Author's Note:
In this chapter and the next, some original characters and crossover characters may appear. Please be aware if that's not your thing.
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For the time being, Mama... after Papa and I properly lectured her, we sent her back to her workplace.
You think the punishment was too lenient? ...Well yeah, honestly we thought so too.
A Devil Fruit. And not just any Devil Fruit, but the Op-Op Fruit, which boasts exceptional uniqueness even among all Devil Fruits and an insanely broad range of applications. Stealing it and eating it without permission... normally that's a straight shot to capital punishment. Pirate or Marine, doesn't matter.
In fact, Papa of course, but even I... if it had been anyone other than Mama who ate it, that's what we would have done.
Without a word of debate, I'd have used Heaven's Door to check for any connections behind the scenes, then cut them down on the spot.
But... as I briefly mentioned earlier, this time, the result happened to also be the optimal outcome.
Within this Golden Lion Pirates, the person who could bring out the Op-Op Fruit's power to its fullest potential was... almost certainly Mama. The once-in-a-generation genius, Venerdi Sou.
Because that fruit, that power... medical knowledge and skill matter even more than combat ability.
To be perfectly honest, even without this incident... I think after agonizing over it endlessly, we would have given the Op-Op Fruit to Mama anyway.
If I think of it as just happening sooner than planned... yeah, barely acceptable, I suppose.
And as if to prove that prediction right... Mama went and pulled something immediately.
What did she do? That person, right after obtaining her powers, was already using them masterfully... she performed surgery on herself and cured the "incurable disease" that had been eating away at her body.
On the very same day she ate the Op-Op Fruit.
She excised the diseased tissue, scanned and identified the body tissue in other areas affected by it... and apparently did a bunch of other stuff after that, but it got too specialized for me to follow everything, so I'll skip the details.
Then the next day, she charged at Dr. Indigo with a "Just to be safe, please run some tests on meeeee!"
And on top of that, as one more precaution, she reached out to other skilled doctors besides him to have them examine her as well...
"...Yes, complete recovery. Unbelievable as it is... there is no doubt. Everything has returned to normal."
"Fosphosphosphosphos! Ah, I found nothing particularly wrong! Well, she does seem slightly frail, but that's more of a constitutional thing. I found no signs of disease."
"My Diagnosis is the same... actually, was she really sick? No matter how much I examine her, I can't find any trace of disease anywhere... It's as though..."
In order: the Diagnosis from Dr. Indigo, Dr. Hogback, and Law.
If these three, the top trio of medical experts excluding Mama, all say there's no problem... yeah, she really must be cured.
Mama's incredible... she mastered her powers this much with zero downtime after eating the fruit?
And so, Mama returned to proper good health and continues to this day wielding her sharp talents with excessive vigor in the Laboratory. And they all lived happily ever after (?).
...Well then, happily ever after and all that... now I've got to process the workers' compensation paperwork for mental exhaustion and hearing loss submitted by the Laboratory staff...
Oh, by the way, about how I casually slipped a strange one in among the doctors just now.
The reason Hogback is with us... is because we took him in along with all of Thriller Bark.
As Perona wished, we had been searching for her master, the former Shichibukai Moriah... and we succeeded in finding him a little while back.
In the process, along with that "world's largest Pirate Ship" carrying an entire island, we also recovered his subordinates Hogback and Absalom, and took them all under our protection.
They really were alive. The Original Work didn't depict what happened to them afterward, but they had managed to escape properly.
But the current Moriah, while his injuries from the Summit War had fully healed, was a fugitive since losing his Shichibukai status.
Since he was officially listed as "dead," if his whereabouts were discovered, the Government would definitely send assassins after him. On top of that, between his entanglements with the Straw Hat Pirates and various other events, almost all of his Zombie Legion was gone. To be precise, the Shadows needed to animate them were gone. So his fighting strength had plummeted.
Life on the run in that condition couldn't have been easy.
That guy's enormous to begin with, so he's fatally unsuited for stealth or fleeing... Hogback similarly has a pretty distinctive appearance.
Absalom could hide easily enough with his powers, I suppose... but his appearance stands out too...
Papa personally went to negotiate with Moriah and his group, and they struck a deal: in exchange for sheltering them for a while, they would lend a hand as a subordinate Pirate Crew in various matters... and so they formed a cooperative relationship.
