Chapter 61: The Water 7 Commission amp; The Memory Plan

Sorry about disappearing for a few days, was busy with work

Here is the newest chapter and I will try to keep up the schedule as promised.

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The massive map of the globe was unrolled across the galley table, held down by coffee mugs and inkwells.

Trafalgar Law traced a tattooed finger along the treacherous, storm-battered currents of the map’s upper quadrant.

“Even with the Sky-Rift Roc carrying the ship, crossing directly from our current coordinates to the North Blue is a logistical nightmare,” Law stated, his tone clinically precise.

“We would be flying into the teeth of the reverse-atmospheric pressure zones.

It would take months to reach the Spider’s port town.”

I leaned back in my chair, crossing my arms.

We couldn’t afford to waste months blindly chasing rumors about Alister’s stolen items when we had an immediate, dimensional crisis right in front of us.

“Leave the North Blue to me,” Jasmine said, stepping up to the table.

She pulled a Revolutionary Army communication snail from her coat.

“The Army has an extensive intelligence network deeply embedded in the Underworld up there.

I’ll have my contacts investigate the island where Alister first woke up two years ago.

They will track down whatever happened to those missing items while we focus on our priority.”

“Good,” I nodded.

“Because right now, our primary objective is getting Mayday back to her own universe.

The Sun Wood interacts with the Sling Ring, but holding a jewelry box against a brass ring while trying to perform multidimensional magic is clumsy and dangerous.

I need them mechanically and seamlessly integrated into a single, usable artifact.”

“You need a master shipwright or an engineer,” Robin surmised.

“I happen to know two of the best on the planet,” I grinned.

I picked up the ship’s main Den Den Mushi and dialed a direct, encrypted frequency to the jewel of Paradise: Water 7.

The snail rang a few times before connecting.

The receiver clicked, and the snail’s eyes morphed into a sharp, exhausted glare.

“Galley-La Company, Mayor Iceburg speaking,” the voice sighed.

“Iceburg, my man,” I greeted cheerfully.

“How’s the city of water treating you?”

“Victor?” Iceburg’s tone instantly lightened, though he still sounded deeply stressed.

“Good to hear from you.

The city is fine, but I’m losing my mind.

I am still struggling to find a competent secretary.

Ever since I found out Kalifa was an undercover World Government spy, I haven’t been able to trust anyone with my schedule.

I’ve fired three people this week.”

“That’s rough.

What about Franky?” I asked.

“I’M SUPER!” a loud, metallic voice boomed in the background, followed by the sound of a heavy mechanical thud.

The snail sprouted a tiny metallic nose and sunglasses.

“Victor, bro!

Are you bringing that flying fortress back for a tune-up?!”

“Not exactly, Franky,” I chuckled.

“I have a highly unusual, delicate commission.

I need you two to integrate an ancient, magical brass ring into a block of supernatural wood that absorbs starlight.

It needs to be a single, functional device.”

There was a long pause on the other end of the line.

“Magical brass and starlight wood?” Iceburg repeated slowly.

“Bro, that sounds completely irrational,” Franky said, his voice brimming with mechanical excitement.

“I love it.

But there’s no way we can draft blueprints over the phone for materials that defy basic physics.

You have to bring them here so we can evaluate the structural integrity in person.”

“I figured as much,” I said.

“We’re heading toward the first half of the Grand Line now.

We’ll be in Water 7 in a week.”

“See you then.

Bring cola!” Franky shouted before Iceburg hung up the line.

I set the receiver down.

“Alright, set a course for—”

Buru-buru-buru!

Buru-buru-buru!

I was interrupted by a completely different Den Den Mushi.

This one wasn’t sitting on the table.

It was the heavy, solid gold snail locked in the secure cabinet by the wall—the direct line to Marine Headquarters.

Law instantly tensed, his hand dropping to the hilt of his nodachi.

Jasmine crossed her arms, her eyes narrowing.

I walked over, unlocked the cabinet, and picked up the receiver.

“Warlord Costa.”

“COSTA!” Fleet Admiral Sengoku’s voice exploded through the speaker with enough force to rattle the teacups.

