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After the two pirates boarded, she hadn't spoken a word when they vanished in the blink of an eye.
The ship wheel in the empty cabin creaked as it turned. Rosé swallowed, convinced there was definitely a ghost lurking nearby.
On the table in front of the wheel was a LogPose that had mysteriously logged its magnetic force early. Beside it was a green Den Den Mushi.
Rosé leaned closer and realized...
"Are they really inside your body?" she whispered.
Little Green opened its eyes, glanced at the human girl, paused, and, just as Rosé tried to ask more questions, suddenly bit down on her finger.
Before she could react, everything around her suddenly expanded at lightning speed. She found herself shifting endlessly through space. In the blink of an eye, everything changed completely. She was no longer in the rocking, swaying cabin at sea but rather sitting on a carpet in a palace-like living room. On the sofa in front of her, Jolyne was peeling fruit while Giorno, sitting beside her, gnawed on the cores.
"Chomp, chomp..." Liam munched a piece of fruit in two bites, chewing loudly. "How did you end up on our ship again? Chomp, chomp..."
He casually reached out and took the fruit that Robin had peeled. Robin picked up another fruit and started peeling it while observing Rosé. She was sitting on the carpet, slowly calming down from her initial shock and amazement.
She curled her legs to her chest, lowered her head, and after a while, slowly said, "Raut Heina..."
"Huh? Wait... You're asking why I got on the ship?" Liam took advantage of Robin peeling another fruit. He snatched it with a quick bite. With his mouth full of juice, he complained to Rosé, "Why are you answering the wrong question?"
Rosé kept her head down and slowly explained what had happened five years ago. The people of her homeland had suddenly begun to suffer from a strange disease. Different parts of their bodies had slowly become infected and eventually rotted like corpses.
"All the doctors in the country were helpless against this strange disease. Within a year, thousands had died," the girl said painfully. "Even doctors who came from the medical powerhouse, the Kujira Kingdom, couldn't find the cause."
The worst-affected victims died in endless pain amid filth and stench, their bodies rotting as if they had been dead for a month.
"So, you really went to the Kujira Kingdom knowing there were no doctors left?" Liam remarked casually, biting into a fruit with its skin on. The Munch-Munch Fruit rolled the peel into his mouth, leaving only the clean fruit behind. He teased Robin with a glance. Calm and collected, she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, leaned forward, parted her lips, and took a bite of the fruit from his hand.
Rosé didn't notice their actions. Her shoulders trembled slightly at Liam's words, but she didn't respond.
"Later... she appeared..." After a brief pause, Rosé slowly spoke the name with a tone of fear: "Raut Heina."
"It was a tricky disease," said the female pirate Raut Heina, speaking before the eleven-year-old Princess Rosé in the palace of the West Kaiar Kingdom four years ago. The slight smile on her lips left a deep impression on Rosé. "I hope my abilities can be of help to Your Majesty, but after all, I am a pirate, and my services require payment." Heh heh heh..."
Commander Gans showed no favoritism toward the pirate. The exhausted king nodded weakly while Raut Heina suddenly glanced toward the corner, causing little Princess Rosé, who was spying on them secretly, to cower and hide.
Rosé's tone grew heavier. "With her help, the strange rotting disease finally turned a corner. The disease stopped worsening, and day by day, month by month, year by year, the number of deaths from it dropped rapidly..."
"Oh," said Liam, holding a knife in one hand and quickly peeling a fruit with the other. "So she was actually a good person."
Rosé pressed her lips together, her face full of pain. She held her head as she continued. "But after that, although the disease was under control and no longer deadly, everyone became short-tempered and irritable. People, especially the sick, were no longer as kind as before. Even within the palace, conflicts became increasingly frequent and eventually escalated into wars. Bloodshed occurred every day, and many died, not from the disease but from meaningless fighting.
"... " Robin listened quietly, eating fruit.
"Even the gentle baboons were affected by the changes in people. They donned armor, picked up swords, and joined the war..." Rosé's eyes filled with tears. "What kind of hopeless country could make even animals this cruel?"
In the cabin at that moment, B.I.B., at the helm, remembered that it hadn't returned to its main body. It had also forgotten to tell the main body the place names it had seen on the Eternal Pose that Rosé had brought out.
"Baboons?"
In the living room of Den Den Mushi City, Liam munched on some fruit. Seeing the change in his expression, Robin knew he was interested in what Rosé had said.
"But Heina said..." Rosé bit her lip, drawing blood.
"Unfortunately, this is a side effect of the treatment," the female pirate said, casually crossing her legs before the king. "Although people have gained some vitality, suppressing the disease's progression is unavoidable. Or do you think it would be better to let everyone rot alive, Your Majesty? Heh heh heh..."
"How can this be?" the king asked, collapsing to his knees.
"Perhaps, if your majesty provides more funds, I could fully cure everyone. Heh heh heh..."
"There is no more money. We almost failed to pay the Heavenly Tribute on time this year." The king was pained.
Heina smiled nonchalantly, sipped some red wine, and left.
Outside the palace, the female pirate extended her slender hand as if grasping the chaos in the city below. She smiled. "So beautiful... the scenery created by the Rotten Fruit..."
And in a high corner step beneath her, the young Princess Rosé crouched, tightly covering her mouth. She was too scared to make a sound.
Rosé closed her eyes in pain; the pirate's smile burned in her mind. Opening her tearful eyes, she gritted her teeth. "The rotting disease... She made everyone get it..."
"Oh—" Liam said casually. "So she's the bad guy."
"The Rotten Fruit..." Robin recalled a Devil Fruit she had seen before. "I remember it's a Paramecia-type Devil Fruit with the ability to rapidly rot anything and anyone it touches..."
Tears streamed down Rosé's face.
Suddenly, Liam asked, "But after all this talk, who exactly is this Raut Heina?"
Rosé looked at him in shock.
Robin explained: "She's one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, the only female Warlord..."
(End of chapter.)