Chapter 46: Assessment
Nighttime, Beasts Canteen.
“Hahahaha! What’s wrong, Aoxi, why the long face? You were this close to beating me! In the Beasts Pirates, you’ll be a big deal from now on!”
Brother Burufaruto was gulping down Fish-Man Island’s signature spirits while vigorously patting Aoxi’s shoulder.
“Yeah! Big Sister Aoxi, even though you narrowly lost to Brother Burufaruto, your strength is basically enough to strut around the crew!”
The pirates nearby also wore sycophantic grins as they topped off Aoxi’s juice.
“Big Sister Aoxi, let me toast you.”
“I didn’t expect you to be so strong, Big Sister Aoxi! We’ll have to rely on you to protect us from now on!”
“Exactly, just accumulate a bit more real battle experience, and surpassing me will be just around the corner~ What’s that saying again, something about how the new generation surpasses the old one.”
……
“Sigh~”
Aoxi ignored the pirates flattering her around her, propping her chin with one hand while aimlessly poking at the steak on her plate with the other.
『Something’s off~ Normally, this little girl’s tail would be sticking up to the sky by now, what’s up with her today?』
Seeing Aoxi’s dejected look, Brother Burufaruto turned to ask Obei.
“What’s going on with you two?”
“Tch~”
Obei didn’t respond either, instead furrowing her brows and staring intently at her sleeve, her gaze as if trying to see every single thread on it.
“Hey! You, do you know?”
Having hit two nails on the head, Brother Burufaruto had no choice but to ask the nearby You Ling if he knew the inside story.
At this moment, You Ling was rare in dining at the canteen; he had removed the lower half of his mask and was focused on eating the flying fish sashimi on his plate.
Ever since tasting it once during a voyage not long ago, You Ling couldn’t forget the flavor. Finally today, the supply ship from outside unexpectedly brought a few flying fish, so You Ling bought them at a high price and had them made into sashimi at the canteen.
“It’s probably because of that exam Sister La mentioned before.”
You Ling wiped his mouth, then handed the last plate of flying fish sashimi to Brother Burufaruto and the others.
“Try it, tastes good.”
“I don’t like eating fish, you two brats try it!”
Brother Burufaruto seemed somewhat indifferent to seafood, but since You Ling was willing to share for once, he couldn’t refuse, so he looked toward the two gloomy little ones nearby.
“Here, you two give it a try. This is something this stingy guy bought at an exorbitant price.”
“Ah woo, hmm?!”
Aoxi, lost in thought, subconsciously speared a piece of sashimi and chewed it twice before spitting it straight out.
“Pfft… bleh bleh~ Why is it raw?!”
“Sashimi is of course raw.”
“Take it away, I don’t eat raw stuff.” Aoxi quickly grabbed the juice on the table and rinsed her mouth.
“Then…” Brother Burufaruto turned to look at Obei again.
“I don’t eat it either.”
The three sisters, or rather You Ling, rarely disliked anything, but raw food was one of them.
She remembered once when You Ling invited friends to dinner, and the friend chose a Japanese restaurant. Out of curiosity, he ordered salmon sushi.
It had to be said the presentation was nice, but after putting it in his mouth, he nearly spat it out in front of everyone.
You Ling still couldn’t recall the taste of that sushi to this day, as if her brain had selectively forgotten that memory.
“If you don’t want it, fine! Come on, subordinates, you guys try it. This stuff is several times more expensive than Sea King meat.” Brother Burufaruto directly passed the plate to the subordinates gathered around.
……
“What do we do? Only one day left.”
“How about begging Sister La for a few more days?”
“You go tell Big Sister.”
“No way, you go.”
“I don’t want to either.”
“Sigh~”×2
“By the way, what exactly is that assessment of yours?”
After hearing about the assessment from You Ling, the tipsy and satisfied Brother Burufaruto leaned in curiously and asked.
