"By the way, where that guy who ate the teleportation fruit?"
After the pleasant reunion, Sherwin scratched Klee Meow under the chin while grinding his teeth as he asked.
If it weren't for that bastard who popped out of nowhere, why would he have needed to flail around in the sea for so long?
"He on the ship," Huamei Meow, who was occupying one of Sherwin shoulders, replied.
"We tied him up with seastone chains and locked him in the cabin, meow."
"Have you found out which faction he belongs to?"
"Not yet, meow." Huamei Meow wrinkled her nose. "I could only find that he used to be one of the combatants of the 'Bloodthorn' pirate crew, named Triv, but that crew was wiped out by the Marines more than ten years ago.
Back then, Triv wasn't an ability user yet. He must have eaten a Devil Fruit after escaping, but who he ended up defecting to can't be traced, meow."
"What if we feed him some of the drugs Haibara is testing?"
Sherwin rubbed his chin and made an inhumane suggestion.
The cat involved, squatting on his other shoulder, immediately took offense…
"What do you mean by that, meow?!" the little kitten flailed cat punches at Sherwin head. "Do you have a problem with the drugs I make, meow?!"
(=`н=)ジ
Before Sherwin could even beg for mercy, Haibara Meow snorted and added, "Besides, I already tried that trick. That guy mouth is really tight. I tested several kinds of drugs on him, and by the end he was already foaming at the mouth and still refused to talk, meow!"
Sherwin: "..."
So what exactly were you angry about just now?!
As if she had guessed Sherwin thoughts, Haibara Meow threw a few more cat punches at him before declaring righteously, "I just wanted an excuse to beat you up, meow!"
That was a very good and very strong reason, so Sherwin decisively reached out and pinched this little schemer cheek…
And then got bitten in return.
"Admiral!"
Seeing that Sherwin was about to start fooling around with the other cats again, Huamei Meow irritably gave him a cat punch as well and shot a glare at Haibara Meow on the other side.
The little kitten who had been happily gnawing on Sherwin hand immediately pulled back her paws, let go, and obediently sat back on his shoulder.
Meanwhile, in Sherwin arms, Klee Meow—who had already tensed up, twisted her little hips, and was about to join the scuffle in the next second
—suddenly acted as if nothing had happened, turning back into a limp pile of cat and flopping into the crook of his arm.
"Ahem…" The Hunter, once again being disciplined by his own cats, awkwardly cleared his throat and pulled the topic back on track.
"Since we can't find anything, let forget it. He in our hands anyway. I'll go see if I can dig out his teleportation fruit."
"Mhm," Huamei Meow nodded, then hesitated for a moment before speaking with some uncertainty.
"If we really do get that teleportation fruit… could you let me eat it, meow?"
"Huh? Didn't you want a Logia-type or pseudo-Logia that lets you skip bathing altogether?"
Sherwin first looked at Huamei in surprise, then quickly understood what she was thinking.
Huamei Meow probably felt that with a teleportation fruit, she could respond more safely and easily if they ran into a situation like this again.
"There no need for that. We managed to escape just fine even without a teleportation fruit before," Sherwin said with a smile as he scratched her under the chin.
"You should wait for me to find you a Logia-type fruit instead."
Given Huamei personality, compared to thinking about how to escape, she was more inclined to make their side stronger and then defeat the enemy head-on.
The reason she suddenly suggested eating the teleportation fruit this time was mainly because this incident had given her a strong sense of crisis, making her feel that serving as this kind of "insurance" herself might not be a bad idea.
But deep down, Huamei Meow still wanted to eat a Logia-type or pseudo-Logia fruit that would let her avoid bathing.
"Alright, even if someone really has to eat it, it should be someone bigger like me," Sherwin added when he saw that Huamei Meow was still conflicted, propping her up as they headed toward the ship cabin.
"Besides, it not even certain we can extract the teleportation fruit yet. If we really do get it, it'll be in our hands anyway. If we truly need it, we can just eat it then."
Of course, that was easy to say, but if it really were dug out, Sherwin would probably eat it in advance. After all, Devil Fruit abilities also require time to develop.