“Fleet Admiral,” I replied smoothly, holding the receiver an inch away from my ear.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Do not play games with me!” Sengoku roared.

“Your little stunt with the Mammoth has completely destabilized the New World!

Kaido is on an absolute, unhinged rampage!

He is destroying islands, sinking fleets, and turning the seas into a warzone in retaliation for his Lead Performer!”

“Well, he is a pirate,” I offered unhelpfully.

“Rampaging is sort of their thing.”

“I had to deploy Admiral Akainu and Admiral Aokiji just to contain the collateral damage!” Sengoku continued, his blood pressure audibly spiking.

“The Marines are stretched to the absolute limit.

You caused this mess, Warlord.

You and Mihawk are being deployed to the New World immediately to suppress the Beast Pirates and clean up this disaster!”

I glanced at Law and Jasmine.

A massive suppression mission in the New World against a furious Yonko was the exact opposite of what we needed to be doing right now.

“I’d love to help, Sengoku, really,” I lied effortlessly, leaning against the wooden wall.

“But I’m currently deep in the South Blue handling some, ah, Warlord duties.

Securing shipping lanes and the like.”

“You have a flying ship!” Sengoku barked.

“And the South Blue is very far away,” I countered smoothly.

The Marines didn’t know the Sky-Rift Roc could safely bypass the lethal Calm Belt.

As far as Sengoku knew, I had to navigate all the way to Reverse Mountain or Mariejois to cross hemispheres.

“Even flying at maximum speed, it will take me at least two months just to cross back into the New World.

Plus, I need a few weeks to wrap up my current operations here.”

Sengoku let out a long, tortured groan that spoke of decades of dealing with uncooperative pirates.

“Dracule gave me a similarly dismissive excuse about his crops needing tending,” Sengoku ground out, his teeth audibly grinding together.

“Fine.

I am giving you exactly three months, Costa.

Ninety days.

If you do not report to the G-5 Marine Base in the New World by the end of that window, I will personally see your Warlord title revoked.

Do I make myself clear?”

“Crystal,” I said.

“Just get here,” Sengoku snapped, and the line went dead.

I exhaled slowly, locking the golden snail back in the cabinet.

I turned to face the crew.

“We just bought ourselves exactly three months,” I announced.

“Which means the clock is officially ticking.

We need to get Mayday home, and we need to do it fast.”

“I agree that the child needs her parents,” Law said, leaning forward.

“But why the intense urgency?

A few months in a secure location on this ship won’t harm her.”

“It’s not just about her parents being worried, Law,” Jasmine said, her expression turning dead serious.

She looked at me, and I nodded.

“I need you all to understand the scale of the universe Mayday comes from,” I told the crew, my voice low and commanding.

“Her father doesn’t just hang out with other street-level fighters.

He associates with people who possess god-like intellects, Sorcerers Supreme who manipulate the fabric of reality, and beings who guard the multiverse.

Those people owe her father a lot of favors.”

I placed my hands flat on the table.

“Given enough time, those geniuses and sorcerers will figure out what happened to her.

They will build a machine or cast a spell to open a portal to our dimension to find her.

And if they do that…

they leave a door open.”

Brook gulped.

“A door to what, exactly?”

“To predators,” I said grimly.

“There are entities in her multiverse that conquer timelines and eat entire realities for breakfast.

If they gain access to our world, the World Government, the Yonko, and the Revolutionaries combined wouldn’t stand a chance.

It would be an absolute slaughter.

Giving those people access to our world is like giving a predator free prey.

We have to be the ones to send May back.

We have to close the loop from our end, on our terms.”

A heavy, oppressive silence fell over the galley.

The sheer, existential weight of what I was describing settled onto the Amber Alliance.

“Right,” Law muttered, rubbing his temples.

“Multiversal predators.

Naturally.

So, how exactly do we operate this magical ring once the shipwrights integrate it?”

Jasmine stepped forward, pulling out a piece of chalk and drawing a rough circle on the small blackboard mounted on the galley wall.

“Based on what Mayday told Robin, and the general lore of Sling Rings,” Jasmine explained, “the user needs a crystal-clear, razor-sharp mental vision of their destination.

