't really like Mana which led to the creation of magic with just imagination only; it needed more than that.

Hashirama believed if he were to go to Wano and travel underground where the Old Wano was submerged underwater, he would most likely find a lead to this little problem of his. Perhaps ancient scrolls containing Hand Signs or something? He didn't know, but surely something should be out there as it was his ancestors' home.

In whatever case, the point was he lacked both water powers and Haki to give the Sand Logia user a head-on tackle, which was more of a problem than what meets the eye.

Because just as Hashirama's powers were a direct counter to Crocodile's grand plans, the Warlord's own powers were a direct counter to Hashirama. After all, Crocs could just decompose the wood and vines Hashirama would create in their fight. He cloud do that by sucking the moisture out of the creations—so without the advantage of Haki or Water, Hashirama would need something else to beat such a foe.

That's where this Mikita person came to play, her role may just be the missing piece of the puzzle needed to defeat Crocodile.

Monkey D. Luffy was purely lucky that he managed to defeat this strong person that early in the story; however, in Hashirama's case Crocodile held a personal grudge and would never hold back. So, the incoming fight would be one where Hashirama might just lose his life.

"We are here,"

Hashirama stopped in his tracks and declared, while he looked up at the city of Rain Base right in front of his eyes.

"Now, we just wait."

Now, he must wait for three more days.

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