Hearing this, Aoxi and Obei both blushed slightly, with Aoxi angrily scolding: “Ugh~ Your breath stinks of booze! Go away, go away! Can’t you see we’re troubled? Stinky thug!”
“How am I a stinky thug? I didn’t do anything to you! Besides, I’m a Fish-Man, I wouldn’t look at a little girl like you!”
“Why not tell us the assessment content? We can help solve it together.” Surprisingly, You Ling spoke up at this moment.
“Yeah, more people, more power~ Tell us and let everyone brainstorm.”
Aoxi and Obei exchanged eye contact, then nodded.
“The assessment is like this: suppose you’re a… um, how to put it, suppose you’re a Logia Devil Fruit ability user, how to control elements to make them into a piece of clothing on your body.”
Obei didn’t mention divine power or energy or such things, figuring they wouldn’t understand, so she came up with a similar example.
“Logia! Sister La is a Logia ability user?! Or are you two?”
Hearing the assessment involved elementalization, Brother Burufaruto was somewhat surprised.
“Oh come on~ Neither Sister La nor us are! Just an example, an example!” Seeing everyone’s attention turn to Logia ability users, Aoxi quickly corrected.
“Hmm~ That’s tricky, our Pirate Crew has no Logia ability users, mostly Zoan ones.” Brother Burufaruto found it thorny.
“I’ve seen a few Logia ability users; they seem able only to elementalize their own clothes, not turn other things into elementalized clothing.”
You Ling recalled some info on Logia ability users.
“Right, those Logia guys are weird. Why can even their clothes elementalize together?”
Brother Burufaruto also remembered a Logia ability user he’d encountered before, then looked toward You Ling.
“Speaking of which, you Zoan types too—your bodies just mutate, yet even your clothes transform with you. Boss Kaido turns into a dragon and gets huge, but when he changes back, his clothes are fine!”
You Ling didn’t answer, as this involved higher-dimensional rules, which he didn’t know either.
“Alright, now’s not the time to discuss ripping clothes… um~ fine, actually it’s not that different.”
Aoxi suddenly remembered You Ling could manipulate flames freely, so she asked expectantly: “Right, flame-head bro, how do you control those flames? I see you put them on your head one moment, on your wings the next. Any control tricks?”
“Controlling flames is our clan’s talent, or instinct, like breathing. No techniques to teach.” You Ling didn’t mind Aoxi’s nickname.
Well, he might mind a little, but he wouldn’t say it.
“Like breathing? You Ling, can you manipulate flames to form a piece of clothing?” Obei asked.
Ever since the spar, Obei hadn’t called You Ling Masked Man again. Mainly because mentioning mask made Obei think of that distorted face, and then…
“Form clothing? I can cover my whole body in flames to look like clothing, but it consumes a lot and has little combat value.”
You Ling said as he stood up to demonstrate.
He folded his wings, then flames ignited on his back and spread over his body, like donning a cloak of flames.
But after just a few seconds, he quickly dispelled it.
“So what kind of clothes are you talking about?”
Seeing You Ling’s demonstration, Brother Burufaruto felt it still differed from ‘clothes.’
“Like this.”
Obei lifted the hem of her skirt.
“?”×n
All the pirates, including You Ling and Brother Burufaruto, were somewhat baffled.
“The skirts on me and Aoxi were woven by Sister La using energy of similar elements.” Obei explained further.
“?!”×n
“Y-You mean?! The clothes on you aren’t real?!” Brother Burufaruto’s eyes bulged as he directly reached out to touch Aoxi’s skirt hem nearby.
“Feels like ordinary silk? If anything special, it’s just the insanely good texture.”
Meanwhile, You Ling nearby stared intently at Obei’s skirt. He didn’t touch it, but his trembling pupils showed his inner turmoil.
“This is flames! An extremely special kind of flames! I sense an aura from these flames that’s hard to look at directly!”
You Ling immediately identified the skirt’s material.
“I never thought I’d fear flames one day.”
His race—the Lunarians were born children of flames; flames were like part of their bodies.
