"What do you want?" Stiel took two steps back, forcing a smile. "You can't possibly be… trying to avenge that fool Gance, right?"
Liam tilted his head, considering the matter for a second. "And what if I am?"
"This is between me and him, an internal matter," Stiel said coldly, his hands behind his back already shifting into gun barrels as his eyes locked on Liam, who was still standing casually on the railing. "It doesn't seem to have anything to do with you, Giorno."
"Whether it does or not," Liam replied lightly, "that's for me to decide."
The moment the words left his mouth, Stiel's twin gun barrels flared with light, and he fired.
"Go settle it in the sea!" Stiel roared, both arms thundering as he unleashed a relentless rainstorm of bullets toward Liam.
Liam simply raised one hand toward the hail of bullets, a bored look on his face.
Wait…?! Stiel's heart skipped a beat. Could Giorno have some kind of bullet-controlling Devil Fruit ability?!
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Countless bullets struck Liam's body, but instead of tearing through flesh, they sparked violently against his skin like metal striking tempered steel.
That's not control! That's just… impossible! Stiel cursed furiously inside, his barrels overheating as he continued to pour out a relentless barrage.
When the storm of gunfire finally ended, the ship's railing was riddled with holes, smoke filled the air, and Giorno stood there, surrounded by drifting wisps of gunpowder. A breeze swept through, revealing him completely unharmed, one hand still raised.
Liam sighed in disappointment. "Just not the same without Robin's commentary."
"..." Stiel's pupils shrank to pinpoints. His forearms fused again, transforming into massive cannons.
BOOM!
A cannonball roared toward Liam. His body twisted backward in an unnatural flex, the projectile whizzing past, barely grazing him, and then his form seemed to flatten and glide toward Stiel like a piece of paper caught in the wind.
"Why, why is this happening?!"
Stiel's arms immediately reverted to normal as panic overtook him. Without thinking, he spun and sprinted toward the ship's edge.
"Huh?"
Liam blinked, momentarily confused. The fight had barely started, and this guy was already trying to jump ship?
"Hey! What do you think you're doing?" Liam vanished in a blur, reappearing beside him with a Soru (Shave) step. "Who said you could kill yourself?"
"I need your permission to die now?!" Stiel shouted without turning back, vaulting over the railing toward the sea. "I'll never let you get your hands on my Devil Fruit!"
Liam froze, then his expression twisted in genuine outrage.
"Bullshit! Who the hell wants your stupid fruit?!"
If the guy actually managed to off himself now, everyone would just assume Liam had been after his fruit all along!
"Get back here! You're not allowed to die!"
Stiel was halfway over the railing when Liam grabbed his leg, yanking him back onto the deck.
Smack! Stiel hit the planks hard, then, desperately, he reached out and pressed his hand against Liam's arm.
Whatever power Giorno has to steal Devil Fruits… it's mine now!
Stiel grinned triumphantly, but then heard Giorno's annoyed mutter: "An ability that steals things? Who'd even want that? Accusing people for no reason…"
"You, you know my Devil Fruit power?!"
Stiel was stunned, and then something felt wrong. His vision… doubled. No, a second field of vision had appeared!
"Huh?" Through that second vision, he saw Giorno looking directly at the himself he was supposed to be. Then Giorno glanced down at the arm that had just been touched, and suddenly smiled in realization.
"So that's it. Your ability works by touching people, huh?"
…Wait. Where's he looking? Why am I seeing him from over there? Then, where the hell am I?!
Stiel shook his head, disoriented by the chaos in his overlapping vision, and then turned to where Giorno had just looked. What he saw made his blood run cold.
Standing right beside him… was a strange, terrifying humanoid figure engulfed in flickering dark green energy. Its muscular body was covered in eerie, complex markings, but the most terrifying part was its head: an enormous, grotesque dog's head!
The dog's eyes were like two patterned walnuts, full of swirling ridges, the whole thing so absurd and uncanny that it made Stiel's brain seize up.
Liam tilted his head. "Yo! Gotta admit, that's a pretty neat ability… Peh! But I told you, not interested."
"What, what the hell is that thing?!"
Stiel jumped back in shock, but the dark-green, dog-headed creature followed his every move, step for step, like a shadow bound to his soul.
He just wanted to steal Giorno's unique ability, so why the hell was this happening?!
Stiel's mind was completely blank. No matter where he ran on the deck, that bizarre dog-headed creature followed him relentlessly.
A monster?! A ghost?! Could this thing be Giorno's special ability?!
"You've got some real short range there…"
Giorno's calm voice suddenly came from right beside his ear. Startled, Stiel reacted purely on instinct, he swung a punch at Liam!
Liam tilted his head slightly, easily dodging the strike from Stiel's suddenly "awakened" dog-headed creature.
"Too slow. Way too slow," Liam said with a grin. "At best, that's a C-rank speed."
Stiel had no idea what was happening anymore, what this dog-headed thing was, or what Giorno was even talking about, but somehow, he realized he could control the creature's movements!
The dog-headed creature let out a guttural "Neraaah!" and threw a powerful double-fisted punch toward Liam.
"Oh-ho? You wanna trade flurries?" Liam cracked his knuckles, laughing as he met the oncoming barrage head-on. "Bang!"
Liam's fist collided with the creature's, and the creature's arm shattered, sending a grotesque spray of blood through the air. The amount of blood defied all logic.
"Ahhh!" Even more absurdly, Stiel screamed at the same time, the exact same wound appearing on his own arm! As the creature's hand was smashed apart, he felt the same agony, his flesh tearing and bleeding uncontrollably.
Completely unscientific.
Liam's fists blurred into a storm of afterimages, "*Muda muda muda muda muda, *ORA!"
He hammered the dog-headed creature with relentless blows. By the time he stopped, Stiel was lying on the deck in a pool of blood, beaten so badly his own mother wouldn't have recognized him.
The twisted, mangled form of the dog-headed creature, its body now resembling a bundle of deep-fried dough, silently faded back into Stiel's body.
"Cough… cough!" Stiel spat out a mouthful of blood, his breath faint and broken. "Th-this… what… what is this…"
Liam crouched down beside him, wiping the blood off his fists with the edge of Stiel's coat.
"Za Warudo," he said simply.
"Th… that… what… is…"
Stiel's head lolled to the side. He was gone.
Liam couldn't quite remember, but… this might have been the first time he'd ever watched a Devil Fruit user die so close up.
Just then, he noticed something strange: a faint shimmer of light drifted out from Stiel's corpse, flickering briefly before disappearing into the air.
Was that… his soul? Or… the Devil Fruit essence returning to the world? Liam wondered silently.
As he was thinking that, something stirred in Stiel's jacket.
A Den Den Mushi crawled out, lifting its little head to look up at him.
Then, in a cold, feminine voice, it spoke, "Chopper-na Giorno?"
(End Of This Chapter)
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