As for the String-String Fruit he had been longing for… now that there was already Dodos as a substitute, Sherwin need for the String-String Fruit was no longer that urgent.
And in terms of sheer flexibility alone, the Teleportation Fruit was definitely superior to the String-String Fruit.
Seeing Sherwin say this, Huamei Meow, who had not been particularly resolute to begin with, stopped insisting.
While they were talking, Sherwin and the others arrived at the ship hold where Triv was being detained.
Triv, bound with Seastone, heard the door open and barely turned his neck to look over. When he saw Sherwin, an incredulous shock appeared in his eyes…
After all, as a pirate who had been roaming the Grand Line for more than ten years and later sought refuge with Wang Zhi, he knew very well what the "Four Emperors" represented.
In his view, Sherwin, who had stayed behind to cover the retreat back then, was basically doomed.
"You still won't say who sent you?" Sherwin asked bluntly, with no interest in Triv inner thoughts.
After the shock, Triv quickly calmed down. He forced a smile and asked in return, "If I tell you, will you let me go?"
"No." Even if Sherwin said he would, Triv wouldn't believe it anyway, so he simply told the truth.
"Then why should I tell you? It death either way." Triv snorted. "Or are you planning to treat me to some other flavor of 'drink'?"
Although Triv put on a fearless front, judging from his somewhat pale face and slightly trembling lips, he was still quite afraid of Haibara Meow concoctions.
That said, with this kind of attitude, and having already endured several rounds of potions, it was unlikely that he would give in.
Though it was unclear why the other party was so loyal, given the usual style of the pirate world, it was nothing more than having received some favor from the person behind him.
Taking this into account, Sherwin no longer had any intention of continuing to torment him.
After holding Klee Meow for a moment to soak up some good luck, he cleanly ended Triv life, then drew his hunter knife and stabbed it into the corpse…
"Pah! What a damn scam!"
Sherwin was so furious that he slammed the hunter knife hard onto the deck.
Failing to dig out a Devil Fruit was nothing—after all, Sherwin had drawn duds plenty of times before—but what the hell was with digging up a photo of an old man?!
He knew that Klee Meow luck wasn't always reliable when it came to "gacha," but pulling out something like this was way too much, wasn't it?!
What about "the greater the storm, the more valuable the fish the stronger the enemy, the better the reward"?
They had clearly just gone through a crisis because of this. Even if they weren't given a Devil Fruit, they should at least have gotten something valuable, or at least something useful!
And another thing—why would a grown man be collecting photos of other men?!
After venting like crazy, Sherwin finally bent down and picked up the photograph anyway…
Complaints aside, since this photo had been dug out of Triv body, there was a very high chance that it depicted the mastermind who had sent him to scavenge the spoils.
"So, Huamei Meow, can you tell who this is?"
Sherwin wasn't a very dedicated bounty Hunter. Aside from characters who had plot relevance in the manga, he could only recognize pirates who were relatively famous in recent times—and even then, he'd forget most of them after a while.
As for an old pirate who was obviously past his prime like this, he had absolutely no impression at all.
The little calico took the photo, glanced at it twice, and quickly found a match in her memory.
"This is Wang Zhi, the owner of Hachinosu Island. A lot of people say he the strongest pirate below the Four Emperors, meow."
"So it was him…"
Sherwin suddenly understood. Van Augur seemed to have obtained the Teleportation Fruit after Blackbeard took over Hachinosu Island, so looking at it that way, it all made sense.
After figuring out who was backing Triv, Sherwin did consider heading straight to Hachinosu Island to pick a fight with Wang Zhi…
But after calming down, he abandoned the idea.
It wasn't that Sherwin was afraid of him. He had already fought a Four Emperor like Kaido—an old guy like Wang Zhi, who wasn't even on that level, obviously couldn't scare him.
Sherwin just didn't feel like going out of his way to look for him.
After all, Hachinosu Island location wasn't hidden at all—it was actually quite famous.
As long as he wanted to, he could go settle the score with Wang Zhi anytime.
It would be better to wait until they happened to sail near that area in the future.
"Hmph! I'll let this guy live a few more days."
Sherwin clenched his hand and crumpled Wang Zhi photo into a ball.