One Piece: The Eternal Flame

For three days in a row, Gray tried not to sleep, tried to return to the original place, and tried to move on.

But every time the result is the same, as long as there is fog around them, they will return to the time when they just landed on the island in the blink of an eye.

Except for him, everyone repeated their previous actions and words as if they were on the island for the first time.

They're stuck in an endless loop on the scene.

"This is the final island?"

Here we go again. Gray resisted the urge to frown, and continued, "It seems to be nothing special, except that the trees are a little bigger and the grass is a little taller."

Demon, who was about to say this, shut up, why did he feel like he was robbed of his lines?But if it's the captain, it must be because of the tacit understanding between them.

"Ha~ I have bad news to tell you."

"What news?" Perry asked.

"Captain, you don't want to say that you have been to this island, do you?"

"Could it be that you want to name the island because you are the first to land on it?"

"Is it bad news to be named?"

Gray kicked the playful Bud, and then scratched his hair irritably, "Actually, we have repeated this situation four times."

Without waiting for everyone to ask questions, Gray continued: "I have tried going to the island, going to the ruins, resting in the forest halfway, or continuing to set off and returning to the starting point, but after that, I have returned to the time when I just landed on the island."

"Is this the latest sitcom?" Alder whispered—in fact, everyone could hear, he asked the twin brother next to him.

Abel shook his head, "I don't understand what it means."

"Are you trying to say that we are in an endless loop?" Perry looked at the darkness deep in the jungle, as if a pair of eyes were secretly staring at them.

Gray nodded, "Yes, that's what it means."

"But why is it that only the captain was not recruited?"

"Because devil fruits are not human?"

"Pfft I know I shouldn't laugh, but it sounds so miserable."

Gray rolled his eyes blankly, curled his lips and said, "You really are, I was worried that you wouldn't believe me, but in the end you still dare to make fun of me."

"As long as the captain says it, everyone will believe it~" Latin rushed over and hugged Gray's arm.

Gray sighed, "Since you believe it, hurry up and find a way."

After speaking, he and the others looked at Perry in unison.

The latter looked like he had nothing to do with himself, "It depends on what I do, use your brain."

"Tsk, this kind of thing can only be solved by the captain."

Perry spread his hands, "I don't even know the situation. The only way I think it's possible is for us to leave the island first. From the perspective of time, the cycle starts from the moment we land on the island, so it must be a problem with the island."

"That makes sense. Let's stop nearby for one night first. I really haven't tried to leave this island yet."

Get on board and leave.

Standing on the side of the ship, Gray looked at the gradually receding island that was once again covered by white mist and disappeared, and let out a heavy breath.

"Why didn't you get hit, and what does it have to do with the Devil Fruit?" Alfred put his hands on the side of the boat and sat up hard.

With his back against the sea, he looked down at Gray.

Gray raised his head, his dark eyes crashed into a golden light.

He half-closed his eyes and smiled, "I can tell you it as a bedtime story later, even if I tell you now, you will forget it."

"If you don't tell me now, I will forget about asking you later."

Alfred was terribly stubborn at certain times, "You're hiding a lot of things from me, and I've always felt something was wrong."

"This time the matter is resolved, I will tell you."

Gray solemnly put three fingers on the side of his head, "I swear on Fred, I will tell you everything.

"and then?"

"What then?"

"What punishment will there be if you don't tell me?"

"Hey, I just swore on you, and this is the proof that I will definitely tell you."

Alfred crossed his legs, propped his elbows on his knees, and gently tugged at his earlobes with his slender fingers. After a while, he spoke again, "...you can go out and publish a book."

"Are you happy to hear the tone?" Gray drew an upturned shape in the air, "When you are happy, the end of the sentence always likes to rise."

"...your delusion."

"Now it's Yang's too. Since you're happy, then just laugh when you should, why hold back."

Gray reached out and pulled Alfred's cheek forcefully, "Hey, why don't you try."

"Cough cough!" Perry coughed twice, "Pay attention to the impact."

"Affect what?" Gray turned his head and retracted his hand, "Is there any way? Don't we just wait for the night to fall now?"

"Now it can be divided into several situations." Perry handed a piece of paper to Gray, "Because you are the only one who is an exception."

"Yeah." Gray looked at the words on the paper, sweat broke out on his forehead, and handed the paper to Alfred casually.

Alfred didn't answer, "Look for yourself."

"Hiss, I don't understand." Gray muttered, and sat on the side of the boat behind him, "Perry, you should practice your handwriting."

"It was written on paper just for you to understand." Perry restrained his fist, "I have practiced calligraphy before!"

"Wow~ Then I think this word looks good now." Gray changed his mind quickly, but he still couldn't understand the above content, "So what is it?"

"It means that if this is reality, then there should be something wrong with us; if it's an illusion," Perry looked at Gray inexplicably.

Gray was at a loss, "What's wrong? What if it's a hallucination?"

"That's what's wrong with you."

Alfred picked up on Perry's words, "We are all in your fantasy. In reality, you may have passed out."

"But if I pinch you, it will hurt you." Gray had tried it before.

"Then if I pinch you, will it hurt you?" Alfred stretched out his hand, Gray took the initiative to lean over, feeling the pain of being pinched on his face, "Hiss, it hurts."

"So here's the reality, we have a problem?"

Perry frowned. If it were realistic, it would be very difficult. "Is it really possible to do this kind of thing by making time loop?"

Alfred looked at Gray, who was covering his cheeks and moaning, and then at the people on the deck doing their own things, frowning slightly.

"Grey, you should wake up." He said softly.

Gray looked over blankly, "What are you talking about?"

"If they encountered such a thing in reality, they would definitely come over instead of doing their own thing there." Alfred's eyes were clear, but there was a touch of sadness in his eyes.