Yet now You Ling felt immense pressure from this mild object that lacked flames’ usual ferocity and heat.
But after suppressing his inner awe and carefully observing the two’s skirts, You Ling discovered something even more shocking.
“This… this is flames spun into threads and woven into clothing! Unimaginable skill, a miracle of gods!” He abruptly stood up, uncharacteristically losing composure.
“Huh? It’s fire? But Sister La clearly said she just used pure divine power?”
Aoxi rubbed her skirt hem with her hand, trying to rub out some sparks or something.
But she failed; the smooth, warm texture felt more like early summer stream water than flames.
“Hey hey, is it that exaggerated? To make even you show that expression, You Ling.”
Brother Burufaruto, nearby, couldn’t understand what about these ordinary-looking clothes made You Ling lose it.
“Brother Burufaruto, your Fish-Man Karate manipulates water flow in battle. Could you control water flow into threads and weave them into a piece of clothing like this?” You Ling made an analogy to Brother Burufaruto.
“You’re joking, right?! I can turn water flow into fine threads, but weave into clothes? I’m not the Sea God; how could I do that! At most I can drape seawater over me temporarily like you.” Brother Burufaruto found You Ling’s analogy absurd.
“Wait, you mean the clothes on these two brats…”
“Yes, woven from threads made of flames.”
“Hiss~”×n
This was practically a divine work!
The surrounding pirates gradually grasped the terror of it, all drawing in sharp breaths, instantly cooling the canteen a bit.
“Your Big Sister turned into a monster or something, right?! So your assessment is…”
“Yeah, Sister La wants us to weave a set of clothes like this ourselves. If we can’t by then, she’ll… mmph~ mmph~…”
Obei hurriedly covered Aoxi’s mouth; the rest couldn’t be said in this public occasion!
“Impossible. Give up.”
You Ling stated flatly. If he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, he wouldn’t even imagine a flame-woven skirt existed.
“Sigh~ So no way after all…” Aoxi was dejected; they’d tried every method possible, truly at the end of their rope.
Unless…
“At this point, we can only cheat!” Obei seemed to have decided.
“Cheat? How?”
“Like this this… then that that…” Obei quietly whispered her plan into Aoxi’s ear.
“Will this work?! That’s totally cheating!!”
“You don’t have to.”
“Let’s go prepare now!”
“……”
One day later.
On this empty ground undetectable by any instrument… cough, this empty ground with no one around, Obei and Aoxi nervously looked at Sister La before them.
Because the training ground had become like an attraction on the island, packed with people every day; doing the assessment there would be inappropriate.
“So, this is your homework?” Sister La’s tone showed no anger or pleasure.
“……Yes.”×2
Aoxi and Obei steeled themselves to answer, their words full of guilt.
Now the two were like the class president and academic committee member handing in two or three assignments and claiming they’d collected them all.
“You cheated.”
Still that gentle, calm tone, but it made the two little ones tremble all over.
“……”
After a suffocating silence, Aoxi broke first.
“Quaah! Sister La, sorry, I had no choice~ It was Obei, all Obei egging me on.” Aoxi hugged Sister La’s leg and started whining.
“You!”
Aoxi’s move made Obei’s eyes nearly pop out; she didn’t expect Aoxi to be so shameless.
“Big Sister, don’t listen to her nonsense! I didn’t…”
“It was you, you who tempted me saying ‘at this point we can only cheat’ and ‘Big Sister won’t do anything to us’! It was you!
Sister La, believe me, how could an honest person like me think up such a cheating method? Only a sneaky one like Obei would cheat and drag me down with her!”
“Y-You! Spouting nonsense, slandering, false accusations!”
“Aba aba aba… Anyway, you suggested cheating first; I’m at most an accomplice.
No, I should be a pitiful hostage, the poor scapegoat you used. Waaah~ Sister La, Obei is so mean~”
“Enough with the act. I know your personalities well. The cheating idea was yours, Obei, right.”
