In short, the pirates came to this island purely by chance.
They'd raided a port town in the Jibairane Kingdom—the "Home Country" this island belonged to. While fleeing, they strayed from their usual route and, by sheer accident, stumbled upon an uncharted island.
They landed and attacked what looked like a port village… only to find it was populated entirely by the elderly.
No young women. No valuables. Nothing they wanted. A complete waste of time.
And even though they were the ones committing the raid, the ones doing the lawless acts, the pirates only grew more irritated—until they finally snapped.
As if to vent their frustration, they began tormenting the defenseless old men and women.
But they didn't bother with straightforward violence.
Instead, they exploited their captain's Devil Fruit power.
"Ugh… ugh… it's cold… so cold…"
"It hurts… it hurts! My whole body aches…!"
"Help… someone, please… I can't see, I can't hear… it's dark…!"
"Gyahahaha! Good! Make those old geezers suffer more! That's what they get for annoying us!"
The gaunt, hollow-cheeked man laughing on the deck was the captain—an Ability User with the power of a Devil Fruit.
He and his crew looked down on the writhing elders with sneers, as the villagers groaned and trembled, bodies ravaged by whatever he'd done. Their laughter echoed across the port like a curse.
One of the few elders still able to move clung desperately to the pirates, begging them to stop.
"S-stop… please… stop this!"
"Huh?!"
"T-there's nothing of value on this island! If you want something, just take it! But please—don't do this! Don't torment old folks who don't have much time left…!"
The pirate captain only twisted his mouth into an ugly scowl.
Without a shred of sympathy, he kicked the woman off him like she was trash, sending her sprawling across the ground.
"Hah?! What're you babbling about, old hag…? We're pissed because there's nothing to take! And you've got the nerve to keep whining in front of Belmos the Poison Hand himself…!"
"Spit it out," Captain Belmos—leader of the Belmos Pirates—said, stepping closer.
He bent down and gently touched the old woman's forehead.
Instantly, the color drained from her face. Her body began to tremble violently, teeth chattering like bone on bone.
She looked like she'd been seized by a feverish chill.
…No. It wasn't "like" anything.
She was being afflicted by a disease.
"How's that, Granny?" Belmos grinned. "My—"
"What… are you doing?!"
A voice cut through the laughter.
In the next instant, a girl burst up from the ground.
Suzu.
She drew both swords in a flash and slashed down at Belmos mid-guffaw.
Belmos jerked back just in time. He avoided the blade—but not completely. The edge caught his coat, carving a shallow line through the fabric.
"Huh?!" Belmos snapped, startled. "Who the hell are you, brat? That was close! And where'd you crawl out from just now?!"
"Huff… huff…" Suzu's eyes burned, breath ragged with fury. "You're pirates, aren't you?! What did you do to everyone? The grandpas… the grannies?!"
Belmos bristled at her refusal to answer him, but the irritation quickly twisted into a grin. He glanced at the elders sprawled around the dock.
"Who knows? Why don't you ask them yourself? If you wanna know about an illness, you should ask someone who's got it."
"Illness…?!"
The word snagged in Suzu's mind, sharp and wrong. But her concern for the villagers was stronger than caution.
Keeping one eye on the pirates to guard against a cheap shot, she ran to the nearest old woman—the one Belmos had kicked aside.
Suzu knelt and carefully lifted the frail body upright.
"Granny, hang on! What happened? What did they do to you?!"
Belmos watched with cruel amusement, his smile widening.
"S-Suzu-chan…"
The old woman shook violently, teeth rattling. She fought to speak, desperate to get the words out.
And what came wasn't what Suzu wanted to hear… but what the old woman felt she had to say first.
"N-no… Suzu-chan… get away… you'll get infected… the illness…!"
"?! Infected? What kind of—?!"
The change was instant.
The moment Suzu held the old woman close, a bone-deep cold surged through her body, draining her strength like it was being siphoned out.
Her hands began to shake. Her jaw trembled. Her teeth clattered uncontrollably—just like the woman's.
What…? Is this the illness he meant…?!
"Gyahahaha!" Belmos howled. "How do you like my Fever, brat? You can't stop shaking, can you?!"
"An illness…" Suzu forced the words through chattering teeth. "An Ability User…?!"
"Exactly!" Belmos swaggered forward, preening. "I'm the Illness Man of the Sick-Sick Fruit! I can inflict any disease on anyone I touch—and whatever I give spreads to anyone they touch next! That fever I gave the old hag already infected you!"
Then, without warning, he kicked Suzu—hard.
Suzu's body burst into mud with a violent splatter, spraying across the ground. The mud reformed a few meters away, snapping back into her human shape.
"Huh?!" Belmos stared, then recoiled in disgust. "What the hell?! You're an Ability User too… and that's—mud?! Gross! Damn it, my boots are ruined! This is pissing me off!"
Still ranting, he turned his anger on the old woman again—the one Suzu had been holding—and kicked her aside like she was nothing.
That was enough.
The cold in Suzu's body didn't matter anymore. Rage drowned it.
"Stop it!" she shouted, voice shaking. "Don't you dare lay another finger on anyone from this island!"
"Huh?! Don't order me around, you little brat! If you want me to stop so badly, then stop me yourself! If you can!"
Suzu reached for her sword again.
But her hand shook violently—wracked by the illness. She could barely stand straight, let alone swing properly.
Belmos looked down at her and grinned, smug and vulgar.
"Gyahahaha… relax, kid. I'm not gonna kill you like I did those old geezers." His eyes crawled over her. "I'll just sell you to a slave trader. Honestly, I thought this whole trip was a waste. No food, no loot… but then I found you. You're a pretty little thing. You'll fetch a nice price."