You have to picture the exact location in your mind’s eye.

Without that absolute focus, you’ll just blindly tear through dimensions and likely never find May’s specific Earth.”

Perona floated down from the ceiling, twirling her parasol.

“Well, that’s easy, isn’t it?

Just let the pipsqueak use the ring!

It’s her home.

She remembers what it looks like.”

“Absolutely not,” I shot the idea down instantly.

Perona pouted.

“Why not?!

She opened the portal to get here!”

“By total accident,” I reminded her.

“Mayday is a certified genius, but she is still a six-year-old child.

She lacks the complex, spatial understanding of dimensional geography.

If we tell a six-year-old to open a portal ‘home,’ her brain might just interpret ‘home’ as the sickbay bed she’s been sleeping in for the last week, and she’ll just open a portal to the lower deck.

Or worse, she’ll open a portal to the vacuum of space.

Letting a child blindly test portals is incredibly reckless.”

“Victor is right,” Robin agreed gently.

“Her mind is too young to maintain the necessary, unwavering focus for a multiversal jump.”

“So we’re stuck,” Bepo sighed, his ears drooping.

“None of us know what her world looks like.”

Jasmine stared at the chalkboard for a long moment.

Then, a sharp, brilliant spark of realization lit up her eyes.

She snapped her fingers loudly.

“No,” Jasmine said, a slow, dangerous smile spreading across her face.

“We don’t know what it looks like.

But we can borrow the memory.”

I caught on instantly.

A matching grin spread across my face as my knowledge of the New World’s heavy hitters clicked perfectly into place.

“Charlotte Pudding,” I said simply.

Jasmine nodded, pointing the piece of chalk at me.

“Exactly.”

“Borrow a memory?” Law frowned, looking between us.

“Big Mom’s thirty-fifth daughter?

I know the name, but her Devil Fruit ability isn’t widely publicized.”

“Because Big Mom uses her for precise psychological manipulation,” Jasmine explained, turning to address Law and the rest of the highly confused crew.

“Charlotte Pudding is the user of the Memo Memo no Mi, the Memory-Memory Fruit.

She can physically reach into a person’s head and pull their memories out like strips of film.

She can edit them, cut them, and most importantly…

she can copy them and paste them into someone else’s mind.”

The galley went dead silent as the sheer brilliance of the plan clicked into place for everyone else.

“Think about it,” Jasmine said, her eyes practically glowing with tactical excitement.

“If Pudding extracts the clear, visual memory of May’s home universe from the child’s mind…

and splices a copy of that specific memory directly into the mind of an adult…”

“…then I can wear the integrated Sling Ring,” I finished, the puzzle fully solving itself out loud.

“I’ll have the exact, perfect mental vision required.

I can lock onto the destination and open the gate myself, safely.”

“Wait,” Law said, holding his hands up, looking between Jasmine and me like we had both lost our minds.

“Let me get this straight.

Your grand plan…

is to sail directly into Totto Land, infiltrate the territory of a Yonko, kidnap one of Big Mom’s daughters, and force her to use her Devil Fruit on a six-year-old?”

“Yes,” Jasmine and I answered at the exact same time, in perfect unison.

Law stared at us.

He let out a long, exhausted sigh, pulling his spotted hat down over his eyes.

“I hate this family.”

“You love us,” Jasmine teased, patting him on the shoulder.

“Alright, the blueprint is officially set,” I announced, rolling up the map on the table.

“Step one: We go to Water 7 and have Franky and Iceburg build the artifact.

Step two: We infiltrate Totto Land and secure the memory.

Step three: We open the gate and send the kid home.

And we have exactly three months to do it before Sengoku revokes my immunity.”

I turned toward the door of the galley, adrenaline already beginning to pump through my veins.

I stepped out onto the open deck, looking up at the massive feathered beast holding our vessel in its talons.

“Roc!” I shouted up to the sky.

“Set a direct heading for Paradise!

We’re going to the city of water!”

The colossal Sky-Rift Roc let out a deafening, affirmative screech.

The massive bird banked sharply in the sky, its colossal wings beating as it carried the Titan’s Glory steadily toward the horizon.

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