Sister La grabbed Aoxi’s collar and pulled her off her leg.
“Big Sister, I…”
“And Aoxi, you absolutely didn’t object, right. On the contrary, with your personality, you’d even push Obei along.”
“Big Sister sees through it!” Obei said excitedly, like Dou E meeting Bao Zheng, her injustice redressed in the warm sun.
“That, Sister La, how could you think of me that way…” Aoxi still wanted to shamelessly argue.
“Alright, my fault for not noticing earlier and letting you exploit the loophole.
Maybe the task I gave was too hard, forcing you to use this method to pass it off.”
Sister La examined the “clothes” on the two.
Under the loose long skirts she wove for them were real clothes bought from a shop in town, with their divine power evenly infused into every thread, forming another set of “clothes.”
This was almost identical to Armament Haki’s coating technique.
It was like Sister La asking them to submit an original painting, but they just traced one—directly on the original.
But what pleased Sister La was that both had overlaid their own ‘authority,’ like faint golden electric currents flashing on Aoxi’s clothes.
This exceeded Sister La’s expectations; she had only said her clothes were woven from divine power, not that she also applied flame-related authority for comfortable temperature—this involved advanced energy control.
『Didn’t expect them to notice that; they put in real effort.』
Though to Sister La, their divine power arrangement and authority micro-control were still very crude, incomparable to her naturally perfect flame dress, their initiative still delighted her.
At least they showed subjective initiative, right?
What she didn’t know was that it was the flame-sensitive You Ling who first noticed; Aoxi and Obei only added theirs after learning, probably thinking ‘can’t be too perfunctory.’
Even so, completing this “clothing” wasn’t easy.
Divine power aside, stably applying authority to clothes… sounded simple, but dynamically controlling that energy—keeping it active without damaging the inner real clothes—required terrifying mastery.
At least progressing from mere authority emission to this in a week was huge for them.
Facts prove, push people hard enough and they can do anything—except higher math.
But push gods hard enough, and they can even do higher math!
Dispelling her power, Sister La watched the plain dress of flames and divine power dissolve into light motes, revealing golden and indigo “fabric” beneath—thunder from Aoxi and gang wind from Obei.
“Mm, though a bit rough, achieving this in such short time must have taken much effort.”
『Looks promising!』
Hearing Sister La, light flashed in Aoxi and Obei’s eyes as they looked at her hopefully.
……
……
……
“You pass, barely.” After long silence, Sister La let them through the assessment.
“Yay!” Aoxi jumped up and hugged Obei nearby.
Obei, tightly hugged, also sighed in relief, her suspended heart finally settling.
“But don’t celebrate too soon. Letting you off this time doesn’t mean you skip weaving this ‘clothing’ again.”
Just like every homeroom teacher, a sweet after a stick.
“This assessment continues until you truly complete your own clothes. Then you’ll graduate from me, and I won’t micromanage you anymore.”
“Got it, got it.”
Aoxi clearly wasn’t taking it to heart; live for today, pass now is fine—who studies on break after exams?
At least Aoxi’s mind was full of going to sea now.
“I understand, Big Sister.”
Conversely, Obei was especially solemn this time; if not truly out of options, she really didn’t want to perfunctorily handle Sister La again.
In her eyes, this ‘Big Sister’ from the same origin, same age, always cared for her and Aoxi like an elder.
She saw shadows of parents in Sister La more than once, especially like Mother.
She always walked ahead of her and Aoxi, in battle or study… Obei didn’t know what scenery Sister La saw ahead, how far her sight reached into the future, if she already had plans…
Whenever Obei looked up, she saw only that small golden back; she blocked all the sky, the sun.
This both reassured her and stirred conflict and slight fear.
She feared if that figure vanished one day, whether she’d have courage to face the totally strange scenery ahead.
She wanted to be someone Sister La approved of—a sister who wouldn’t hold her back, one who could stand shoulder-to-shoulder.
『Next time, I won’t disappoint you. Big Sister…』
