Gathering of Culture

Jayr POV - Blue Star, Grand Line, Paradise - 20 GAP

A day passed since we decided to change our route under Nikita's request so that she could reunite with her close friend/lover interest, so now we are not moving toward Drum Island anymore, but more toward the south of its position.

Yesterday, Igaram guessed that our most likely destination is either Enkai Island, an abandoned island that once was the home of an ancient civilization, or the slightly more distant Nanatsu Islands, both of which are obligatory stops for some of the famous 7 routes of the Grand Line. 

But since the Athena's God Bidoof is about to move past Enkai Island without lowering her speed, I can pretty much confirm that our next destination is probably the archipelago called Nanatsu Islands that Igaram told us about, something I'm quite excited about as this is an island I have never heard of before, so it is possible that we will meet interesting people, stories, sceneries or even mysteries.

After confirming our next destination, and that even while maintaining our current speed we will still take around 2 days to reach it, I leave Nikita and Bidi on the bridge and head back to my Soulbound Territory where Tio, Eri, Seika, Saori, Kharna, Galen, and Python are already waiting for me in front of the Seeds of Culture.

The reason for that is pretty simple, it is because we are about to receive some guests who finally answered my invitation.

Once in front of the Seeds of Culture, I don't hesitate and use my mind to communicate with them and command the Seeds to summon our guests.

The reaction is almost instantaneous as a bright light temporarily blinds us for a second and as it fades away, the empty space in front of me is now filled with people divided into two very different groups.

The first group is led by a young man with black hair, brown eyes, and a tall muscular body, and right next to him there are a vampire with wavy golden blonde hair, crimson red eyes, and a porcelain complexion and the appearance of a 12-year-old child, a beautiful young woman with waist-length black hair that is tied back in a half ponytail by a dark-colored bow with big bangs hanging on the right side while there are small bangs hanging on the left side and brown eyes, a Rabbitman girl with blue eyes and light blue hair, which is unique for her race and clan, she's very attractive and beautiful, boasting a large chest and a gallant figure, and of course as a rabbitman, she has white rabbit ears atop her head, a beautiful woman with waist-length black hair that is usually tied up in a ponytail with bangs hanging over her forehead and red eyes, she has a trained yet curvy body, and a beautiful Dagon lady in her mid 20s with long green hair and green eyes, but unlike humans, her ears are fan-like fins and has webbed hands and feet, she is also holding the hand of a cute a young Dagon girl with a long wavy blue hair and green eyes.

Those are of course, Hajime my fellow Men of Culture, who shed away his chunni appearance using Metamorphosis Magic, and his happy harem, Yue, Kaori, Shea, Remia, Shizuku, and Reima's daughter Myuu, Hajime's adoptive daughter.

Right behind them there are other 9 people, leading them is a young man who has gentle feminine features and a long, slender build, he wears black-rimmed glasses and has shoulder-length black hair tied up in a ponytail, beside him, there is a beautiful girl with long blonde, almost golden, hair, sky blue eyes and a petite figure holding in her arms a two-year-old beautiful girl with black hair and sky blue eyes.

Those are Oscar Orcus and Miladi Reisen with their daughter Belta Orcus, named after the first leader and founder of the Liberators a very important person for both Miladi and Oscar.

Right behind them, there are other familiar faces, a tall young man in his 20s with a well-toned physique, he has pointed ears, swarthy red skin, and red eyes, clear traits of the Demon Race but unlike most demons, his hair is sky blue, braided on one side, but falls over his right eye in bangs, together with a woman with dark red skin and pointed ears, she has long red hair with black streaks, with a muscular build, they are Vandre and Margaretta Schnee.

A beautiful woman in her early 20s with wavy emerald-green hair and narrow jade-red eyes, with a slender body along with very voluptuous breasts, and due to her Dagon heritage, she has fin-shaped ears, like Myu and her mother Reima, who tries to keep her distance from a clingy, beautiful, young elf woman in her mid-20s with long green hair, iconic long pointy ears, jade-green eyes and light pink lips, those are Meiru Melusine and Lyutillis Altina.

The last pair is made of a red-haired, black-skinned, slightly pointed-eared man with golden eyes from the Demon race and a beautiful woman with long flowing blonde hair and green eyes, of course, they are Freid Bagwa and Liliana.

The second group is just as big, even if less diverse in species variety, but it is a lot more chaotic than the first one. 

Leading the second group is a large, bald, and muscular man with a slightly darker skin tone, he sports a goatee and impressive sideburns curled upwards, he can only be Lordgenome.

Right behind him, there are the other members of the Tengen Toppa Dai Gurren Brigade.

Simon, a young man with wild dark blue hair and deep indigo eyes, Simon has matured considerably since the last time I saw him, now standing at an impressive 1,80 meters almost reaching Kamina and Kittan, he is much more muscular and his facial features have matured, gaining hardened edges in his jawline.

