Liam stood on the icy rear seat of the bicycle, exerting all his strength to shout out, “…”
Kuzan didn’t react much, just glanced back at the little devil standing in the rear seat.
Not far ahead, lying on a broken plank, covered with a straw hat, the Red Haired man drifted with the waves. He probably heard Liam’s shout, “Hmm…” Stretching out his limbs on the plank, he lazily stretched with a big yawn.
“Oh my, did we drift onto some island?” The man murmured to himself, removing the straw hat covering his face, revealing a handsome face, a stubble of beard, and a casual and unrestrained gaze…
Sitting up on the plank, he pressed the straw hat onto his head with one hand, and looked around, still only seeing endless blue sea, disappointedly muttering, “Still not ashore yet? Do I really have to learn to swim like Mr. Rayleigh… Oh?”
He noticed not far away, a tall man wearing a suit, with a sleep mask on his head, standing on the sea surface on a bicycle, looking towards him indifferently.
“Hey there! How are you guys doing?” Shanks stood on the broken plank, waving to Kuzan, and exclaimed, “Are you lost at sea too? Ha ha, what a coincidence!”
Kuzan sat on the bicycle, one foot on the frozen sea, loosening his grip on the handlebars, adjusting his tie, and said coldly, “Akagami no Shankusu (Red-Haired Shanks)… As the rising star Captain of a new pirate crew, you should be on the Grand Line with your crew. Why did you come to the West Blue alone?”
“Oh, you know me? Looks like my fame has grown a lot, ha ha ha ha!”
Shanks laughed heartily, adjusted the straw hat on his head, and draped his coat over one shoulder. He casually glanced at the shimmering arc of the sea horizon.
“The West Blue is my hometown, you know. I’ve been wanting to come back for a long time. Some things happened recently, so I finally decided to come and see someone…
But the little boat I borrowed got destroyed in a storm, what bad luck! Fortunately, I didn’t take Yasopp and the others with me, otherwise, I don’t know how they’d tease me! Ha ha ha…”
Kuzan said, “The West Blue is your hometown? That’s surprising. I’ve heard that many clues point to a certain terrifying man’s ship as your origin…”
“So are you here to capture me, Vice Admiral Kuzan of the Marine Headquarters?” Shanks said with a slight smile, “The Marine the kid on your rear seat mentioned, that’s you, right?”
“Yes!” Liam stood on the icy rear seat of the bicycle, shouting loudly.
At the same time, dark energy surged around him, and a humanoid phantom separated from it.
“Hey! How old is Aokiji now, and Shanks? Can he handle it? Although I want him to bail me out, I don’t want him to get too involved in this ship!”
Liam rapidly asked his good friend, the battle armor Stand ‘B.I.B.’.
Kuzan slightly frowned.
“This kid…” Shanks showed a surprised expression on his face as he paused for a moment, and looked around at Liam and the dark shadow beside him, full of question marks, and said, “What’s with the gibberish dialect?”
‘B.I.B.’ flashed with white light in its eyes, quickly retrieving relevant information from its copied memories of the previous life, which included data on the One Piece manga.
It answered in fluent Mandarin Chinese with a proper tone: “Now, it’s only been about 8 years since Robin’s time, which is 20 years before ‘Luffy sets sail’.
“Therefore, Aokiji is currently around 27 years old, while Shanks is about 17…”
“According to the first chapter of ‘One Piece,’ when Shanks was 15 years old, he witnessed his old Captain, Pirate King Roger’s public execution in Loguetown, East Blue. It was then he took Yasopp, Usopp’s father, on board his small wooden boat from Usopp’s hometown…”
“And from Aokiji’s words just now, we can gather that Shanks has already formed his own pirate crew and entered the Grand Line…”
“Furthermore, Shanks’s Pirate crew docking at Windmill Town, where the protagonist Luffy lives, was about 10 years before the start of Luffy’s journey, which means when Shanks was 27, it is about 10 years ahead of our current time…”
“As for the point when Shanks became a Yonko, it was about six years before the ‘two years later’ plot, when Shanks was 33 years old, roughly 16 years ahead of our current time…”
Liam couldn’t help but complain in Mandarin Chinese, “Blah, blah, blah! But we still don’t know if the Face Bro can beat Aokiji now!”
He rubbed his chin, murmuring, “Aokiji is 27 now, so his strength should be considered fully developed, right? That is, the combat power of a full-fledged Admiral… And Shanks, my buddy, is only 17. Maybe he hasn’t even reached the level of a Vice Admiral, or even just at the level of a Yonko’s Deputy Grade… But from another perspective, considering that in the future ‘plot,’ when Luffy defeats a Yonko and aims for Pirate King, he should only be 19!
“Having a protagonist’s fate, and having sailed on Pirate King Roger’s ship, witnessing ‘Straw Hat Second Generation’ Red Haired Shanks alongside monsters like Roger, Rayleigh, Whitebeard, and Oden… Maybe at his current age of 17, he already has the combat power of an Admiral or even that of a Yonko! Moreover, he hasn’t ‘bet on the New Age’ with an arm… He has a fully intact complete body!”
Shanks stood on the plank, feeling completely astonished. He noticed the little devil standing on the rear seat of the bicycle, seemingly eyeing him with an inexplicable gaze. “What’s with this kid’s expression? It’s really odd…”
“…,” Kuzan sighed lightly, as he slightly lifted his Long Leg and stepped down from the bicycle. The tires were wrapped in layer upon layer of ice, stabilizing them from falling.
“What’s the matter?” Kuzan’s voice, even his body, began to emit strands of icy cold air. “As a pirate, are you having a sudden change of heart, wanting to do some ‘good deeds’?”
With each step forward, every time his foot landed, the frozen range on the sea expanded further. Eventually, the sea surface within dozens of meters in radius was solidified into a glistening layer of ice.
“I don’t know if this counts as doing a good deed…”
Shanks reached for the hilt of the sword at his waist, smiling, “But, it’s quite obvious that the kid on your bike doesn’t want to go with you, right?”
Kuzan raised his Ice Mass-covered right hand, exhaling cold air from his mouth. “It seems like you really want to be captured by me.”
“That won’t do!” Shanks drew his sword a few inches, smiling, “You’re indeed powerful, I might not be able to beat you! But… we’re on the Sea, and you’ve eaten a Devil Fruit, right?”
Could it be…?! Kuzan’s gaze narrowed, only to see Shanks grinning slightly, a flash of light in his hand as he swung his sword down towards the frozen sea beneath their feet.
……
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