If you wanna read ahead of my stories, you can check out the advanced chapters on my subcribestar, at the same username - 0Jordinio0
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Cocoyasi village was in full spirit. The news of Arlong's death alongside the abrupt end of his crews rule over the Conami Islands Archipelago hit like a ton of bricks.
When Nami revealed the news, it was met with disbelief at first. But soon, cheers of jubilation echoed through the village and everyone took to the streets to celebrate.
'There's a lot more people here than I realised.' Kaden mused as he sat back atop a bench shaded by a large tree in the middle of the village, a pint of rum in hand. It was his third so far.
Just a quick shot of his observation haki had let him know, there was actually well over fifty people within the village of Cocoyasi.
As the hero of the hour, he would probably have been swarmed right about now by the people offering them his thanks. Granted, he was initially, before Nami bid off somewhere, barely able to contain the tears in her eyes.
Kaden had let her go. Honestly, he'd let the situation get to him too much and he'd more or less revealed way more than he should have. Arlong had just rubbed him the wrong way…and he'd let the chance to show off to Nami get to him a bit.
Plus he'd been trying to cow Hachi into submission so he didn't need to kill him. He'd been too much of a loud mouth braggart to keep a tighter lid on things he should have.
He'd need to work on that.
Either way, oh well, he couldn't exactly change anything now.
He cast his eye towards the reason why he currently wasn't the centre of attention within the village. The tall wild haired octopus fishman sitting beside him on the bench, a morose look on his face as he stared down at the ground, his eyes filled with sadness.
With all the main officers besides Hachi gone for good, and Arlong himself dead, the Arlong Pirates were officially disbanded. When the ones he'd knocked out by by flaring his Conqueror's Haki had come too, it was to the horror of their captain being dead.
Hachi had bid them to flee, and Kaden had let them. They were nobodies after all, nobody that he gave a shit about.
Honestly, he'd expected Hachi to leave as well. He hadn't stuck around after all in the original….timeline?
Well he'd fled when his companions got caught by the marines.
Either way, Kaden hadn't expected the fishman to follow him back along to the village of Cocoyasi. And he hadn't said a thing since he'd bid his fellows to flee, not even now with everyone in the village giving him disdainful, suspicious looks.
Honestly, with it just being him alone, Kaden figured the people were itching for some retribution against him for being part of what happened to them and he couldn't exactly blame them.
"Why didn't you leave as well?" Kaden spoke up and asked bluntly, "You oughta know nobody would like seeing your face around here. You might have been a nicer guy than the rest of your pals, but it doesn't change you were part of it all."
"…Nyuuu," Hachi's shoulders slumped, "I don't know. I'm trying to think. I know what we done was bad. I didn't like doing it, but we did it anyway. We deserved it. But they were still my friends."
Honestly, Kaden respected him a bit for his composure. After all, he was currently talking to the guy who decapitated three of his friends.
He wasn't sure he could do the same in his situation, bad guy or not.
"Feel free to hate me, curse me with every breath you take if it makes you feel better," Kaden shrugged, "Nothing will change the fact I killed your friends."
"We killed a lot of people too, we killed Nami's mother," Hachi sniffled, "And we did it for a lot less good reasons than why you killed my friends. I'm not angry. I'm just sad."
"I can respect that," Kaden nodded, looking out over the partying people and smiling, "These people lived in terror because of you guys, there's no excuse for that. Owning your own actions though, is something I can respect. Just like I won't make any excuses for killing your friends. I did it to help these people and fuel my ambitions. And even Arlong, as much as I detest who he was as a person and what he did, I can at least respect for owning his actions in the end and not making excuses."
If nothing else about the guy, he could respect that he supposed.
"Nyuuu…" Hachi released a sad whimper, before looking at Kaden, "Did you mean what you said?"
He wasn't very specific about what, but…
"Every single word." Kaden nodded.
The only lie he spoke at all, was about Hody Jones planning on killing Arlong's sister, and that was more just paraphrasing because the guy did try later down the line because she was trying to help the Straw Hats and such.
Could Kaden hold actions people hadn't committed yet and would only do so in a future he wouldn't be letting come to pass, against them?
For guys like Hody Jones, he sure as hell could. The guy was an absolute piece of shit scum and Kaden would enjoy leaving boot prints on his face.
"Okay," Hachi nodded and his sad eyes narrowed into focus on him, "Then, do you have a spot in your crew for me?"
Kaden blinked, "…What?" he gaped, utterly taken aback.
He was not expecting that at all.
"Nyuu!" Hachi nodded, "You're planning on correcting mistakes caused by us right and helping fishmen island when it's in trouble right? Then as part of the problem and the only high ranking one left, I should help you!"
Hmmm.
"I won't lie, a fishman would be a big help," Kaden mused aloud, "I'm a devil fruit user, and I'll probably have quite a few more on my eventual crew considering I've got two more devil fruits on hand and I plan on hunting for more."
"Ah, cuz devil fruit users can't swim!" Hachi clapped his six tentacle arms together in realisation.