Nia who looks mostly the same, but her features have also matured as she gains womanly curves and her hair has returned to its old length, but it become straighter. 

Kamina also looks mostly the same just a little more mature but with the same ever-confident smile on his face, Yoko, whose physical features fully develop and the young, more roundish facial structure she maintained as a teenager matures into that of a woman, in addition, the rest of her body follows suit with her frame becoming more slender, her curves becoming more defined, and her breasts and butt becoming even larger, making for an even more bodacious look than before.

Of course, the same can be said for almost everyone else, Kittan, Dayakka, Kiyho, Viral, Kiyal, Rossiu, Kinon, Old Coco, Leeron, Iraak, Kid, Makken, the twins Jorgun and Balinbow, Aretenborough, Zorthy, Leyte, and the kids Darry and Gimmy all of them more or less changed since the last time I saw them, only Guame and Lordgenome are exactly the same, but that is thanks to the fact that they are biologically immortal.

In fact, the same can be said about Hajime and the others from the Arifureta Universe, as thanks to the use of Restoration and Metamorphosis Magic they all can maintain their youthful look without any strain or problem.

With these two groups of people present it is clear what is happening today, indeed, today both my fellow Men of Culture, plus the friends I made during my adventures in those two universes accepted my invite to come to my Soulbound Territory to have some fun together and catch up on what is currently going on in our lives.

As soon as they regain their bearings, the first thing that they all do is shout my name, "Jayr!!" but then they quickly stop and the two groups look at each other as this is their first meeting.

Soon Hajime's eyes open wide as he recognizes the people in front of him and yells in an excited tone, "Holy shit! They are Kamina, Simon, Nia, Yoko, Kittan, Viral and all the others!! That is the full Dai-Gurren Brigade! And there is even Lordgenome and Guame!?"

In response to Hajime's outburst, Kamina points his finger at the sky in his iconic pose and exclaims, "Hell yeah! I told you guys that the greatness of the Dai-Gurren Brigade is known far and wide across the Omniverse!!" followed by Lordgenome who mutters as he looks at Hajime's group, "Oohh... That is quite a diverse group of races, some seem similar to the Beastmen I created while others are totally new species with their own characteristics and attributes, as expected from a different universe."

At the same time, Kittan moves closer to Guame and whispers, "Hey, hey! Is it only my impression or those women over there are all of high quality..." Guame nods and whispers back, "That's right, they truly are outstandingly beautiful... You know I think that visiting other universes isn't so bad, after all..."

At this point, I step forward and greet everyone, then I briefly introduce the two groups to each other, of course, I don't have to introduce the girls or my kids, as they already know each other as we visited them before, after all, I try to keep contact with the people I've met during all my adventures in my free time.

With that out of the way, I say, "Once again, welcome to my Soulbound Territory! I hope that everyone will have some fun spending some time together and getting to know each other better!"

After that, the women start to gravitate toward, Seika, Saori, Eri, and Tio as they start to gush over the kids and talk about various experiences raising them, like the troubles they caused, and how they deal with them.

Even Yoko from time to time adds, something as she is now working as a teacher in the only school of Tengen Toppa City, and thanks to this she now has a lot of experience in dealing with children of all kinds of ages, in fact, she even admitted that at first, she was a little overwhelmed, but with Lordgenome's support and Kamina's help, who is also working there with her, only he takes care of their physical training, she was able to tide over all the difficulties. 

They also talk about their happy moments, some of the kids' mischief, or their "achievement", like how Miledi proudly talked about a trap that little Belta created for her Reisen Great Labyrinth which teleports the victims to another safer part of the Labyrinth, but while also randomly teleporting all their equipment all around the labyrinth leaving them with only their underwear to fend off the annoying dangers and traps of the Reisen Great Labyrinth as they search for their equipments, or how Tio bragged about how Kharna shoot her first true Dragon Breath and erased her first island-sized enemy, something that gave them quite the shock when they heard it. 

Meanwhile, I and the other guys talk about what is happening in our lives and in our worlds since we last met.

For example, Hajime told us, that he had to subdue the various governments on his Earth as they tried to go after his artifact, and that almost sparked a new world war, so Hajime was forced to travel around the world and render all the armies of world powerless, he also told us that he may or may not have also ended some wars unrelated to his situation and destroyed a few criminal organization on his way, making his version of Earth enter in a period of true peace for the first time in a very long time.

Meanwhile, Freid told us that the situation on Tortus is going very well, all the kingdoms are slowly moving toward a unified government, slavery was completely abolished, and the discrimination among the various races is getting weaker and weaker the more time passes in peaceful coexistence, the Church of Jayceon continues to gain relevance among the people of Tortus as more and more people are converting to it as the Healers continue to do their job and help as many people as possible, while the Judges continue to follow the example of the Apostles and make sure to maintain order while they stop and punish all the evildoers.

