Chapter 34

The last events were now already five days ago. Life in Water 7 had once again returned to normal after what had happened, amazingly quickly given the insane events.

Under the hand the last battle was already known under the name `The Day of the Dead´ in the entire town and very soon it would probably been on the entire Grand Line.

It didn´t happen every day after all that a dead Fleet Admiral was resurrected along with an army of the undead.

For the Strawhat Pirates of all people it might have been not quite that unbelievable, but it was extraordinary enough, even for them.

After the phantoms had been stopped, all of the involved renegades had surrendered to the Marines. The two devil fruit users who were ultimately responsible for the entire event and their ring-leader Captain Sakazuki were being detained,...

...apart from each other. As it was clear by now, it was only by the combination of their devil-fruit powers that they had been able to become that much of a threat. With `Ghost Whisperer´s ability to create phantoms from long dead spirits and Blute´s to boost the strength of others fruit powers, you had a more than deadly pairing.

Separate from each other however they were far more harmless and could easily be hold in custody.

In this moment they were already being transported to Marine Headquarters for judgement, on different vessels to minimize the risk of this two ever combining their powers again.

This group of renegade Marines was now considered as top level criminals by the new government. First they attacked a prisoner transport, stranded the crew and broke out a high ranked member of the New Order terrorist organization, then they used her to bring back a large number of dead big-shots of both Pirates and Marines from the grave and unleash them on Water 7, devastating part of the town in the process and then they bring back even Akainu and Shadow themselves to wreck havoc once more.

Of course the New World Government would have a bone to pick with this guys. Captain Sakazuki Yui was now being considered a supernova-level criminal.

It was quite ironic, Admiral Akainu had been the most hardlined champion of the so called `Absolute Justice´ under the old government and now his daughter was a top-level criminal under the new one. All of that because of a plot she had designed that was meant to bring him back.

Yes, there was truly quite the irony.

xxx

Vice Admiral Smoker and his crew, that still temporally included Coby and Helmeppo, on the other hand had decided to stay at Water 7 for some more days. They were spending most of the time either helping with the repairs on the city or enjoying the hopitality of Mayor Iceburg and the Galley-La Shipwrights.

Beside that their group had now another more than surprising prisoner. The day after Captain Sakazuki and her crew had been shipped off, a woman had surrendered to them who had revealed herself to be no other than the World Noble Saint Shalulia, who was wanted by the New World Government as one of the remaining members of the more important tenryuubito families.

Smoker nearly choked at his food as Luffy told him during dinner laughing that she had been as a `guest´ on his ship for the last weeks, after they had picked her up at the place that was now commonly known as `New Order´s Island´, named after the terror organization that had used it as a base. As it looked she had been a prisoner there.

The terror organization had, as it seemed, been hunting and catching fugitive World Nobles to torture secret information out of them and in a few cases just execute them for fun. He remembered Sabo´s report about what had happened to a guy named Saint Jalmack.

As on top of that Luffy casually informed him that he had sensed that the woman was an enemy from the first minute he met her, but still let her on board since he was curious about her motives, because he was bored, Smoker felt the sudden urge to punch him in the face, Pirate King or not.

But ultimately Nami beat him to it as she smacked Luffy over the head when she heard what he just said.

"Since when do we invite enemies on our ship like that?" she yelled at him.

But he only grinned back at her.

"Oh, you have to admit it was quite funny, seeing her reaction in the end," he Luffy replied, "and it was not as if she was ever a real threat to us."

"She was trying to get Akainu to kill us," Nami argued.

"Since when did Akainu need anybody else to tell him to do that?" Zoro remarked. "He would have been trying to kill us anyway. Thats all he ever did."

"I have to agree with the sword-swinger here," Sanji spoke up. "She never meant any real danger to us."

"You only say that because you were fawning over her like over any other girl you meet, no matter who she is," Zoro commented.

Before the situation could end up in another fight between this two however, Nami told both of them to sit down and Luffy broke out into another volley of laughter.

Much to his surprise, Smoker had to admit that the tenryuubito was quite tolerable to be around.

Of course, she herself admitted that only a few months ago, he would have probably not been able to stand beeing in the same room as her for even ten minutes. But some harsh lessons during the last time had done a good job of kicking the arrogance out of her, her own words.

She even asked him to give Strawhat her thanks for saving her life, what he actually did and also an apology for `being a bitch´ all those times and then she asked Smoker to slap her one over in case she started to act like that again, also her own words.

This had to be the first time he was actually amused by the actions of one of the World Nobles.

"We will leave soon," Coby said to the assembled Strawhat Pirates.

"Oh, that´s sad, can you not stay a bit longer?" Luffy asked.

"In opposite to you Pirates, we Marines can not simply do whatever we want. We have our duty and have to follow orders," Smoker reminded him.

"That is exactly why I bacame a Pirate instead of a Marine," Luffy answered matter of factly.

"If you say so Strawhat," he replied.

xxx

And by now, another six days later, Luffy and the Strawhat Pirates were once more slowly preparing to set sail again. This had become something of a usual routine for them during their last journey.

They visited the islands they had seen before on their travels and stayed everywhere for a few weeks, sometimes they stayed a full month, in a few cases they had visited twice.

At all of these places they met the people they knew, their friends and family and spend some time with them.

This was pretty much the way they had spend the last half year. The pattern was only interrupted by their last two actually great adventures. This meant in this case the battles against the New Order and against Akainu´s phantom army.

All this however didn´t change one fact, the Strawhat Pirates had now reached the top of the world and there where was very little that could still challenge them.

Kaido and Big Mom, Akainu and Blackbeard, the Marine Admirals, Shadow and the New Order, Eustass Kidd, they had overcome and defeated them all.

They were the Pirate King and his crew, in every sense of the word. So what was left for them?

If it came down to it all, they had two actually challenging adventures during the last half year, since the fall of the World Government. Back then in the time before however, they had one of those at least every month.

But the times had changed. Things had changed.

Luffy of all people, in his often single-minded nature, had been the first who had seen this coming months ago. He was the Pirate King, he had overcome the Grand Line, he had found the One Piece and even helped to bring down the World Government.

He was now 21 years old and he had reached all he ever wanted in his life and more. From now on, he knew, things would only get less exciting.

The battle against the New Order and the fight against the Army of the Dead, this would probably be the last truly great adventures of the Strawhat Pirates.

Luffy was actually sad when he thought about it. But despite that a grin formed on his face.

xxx

Their visits to their homes and to their old friends were the last things they had actually planned out to do.

By now however they had already been at most of this places. What still remained were Shabaody and Amazon Lily and another trip to Skypia. Then of course came Fishman Island.

Afterwards they would once again travel to the New World and stay there for a while.

What was still important was the securing of their territory. Luffy´s name was by now protecting just as many islands as Whitebeard did in his time. So it would be good to actually show some presence.

All that would keep them occupied for at least another three months.

And what would they do then next? They weren´t sure. But they were the Strawhats, he was sure they would think of something.

Luffy nearly had to laugh as another thought came into his mind.

He just had the vision of himself giving the Strawhat, that he had gotten from Shanks all these years ago, to another young Pirate, to `give it back to him´ in the future.

Maybe, if he ever met someone who would make him curious enough, who knew? He smiled.