The Neighboring World was, in essence, the First Spirit Mio Takamiya's Realizer Territory—vast enough to envelop the entire Earth, but separated from the real world by a membrane.
Yimi had been here more than once, in truth. Every time she had manifested her Astral Dress, that tugging sensation was the pull of passing through the Neighboring World and back out into reality. Spacequakes, too, were intimately tied to this.
But she was the only Spirit who had ever made the round trip on every single transformation—and now, with the 1st Sephira Crystal gone, she couldn't even call herself a Spirit anymore.
Maybe the Saint's divinity colliding with the Kabbalistic Tree of Life had produced this strange result. Or maybe in the moment Ein Sof collapsed, Mio had finally remembered some unfinished wish and made a last desperate attempt to drag Yimi here and seal her.
How to get back?
Almost nothing was visible here.
Use full divinity again?
The cat tilted her head back, trying to recall the sensation. Total apathy toward everything—as if even a bowl of grandma's hand-peeled boiled shrimp set right in front of her wouldn't manage to tempt her.
"Famine?"
"Reminder to Host: you still owe Famine one Sephira Crystal."
"Ugh..."
The little cat dropped onto the ground with a thump, tail swaying idly—because she had nothing to wear.
"Main quest completed. Portal energy distributed. Proceed to next world immediately?" System spoke again, nudging her toward the obvious solution.
Yimi swung her legs.
But she hadn't properly said goodbye to the people who hadn't freeloaded off her.
"Reminder: different dimensions have different time flows. When Host returns to this world, the System will select the closest available time node."
The cat didn't fully understand what time flows meant, but she understood she could come back and visit them.
"Kitty will come back to see you," she told the air, to no one in particular. Then she hopped—and promptly forgot how she'd managed to fly without spiritual power a moment ago.
Achievement Unlocked: [Because You Forgot You Couldn't Fly, You Flew] — Portal energy +5%
Well. Love Train meant she wouldn't die from the fall anyway.
There was so much else she'd wanted to do—bring back souvenirs for Mom and Grandma, for one. But this would have to do for now.
"Transfer."
Portal energy dropped by one hundred. Yimi left this world behind.
Transfer had no loading screen. Last time it had flung her out of the sky into nowhere; this time, it went from one extreme to the other entirely.
First—pitch darkness. Then humidity, salt, the press of water closing over every surface she needed to breathe through. In short: underwater.
"Mrow?"
Specifically, the sea floor—though not very deep. Sunlight still filtered down. Schools of fish with colors that didn't exist on Earth glided past, and the cat stared, enthralled. They looked delicious. She wished, from the bottom of her heart, that she had a fishing rod.
Meanwhile, at the eastern side of the Red Line, out in the East Blue—the captain of the Arlong Pirates, Arlong, a Fish-Man with a serrated nose and a mouthful of shark teeth, was laughing and drinking.
"That Nami—urk!"
His breath cut off. Arlong's eyes rolled back as he clawed at his own throat.
"Captain? Captain, what's wrong?!"
"Seems like he choked on his drink..."
"No—Captain is drowning!"
"What kind of nonsense are you spouting?! We're Fish-Men!"
"..."
Last time might have been an accident, but this time you really couldn't blame the System. On Earth, ocean covered seventy-one percent of the surface. In this world, the ratio was probably even higher. Beyond the Red Line, the land was essentially just islands; "setting sail" had replaced "setting out" as the phrase for any real journey—which was why pirates were so abundant, and why the Marine system existed as a dominant institution.
It was a novel experience, honestly. This was the first time the water-averse little cat had ever seen the sea floor. She watched the unfamiliar fish for a while longer than she meant to.
Arlong kept convulsing.
Then, remembering she had no clothes, she shifted back into cat form—and spent a good while fighting her way up to the surface.
The air was humid but incomparably fresher than any city she'd been in. The kind of air you couldn't find back there.
The crashing seas left her a little unsteady on her feet. She was, by comparison, about the size of a speck of dust.
She was standing on them. Literally—with no supporting power of any kind, walking on water was simply one of the most basic miracles available to a saint.
"Mrow." Yimi sat on the rolling surface and stared into nothing for a while.
Water in every direction. Nothing else.
She lifted a paw and started walking toward some arbitrary point, while checking the world's missions.
Main Quest: Defeat the Four Emperors (0/4), OR Defeat the Three Admirals + Fleet Admiral (0/4). Choose one.Side Quest: None
No side quests. The lazy cat was perfectly fine with that.
This world actually gave her a choice.
She was still walking when her senses sharpened—the swells beneath her were changing, quickening. Then a shadow, close to a hundred meters across, rose from below.
A gaping mouth, ascending from the deep.
This was what terrified most sailors on the open sea: a Sea King. Enormous and prone to attacking ships, something of this scale might not even register Yimi as a target—too small to notice.
"Mrow!" The cat was startled. She had never seen a fish this big.
In fact, it wasn't aiming at her. The great creature even twisted at the last moment, shifting its jaws away from where she stood.
The ship it lunged for was barely larger than a raft, a single sail furled around its mast, two candles burning with blue-green flame. The man standing on it had already drawn a greatsword shaped like a cross—raised it without ceremony, and brought it straight down.
The Sea King froze mid-lunge. Then a hairline traced the length of its body—and the two halves toppled slowly to either side, a fishy stench rolling outward with them, dyeing the surrounding sea deep crimson. The wave that followed flipped the cat completely upside down. For one impossible instant, a momentary vacuum opened in the sea—the ocean itself split open, divided cleanly in two.
Yimi recognized him the moment she saw him.
Dog Eye Mihawk—it was HIS fault the cat's beginner combat outfit got a garbage rating! He is not a good person!
"Cat?" Mihawk had noticed her too.
"Mrow!"—The cat has figured it out. You must be one of the Four Emperors or the Admirals or the Fleet Admiral, right?
She jumped to that conclusion.
The cat's Stand, Famine, lashed out.
"?" Hawkeye was baffled.
Wild animals attacked people—that was normal. And some of the most dangerous creatures alive wore perfectly harmless faces. But for the life of him, he could not understand why this particular cat was looking at him with such undisguised resentment.