Chapter 8 - Whether you like it or not

(Emma POV)

Once we got back to the ship I had Robin drag me to my mom who was sunbathing since she has the best navigation skills in the family but the moment she saw the situation I was in she couldn't hold back her laughter, not giving me a chance to speak before kneeling over in laughter.

"JAJAJAJAJAJA wha-JAJAJAJAt did you do to Robin to make her drag you like that? JAJ-" seemingly noticing something about my mood and the fact Robin wasn't laughing with her at my expense she suddenly stopped mid-laugh before looking closely at me, canceling Robin's ability and picking me up into her embrace.

"What's wrong? You've never had such a dire expression before, I didn't even know that was possible for you" she hurriedly questioned me while holding my eye level to herself.

"I forgot about a slave ship that we need to stop within the new half-year or so, I'd like to save the people on board from the horrible fate that awaits them in the hands of the world nobles, also one of them is a user of conquerors haki like me and a future warlord of the sea and it would be worth it to get on her good side," I explained the situation to her and after thinking on it for a second she asked me to give her all the information about her I knew.

"Her name is Boa Hancock, right now I believe she would be 12 years old and the voyage she is on right now should be her first one. She and her two sisters will be captured by slavers after their crew gets overwhelmed and then she and other captives are sold to the world nobles where they will be branded then tortured like being force-fed devil fruits for the world nobles amusement, this torture goes on until a few years later someone raids the Mary Geoise freeing many slaves including her and her sisters." After saying all this I went on to tell her the name of the pirate crew, the name of their home island, and that Robin figured it should be near the calm belt from me telling her what I remember seeing of it in this world's future.

(Pietas R. Geina POV)

"The name of their home island is Amazon Lily" Once I heard those words I felt a tinge of pain go through my heart as I knew the cruel fate that awaited those poor girls.

Looking down at my daughter who was wearing a hopeful smile as if trusting I knew how to find and save them, I couldn't hold it in any longer before I hugged her, which startled her at first but she hugged back and after a few seconds I started to explain to her with an unconscious tint of sadness and anger in my tone.

"I'm sorry but there's nothing that we can do to help, Amazon lily is located on the other side of the red line in the calm belt." I could feel Emma tense up at my words before her grip around me loosened and she asked to be put down.

After she was let on the ground she walked off to where her dumbbells were left and silently started to exercise like she normally would after Robin brought her back.

"Shouldn't we try to comfort her? It seems she's taking this pretty hard, she didn't even try to play the situation off with a joke like normal." Robin asked while looking at me in confusion.

"No, she's smart enough to understand the situation without us saying anything and would probably prefer that, also I'm sure once she sorts out her emotions she will joke about how getting sad makes her exercise easier or something nonsensical.". Nodding her head, Robin seemed to agree that Emma needed some alone time as she left to ask Gauge to train her more in hand-to-hand combat.

Once I was alone, I started to think about the current system of this world and how unfair it is towards everyone who isn't strong enough to protect themselves or lucky enough to be protected by the truly strong, then looking at my daughter I couldn't help but let lose some killing intent thinking about how such a world made her feel, Quickly regaining my composure I declared only loud enough for myself to hear.

"Don't worry sweetie, mom will make sure you can achieve your dreams no matter how hard on you it will be, all that muscle pain is nothing compared to what you're feeling right now and it's my job as your mom to make sure you don't feel like that again." After making this declaration I went to where Gauge and Robin were fighting to talk about changing Emma's training regime.

Not long after I was done talking with Gauge and giving some pointers to Robin on ways she might be able to manipulate her devil fruit, I lay back on my chair sunbathing when I felt a wave of Haki similar to the past and with a proud smile on my face I sat up and looked in the direction of Emma who had a serious expression on her face while heading towards Gauge and an unconscious Robin.

"JAJAJAJA That girl, such unwavering will. It will be fun to see her in action after she learns how to consciously manifest and manipulates it." Laughing to myself I went back to sunbathing with nothing but thoughts of the future occupying my mind.

(Emma POV)

After I couldn't lift the dumbbells anymore, I sat there with a pair of un-movable arms but a spinning mind now that I had time to clear up most of my emotions. Although I feel bad for Boa, I know that there is nothing that I can do for her. Thinking about the outlook I had on this world so far I think I figured that anything that I wanted to achieve I would just by setting my mind to it.

Now though I realize that these thoughts are naïve, this isn't just a fantasy world where everything will happily work out in my favor, Robin being here already, probably furthered me having such stupid ideas like that, but thankfully I had an early wake-up call.

This world is now my reality and me not knowing as much as I thought I did changes things. I'll have to spend as much time as I can learning about this world. "Thank you for helping me realize this Boa, although I'm not able to save you right now I'll make sure to help in any way I can in the future whether you want me to or not."

After thinking about what awaits her and everyone else who gets caught by this world's horrible system for a moment, I then continued speaking "I'll make sure that no one will have to go through what you do ever again, once I'm strong enough and able to achieve my dreams I'll rid this world of such barbaric practices."

Promising this I dragged myself to my feet using my legs while my arms dangled lifelessly by my side. "Mom's teachings are good but not enough, I'll ask Robin to teach me as well, she is a scholar after all."

Thinking aloud of what I now realize I lack in terms of reliable knowledge of this world I also decided to ask Dad to make my training more intense and teach me how to fight, the earlier I start the more experience I can have after all. Although I'm going through hell already I need to go deeper down to make up for in strength and skill for what I know I now lack. With these thoughts in mind, I marched towards Dad who had an unnerving grin while staring at me, and Robin…..who for some reason was passed out on the deck.

Unbeknownst to me at that time, Mom had already approached Dad to create a specialized training regime hard enough to blast me through all nine circles of Dante's Inferno.

