*Title at the end of the chapter*

Actually, before teleporting the ship, Ian remembered something. Which is to change his clothes and clean the blood on his body first. He didn't want to make his crew worry all over nothing.

Well, it was not 'nothing' but still. The girls would make a big deal out of it, even bigger than it was already.

Only when he was freshened up did he finally head out towards the rest of his crew. Or he tried.

But someone stopped him.

In the heart of action Ian forgot about him.

It was master Rey.

"Wait! Do you know where Garp and Sengoku are? I swear I only want to join them. Those two are the most righteous people I know! Can you please tell me?" Master Rey told him.

It was true. He felt everything around him collapsing as he knew the truth about the world government.

Ian gave him a short nod. He was able to feel his sincerity so he waved his hand at him and just like that Master Rey was teleported to Garp and Sengoku. Ian was also not able to detect the energy of the devil fruit that was harmful to its eaters in him. This was also true for Kizaru and Kuzan. He would have to think about this more.

But for now he went towards his crew.

When he appeared on the ship they were now very close to reaching big mom's territory.

The first to greet him was Libell as she materialized from nothing and jumped toward him.

Ian caught her and praised her for steering the ship, to which she giggled happily.

"Our Libell is doing her best right?" Ian tickled her little nose as he teased her.

Next came out Elene and Robin, with Stella and Akemi trailing behind them.

Bert was still in the kitchen only yelling a loud welcome back captain.

Kuzan peeked over Ian from the crow's nest and gave him a nod before returning to a book he had in his hand.

When Elene stepped closer to him she felt something off about him.

"Welcome back Ian! Did you deal with the enemies?" Elene asked.

The rest followed after her and greeted him too. And seeing Ian nod after greeting the others, Elene continued

"Who were they?" she and the rest had not seen who the enemies were. As such even Kuzan was interested. In fact, even Bert peeked from the kitchen.

"Sigh…the enemies this time were two of the five elders and… Kizaru!" Ian replied.

They could see that he was unhappy about something.

"What happened?" she asked him.

"Well, the two elders as expected were indeed no longer humans. As for Kizaru even after showing him that and giving him the option to leave he still stayed so we, unfortunately, had to fight!" Ian told her.

Seeing Ian here she knew he had obviously run. But then what was he upset about…

"Why do you feel upset then?" She gave voice to her question soon after.

"That bastard Kizaru… when I gave him the option to leave he refused but then, in the end, he still ran away…" Ian said with distaste.

"He ran away… from you?" Elene asked somewhat surprised. There was still someone like that in this world? She had absolute confidence in Ian's power.

"Yeah! It appears that I somewhat underestimated the level of power someone has to reach to become an admiral! They all have their trump cards!" Ian said. And then he gave a meaningful glance at Kuzan upwards.

Kuzan smiled a bit.

"We can spar later, and I'll show you everything I can do if you want!" This was a sign of him trying to bond with his new crew. He was choosing to put his trust in them and show them his trump card.

Ian gave him a nod. He felt somewhat placated that Kuzan would do that.

"What about the elders?" Elene got back to the subject.

"No longer among the living. And Kizaru that bastard… although he left… it was not without leaving something behind hehe" Ian laughed evilly.

Elene giggled at him. His laugh was not evil. Period. As to what he said? Why should she care? He killed two demons spawns. And even if he killed humans they would still deserve it as she knew Ian would never target innocents.

At this, even Kuzan was surprised. As far as he knew, anyone boosted by the diávoloi was quite strong. And these two were from the five elders, who even now, Akainu can't do much against based simply on the power he can feel from them. He was not scared of them, no, but he had to bid his time and gather people on his side…

And Ian fought two of them in addition to someone he very well knew could be the strongest from the marines' side with his trump card.

And what was the result? The two elders died… and Kizaru left something behind whatever that was… it didn't sound good.

"But then… why is your shirt different than the one you were wearing earlier?" Elene then voiced her earlier suspicion.

Ian immediately started to sweat internally.

But on the outside, he looked at her funnily.

"What? You expect me to go into battle against two elders and one admiral level person, and not even my clothes should be shredded? Of course, they would be. And since I didn't want to show up like that, I changed clothes!" Ian calmly told her.

She was still suspicious about his words, but she decided to let it go. After all, he didn't appear to be injured or anything so he was most likely saying the truth.

An indeed by now, all of Ian's injuries were somewhat healed/. The ones visible already healed. And the more trickier ones, the internal injuries, most of them healed with the few harder ones, probably needing him to take a night's sleep.

So while he was still injured, it was not apparent at all. Not to mention that even like this he could still fight off against the likes of an admiral a few more times.

"So how close are we to reach our destination?" Ian then asked them.

****

Meanwhile with Kizaru.

The moment he had affirmed his will to live so that he can warn the marines… energy exploded out of him.

He knew that using the same technique again (his trump card) would hurt him and possibly even cripple him for life. But against Ian? He saw it as the only chance to run.

So he didn't hesitate to do it.

But he had underestimated the power that was unleashed due to him feeling the despair of being on death's doors.

As such instead of giving him his usual sub-relativistic speed, he instead exceeded the light speed for a second.

So instead of him just running from Ian in another direction… he showed up in this unknown place.

He was on some sort of cliff that was overlooking an island completely covered in fog.

But he could swear there was no such island in the world. Not in terms of size, and not in terms of buildings visible through the fog.

Boom sounds were heard since a while ago.

And now they had reached close to him and he was finally able to see what the origin of them was.

Two absolutely gigantic beings were wrestling near the island he saw, they were so big he couldn't see their whole bodies from this point. And there was a huge distance between the cliff and the island they were near so that said it. Both beings had wings and were flying while trading claws.

He had never seen such huge beings in his life. And the energy he felt from them almost had him wet himself in fear. He couldn't see the details about them and he could only see them as shadowy figures due to the distance.

Just the killing intent in the air was enough to paralyze someone like him.

In fact, the light energy that was keeping his body together left him the moment one of those beings laid eyes on him. And at that moment he fell to his knees completely paralyzed.

From fear and from his injuries.

All of a sudden the one that had laid its eyes on him, just from his feeling as he couldn't really see from this distance between them, gathered energy at its mouth and released it at him.

He, someone known for his speed, couldn't really keep up with the huge ball of destruction coming towards him.

One moment it was far the next it was just in front of his eyes.

'This is it…' at that moment Kizaru knew he was going to die.

But all of a sudden a voice was heard in his mind.

[This is not your time, child! Go back to where you belong!]

And just as it finished he was engulfed in energy and vanished from the place. Leaving the ball of destruction to destroy the cliff he was on.

The last thing that was reflected in his eye, was a huge serpentine body appearing from the sea and wrapping around the being that attacked him helping the other one to restrain him.

Kizaru then went back to his original timeline.

That's right. He didn't run from Ian to another island… no he ran from Ian into the past.

Title: Escaping into the past!