While Robin was deciphering the Poneglyph, El deliberately took Tama to explore some ghost ships, scaring her so thoroughly that she buried her face in his arms and dared not look up. When El returned, a mischievous smirk of success played on his lips.
Seeing Tama's pale, frightened face and the wicked smile on El's, Robin couldn't help but roll her eyes at him before taking Tama—who had tears forming at the corners of her eyes—and began comforting her young heart.
"Tama, you can't be so timid..." On the other hand, El showed no remorse. Instead, he adopted a preaching expression and wagged his index finger at Tama. "You're our future main crew member. You'll need more courage training like this in the future."
"Eh—" Tama, who would turn two in a few months and could already communicate with El and the others (though her speech wasn't very clear), widened her big, innocent eyes at El's words. Her baby-fat-covered face took on an expression on the verge of tears.
"Nii-san... I don't want to go to that kind of place again..." Hearing this, El couldn't help but burst into laughter.
"Scaring a child under two years old—where's your conscience?" At this point, Robin decisively stood up and reproached El, who was full of malicious amusement, before comforting Tama. "Don't worry, your Nii-san is lying to you."
"Really?"
"If you don't believe me, just look at your Nii-san." Looking at El, who was grinning at her, Tama's little face suddenly puffed up like a bun. "Nii-san is really annoying. I'm ignoring you."
"Don't be angry. I'll take you flying as compensation, okay?"
"Really? Great!"
—
After a while, they returned to where Carina and the others were. By then, Shirahoshi had finished her prayers and was currently telling the others about her experiences.
Watching Shirahoshi reminisce about her past, El—who had landed from the sky while holding Robin and Tama—suddenly thought of something. The smile on his face vanished briefly, only returning when the girls' eyes turned to him.
"Let's go back." El approached and looked at Shirahoshi with a smile. "Shirahoshi, are you ready to go explore the outside world?"
Seeing her nod excitedly, El continued, "Then let's return and pack your things."
With that, they boarded the Pegasus once more. The ship again defied gravity and flew toward Ryugu Palace.
After returning to Ryugu Palace, El had Violet use her clairvoyance to locate a certain individual on Fishman Island. For El's commands, Violet no longer dared show the slightest negligence.
After witnessing Carina extract the Devil Fruit, Violet had already recognized the truth. In Doflamingo's domain, she might be treasured for her Devil Fruit ability—but in El's eyes, she was essentially nothing.
If they wished, they could kill her at any moment, take her Devil Fruit, and train a new user. Realizing her true value in El's eyes, Violet dared not harbor any other thoughts. She could only obey obediently and pray that El was a man of his word—that after she assisted him with her Glare-Glare Fruit ability, he would save her father from Doflamingo.
So with Violet's help, El soon located the final destination of this trip to Fishman Island: the fishman who had assassinated Queen Otohime three years ago—Hody Jones.
Hody Jones was a great white shark fishman: a racist, hypocritical, prideful, brutal, and vicious-natured individual who, like many of his kind, hated humans for leaving Fisher Tiger to die when he could have been saved. At the same time, he believed fishmen were the supreme race.
Simply because Queen Otohime had brought back signatures supporting friendly relations with humans, Hody took advantage of a fire near the signature box and personally assassinated her with a rifle. Shirahoshi knew the real murderer, but because of her mother's final words, she never revealed that the assassin wasn't human—it was actually Hody Jones. Thus, he had remained free until now.
If El hadn't intervened, Hody Jones would have lived until 1522, becoming a pirate with a 190 million Belly bounty. But now, his fate was destined to end here.
It had been fourteen years since El time-traveled. His impressions of minor characters and unimportant plot details had grown increasingly blurred.
If not for hearing Shirahoshi's recollections about her past at the Sea Forest, El might have almost forgotten this little fish—Hody Jones.
Since he had remembered, there was no need for Hody Jones to live. El used absolute, crushing strength to kill Hody Jones and his crew amid their horrified, desperate faces.
However, before killing Hody Jones, El used his ability to read his memories, searching for something within them. After disposing of this garbage, El brought Violet back to Ryugu Palace.
By then, Shirahoshi had already packed her luggage and moved her special large bed into her room on the Pegasus. After saying goodbye to her father and brothers with a slightly reluctant expression, Shirahoshi—driven by her longing for the outside world—boarded the Pegasus once more and journeyed to the surface world with El and his group.
Before El had stepped foot on Sabaody Archipelago, he had just made a name for himself in the world, receiving a bounty surpassing one billion Belly. But now, a few months later, El stood at the apex of the world—one of the four strongest pirates recognized globally—with a bounty of 3 billion Belly.
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