On a personal note, Freid also told me that he is going to marry Liliana and that their marriage is also one of the reasons why the unification of the various kingdoms is also speeding up, as the alliance between the Heiligh Kingdom and the Demon Nation Garland gives them quite a bit of political power, especially since they are one of the most powerful nations on Tortus. 

Then, there is Lordgenome who briefly explains to me the current situation on the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Universe's Earth.

He told me that Tengen Toppa City continues to constantly expand as more and more people emerge from their underground villages to join, plus there is an explosion of the population thanks to the fact that now the Beastmen can naturally reproduce and don't need to hibernate anymore to prevent their genetic failure, even more so as Hybrid between Beastmen and Human started to appear more and more frequently, and luckily they are all healthy, of course, Lordgenome and I already made sure of that, when we fixed the Beastmen reproduction capabilities, it was quite easy thanks to the fact, that the Beastmen already have quite a bit of human DNA in their mix, making them naturally compatible for an interspecies offspring, plus if you add the Spiral Power in the mix the possibility of something going wrong gets reduced by a lot.

Well, he also told me about some problems that we already expected to happen, like some minor cases of discrimination, some remaining grudge against both the Beastmen and Humans for what happened in the past, some groups of Humans that don't want to leave the underground for the surface, and more important, the perfect restoration of the Earth as it will still take a lot of time to fix all the damage that the First Anti-Spiral War caused to it.

But on the bright side, they also started to contact and communicate more with the other freed species spread all over their universe trying to slowly create a universal community, while also warning them of the potential dangers of relying too much on Spiral Power and thanks to Antispiral's action of broadcasting our battle, the Tengen Toppa Dai-Gurren Brigade is quite famous and revered throughout the Universe so their effort are met with mostly success.

On the other hand, I start by briefly telling Hajime and the others what I did in the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagan Universe of course with Kamina, Simon, Lordgenome, and the others adding their tidbits while also bragging from time to time.

Of course, the reaction to my narration varied from person to person, Oscar showed mostly intrigue and interest toward the Gunmen and their capabilities, Fried and Vandre were mostly surprised and horrified by the sheer size and capabilities of the enemy I faced, especially the galaxy-sized Antispiral. 

Meanwhile, Hajime was mostly green of envy, especially when he heard that I fused the Crateris Cloth with a mini-type Gunmen making it even stronger and with the capability of transforming into a garaguntan mecha just like Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

In fact, he was so envious that he forced me to promise to call him when I visit the Gundam Universe, and after that, he kept muttering about building his own Gundam mobile suit that would make the Strike Freedom Gundam look like a toy.

After that, I started to tell them about my experience in The Boys Universe and the Champions' Challenge, and as expected most of the guys were appalled by the existence of such a deranged and corrupted universe.

Only Guame and Lordgenome remained calm hearing about all the horrors caused by the Supes and the Vought International, and that mostly because they know perfectly well how power, desperation, and other such extreme emotions can corrupt even the most strong-willed individuals, as they themselves experienced something very similar.

Then, when I talked about the Champions' Challenge, most of them were confused by it, Freid even said that it was totally strange to decide the result of such an important thing with a card game and many agreed with him, only Hajime was able to easily follow the story and understand the intricacies behind such complex game of skill and luck, well, mostly luck, as drawing three Pot of Greed and two Graceful Charity is equal to an obscene amount of luck, something that Hajime totally agreed.

Done with catching up with everyone, I finally realize that we are still standing in front of the Seeds of Culture, so I raise my voice and propose to everyone, girls included, "Hey why don't I lead you all outside of here, so you can enjoy the air of the universe I'm currently visiting? I can guarantee you all that it is quite clean and enjoyable."

Curious Miledi with Belta in her arms steps forward and says, "It sounds interesting! I'm really curious to see just how different a different world feels!" followed by Yoko who says, "That's right! I even took a day off from my teaching job to visit you all! It would be too lame to leave without even seeing a little bit of these other universes" but Kittan quickly comments, "Hey! Hey! Let's not rush this! The last time we had an encounter with the Multiverse it wasn't a particularly pleasant experience... Did you all forget Antispiral's Extradimensional Labyrinth!?"

Hearing that, some of the Tengen Toppa Dai-Gurren Brigade unconsciously shudder, but soon Kamina loudly whistle to grab their attention and yells, "Come on, guys! It's Jayr we are talking about here! I'm sure that everything will be fine, no one will lose his way through the infinite possibilities! And even if something happens we will still be able to bring you all back just like we did before!"

With Kamina's words reassuring them, they all calm down and seeing that, I start to open a portal that will lead us all to the Athena's God Bidoof's deck.