(5 years later)

(Pietas D. Gauge POV)

Standing on one side was Emma, Having long lavender hair tied into a ponytail that fell right past her shoulders with the end of it being braided, akin to the way her mother wears it and Emerald-colored eyes also like her mother's. She wore a dark brown sleeveless hoodie with a white kangaroo pocket on the front and bright yellow joggers that had both legs rolled up to the knee with a pair of black sandals on her feet.

Opposite her was Robin who let her glossy black hair grow out over the past few years letting it all fall loosely behind her reaching her waist, only using a pair of sunglasses to keep it in place. She had light blue eyes and was wearing a dark purple shirt with an all-white overshirt only having the middle button hold the two sides together followed by a pair of light blue pants that matched her eye color and finally a pair of black sandals that were identical to the ones Emma wore.

Neither of them made any moves for over a minute before Robin seemed to have a plan in mind and started everything off by crossing her arms over her chest in an "X" shape. She then summoned two arms at each of Emma's legs to hold her down but before the arms could grab Emma, she used one of the Rokushiki ability, Soru to her fullest capabilities kicking the ground below her 12 times in the blink of an eye swiftly closing the distance between Robin and herself preparing to throw a punch.

But Robin seemed to predict this as before Emma could connect her thrown punch aimed at Robin's now Haki-clad stomach she summoned multiple arms interlocking with one another forming a wall in front of her having it take the blow from Emma while jumping backward using Soru creating distance between the two.

Emma scoffed at this before jumping into the air and using her Devil Fruit ability on a nearby rock large enough for her to stand on, effectively letting her levitate mid-air.

"It's over Robin, I have the high ground!" Yelling these random words towards Robin, Emma proceeded to lift smaller rocks in the area directing them all towards Robin at a high speed while also targeting Robin with her ability making it harder for her to dodge the incoming rocks.

"You underestimate my devil fruit power!" Robin yelled back in response to Emma while once again crossing her arms over her chest and summoning two gigantic arms made out of hundreds of smaller arms which then proceeded to bat away all the incoming rocks.

"Tch, you were supposed to lose there to finish the scene." Once again saying things that only made sense to herself, Emma slammed her foot down on the rock she was using to float in the air shattering it into pieces before proceeding to launch said pieces towards Robin while simultaneously using Geppo kicking the air around herself to maneuver past the giant arms that were busy blocking the earlier attack.

Noticing Emma had gotten past her defense Robin was about to summon another wall of arms to block herself from the Shigan powered punch Emma was getting ready to throw and before she could though, Emma stopped the punch mid preparation causing Robin to falter in surprise for a moment giving Emma an opportunity.

Using her devil fruit to create an area only big enough to encompass Robin and herself Emma then used her full strength to slam Robin into the ground creating a small cavity in the sand.

Looking down on Robin who could only muster enough strength against the Gravitational pull to lift her head and stare at herself Emma then spoke "Sorry Robin but the truth is the game was rigged fr- '.

But before Emma could finish gloating to Robin a pair of arms that were slowly coming from the ground behind her wrapped themselves around her waist and suplexed her into the sand, catching off her guard enough to break the focus she had on her ability giving Robin a chance to stand up and summon more arms around Emma's neck before she could fully understand the situation.

"The winner is Robin". Saying this Geina and I walked towards the two girls who now lay on the ground panting like dogs in a heatwave, once we were next to them I started giving my opinion on their fight.

"Robin, good job on the creative use of your Devil Fruit ability but your motions are too choreographed, you need to start working on being able to use your ability by only thinking about it as you did once you were unable to move entirely, besides that your use of Armament Haki was excellent." than taking my attention away from the nodding Robin I look at my daughter.

"Emma although you showed excellent use of the Rokushiki being able to even use it to boost off the air you didn't capitalize on its strong point of momentum, Instead of stopping before Robin and launching your punch you should have been preparing your punch before you got to Robin so that she wouldn't have time to fully react before you launch it." Chiming in where I left off Geina looked at Robin and then spoke.

"You indeed need to make your actions far less pronounced but that's not all, you had a plethora of opportunities to attack Emma when she was floating in the air, You could have summoned arms on her or the rock she was standing on to achieve this. Also, you are not diverse enough with your ability in a fight, yes it's a good idea to shape arms into larger and more diverse things but that's all you're using it for. If you would have summoned multiple eyes around the battlefield you would have known what Emma was planning before she caught you off guard, or if you were to have used Observation Haki, you would have noticed that the second punch Emma threw was meant to be a fake." All this information seemed to cause Robin to fall into deep contemplation as she didn't nod to Geina.

Staring at Robin with an expectant smile Geina then focused on Emma who was now using her ability to make a rock float slightly off the ground sitting on it like a stool. Shaking her head a little with a small chuckle Geina made Emma's ability disappear causing her to fall butt first into the sand.

"When you were using your devil fruit to stand on the rock in mid-air you could have used one of the pieces of rock you launched at Robin to create an area around her and applied much more pressure on her at the cost of a lot less stamina than targeting her directly like you chose to do, even if you can't yet combine both area and target control that doesn't mean you can't use both separately but in tandem." Geina was seemingly done after that so I continued.

"With all that said, the progress you two have made these past few years is great, and you should be strong enough to defend yourself in any of the 4 great seas." After finishing I picked up both of them, one under each of my arms causing one of them to fidget nervously once they came back to their senses and the other to fall limp like a wet noodle as I started to walk towards the ship with a chuckling Geina following closely behind.

(A/N - For those of you who don't remember these abilities https://onepiece.fandom.com/wiki/Rokushiki, Mc is using these over Haki as she is still too young/weak physically to use Armament haki.)