The incident began after Boa Hancock had departed, when Luffy, having been given a mission, led a warship out to sea.
"It's the Kuja Pirates!"
"Let's fight! If we defeat a Warlord of the Sea, our alliance's prestige will reach the heavens!"
"There's Boa Hancock! The one who captures her first gets to keep her!"
"[Pirate Empress] is mine!!!"
The Kuja Pirates were facing an alliance formed by several pirate crews, and eight pirate ships circled the Kuja Pirates' vessel.
Dozens of Kuja Pirates had boarded the eight ships, each taking on anywhere from two or three, up to more than ten pirate foes.
"They're weak yet have numbers to spare! Kill them all!"
"Yes! Your Majesty!!!"
Captain Boa Hancock, wearing sunglasses, was engaged with a man wielding twin axes, while she brandished a pair of razor-sharp swords in each hand, swirling like whips.
"You… why aren't you falling under my charm?"
Scattered around Hancock and the man were dismembered corpses.
Oddly, the heads of those corpses wore expressions as if they had experienced rapture.
"Even you… someone like me shouldn't be common, right?"
"A fool who doesn't recognize the [Pirate Empress]'s beauty right before their eyes."
"…!"
"That's why, unlike the other alliance captains around here, we're the fools who didn't die!"
"I'm blind—how can you see me… is it [Observation Haki]?!"
"Exactly! Even though my eyes are gone, I can see all your movements with [Observation Haki]!"
The man said as he threw off his sunglasses.
His eyes sat in the center of a slash mark as if struck diagonally by a blade. Blinded by the wounds, the man charged at the aghast Hancock.
The twin axes and Hancock's whirling swords clashed and sliced through the air, their duel raging on.
'He's got me occupied, so I can't charm the others.'
'Damn it, if only my sister were here… huh?!'
As Hancock fought and thought that, she caught sight of a sparkling flash sailing past her, and turned her head.
Boom!
The golden flash struck the torso of the man fighting Hancock.
The man spun once in midair before slamming face-first into the ground, and Hancock's eyes widened in shock at the flash and the man who had appeared.
"Monkey D. Luffy!"
"Reinforcements have arrived, you ungrateful bitch."
"Why the hell is a Navy scum fighting the [Warlords of the Sea]…!"
"I'm Doyle, the 200 million berry bounty man. From this moment on, I'll start the campaign to eradicate you and your alliance with the Kuja Pirates."
Boom!
At the same moment Luffy spoke, Hancock turned her head toward the thunderous sound not far away.
The sound was the roar of cannon fire from the Navy warship that had just appeared, targeting the pirate ships surrounding the Kuja Pirates.
"All hands, ready for battle! We're assisting the Kuja Pirates in crushing these pirates!"
"Aye, Captain Smoker!"
"We get to see the [Pirate Empress] up close!"
"Of course we'll help!"
As Smoker's shout rang out, the Marines aboard the warship leaped onto the alliance ships circling the Kuja Pirates.
"What the hell! Why is the Navy helping these bitches…!"
"They're pirates, even if they're [Warlords of the Sea]! What good is it for you Marines to be helping them!!!"
The alliance pirates were thrown into disarray by the Navy's unexpected intervention, while the Kuja Pirates and Luffy's men pressed the attack.
"What's this, Marines! Why are you helping us?"
"Luffy told us to help you lot! If you're grateful, let me grope your chest just once later!"
"Cut the crap!"
As the Kuja Pirates and Marines together pushed back the pirate alliance, Luffy also fought alongside Hancock, pressing Doyle hard.
As the fight continued, just as Luffy drove a punch toward Doyle's head, Hancock swung her swords at his neck.
"You fucking bastards!!!"
Hancock sliced off Doyle's head from the opposite side just as Luffy's punch snapped his neck.
The pirate alliance threw down their weapons and knelt in surrender at the sight, and the Kuja Pirates and Luffy's crew cheered.
As the victors celebrated, Hancock approached Luffy and spoke.
"Y-you… this was a fight we could have won even without your help!"
"Nevertheless, since you got some help, at least admit that you were helped…"
"Pay attention to the tear in your coat."
"...What?!"
At those words, Hancock reached behind and turned her head toward her back.
The back of Hancock's garment had been torn during the fight, revealing a tattoo boldly displayed on her back, and her eyes widened in shock at the sight.
"Your Majesty! Are you all right!?"
"Luffy! I've secured all the surrendered prisoners!"
"Oh, don't come over! Not now...!"
Flutter!
As Luffy saw his and Hancock's subordinates rushing toward them, he took off his coat and draped it over Hancock's shoulders.
"You bastard! What do you think you're doing to the Queen...!?"
"Luffy is already flirting with the [Pirate Empress] the moment the battle ended!"
"If anyone else tried it, they'd be cut to bits, but the [Pirate Empress] can't do a thing! That's Luffy for you!"
"I'm fucking jealous!"
"Waaaaa!!!"
With his coat still draped over Hancock's shoulders, Luffy, accompanied by Smoker and his subordinates, headed toward the warship.
After the day's events, the Navy arrested the pirate alliance and moved them onto their ship, and distributed the supplies from their vessels together with the Kuja Pirates.
By late evening, Hancock had come to Luffy's cabin aboard the warship and immediately throttled him on the bed.
"Die… please die!!!"
Grrph… ack!
Luffy, his arms bound around the thick rope above his head on the bed as Hancock strangled him, looked up at her with bulging veins in his eyes.
Hancock gritted her teeth, tears streaming down her face as she squeezed Luffy's throat with both hands.
'He can call me an ungrateful bitch all he wants… no one must know!'
'No one can control me ever again!!!'
Hancock thought that as she strangled Luffy.
And at that moment, her mind drifted back to her childhood, when the tragedy began.