At this point, Hajime stops next to me and suddenly asks, "By the way, you still haven't told us which universe you are currently exploring with your family... so where exactly are we now?"

Hearing his question, I simply smile and point at the now open portal and say, "Why don't you see for yourself..."

Hajime and the others do not hesitate anymore and quickly step through the portal appearing on the deck of the Athena's God Bidoof.

Seeing that they are all surrounded by water, Kinon, Kiyoh, and Kiyal exclaims all at the same time, ""This is the sea!!!"" followed by Nia who smiles sweetly while saying, "This brings back so many memories... Wow! Look how clean is this water!" and quickly all the girls plus Gimmy and Darry starts to admire the scenery. 

At the same time, Lordgenome's gaze focuses on the Athena's God Bidoof and soon he quickly comments, "Hmm... This feels very similar to a Dai-Gunmen but at the same time, it is way different too... I can't put it in better words, but it feels alive..."

Simon also looks at his hand and as he produces a bright green spiral, he mutters, "I can use my Spiral Power without any problem..." followed by Oscar who also looks at his levitating dagger with an intrigued look on his face as he adds, "My Magic Power also works fine without any problem. If I remember well, this means that in this world there is both the presence of Magic and other kind of Supernatural Powers..."

Hearing him say that, I remained stunned for a few moments, then I quickly changed all my Spiral Cosmo into Magic Power and to my immense surprise, it continued to flow perfectly throughout my whole body.

Feeling that I can't help but internally exclaim, 'Hory Shiet!! What is going on here!? Magic actually exists in the One Piece Universe!? How could I not notice something like that for all this time!? Hell, now that I think about it, the fact that the Compass of Eternal Paths is able to function is itself a clear warning sign that I should have noticed before...'

(AN: Before you come at me with your pitchfork let me explain. First of all, Magic isn't so against the setting and theme of One Piece as one usually thinks. On one side there is Haki, and for me, that is clearly more on the side of "Superpower", but on the other side there is the existence of the Devil Fruits, and other supernatural abilities like Miss Goldenweek's, which are more on the "grey" side of the spectrum, even Vegapunk himself, the greatest in the "science" side of this world says that Devil Fruits come into existence through imagination or a want for something, which isn't much in itself but to me, it certainly feels more "magical" in origin.) 

Then I finally realized why I missed such an important detail, 'This is both the fault of my Spiral Cosmo, which allows me to easily use all my techniques and magics no matter where I'm as long as either a Supernatural energy or a Magical one are allowed, and of my bias toward this Universe... I was so overwhelmingly sure that this was a purely supernatural universe that I didn't even care to check its true nature, something that I could do in just a few seconds...'

At this point, I quickly start to think about everything I remember about One Piece to find some clues to the magical side of this universe, 'Well, the first thing that comes to my mind when I think about magic are 3 specific characters, Jango, Miss Goldenweek, and Shyarly... All three of them have abilities that have nothing to do with both Haki and the Devil Fruits.' 

Then I start to think about those 3 people, 'Jango can somewhat hypnotize people, an ability that is often associated with magic even if in those cases it is mostly at the level of tricks, but his ability is also quite powerful too, in fact, it is powerful enough that the Marine gave him a pardon in exchange for his services. Miss Goldenweek can manipulate the emotions of the people with her paintings. Shyarly on the other hand can outright predict the future, some fans theorize that that is because of an extremely powerful Haki but I don't buy it, sure a strong Kenbunshoku Haki (Observation Haki) can help predict the actions of your opponent a few seconds in the future, but that is the limit, it is localized to only a singular individual you are focusing on. Shyarly on the other hand can predict events that will happen very far away in the future...'

My mind moves even faster as I continue to analyze everything I know, 'Then, there is the elephant in the room, the Devil Fruits. These fruits have a totally mysterious origin with a complex set of rules and weaknesses that wasn't revealed even after over 1000 chapters of the manga, if someone tells me that those Fruits have a somewhat magical origin I would have no problem in believing that. Moreover, the fact that those that eat a Devil Fruit become weak in the presence of water and even more so of salt water of the sea is quite suspicious in itself, after all, in many schools of thought, folklores, and even religions, water, and salt has a very strong purifying force, and it is thought to be quite effective against "evil" and black magic... could it be that the Devil Fruits are really the result of some "Black Magic"?'

While thinking that, Koby suddenly rushes out from the interior of the Athena's God Bidoof, and remains stunned by the sight of so many unknown people standing on the deck and yells, "Jayr-san! What is going on!? Are we under attack!? Where did all these people come from?"

On the other hand, Hajime stares at Koby with his eyes wide open and mutters, "Don't tell me this is..."

Then with just as much surprise as Koby, Hajime exclaims, "... the world of One Piece!!"