Perry didn't notice Alfred's emotions, he just looked at the others and realized the feeling that something was wrong all along.

"That's right. We have always solved such a big problem together."

This time, Colin and the others did not come to help, as if it had nothing to do with them.

In fact, it was because Gray's hallucinations couldn't imagine the behavioral logic of so many people.

"Are you upset?" Gray looked at Alfred's expression.

"... How did you find out this?"

"The voice is different." Gray sighed, looking at the ship and its crew that were slowly disappearing.

The place is slowly crumbling away because he realizes it's an illusion.

"Huh, come back to reality soon, Captain." Perry smiled, half of his body had turned into light spots and scattered in the air, "It's too bad to be trapped in an illusion all the time."

"I" Gray took a step forward, but someone grabbed the clothes behind him.

Alfred doesn't smile often, and most of the time he is cold and indifferent, like the moon hanging high above the sea, visible but out of reach.

But when he actually laughed, Gray froze.

Before he could recover, the smile subsided.

Alfred lowered his head, his voice was soft and flat, as if he was trying to hide his emotions.

"Don't lie to him."

After finishing speaking, he shattered in front of Gray's eyes, like a shattered crystal.

"Fred——" Gray sat up from the bed at the same time, and the next moment his headache was about to explode, he gasped, and cold sweat suddenly broke out on his forehead.

"Captain!" Everyone surrounded the bed excitedly, asking him if he was okay.

Until Colin, the ship's doctor, stopped him loudly, "It's alright, alright, keep your voice down, the captain's head still hurts!"

"What's wrong with me?" Gray slowed down for a while, his head felt much better, but there was still pain, mixed with some strange and noisy voices, as if many people were talking.

But these voices were not the same as the concerns of the crew, they sounded directly in his head.

"You passed out without warning." Perry explained, "From the moment we drove into the white mist."

"It said there was some kind of sound, and asked if we heard it." Tang En was still terrified, "It scared us to death."

"Is it the voice of all things?" Colin's treatment was completely useless, and it should be the voice of all things that happened before.

"Maybe." Gray would rather not want this ability, as it is useless and always gives him a headache, "By the way, where is Fred?"

"Captain, you are going too far. You were calling Alfred just after waking up. What's so good about that white hair~" Latin said, "He didn't worry about you at all!"

"Yes, yes, I am so mad. That guy is a cold-blooded, ruthless white-eyed wolf." Alder echoed Latin's words, and the two always stood on the same front when it came to dealing with Alfred.

Gray was not hit by the two, but just looked at Perry with a smile.

"Alfred is on the deck, I'll go out and call him." Perry walked towards the door, and the moment he opened the door, he froze in place, then turned sideways to get out of the way.

"It seems that I don't need to look for it."

Alfred didn't know how long he had stood at the door.

"I'm fine." Gray stood up, "Don't worry, let's go directly to the final island."

"Is it really all right this time?"

"Well, don't worry, I won't fall into the same trap twice."

Walking to the door first, Gray looked at Alfred who was silent with downcast eyes, "Come on, have a drink with me, Fred."

"I don't want to drink." Alfred was not an alcoholic.

"It's okay to drink milk, have you ever drank milk?"

Alfred shook his head.

"Well, it's a pity that I don't drink some milk when I grow up so old." Gray was stunned, although he had never drunk milk before Brooke, but this did not prevent him from laughing at others.

Gray hugged Alfred's shoulders, and took him to the restaurant forcefully, "Walk, I have something to tell you."

"So the captain dreamed of Alfred after he fell into a coma?" Demon glared at him before finishing his sentence.

Latin hammered the ground, "Damn it, Alfred is too scheming! He cut it all black!"

"Yes, yes, you are actually standing at the door, bullying us that we don't need to be knowledgeable on the boat?"

From a doctor's perspective, Colin said, "Because he was poisoned before, the blood in his body will indeed be darker than ours."

"That's not what people want to hear!" Latin threw a pillow at Colin, "Damn it, you stinky men, just looking at it makes people angry, huh!"

"Why is Latin angry?" Colin wondered.

"I don't know, I'm not a shemale." Bud picked his nose, "Why don't you ask Lu Jiu? She's also worried about the captain, so let's talk about it first."

-

His brain still hurt a little, but as soon as Gray stepped out of the cabin, the voice in his head became a little clearer.

There was a white mist in front of the boat, and Alfred explained: "Because you were unconscious, you retreated from the white mist first."

"It has nothing to do with the fog, it's a problem with the island itself." Gray believed that the closer he got to the ruins of the island, the clearer the voice in his mind would become.

"Why did you call me when you were unconscious?"

"This is a long story, I think back then"

"Stop it, I don't want to hear it."

"Hahaha, I'm joking." Gray didn't admit that he was hit, "But I do have a story to tell you."

When the two were in the restaurant, Gray drank four cartons of milk in a row like drinking wine, but couldn't drink any more. "Sure enough, the wine is still delicious."

He changed the drink and told all the things he had done before.

Alfred bit the straw, and after digesting the story, he said, "So in the future, I will call you old man."

"That's not necessary." Gray didn't want to hear this kind of address, men also care about age.

"So...have we met before?" During Gray's years as a Navy man.

Gray shook his head, his tone full of pity, "Unfortunately, I have never seen you, and I don't know you."

"Really."

"Why, do you also feel sorry?"

"I'm thankful for him." Alfred shrugged.

"Hey, you're hurting me so much!"

"According to what you said, everyone on the ship has died as a slave in that world, and I will be no exception."

Alfred thought that he had gone to Punk Hazard alone, and it was also Gray who broke into the palace with a strong and irresistible posture.

Perhaps in that world, he had already died there, because he had no resistance after the poison took hold.

Died too early, so.
"If you are destined to die, I don't want to know you."