One Piece: My Crew Uses Zanpakuto

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"If you were willing to stay..."

"I'm willing to do things for you that only close family would do."

"Some of those books for adults say men like dressing women up in certain poses."

"Whether it's the hollow of the throat or the curve above the heart... neither one is a vital point, but men seem to like them all the same."

"I wonder if offering that kind of service would make Ikki like me more."

Belo Betty muttered to herself as she worked through her exercises.

Are you serious right now?

Just then, a familiar voice reached her ears.

Belo Betty startled at the sound and spun quickly toward where it had come from.

"Ikki, weren't you leaving?"

She stared at him from where he stood in the gym entrance, completely frozen. Even the routine she'd been running through ground to a halt.

She'd been telling herself something, earlier.

Get as much training done as possible before the life potion wore off. Make the most of what it gave you while it lasted.

"I just remembered something," Ikki said. "So I came back."

His lips curved as he looked her over with obvious interest.

"I'm asking you straight. Was what you said earlier true? Were you really planning to offer me some special service?"

His gaze slid from her mouth down to her chest, settling on the softest, most vulnerable part of her.

Then he was gone, and reappeared behind her.

Snap!

A sharp, crisp sound.

A jolt of pain shot through her lower back.

Belo Betty flushed red. Ikki hadn't said a word, but his eyes and his hands had already told her exactly what he meant by "service."

"Um, Ikki, would you mind waiting just a little?" she said, blushing. "We could start after I finish training."

For a moment, she genuinely believed he meant it.

"Ha, I'm only teasing." He laughed. "Look at that, even you can blush, Belo Betty."

He smiled and clapped her on the shoulder, then set a bottle of S-grade life potion down on the platform beside her.

"I didn't come back to mess with you. I want you to give this bottle to Mrs. Shyarly. Perona and the others all got their life potions yesterday, and now you've had yours too. Shyarly's one of my true partners. I can't play favorites, can I?"

Nico Robin hadn't received a life potion either, but that was different; her body had already reached SS-grade condition, and Ikki had no SS-grade potions on hand right now, only S-grade. There was simply nothing suitable to give her.

"Ah, I see," Belo Betty said, relaxing.

She'd always meant to devote herself fully to the cause, but that kind of resolve needed preparation, and this had caught her off guard. It had thrown her, just for a moment.

"Alright, I won't keep you from your training any longer," Ikki said. "I'm looking forward to seeing how much stronger you get."

He smiled, patted her on the back, and turned to leave the gym.

Belo Betty pressed her lips together, her face burning a deep red.

"Honestly," she murmured once he'd gone, taking a breath to steady herself, "my resolve still isn't what it should be."

She told herself, again, that she needed to commit more fully going forward. That was the only way to earn more from Ikki.

That was when Perona's voice, along with Nico Robin's, drifted into the room.

"Belo Betty, you're up?"

"What's with all that sweat on you?"

Perona floated closer, eyeing the sweat soaking her skin. Belo Betty wore nothing but tight leggings below the waist, but that alone didn't draw much of a reaction; plenty of people in the gym trained without clothes these days.

"This has to be the life potion," Perona said. "Did Captain Ikki give you one, Belo Betty?"

"A life potion? You're lucky. He never gave one to Hina or Tashigi before."

She'd worked it out after a word from Shyarly. Nothing else would explain sweat this heavy from a workout like this one.

"That's right," Belo Betty said. "Hina and Tashigi both spent time with the captain, but neither of them got a potion."

"Sounds like the captain really likes you, Belo Betty," Nico Robin said, chin resting on her hand, smiling.

Her gaze drifted, briefly, to the faint handprints on Belo Betty's backside. She recognized Ikki's work the moment she saw them.

Belo Betty noticed the look, but by now her mindset had shifted enough that it didn't bother her.

"Ikki stopped by earlier," she said. "I mentioned reaching out to Whitebeard, and he was pleased enough to give me this."

She smiled as she said it, still moving through her routine, genuinely happy.

She understood, more or less, where she stood next to Tashigi and Tina in Ikki's eyes. By that measure, she should have been in the same position as they were, without a potion of her own. That Ikki had given her one anyway was a real surprise, and a welcome one.

"By the way, Mrs. Shyarly," she said, "there's a potion Ikki left for you. He wants you to grow stronger with it too."

"I have one as well?"

Shyarly followed her gaze to the bottle, its contents shimmering with a faint crystalline light.

"Captain Ikki is very generous. I'll train hard."

With that, she shed her clothes, settling in to train properly. She'd trained bare the day before as well; as a mermaid, she'd never much cared for wearing heavy clothing to begin with, and the time she'd spent around Ikki had only loosened her up further on that front.

His life potions made anyone who trained on them sweat heavily, and for a mermaid who loved the cold, that was miserable, especially in clothes. Shyarly hated nothing more than the feel of sweat-soaked fabric clinging to her skin.

It was time to settle properly into training, and naturally, she had no intention of keeping her everyday clothes on for it.