"Alice." Shakky's gaze sharpened slightly as she looked at Alice. "You mean you've already met Ron?"
"Mm." Alice nodded, her tone light. "Not only does he recruit partners, he also recruits wives and concubines. With your looks, I believe he would definitely take an interest in you."
Shakky did not answer immediately. Her gaze lingered on Alice's face for a moment, her lashes lowering briefly as if she were quickly flipping through several pages of memory.
"Recruiting wives and concubines?" Shakky softly repeated those words. The Ron she knew, if he truly wanted wives and concubines, had enough strength and fame to have gathered a whole harem long ago.
Precisely because he had not, it showed he simply did not care about such things.
Then the "Ron" on this island... was most likely an impostor.
Shakky reached that conclusion and was about to tell Alice, only to find that the other woman's figure had already left.
"Forget it," Shakky murmured. Then she turned and instructed those inside the ship, "Resupply and leave here as soon as possible."
"Yes, Captain!" the Kuja Pirates members behind her answered in unison.
"Shakky, I'll help you!" someone on shore immediately shouted.
"Shakky-sama, I can help too!"
"I have fine wine on my ship. Would you drink a cup with me?"
Shakky turned her head. Her gaze swept unhurriedly over those eager faces, and her tone remained gentle. "Helping is fine. Drinking together is not."
The man who was refused showed no anger and no dissatisfaction. Instead, because he had received a reply, each face carried a satisfied smile.
What a bunch of bootlickers!!!
Several days later, at Marine Headquarters, inside a hospital room, sunlight passed through the gauze curtains and cast soft patches of light over the white bedsheets.
Sengoku's upper body was wrapped in bandages. When his plastered arm lifted slightly, it produced a faint scraping sound.
His face was still somewhat pale, but focus had returned to his eyes.
Ever since his defeat, he had only awakened today.
"Tsuru."
Sengoku's voice was lower than usual, carrying the weakness of someone recovering from a severe illness. His gaze landed on the spare Den Den Mushi Tsuru had brought and placed by the bed. "This Den Den Mushi... hasn't rung even once?"
Tsuru sat beside the hospital bed. Following his gaze, she looked at the Den Den Mushi quietly lying on the bedside table and gently shook her head. "No."
Sengoku's expression instantly sank. What did Ochoku mean by this? Took the money and retired from the business? Even if he did not want to cooperate anymore, he should have given notice first. Now he was playing dead and refusing to respond. What was the meaning of that?
"All right." Tsuru's voice was calm and gentle, as if she had long grown used to him worrying about work even in a hospital bed. "Sengoku, just focus on recovering. Put work aside for now. Your body is what matters."
Sengoku exhaled heavily, as if barely pressing down the anger blocked in his chest. "Looking at me now, even if I don't want to rest, I have no choice..."
After a moment of silence, he seemed to suddenly remember something. "By the way, while I was unconscious, that bastard Garp didn't come to see me even once, did he?"
At the mention of Garp, Tsuru's expression changed slightly.
"Garp..." Tsuru paused. "Something happened."
Sengoku's heart abruptly tightened. His recovering eyes instantly sharpened. "Don't scare me, Tsuru."
Tsuru froze, realizing Sengoku might be thinking in the direction of death, and hurriedly waved her hand. "No, the thing I mean is not that he had an accident. It is that, under the name of vacation... he has been suspended."
Sengoku first breathed a sigh of relief. Then his brows tightened again. "That idiot... did he offend the Celestial Dragons? Or take something from them? Or was he framed by someone at Marine Headquarters?"
Tsuru gently shook her head. "None of those. After you fell unconscious, he was investigated by the World Government. As for what they were investigating... Kong-san did not explain. He only told me not to worry and said Garp would soon return to his original post."
"Hah..." Sengoku sighed heavily again and complained, "What is all this?"
In the New World, on a certain island, inside a room in a pirate stronghold, the light was dim. Only a kerosene lamp hanging in the corner flickered softly, stretching the shadows in the room long and crooked.
A man knelt bare-chested, head lowered.
His face and features were almost identical to Ron's, from the curve of his brow bone to the line of his jaw, as if they had been carved from the same mold.
The only difference was a strange tattoo on his left arm, faintly glowing with a dark light in the dimness.
In front of him, on the table, sat a Den Den Mushi.
"You do not have much time left..." a voice came from the Den Den Mushi.
The man who resembled Ron trembled violently, as if cold water had been poured over his head. He lowered his voice, full of panic and explanation. "I'm sorry... I didn't expect that even after I disguised myself as him and did so many things, he wouldn't care at all."
"What I want is not an explanation," the voice on the other end said without the slightest fluctuation. "It is results. Otherwise, you understand."
A fine layer of sweat seeped across the man's forehead. He swallowed and forcefully suppressed the tremor in his voice. "Don't worry. I have already thought of another plan. This time, it will definitely work."
"You had better hope so..."
As those words fell, the Den Den Mushi communication was cut off.