"...!"
"Hey!" Belmos barked without looking away from her. "You lot—grab this brat and toss her in the brig! She's probably an Ability User, so rough her up if you need to!"
No one answered.
Belmos waited, expecting laughter, crude comments, eager footsteps.
Nothing.
His irritation spiked. He clicked his tongue and spun around.
"Hey, what the hell are you… doing…?"
Then he saw it.
His entire crew lay sprawled across the ground.
Men who had been laughing with him moments ago now lay still or twitching—eyes rolled back, some foaming at the mouth, others convulsing weakly.
Not one of them bore an obvious wound.
"…Huh?"
Belmos stared, stunned, mind refusing to catch up.
A woman stepped out from the shadow of a building and into his line of sight.
Tall. Striking. Platinum-blonde hair spilling around refined features. Even under her clothes, her figure was unmistakable—her face the kind anyone would immediately call beautiful.
Normally, Belmos and his men would've been ecstatic. Prime "merchandise," a prize worth celebrating.
But now, with his crew collapsed like a mass grave around him, her cold, piercing gaze made Belmos falter.
Worse—something in him felt the edge of fear.
"W-what… who are you?!"
"...…."
She didn't answer.
Sue walked past him as if he didn't matter and went straight to Suzu, who was shaking so hard she looked ready to collapse. Sue pulled her close, cradling the girl against her chest.
Belmos watched, and his mouth curled into a smug grin.
That woman's a mystery, he thought. But she touched Suzu. She touched the infected brat.
Now she'll get it too. Her resistance will crumble—
But Sue showed no signs of illness.
For a moment, her body seemed to tremble… and then the tremor vanished as if it had never existed. She stood calmly, unshaken, even as the seconds passed.
And then something even stranger happened.
Suzu's shaking eased.
Her color returned, inch by inch.
Belmos froze, utterly bewildered.
Not only had his power failed on Sue—she was reversing it on Suzu.
"Huh? Wh-what…? The trembling… why…?"
"Suzu-chan aside," Sue said at last, voice cool, "you look genuinely surprised. That tells me you don't understand your own ability very well."
Belmos stiffened.
"Interference-type effects can be blocked by overwhelming Haki," Sue continued, "and some can even be dispelled. Wait—do you even know what Haki is?" Her gaze sharpened, dismissive. "Well, I suppose it's not surprising for a pirate who's only crawled around the mid-tier of the first half of the Grand Line."
"What the hell are you saying?!" Belmos barked, voice cracking. "Who the hell are you?! Why isn't my power working?! What kind of ability is this?!"
"Too bad," Sue said, unbothered. "I don't have the time—or the inclination—to explain anything in detail."
Her eyes flicked to him like she was measuring something and finding it lacking.
"Judging by how it behaves, this is a Paramecia-type effect. And those often disappear when the user loses consciousness. If so, it saves me trouble."
"Huh?! What the hell do you think you're doing?! Do you even know who I am—?!"
Thump!
Belmos never finished.
Like his subordinates, he was struck down—effortlessly overwhelmed by Conqueror's Haki—and collapsed on his back with a dull thud.
☆☆☆
We didn't waste time on pirates.
We knocked them out with Conqueror's Haki, fast and clean.
Immediately after, the groans of the old men and women eased a little. Through Observation Haki, the "voice" of their suffering dulled—fading like a tide pulling back.
It looked like knocking out the captain had deactivated his ability.
Now, as for what happened before we arrived—
After Suzu-chan dove into the mud and shot down the mountain, Leona and I followed.
On the way, we found an old man collapsed on the trail.
I'm fairly sure he'd forced himself up the mountain despite being infected, just to warn Suzu-chan—and warn us—about the pirate attack.
But he'd collapsed halfway, exhausted beyond his limits.
Suzu-chan had taken a straight route through the terrain rather than the winding path, so she probably never saw him.
We stopped to help him, and that delay cost us precious time.
When we touched him, the illness infected us too.
But when I poured Haki through my body, pushing it outward, I managed to drive the disease back and shake it off.
Then, when I touched Leona afterward, she seemed fine as well.
Could it be that using Haki to expel the illness creates some kind of… "antibody"? And that it can then be transferred through touch?
It sounded ridiculous… but the results were hard to ignore.
Using that accidental discovery, we cured the old man.
I left him in Leona's care and rushed to the village as fast as I could.
When I arrived, I saw Suzu-chan facing the pirates, trembling—not from fear. I could tell that at a glance.
So I immediately took out the underlings with Conqueror's Haki.
The leader was an Ability User, just as I'd suspected.
I meant to keep him conscious for interrogation, but he started boasting before I even asked a question. So I knocked him out too—and as soon as he went down, the illness plaguing everyone vanished.
But it wasn't over.
We'll deal with the pirates properly later.
The real problem was the villagers.
Apparently, enraged by the lack of loot and the lack of people to kidnap, the pirates had deliberately infected the entire village with a "disease."
The effect is gone now, and they were only exposed briefly.
But these were elderly bodies already worn down by age—and by years of living surrounded by poison.
Even a short exposure was enough.
We gathered every elder we could into the largest house, turning it into a makeshift field hospital. We did everything we could… but frankly, it looked grim.
My medical knowledge barely goes beyond what's necessary for life at sea.
Even so, it was obvious how dire the situation was.
They probably… don't have much time left.
When I told Suzu-chan, she went white as a sheet—eyes wide with disbelief, as if sheer refusal could push the truth away.
Honestly… I'd expected this outcome.
To be continued...