Journey to One Piece

268. Am I that old?

"What kind of Devil fruit?" Usopp asked.

"A Logia... Swamp Swamp fruit. Technically speaking, this fruit has nothing of importance and isn't even powerful, but the fruit allows the person to store anything in his body and has infinite space inside," Ken said. (Yes, that's what Oda said in an SBS).

"Infinite space? That's interesting."

"But why is he interesting? It's not like we need such kind of fruit." Usopp and others were confused.

"Well, for one, I want to beat the shit out of him," Ken replied. This made everyone stunned and then laugh out loud.

"Then we shall move. Shall we? Everyone divide into teams of two," Luffy said, and this time it was an order. It was a lottery to form teams, and Ken got paired with Robin.

With the small teams and disguises on, they left with communicators in their pockets.

"How was the Revolutionary Army?" Ken asked as they walked through the streets of Sabaody. The closer they got to the Grove, the more chaos there was. People had gone haywire, thinking they were the actual recruits of the Straw Hats, and it was crazy.

The Straw Hats had a huge reputation now, so there was quite the rush on the Grove. But Ken also noticed that there were some marines in disguises too.

"It was informative. I got to visit new islands," Robin said.

"Did Dragon apologize?" Ken asked. Robin was surprised and then nodded. Dragon apologized because after Ohara got destroyed he was in Ohara. There was no need to apologize, but Ken knew that if he was half the man he knew, he would definitely apologize.

"The books of Ohara are still there and we will get to see them soon," Ken said.

"The books? Are they fine?" Robin was surprised.

"Yes. The Giants took them away after the alleged destruction. Though they couldn't save all the books, some did get saved," Ken said. This made Robin very happy.

"I would like to see the books again," Robin said.

"Of course. We will go to Elbaf soon and you can talk with them," Ken said.

"An island of Giants... huh! It would be quite interesting."

While they talked, they reached the place where the recruitment was happening, and people were just flattering the fake Straw Hats as if they were some kind of Gods. From the corner of his eye, Ken could also see his friends hiding among the masses. Sanji had teamed up with Luffy, and he was trying his best not to expose Luffy. Ken also noticed the arrival of the marines in disguises and the main person why he was here.

Caribou.

The guy whose face Ken hated the most. Ken took some great strides and caught up to Caribou, who was getting close to the Straw Hats, but before he could even get close, a hand from nowhere tapped on his shoulder.

Caribou turned around and noticed that he was apart from his crew, and a guy with a white mustache over his lips was looking at him and smiling.

"You are Whitebeard?" Caribou seeing the majestic white and curly moustache over the lips of Ken blurted out without thinking. This time it was Ken who was taken aback by the words and he almost hit the guy in ager for saying that he was too old. 

"Do I look that old?" Ken asked, anger in his voice.

"Ah, no, sorry. Whitebeard died years ago. But you are old," Caribou replied. Ken was even angrier, seeing the audacity of this guy, and directly used Conqueror's Haki on him. There was a small black lightning around him, and before Caribou could even understand what was going on, he lost consciousness and fell onto Ken's shoulder.

The people around were a bit surprised when someone just lost consciousness out of nowhere, and thankfully, in the whole flurry of people, there was no one from the crowd who belonged to Caribou's crew. The excitement of these people joining the "Straw Hats" really made them lose their composure.

"Is this guy alright?" someone asked.

"I think he got too excited and passed out. I'll give him some water," Ken said reassuringly.

"Hahaha... What a wuss. He'll miss the recruitment," another person said.

Ken slowly took Caribou to the side, and with nobody around, he brought the man into his Kamui dimension. As he was doing that, he noticed that the marines had now completely surrounded the whole 'fair,' and they had brought Pacifistas too. The Pacifistas this time were more numerous than they were supposed to be.

As usual, the others were a bit intrigued, and when they saw the new 'Straw Hats,' they were very disappointed. Luffy, who was angry at them for copying their Jolly Roger, just burst out laughing upon seeing them. Of course, for a second, he got confused by their appearance and thought they were his actual crewmates. Thankfully, Zoro knocked some sense into him.

"Seriously, even with one eye, I can see them, and you can't," Zoro said.

As they were talking among themselves, one Pacifista came forward and identified the fake Straw Hat as someone else, thus revealing their whole scheme. But then another Pacifista was able to spot the real Luffy and shot at him from afar.

Luffy and Zoro, who were on their way back, had to dodge the attack, and Luffy's disguise fell off as he had moved too fast for the disguise to keep up. The people around finally got to see the real Luffy and Zoro too.

"Those eyes... That's the real Luffy."

"That's Roronoa Zoro... The swordsman of the Straw Hats. People say he's cut down demons before."

"Straw Hat... I've been looking for you for a long time," Sentoamru came forward and shouted. She had tried to catch them in Sabody before, but Ken had come instead and they had a brawl.

At Marineford, they went on to clash against each other but he overpowered them. Now he had trained a lot over the 2 years and felt like he could catch him.