Chapter 151: Fate's Little Prank

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Everyone drowned. They were under the sea, deep within it.

They struggled in the dark, cold water, fighting for air. They kicked and splashed, trying desperately to stay afloat, but their strength was being drained by the sea. They were in their death zone, in the sea.

The currents pushed them down, deeper into the murky depths. Through the blinding panic and desperation, they managed to sense the presence of each other all around, also drowning in the icy water. Tsunade tried to use her ice power to freeze the sea, to save the kids, but she couldn't. Karoo was unconscious, having been unable to hold her breath for long and swallowing too much water.

As time grew, their gasps for breath grew increasingly faint, as they let go and began to sink into the abyss. They wanted to keep fighting, but their bodies didn't listen. The darkness wrapped around them like a cold blanket…

‘What?’ 

Until Hashirama regained his senses.

His vision was blurry with red water; his wound was leaking. He tried to push chakra into his stump to heal it, but there was no use. It didn’t regenerate, but at least the bleeding stopped.

With a groan, he called forth a second pair of hands from the side of his chest. With four arms, he swam in the sea. He held his breath and looked around for the girls drowning around him. Thankfully, even if the teleportation didn't land them in a good spot, all of them were here together. He could also see his sword floating nearby. But that meant there were too many to hold in just four arms and two hands. All of them were devil fruit users other than Vivi, who was already trying to save the others.

With a thought, thick vines came out of his body, surprising Vivi. "Mmhm?!"

She looked stunned and hopeful, her face morphed as if she was about to cry in relief, feeling rest assured that he could use his powers underwater. The vines grabbed on the sword, and then gently held the girls one by one, and soon he held all of them, even Karoo.

Swimming with this much weight would be impossible for a normal human, more so this deep under the sea where the pressure was insane. But Hashirama was anything but normal; with superhuman strength, he carried the girls out of the deep water. 

His lungs cried, they burned, but he went through it. If anything that could kill him, someone who could heal from everything… well, most of the things now, it would be drowning. Drowning might as well kill him.

Oh, and did he mention how a few hundred sea kings were circling him?

The water spun to create a vortex of worry and anger, the swirling movements of the fishes almost causing a typhoon to form. 

How annoying.

Hashirama let out all of his frustration in a burst of unhinged Conqueror’s Haki. 

— !!!!!!!!

The fishes dropped unconscious, or maybe even dead, as they floated and drowned and the water stopped spinning.

Thankfully, his training from his previous life helped him hold his breath long enough for all this. They had been teleported quite deep into the sea, but he used Wood Release to create spinning wheels on his calves; he managed to swim fast and up.

After a few minutes that felt like hours, he pushed his head out of the water and gasped for breath. All the other girls were lifted up by the vines, also gasping. 

"Gah...!"

"H-hah… w-why did I ever eat a fucking devil fruit?!"

They were still weak, submerged to their necks, but Mikita's loud complaint made everyone realize that they were alive at the very least.

A large shadow was cast over them, but Hashirama didn’t have the time to look up. His second pair of hands made hand signs and from the water below, a normal but large boat arose. It took more chakra to do it from water instead of ground, but he could manage.

Hashirama threw the girls into the boat with his vines, one by one, and then finally climbed onto it himself.

“Haah,” he heaved out a sigh, falling on his back. “We survived.” He said, finding himself at peace hearing the girls gargle and cough out water.

“Shira, y-your hands!” Tsunade yelled the first thing after coughing out all the water. She was sprawled on the floor, half planking as she looked at him in self-anger. “Fuck, why did this happen?!"

“Relax, I will figure something out. And I can just use four arms if they never actually heal, not that big of a deal,” he looked at his sister. He chuckled in between breaths and looked at Marianne. “Instead, you should thank our savior instead. I have to say, that was a ray of hope I didn’t think we had.”

One by one the girls finished coughing and looked at the girl who saved them all. 

Marianne looked a little embarrassed but took the compliments with a slow nod, also having finished puking out all the water. Then, slowly, she looked behind him. Her head raised as if looking at a tower. 

“Uh, what is that?” she pointed with wide eyes.

Slowly, all of them shifted their attention to the thing that cast the shadow of a city over them. And to Hashirama's surprise, it really was a city. With the sun already down on this side of the world, wherever this was, the moon hung high.

The golden moonlight fell over the city, yet failed to paint it yellow. The evergreen city remained so, emerald and bright. Towering skyscrapers cast intricate shadows onto the tranquil sea, making the crew feel small. The water mirrored the city's splendor, its surface like liquid glass, sparkling with moonlit diamonds. The city's skyline was an architectural masterpiece, displaying windows that were illuminated as if people were living in them. 

Weirdest of all, the city was embraced by a vast glass dome, a crystal barrier covering the entire place in a circle reflecting the moonlight, giving it an ethereal charm. Instead of earth as its surface, it floated on a black stone. In truth, it really looked like a crystal toy. 

Who made this place? No, whoever it was, despite the odd design, the crew found themselves marveling at the seamless fusion of nature and modernity. 

They were before the Emerald City.

"It's that place," Hashirama said. "There is no doubt about it. We are in the calm belt, if you turn your head around you'd notice. So this must be it, the… Emerald City."

Oh, what a prank fate had pulled. First, it threw them into the sea to drown, but once they overcame that, it rewarded them with their ultimate destination. The place they had been searching for months.

"That looks like," Nami held a monocle to her eyes. Where did she get that? She was pretty distracted by his sight, thanks to her wet clothes, clinging tightly to her skin. She was looking afar, at the black stone that was the base of the city. "A gate. There is a gate. It seems like an obvious choice, but should we go there?"

The Emerald City. Their destination for the past few months. One of the three legends of the world, along with One Piece and City of Gold. After almost getting deleted from the world by the God's Knights, they ended up right before this place. And the question was should they be going inside?

Obviously.

"Yeah," Hashirama let out a light sigh and moved the boat with his chakra. "I'd have liked to just fly over and land in the city, but it's blocked with glass. I don't think they'd take kindly to us breaking that dome, if we can even. Let's go take the gate."

He wasn't sure what would be inside, no one was. But they didn't care, goddammit, they needed a soft bed and a peaceful sleep. They needed a place to rest after this hazardous incident until the Clone-rama would return with their ship. It was an unexpected blessing that the place just happened to be their goal city. 

….

Unfortunately, sleeping was the last thing any of them had to worry about.

Fate did pull a prank by taking them away from Garling and dropping them here, but it wasn't a positive one.

Entering that Emerald City was perhaps the worst mistake Hashirama ever made in the eighteen years of life in this world. 

This place was hell.

|| Hashirama's Voyage Season 1, The End ||

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Author's Note: We aren't calling this volume like CG, but seasons. Don’t forget to spare some stones here! Now that CG is done, starting Sunday I’ll do goals (small ones) to get the chapter rates up as well as get HV back to rankings. Enjoy!

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