*****
"Sonia! Look here!"
"What is it, Mari?"
"I think there's something under the water here!"
The two seas flanking the [Grand Line], known as the [Calm Belt], were windless and home to massive Sea Kings, making them graveyards for ships.
However, taking advantage of this, a country was built on an island within the [Calm Belt], and that place was Amazon Lily.
Every citizen of Amazon Lily was female, so it was called the Island of Women, and the women there valued strength above all else.
The strongest woman on the island was its Empress, and each successive Empress selected the island's strongest women to form the pirate crew she would captain—this was the infamous Kuja Pirates.
"Why aren't you cleaning, Hancock! What are you doing!"
"Don't scold her so harshly, Mari; Hancock is still very young."
The scene was set at Amazon Lily's harbor, ten years before the present moment and twelve years before the beginning of the original story.
A single ship was docked there, its red flag bearing a black skull.
The skull flag signified pirates, and the vessel belonged to the Kuja Pirates.
On deck, women wearing short sleeves and shorts, bows slung over their backs, moved about. The green-haired girl spoke to the orange-haired girl.
"We're not heading out to sea today, so there's no rush to clean."
"The Queen gave us kids the opportunity to become members of the Kuja Pirates, sis, so we have to do better."
"We just have to work harder than Hancock, right, Mari?"
Fifteen-year-old Sonia and her one-year-younger sister Mari watched their twelve-year-old youngest sister Hancock peer curiously over the ship's bulwark at the sea below.
Hancock's sculpted, pale face gleamed in the sunlight overhead as if reflecting the very light of the sky.
Her long black hair shone with luster, and her blue eyes were like perfectly polished glass beads.
"Kyaaa!"
"Hancock!"
Startled by the cry, Sonia and Mari looked toward where Hancock had been standing at the stern.
A round noose attached to rods that had sprung up from beneath the water was looped around her neck.
Sonia and Mari immediately ran toward their sister and yanked on the line around her neck.
"I… can't breathe…"
"Don't let them drag you away, Hancock!"
"Hold on, kids! The grown-ups will be here soon…!"
Snap!
As Mari and Sonia spoke, rods fitted with nooses burst from beneath the water and seized both of their necks.
On the other end of the rods stood people clad in black, skin-tight suits with their faces encased behind glass visors.
They had their torsos above the water as they pulled the three sisters toward them.
"And what about the ones next to her?!"
"Just catch them all at once!"
"We've got a big catch!"
As one of them spoke, two more men appeared on either side and looped nooses around Sonia and Mari's necks just like Hancock's and began hauling them in.
All three sisters toppled forward and plunged into the sea.
"We've scored prime targets! Get the submarine ready!"
As they sank into the water, their consciousness fading, they lifted their heads.
The sun above, though blurred, shone softly.
That was their last memory of the time.
*****
"W-what are you doing?!"
"U-huhuhu, you dare speak informally to a Celestial Dragon… what an arrogant child, Hancock."
A few months later, the three sisters, each with thick iron collars strapped around their necks, cried out in a barred cell.
Before them stood an extremely fat man wearing what looked like layers of white gowns, flanked by several burly men behind him, as he spoke.
The man who claimed to be a Celestial Dragon grinned as he withdrew a heated iron rod from a brazier.
"You're not royalty of another country, you're a slave of a Celestial Dragon, so of course I'll brand you on the back."
The end of the rod held a flat, round iron plate, heated red-hot by the fire.
"The Dragon's Hoof that runs the skies…!"
Etched into the plate was the footprint of a beast, three claws in front and one behind.
"No… stay away…!"
"Get your hands off Hancock!"
"Don't you dare touch my sisters!"
"Thunder Sonia, Marigold, Hancock… you must be afraid of your flesh burning off, and that's understandable."
"But is that scarier than having your head blown to pieces?"
"...!"
The Celestial Dragon watched Hancock, then Mari and Sonia speak, and continued with a laugh.
"I showed you all what happens when the explosive collars around your neck detonate—the sight of your skulls blown to pieces…!"
"Guh… ugh…!"
"Lift her up!"
As soon as the Celestial Dragon said that, the men around him subdued Sonia and Mari, laid them prone on the floor, and seized Hancock by the arms to lift her.
The petite girl, not even a meter tall, was hoisted by the burly men, her front pressed against the wall.
Holding the red-hot iron rod in his right hand, the Celestial Dragon tore at Hancock's shabby dress with his left, exposing the smooth white flesh of her back.
"U-huhuhu, I love how pale your flesh is!"
"I was wrong! P-please…!"
"It'd be a waste not to carve the hoofprint!!!"
Sizzle...!
"Kyaaa!!!"
"Hancock!!!"
Hancock, scorched by the heated iron plate pressing into her back, screamed in agony.
Sonia and Mari, lying on the floor, looked up and screamed as Hancock's small body slumped to the ground.
She clutched the torn remnants of her dress still hanging on her and collapsed to the side.
"U-huhuhu… I can't wait for the day you get your first period, Hancock!"
"Gghhh… aaaahhhh!!!"
"Brand the other two with the hoofprint too, and send them to me once you're done!"
"Understood."
As soon as the Celestial Dragon finished speaking and departed, the men looked at one another.
The men, wearing shabby clothes, wore depressed expressions. One of them even had his shirt torn to reveal his back.
On that man's back was the same tattoo that marked Hancock's.
"H-Hancock!"
"Don't you dare touch my sisters!"
"Just accept it quickly… it'll be for your own good."
With those words, the men seized Sonia and Mari's arms and branded the hoofprint onto their backs.
Hancock lay collapsed on the cold floor, trembling, and let out an even greater wail at the sight.
And so, that day, the three sisters were marked with the beast's footprint on their backs.