(A/N: Yes, most of the crew are OCs, except from Hiriluk, Tom, and Kuina, all of them are people that did not appear in the original story, though most of them will have some story created by me on how they joined the crew, and how are they related somehow to the problems that this world has to offer)

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Chapter 56: The world-shattering crew reunites

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On top of the sea, a big ship with completely average characteristics started approaching a medium-sized island with a steady pace. The appearance of the ship was something you could see in any other place, and if you paid even more attention to it, you could feel that maybe the owner of it tried to save some money while building it.

The people walking in the dock of the near island just glanced at it for some seconds before their attention drifted somewhere else, they had better things to do than to look at yet another ship disembarking on their city.

It wasn't long before the crew standing on top of it started leaving the ship one by one.

"It looks pretty good even while being such a small island... I wonder if they have a bar somewhere in this place...?" A man with a very long pony-tail hanging at the back of his head, and a small scar on his forehead walked up first and started inspecting the town on which his crew had decided to disembark for the time being, He had an enormous blue-colored spear hanging on his back, and he was wearing dark blue pants along with some dark-colored sandals that somehow didn't let out a sound even while walking.

"Calm down Yasu, first we need to check the entire island in case that mysterious being Thanatos-sama mentioned is here... that was our principal reason for coming here in the first place, right?" Soon, an old man with a strange V-shaped hairstyle walked down from the ship and placed his hand on the man's shoulder.

"Hiriluk... Fine, though I should probably mention to the boss to buy some bottles for this trip, I will need them after all..."

"So this is the island that Thanatos-sama mentioned, huh? Seems like a pretty calm place... I wonder if we will find that strange being that he mentioned here?" Suddenly from behind them appeared a bald man with long scars covering his face, he had a very intimidating aura around him, and he had some pretty scary metallic knuckles on his hands, and was looking around with a sharp gaze as if he was ready to fight at any moment.

"Kuent... you are standing out too much, you know that Thanatos doesn't like that..." Hiriluk, who saw the appearance of the man called Kuent, sighed briefly while shaking his head.

"Tahahaha, don't worry, I'm sure we won't be noticed that much, even with our particular appearances... Though if we continue being together we will obviously gather some unwanted attention... We are quite the particular bunch after all" From behind them, a giant red Gyoyin with a somewhat slim body approached and started laughing while carrying some wooden logs on his arm.

"Tom is right, we better lie low until Thanatos-sama, Kuina, and Kayn leave the ship. Our boss is already quite the infamous pirate after all, we don't want to reveal ourselves before the time comes, right?"

"It's alright"

Suddenly, from behind all of them, a dark figure appeared from within the shadows and looked at them calmly. He soon stayed silent and started looking at the town in front of him.

"Thanatos-sama?!" Kuent, who saw his boss appear so suddenly without him noticing, kneeled on the floor and bowed to him with an expression full of respect.

"Boss, what do you think of buying some beers for this trip? I think I will die if I don't drink for an entire month..." Yasu, who saw his boss appear so suddenly from behind him, flinched slightly before he sighed and looked at him with a pleading expression on his face.

"Oi Yasu! Show some respect to Thanatos-sama!!" Kuent yelled at Yasu with an enraged expression on his face and tried to stand up to teach him to show some respect.

"We already have a stock of alcohol inside the ship, don't worry"

"Ooooh~! That's boss for you, always a step ahead!"

"I thought that you couldn't buy alcohol?" A feminine voice suddenly came from the top of the ship, and when everyone turned to look there, they saw Kuina looking at them with a raised eyebrow.

Kuina suddenly started going down from the ship, as she looked angrily at Thanatos who only avoided her look and continued looking at the town in front of him.

*Yawn*

From behind her, appeared a young man with blue hair tied into a ponytail. He had heterochromatic eyes, one of them being completely dark-blue and the other one completely bright red, yet for some reason, the red one didn't look completely natural, instead, it looked artificially made, like a robot.

"How many islands are left for us to check?" The young man, who yawned a bit while looking at his companions, asked as he looked at his boss with a somewhat tired look on his face.

"Kayn... as impatient as always... Three... There might be a fourth one, but the way to get there is currently unknown. So for the time being we will only set with these three last islands... If we are lucky we might even find another Devil fruit somewhere in the forest surrounding the town..."

