Kairo appeared inside the ship. The Straw Hats were currently in the middle of a deep current, moving at speeds closer to the ship's full throttle than anything an average boat could manage.
They were zooming in this bitch.
As Kairo appeared, he made sure to coat the soles of his feet with Haki, ensuring that the moment he materialized, he clung to the surface instead of being blasted backward.
Looking around, he saw that most of them were fine, slowly adjusting to the speed. They only had trouble during acceleration—now that the deep current's top speed had been reached and adapted to, things felt normal.
Unless the ship suddenly stopped or sped up even more, they wouldn't feel much at all.
It was kind of like riding in a car: when you accelerate, you feel that pull, but once you've been at top speed for a while, it feels normal.
Or like how the Earth is rotating extremely fast right now and we don't feel it—but if it suddenly stopped, we'd all die.
Kairo glanced at Luffy, who looked annoyed. The mech was nowhere in sight; the ship couldn't be piloted properly with it attached anyway.
Even though the ship was big enough that Kairo didn't have to bend down or shrink himself to move around, still—new tech and all that shit.
"You're back," Robin said.
Kairo nodded.
"I broke the keels of the Navy ships, so they can't follow us here. Also... Luffy's grandpa punches hard as fuck."
Wait.
Luffy's grandpa?
"Luffy has a grandpa in the Navy?!" Chopper exclaimed. He wasn't doing anything at the moment—Nami was fully focused on navigation, which meant keeping them aligned with the deep currents.
Kairo looked at Luffy, silently asking for permission to elaborate.
"The old man is pretty strong," Luffy said, shuddering slightly. "He's the one who trained me."
Just thinking about Garp's training made him shiver.
"Whoa, your grandpa is really that strong?!" Chopper said, stars in his eyes.
"Well, the man is Monkey D. Garp—the Hero of the Marines," Robin added. She caught the subtle tension in Kairo's posture. He clearly didn't like Garp much, which wasn't surprising; the man had probably wiped out his people or something equally awful.
"Kairo, you've got a cut on your cheek," Robin noted.
Kairo wiped at his face. Sure enough, there was blood. It seemed he hadn't fully evaded Garp's attack after all.
Flames flickered over the wound, and in front of everyone's eyes, it healed instantly, sealing itself shut.
"It's just a scratch," he said casually, as if nothing had happened.
A comfortable silence settled over the group.
Then—
"Hey, I didn't agree to join this crew. Why am I being dragged along?" Franky snapped, understandably pissed.
Kairo froze.
Shit.
He hadn't watched the Water 7 arc.
He didn't even know how Franky joined the crew. The only thing he vaguely remembered was Robin squeezing his balls.
Did Robin really have to squeeze his balls for him to join?
Was Franky a sadist?
Franky noticed the weird look Kairo was giving him—the same look you'd give someone who just crawled out of a sewer.
"What's that look for?"
"Nothing," Kairo replied calmly.
Luffy chimed in.
"Hey, you're already here. Might as well join us."
Kairo glanced at Luffy, who looked like he genuinely believed that was a perfectly valid argument.
"I can't join you band of misfits," Franky shot back. "I've got stuff back on that island—and people to look after."
"It's not like you can go back," Kairo said.
Franky turned on him.
"And why the hell not?!"
Kairo tossed him a wanted poster.
WANTED
Dead or Alive
FRANKY
$80,000,000
"They know you have the blueprints," Kairo continued. "They won't stop at anything to get them back—even killing your loved ones."
Franky clenched his jaw, more furious than scared. Leaving everything behind wasn't something he wanted—but he knew the risk.
They were important, sure... but damn, they were a pain in his ass right now.
"If it's any consolation," Kairo added, "I left a seal on the island. I can teleport you back anytime you want to visit."
Franky stopped pacing and looked at him.
That was... tempting.
Very tempting.
He'd only ended up with this crew because everything had gone to hell too fast.
Kairo, meanwhile, was mentally wondering if he really needed Robin to crush Franky's balls for this to work.
"Then it's settled. Welcome to my crew," Luffy said with a wide grin.
"I didn't even agree to join," Franky snapped.
Luffy just smiled.
He'd gotten a new crewmate, and to him, that was on the same level of joy as finding a mountain of fresh meat.
Hehehe.
This was going to be fun.
Kairo was still pondering the ball-crushing option.
After all, this was the only option he had. Oh well, he would think about it later. There was a training room on the ship, and he planned on doing some physical exercise today, maybe up to 50 times the gravity, while lifting 50 tons.
This should do it in term of strenght, this should push him alot more, and at 15 feet tall, he weighted a decent bit, he weighted close to 2k pounds, so with 50x time gravity that would be close 100k, and 50 tones would be like 2500 tones, which would be the equivalent of a very big boat, or those oil rings.
Which was fair for him, he was like powerful, this strength should be expected, not like he was bench pressing mountains.