"Linlin, what are you doing?"
Down in the basement, Caesar pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling a headache coming on.
He looked at Linlin, who had just landed, then up at the massive hole she'd left in the ceiling.
Through the opening, the sky was already starting to get light.
Tonight had been a blur.
The feast, the drinking, cleaning up Teach's mess, and now this… he'd been running around all night.
Caesar hadn't slept a wink and had poured a ton of his own life force into his new projects.
Even for him, the exhaustion was starting to set in.
Pudding and Teach were mostly okay, but 'Ice Demon' was badly hurt and had needed a lot of Caesar's energy to recover.
But the real project was 'Blood Demon'.
The man had been completely broken down.
Normally, even if he got his strength back, he should have stayed looking like a seventy-year-old man, just like Ganzui.
But his Vampire-Vampire Fruit was a game-changer.
As long as he had enough life force to feed on, he could turn the clock back to his prime in his twenties or thirties.
On top of that, his power had skyrocketed.
He was now stronger than 'Ice Demon' and Ganzui, maybe even strong enough to go toe-to-toe with Kaido.
That's why he'd drained more of Caesar's life force than anyone else.
Linlin stared eyes wide at the two figures standing stiffly in front of Caesar like mannequins.
"Kuzan and Redfield… you already changed their memories?"
"I didn't change them," Caesar said flatly.
"I wiped them clean. Now they only have one command: obey me. Their new names are Ice Demon and Blood Demon."
He stood up and walked out of the cell.
The two men followed behind him, their faces completely blank.
"Mamamama, that Memory-Memory Fruit is a scary thing in your hands. Who knows, maybe one day you'll decide to wipe my memory too?" Linlin said, putting on a show of being scared.
A corner of Caesar's mouth twitched.
He closed the distance between them in three quick strides and pulled her into a tight hug.
Smack. Smack. Smack.
He gave her ass a few sharp swats.
"Maybe I will," he growled. "I'll wipe your mind and make you my personal slave."
"Hehe, is that all you've got, Caesar? I can take it," Linlin giggled, her voice like tinkling bells.
Tap, tap, tap.
The sound of rushing footsteps echoed from outside the cell.
Caesar could hear Perospero yelling.
"Hurry! Lock down the area, now! Daifuku, you stay up top. Gin, Yamato, you're with me!"
Caesar instantly let go of Linlin and got his emotions in check.
He gave a quiet order to the two men behind him.
"Disappear."
Ice Demon and Blood Demon reacted at once.
One dissolved into a swirling mist of ice, and the other burst into a swarm of black bats that melted into the shadows.
A moment later, Perospero, Yamato, and Gin jumped down through the hole, weapons ready.
Their eyes locked onto Caesar, full of caution.
Perospero looked surprised.
"Father? Mama? What happened?"
"It's nothing. Go back to sleep," Caesar said with a dismissive wave and a smile.
Yamato was a mess.
She had thrown on a wrinkled nightgown so fast that the buttons were all wrong, showing glimpses of her pale skin.
Gin just looked half-asleep, his eyes glassy from the barrel of booze he'd finished earlier.
It was a miracle he'd even managed to follow Perospero, which said a lot about his loyalty.
Perospero glanced into the empty cell, noticing Kuzan and Redfield were gone.
He was smart enough not to ask any more questions.
As Linlin's oldest son, he knew when to step up and when to stay quiet.
"Well, if everything's fine, let's go back," he said to the other two.
Yamato pouted as she let out a soft huff and turned to leap back through the hole.
Just as she was about to vanish, Caesar called out.
"Yamato! Pudding told me you think my foolish brother killed your mother. Tomorrow night, I'm going to show you every memory he has of her. You better be ready."
Above, Yamato froze mid-step, nearly tumbling back down.
She turn around, her eyes wide and trembling, a storm of shock and disbelief in her gaze.
The truth was, Yamato had never known her mother.
Kaido never, ever talked about her.
What did she look like? What was she like? Where did she come from? Yamato had no idea.
Her only hints came from Oden's journal.
All her rebellion, her anger at Kaido, and her obsession with being Oden—it all came from the mother she never knew.
Pudding had never told Caesar any of this of course.
It was a perk of his new power.
When Teach ripped the Memory-Memory Fruit from her and gave it to him, Caesar hadn't just gotten the ability to edit minds.
He'd inherited the fruit's entire library—every memory Pudding had ever seen or touched.
That was how he knew about Yamato's issues.
He'd even seen Pudding's theories about Luffy and Oden.
It made him respect her sharp mind.
"Linlin," Caesar said, turning to her. "Even without the Memory-Memory Fruit, Pudding is still clever. We need to get her another Devil Fruit. She's too weak right now and needs a way to protect herself."
Linlin smirked with a proud glint in her eye.
"Already on it. I'm giving her the Nine-Tailed Fox Fruit. It's a powerful Zoan fruit that belonged to the Crescent Moon Hunter. That foolish woman actually dared to strut around and give me attitude. Hmph. Did she really think she was the Pirate Queen? She can think about it in her next life."
"You're one of a kind," Caesar said with a grin.
He reached out and affectionately ruffled Linlin's hair, turning her perfectly styled pink locks into a messy bird's nest.
"Hey! What was that for? You ruined my hair!" Linlin pouted, puffing out her cheeks.