"Alright..." The young man called Kayn nodded slightly before he turned away and started examining the area with a calm face.

"Tahahaha boss! are you sure you should be walking around in THAT appearance? You are pretty famous these days after all! Almost all of us are using false appearances, why are you not?"

"I don't need it, for those that don't walk the road of shadows seeing my body is an impossible task. Only those worthy of seeing the truth will be able to see my true appearance before their eyes..."

"Oooooooh, boss is so incredible!!" Kuent, who was the only one looking in complete awe at Thanatos, raised his voice in awe while clenching his fist in admiration to such an impressive person.

The others, in contrast, had very different reactions to Thanatos' words. Kuina just sighed in exasperation while shaking her head, Tom just continued laughing, Hiriluk just sweatdropped a bit, and Kayn and Yasu just showed some deep respect in their eyes while looking at their boss.

Soon, Thanatos started walking in complete calm through the middle of the town, yet for some strange reason, none of the people walking around seemed to be noticing him in the slightest.

His subordinates just followed him while looking around and using their Observation Haki in order to look for any Anomaly hiding in the buildings. However, unfortunately for them, they couldn't find anything.

Thanatos' eyes suddenly started glowing in a terrifying crimson color as it looked at the distance.

"I think I found something, let's go"

""Yes""

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-Sid POV:

After checking up the whole town using my observation Haki, and accidentally invading some couples' privacy, I then proceeded to explore the forest surrounding the town. It had quite a lot of vegetation, and although some people were camping around in the middle of the wilderness, there wasn't much more to that.

Soon, I moved my vision to the small hills and caves that hid deep within the forest. It was then that I noticed a certain part of a cave that had some very distinct paintings on it, paintings that could probably lead me to my objective, or just tell me the obvious. Who knows...

I also explored the area where there most of the fruit trees were stationed, however, there wasn't a single devil fruit for me to collect. So I just shrugged it off and continued moving towards the cave I saw through my Observation Haki.

"What is this place boss?"

Yasu, who was only admiring the landscape until now, asked me in wonder while looking at the dark cave in front of us.

"I believe that there's finally some hints about this Anomaly's location. Though I may be wrong, it's still necessary to check just in case there's important information here..."

"How can a cave have information about that being that we are looking for?"

"This..." I walked inside the cave and pointed to the very well carved and beautifully painted pictures on the wall.

A beautiful night sky covered in hundreds of stars stood there. However, there was a very ominous, deep, and dark fissure in the center of the painting that looked as if someone had tried attacking the painting with a sword or another sharp weapon.

"Someone tried erasing this painting? But why? All I can see is a night sky in it" Yasu approached the wall and started touching it with a raised eyebrow and an expression full of curiosity.

It indeed looked like that, someone had tried erasing whatever was in this painting by using a weapon. However, on the other side...

"No... this fissure is not something made to destroy this painting, this fissure is... part of the painting. Something broke apart the sky and something probably came out of it"

"What?!"

Everyone around me exclaimed in surprise when they heard my hypothesis, their relaxed expressions soon turned into ones of tension and worry. Of course, I couldn't be saying all of this just because there was a fissure in the middle of a painting in the wall of a random cave, there was actually something else that caught my attention...

"The painting had only started wearing out a bit, probably around 5 years ago... and considering the condition of the fissure, even after going through the humidity of this place, and the probable apparition of some animal that made use of this cave as a shelter, less than 20 years have probably passed since this was created..."

"I still don't understand Thanatos-sama... how does this prove that this matter is related to that strange being...?" Kuent, who looked in surprised at the sudden amount of information from just a painting in a wall, asked while scratching the back of his head.

"19 Years ago many people reported seeing a strange phenomenon in the sky, though most of them only managed to see a small flash before anything else worth seeing disappeared completely... And this painting seemed to have been done during that moment"

"You mean that Anomaly came from within a fissure in the sky?" Kuina, who seemed to have understood everything until now, asked while massaging her chin in contemplation.

"Not only that... but considering the position of the stars in this painting... it happened right above this island"

And the date of when all of that happened... was three days before I was born...

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