Starting as a Roger Pirates Apprentice

Chapter 536: The Fifth Emperor of the Sea!! The Achievement Is Surviving

What is this supposed to be?

Even Orin hadn’t expected this. Using companions as leverage and beating him to the brink of death—both conditions had been fulfilled—yet he still failed to ring the Drum of Liberation.

Perhaps it was because Luffy’s current strength wasn’t enough, and he hadn’t mastered Conqueror’s Haki Infusion.

Or was it because Orin himself was here?

Orin wasn’t sure, but he understood that forcing out the Nika form today was probably impossible.

He had already beaten him into this miserable state. If he continued, he would really just beat Luffy to death.

"No more options. I’ll have to leave it to Kaido."

Orin shook his head and controlled Katakuri, kicking Luffy straight toward the mirror inside the Thousand Sunny.

"Boring, really boring. Let’s play again when we reach Wano Country."

The Mirror World fell into silence once again.

Katakuri, who had been under [King Turn — Domination], swayed unsteadily and collapsed to the ground as the spatial power was pulled out of his body.

Although his consciousness was still clear, the continuous battles had already drained all his strength and Haki.

Brûlée hurried over with bandages and a medical kit, kneeling beside Katakuri and tending to his wounds.

At the same time, a tall man in a black suit with long hair stepped out from the void.

"Orin-san..."

Katakuri no longer had the strength to stand. His eyes carried hesitation and confusion.

He didn’t know whether this counted as defeating the Straw Hat boy. In the end, he hadn’t managed to kill him, and Orin had taken over the battle.

Brûlée also looked at Orin nervously, standing beside Katakuri while forcing her trembling body to remain steady.

Orin felt a bit helpless.

Had he overacted his villain persona earlier?

The Seagull King glanced at Orin’s expression and roughly understood his thoughts, though he only dared to complain silently in his heart.

"Gagagagagagaga?" (Even gentle words become harsh when combined with your Conqueror’s Haki, right?)

"Relax. I have no interest in killing a good older brother devoted to his sister... or his foolish little sister~"

Orin casually tossed out a black cube. Flampe, who had been imprisoned inside for a long time, was released.

At first, she was delighted, thinking her brother had saved her.

But when she saw Katakuri covered in blood, with his terrifying fanged mouth exposed, her expression instantly turned to disgust and mockery.

"What is this?!!!!"

"This big mouth—"

Buzz——!!!!!

Before Flampe could finish speaking, a surge of Conqueror’s Haki engulfed her completely.

Even just a fraction of that heaven-splitting power was enough to deliver a devastating mental shock to someone weak like her.

Her eyes rolled back, foam spilling from her mouth as she collapsed to the ground.

An ugly exterior might conceal a gentle heart, while a beautiful exterior might hide a twisted soul.

"Compared to your sister Brûlée, this one is truly noisy and unpleasant~"

The fact that Orin hadn’t killed Flampe in front of Katakuri was already an enormous concession.

After all, Orin was famous for doing whatever he pleased—if he didn’t like you, he’d simply destroy you.

But considering that Katakuri had just fought Luffy to the death in order to help him force out the Nika form, Orin spared Flampe.

He merely gave her a moderate concussion with his Conqueror’s Haki.

Seeing this, Katakuri finally relaxed.

His attention shifted to Luffy.

"Orin-san, you never actually intended to kill the Straw Hat boy, did you?"

"That’s right."

For Orin, killing Luffy wasn’t any harder than killing Katakuri. Yet he never did it—he only kept applying pressure.

Like playing with a cricket trapped in a cage—letting it grow tougher and tougher, but never crushing it completely.

"That guy... will he really come to defeat Big Mom in the future?"

Katakuri knew that his own future sight was far inferior to Orin’s. After thinking it over repeatedly, he still asked the question.

Hearing this, Brûlée was shocked. She couldn’t understand why Katakuri would ask something so rebellious.

But Katakuri had never been Big Mom’s most loyal subordinate—he was the protector of his brothers and sisters.

"More or less. The remnants of the old era should step down from the stage of history. The future stage belongs entirely to new faces~"

Orin answered without hesitation.

Brûlée listened in a daze, unable to believe it. Someone as powerful as Mother could actually be defeated...

As she thought this, she suddenly felt discomfort in her body.

Katakuri immediately noticed and looked at her anxiously.

"What’s wrong?!!!"

"Don’t be so nervous. It’s just a little blood."

Orin spoke calmly, holding a red orb floating above his palm.

"I’ll be taking the ability of the Mirror-Mirror Fruit. Of course, you can still use it."

Orin planned to keep this blood sample and have Vegapunk create an item that had eaten the Mirror-Mirror Fruit.

Or better yet, let his black gun eat the Mirror-Mirror Fruit—so that as long as a mirror existed anywhere in the world, he could snipe through it.

In that case...

His black gun could ignore distance and aim at anywhere in the world at any time.

And if there really were no mirrors nearby, Orin could simply teleport to the nearest one and fire.

As for whether Seastone weapons could eat Devil Fruits, Orin believed it should be possible.

After all, Big Mom could turn the sea into Homies, and Luffy’s body still retained rubber properties even underwater. This proved that Devil Fruit abilities weren’t fundamentally opposed to the sea.

They only made the user powerless upon direct contact.

Orin didn’t stay any longer. He merely glanced at Morgans in the corner, who was thinking about headlines and organizing photos.

Then he disappeared from the Mirror World.

Because he couldn’t keep watching Luffy forever. Occasionally increasing the game’s difficulty and playing with them was fine.

But now, he had other matters to attend to.

...

The Whole Cake Island incident soon came to an end.

Aside from Luffy lying unconscious for several days after the battle, everything was mostly the same as before.

With help from multiple parties, the heavily battered Straw Hat Pirates still managed to escape the territory of Totto Land successfully.

And because of this, their fame skyrocketed.

"Gaa——"

The news seagulls of the World Economy News Paper flew across the seas, delivering fresh intelligence and headlines to the world.

Among them was one report that shook the entire world.

"The Man Who Survived That Person... Was Actually Him..."

"The Fifth Emperor of the Sea!!!"

"The Strongest Rookie of the Worst Generation Has Accomplished What Even the Yonko Couldn’t Do!!!"

As the seagulls spread the news, people across the world stared at the newspaper in utter shock.

The Fifth Emperor of the Sea had been born!!!

Highest Achievement:

Survived under Orin!!!

----------------

Fanfic is finished on Patreon (609 Chapters in total.)

Patreon(.)com/Jixo (for only $4.50, read this entire fanfic)