One Piece: Reborn as Enel

Chapter 264: New Information, Ancient Seal and Next Target

_________ POV Narration _________ 

Enel sat crosslegged as he blew silently toward the large cup of tea that was placed on the table in front of him.

On the other end of the small round table stood none other than Kozuki Sukiyaki, the old man who was currently making decisions concerning the Land of Wano's leadership. 

The old man was dressed in formal clothing made of the finest fabric. His white hair was now caught in a rather elaborate bun, he now sported a spiky white beard and mustache. 

The conversation up to that point was just some frivolous greetings while Enel's islands settled in the skies of Wano, the drums of war now much quieter and bearable for the people below, acting more as a background melody. 

The samurai, especially the Red Scabbards, were still a bit wary since a massive army was essentially over their heads now. But knowing that it was Enel's army made things a bit more bearable on their nerves. 

For Sukiyaki, things were a lot clearer than for the rest. He had somewhat expected Enel to return to Wano at the end of the day.

"Now then... I think I know why you are here..." 

"I guess it is quite obvious, isn't it?" Enel sighed as he took a sip of his still-hot tea.

"There are very few reasons why someone of your stature would return to Wano... You are looking for Pluton, aren't you?"

Sukiyaki took a deep sigh as he remembered the name of the Ancient Weapon residing beneath Wano.

"Yep, Pluton. But it is my understanding that the country needs to open in order for it to be released." Enel nodded, one of his earlobes gesturing towards the ground and then towards the sea.

"I guess I do remember that being mentioned during our last conversation... But there is something else that occurred in the meantime, some information that I am now privy to if you will..."

Enel raised an eyebrow at that and gestured for the old man to continue speaking. 

"The closing of the country of Wano's borders was specifically done to contain the Ancient Weapon, that much I knew of as well...

But now I found out that there was never a designated way for someone to take the Ancient Weapon out of Wano, even if the borders were to open..."

Enel seemed a bit taken aback by the news. 

He hadn't quite expected to hear such words. After all he had assumed that the people that had sealed Pluton had planned to use it in the future.

But by Sukiyaki's words, it seemed that they never meant for Pluton to ever see the light of day again.

'They'd rather it doesn't fall in any hands than having it fall on the wrong hands, huh?'

 "But that is not the most alarming part... After doing a bit of digging, I was able to discover that even attempting to take the Ancient Weapon out of Wano would lead to the entire island sinking, along with the Ancient Weapon."

The old man's voice sounded quite distraught, but Enel still had plenty of questions in his mind.

For starters... "How were you able to find out exactly?" 

"Upon searching through the ruins of Onigashima, I was able to find some interesting texts... Poneglyphs, but not written upon the stones, on paper. 

It was faded and hardly readable, but it had a rather clear message... That the ancient weapon was never meant to leave Wano.

And we, as the descendants of the writers, are meant to serve as a last line of defense against anyone looking to use this Ancient Weapon." 

Enel slowly stopped listening to the old man's story as his senses spread out. 

He had not sensed any hidden rooms within Onigashima at the time, at the very least it was difficult to tell if there were any. 

His senses couldn't really be deceived, not even a room laced with SeaStone could hide from his sight now that his radar was active... 

So Enel had no choice but to assume that the old man was either lying... Or that he had somehow found ancient poneglyphs on paper just standing around in a collapsed library by sheer luck. 

It was hard to tell if Sukiyaki was lying just by looking at his expression. The old man seemed to have a perfect poker face.

But the other scenario was not quite believable, no matter how many blind eyes Enel was willing to turn to the conveniences in that story, it was simply improbable. 

Sukiyaki would never have ignored such writings if they truly existed. 

Sure, the old man was now able to provide ancient-looking paper with poneglyphs written on them.

But the old man had failed to account for the fact that Enel used to be an archaeologist in his past life.

Enel spent decades of his life validating and examining countless pieces of history from many civilizations, some much older than the Void Century.

With a side glance, Enel was easily able to tell that the type of paper that the poneglyphs were drawn on was not the type that would survive for more than 200 years even under perfect circumstances.

It was not treated in any way to last longer and to be passed on to the next generations. 

Enel assumed that Sukiyaki had chosen paper as it was a lot harder to forcefully age stone quickly. 

Enel did remember that there was someone among the Red Scabbards with the ability to age things. But it seemed that no such powers were used on the paper.

Enel didn't really know much about that person's abilities anyway, there was a chance that they only worked on humans...

In the end, the Lighting Emperor was forced to concede.

He could try to force Pluton out of Wano, to ask Shiki to make sure that Wano didn't sink in the process, just in case.

But it was all likely going to cause a lot of chaos for the people of Wano, and that was likely something that Sukiyaki wanted to avoid. 

Enel didn't blame the old man for lying, nor did he feel insulted in any way. At the end of the day, Sukiyaki was simply choosing what was best for his people.

He was essentially asking them to open their gates whilst a war was happening in the outside world. 

It was likely difficult for the old man to outright refuse Enel twice on the same matter, so to avoid any conflict arising from that he prepared an elaborate lie.

Regardless, the Sky King was forced to leave the country of Wano empty-handed. 

He didn't make any fuss, he simply bid farewell and sailed off, he was going to the next island on his radar.

At first, he had pondered going towards Egghead, to pursue Luffy. But the StrawHat had likely already passed the technologically advanced island.

So Enel decided to go where most of his allies within the New World had already gathered... Elbaf, the island of giants.

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