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"Captain! I just feel… huff, huff… that woman Stussy, huff, there's definitely something off about her…"
"Call me Heina."
"Heina… ugh!, huff, huff…"
On the palace heights, in the duke's residence, the room was thick with a strange atmosphere. Behind heavy curtains, several shadows writhed and tangled together… After a long, wordless pause, a two-meter-tall woman with long red hair drew the drape aside and stepped out barefoot.
She snapped the neck off a wine bottle with her fingers, tipped her head back, and took a few swigs; red wine ran down the corner of her mouth and traced the damp, long line of her neck.
Lasha, with the diagonal scar on her face, shoved a robe over her wet hair and followed out of the curtained room. She sat down, throat dry, accepted the bottle Heina handed her, and drained it in one go.
"You were saying," Heina said with her legs crossed and a smile, "what about Stussy?" "I said she's, huff--" Lasha wiped her mouth, slamming the empty bottle on the table with a thud, "--not a good person!" Heina replied coolly, "She's the Queen of the Pleasure District. Naturally, she's not exactly a saint."
"I keep getting the feeling she's sneaking around, watching something…" Lasha's face darkened as she crushed the bottle with one hand. "Makes me want to crush her skull… and once her eyeballs pop out, let's see if she still dares leer at you, Captain…"
"So it's jealousy!" Heina reached out and rubbed Lasha's shoulders, then laughed as she stood. "We haven't sparred in ages, have we? Come on, let me see if your strength's slipped!" Lasha darted aside and swung a long-legged kick, shouting in a rough voice, "You should be worrying about Gaberd, wonder if her sword's gone dull!"
Heina raised a palm and struck; the edge of her hand shimmered with a layer of Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki). She laughed, "There are plenty of people over there to cut them down, their strength will only grow!"
A dark sheen rose on Lasha's bare foot as well. Their palms and soles slammed together, producing a shocking burst of force; nearby tables and chairs cracked and were thrown aside with a crash. The girls sleeping on the bed woke with a start, thinking the battlefield raiders had broken in.
"Check the time…" Heina murmured, rubbing her bare foot. "They should be coming back from the New World by now." "Captain…" "Call me Heina."
Heina toyed with Lasha's foot and ankle, rubbing them back and forth. Lasha, standing on one straight leg, began to tremble, feeling her face warm.
"Heina…" Heina pulled her close and laughed, "There's still plenty of time!"
Stussy stirred her coffee with a spoon as she listened to the Den Den Mushi on the table transmit a voice.
"…Yes. The other three of the Red-Coat Pirates' Four Knights, Gaberd, Kamui, and Coyatl, left the New World ten days ago," the Den Den Mushi relayed in a serious tone. "They've all left Mariejois and are now aboard the same ship. Their destination appears to be Kuraikana Island… they should arrive shortly."
"What about their activities in the New World?" Stussy asked, stirring her cup. "For the most part, they behaved like ordinary pirates. But since they flew the Warlord banner, they were even more unrestrained," the Den Den Mushi reported. "However, intelligence suspects they made contact with the 'Loan Shark King' and several other underground kings…"
Stussy propped her chin on her hand and looked out toward the palace on the heights. She murmured softly, "So it seems Heina has planned this for a long time…"
She ended the Den Den Mushi call. Not long after, another Den Den Mushi buzzed. When it connected, its face adopted the features of Rob Lucci. After hearing Lucci's report, Stussy said calmly, "Understood."
Liam had come alone and, guided by his Stand sense, soon located Robin's body and Ross. After treatment from doctors and nurses, Gans was finally out of immediate danger, wrapped layer upon layer in bandages like a mummy.
"What? You still plan to take him out to sea?" The doctor's lab coat bore patches of repair. On hearing Ross's words, he frantically waved his hands. "No, no! With injuries like these, it's a miracle he survived. What he needs now is quiet recuperation…"
The mummy-wrapped Gans forced his eyes open a sliver and reached for Ross's sleeve. "Don't move anymore, you really will die!" the doctor cried urgently.
The bandages wrapped around Gans's mummified arm quickly soaked through with fresh red blood. Tears welled at the corners of his eyes as he rasped out in a hoarse, broken voice, "…I'm sorry…"
Ross held back her own tears, clasping Gans's blood-stained, bandaged hand with a gentle smile. "Gans, rest for now… When you wake up again, I promise you'll see Sikeal restored to the peaceful land it used to be."
Robin placed a hand on Ross's shoulder, then handed her Little Green. Meanwhile, Liam stood outside the doorway with B.I.B., murmuring quietly to it.
Since he hadn't yet reabsorbed the Stand, the only way to tell B.I.B. what had happened earlier was to literally speak it aloud.
The fact that the Steal-Steal Fruit could actually steal Stand power was something that took B.I.B. completely by surprise. As a Stand, B.I.B. could snatch away another's Devil Fruit ability, but now there existed a Devil Fruit that could steal a Stand's power instead…
"I wonder if Vegapunk could study the principle behind Stands," Liam mused. "If he could reverse-engineer one of those Arrows, that'd be amazing… Well, the Arrow itself doesn't matter, what's important is the virus within it, the special kind that can awaken a Stand. Since Vegapunk can already create artificial Devil Fruits, there's no reason he couldn't cultivate an artificial Stand Virus too…"
B.I.B. replied: Devil Fruits can be synthesized, and eating one won't kill you. But the Stand Virus, for anyone without the proper aptitude, contact means death. Even if Vegapunk could create it, he might not be willing to.
"That's true," Liam nodded. "He's not like Judge or Caesar. At least he still has a basic moral bottom line."
Back when Liam and Robin first entered the Grand Line, their very first stop had been Vegapunk's homeland, the Future Country, Baldimore. There, the scientist had built an enormous magnetic device designed to turn that frozen winter island into a warm spring island.
In the main series, even Bartholomew Kuma, who voluntarily underwent government cybernetic modification, had received help from Dr. Vegapunk, leaving behind a final program within his system so he could guard the Straw Hat Pirates' ship, The Sunny, until his very last moment…
That alone showed that Vegapunk had possessed the mind of a true Hokage since childhood…
"Wrong series, wrong universe," Liam muttered, shaking his head. Then he asked, "You're still using the Gold-Gold Fruit, right?"
B.I.B. nodded.
Yesterday evening, after Liam and Bruno had returned from playing around, he had withdrawn his Stand and purged the Devil Fruit ability from his own body. Then he let B.I.B. copy the Gold-Gold Fruit so it could search for gold veins buried beneath the island.
Because of that, Liam currently possessed no Devil Fruit powers at all; otherwise, the Steal-Steal Fruit would have simply stolen his Devil Fruit ability instead of having nothing else to take, stealing his Stand energy.
"Then you're paying," Liam said, patting his Stand's shoulder.
(To Be Continued…)
PS- Hey Guys I have picked up 2 new fanfictions
New Fanfiction— 1. One Piece—Maxed Out Conqueror's Haki!
2. One Piece—Master Of Devil Fruits