Right now, Thriller Bark's massive ship is floating in the sky using Papa's powers... hidden near a nearby Sky Island. It's a different one from Skypiea, but there's a fairly large Sky Island with substantial Sea Clouds, and a place like that can conceal an Island Ship of that size.
So that's how it is: Gekko Moriah and the rest of the Thriller Bark crew are currently part of the Golden Lion Pirates.
They might leave someday, but until then, it's a cooperative arrangement. Moriah himself said, "I repay my debts properly. If we're to become enemies, that'll be fair and square after the fact." Papa agreed to those terms, so for now there shouldn't be any problems... I think.
And it seems Papa's already scheming various things with Moriah's cooperation, too. Who knows what he's planning this time...
In the meantime, Moriah's subordinates... though it's only three people: Perona, Hogback, and Absalom... have each been given jobs.
Hogback, as I mentioned, is helping the technical team. Mainly in the medical field.
Perona is helping with Zoro and the others' training. Mainly odd jobs around the base, and... mental fortitude training utilizing her Negative Ghosts.
And Absalom handles intelligence work, leveraging the Clear-Clear Fruit's powers.
That's the general picture, but they help out with various other things as needed too.
As for Absalom, the very first thing I told him was: "If you even think about using the Clear-Clear Fruit's powers to peep on the baths, I'll castrate you." Complete with a dose of Conqueror's Haki intimidation.
He was nodding frantically with cold sweat pouring down his face, so I believe he understood perfectly.
That guy peeped on Nami while she was bathing in the Original Work, after all...
And if he breaks the rule despite being warned this thoroughly... worst case, I'll actually castrate him.
Or maybe I should just hand him over to Mama? Mama's Laboratory is always looking for guinea pigs for human experimentation, after all...
Now, I got a bit sidetracked, but... the point is, Mama regained her health.
So, with the expectation that she'd deliver results going forward, we let her off without punishment for now.
That's how it's always been. Knowing Mama, she'd use her restored healthy body to bring us results that exceed expectations, exceed necessity, to an excessive degree (I'm certain of it).
Half anticipation, half dread. I'll steel myself and wait.
...The "results" Mama would come bearing, blowing past any steeling we could muster... that would come a mere one month later.
And of course, none of us knew that yet.
***
Now then. That's how things went with Mama becoming Ability User Number One from the Devil Fruits from the Future... but we've added several more Ability Users since then, so let me give a quick rundown.
First up: the person Papa picked up and brought back a while ago... a former Intelligence Agent of the World Government.
The CP9 rookie... Nero the Sea Weasel.
Right now, he's in the middle of a sparring match with our Leona.
"Tempest Kick: Spear!!"
"Tempest Kick: Cruel Claw!!"
Nero's Tempest Kick, sharpened like a spear with concentrated density, was intercepted by Leona firing off a rapid series of her own.
She closed the distance in one burst, aiming to land a punch, but Nero dodged with a nimble Paper Art.
Seizing the opening, he drove in a Finger Pistol... but it couldn't pierce Leona's natural defenses, stopping with a metallic clang. He clicked his tongue and pulled back before the counterattack could come.
Immediately after, Leona swept a spinning back kick through the space where Nero had been just a moment before... and on top of that, fired a Tempest Kick mid-swing as a follow-up.
This time Nero blocked the incoming Sickle Wind with Iron Body. He had Armament Haki layered on as well, so there was no visible wound... but the impact seemed to get through somewhat, and his face twisted slightly.
"Yeesh, so this is what they call talent... makes a guy jealous. Between you and Rob Lucci... every damn time, I'm reminded just how much of a 'frog in a well' I was back when I was getting cocky, shau!"
"You say stuff like that, but none of my attacks are landing. Still as quick as ever, huh."
"Obviously. If someone like me takes even one clean hit from you, Miss Leona, that's it, fight over. Even with Armament Haki, I'm not confident I could take it. Besides... as the Instructor for hand-to-hand combat, I can't exactly show my students anything too pathetic, and I can't let myself be surpassed too easily either."
Nero said this, putting on an air of composure.
To be blunt, Leona already surpasses the current Nero in terms of raw combat ability.
But in terms of agility and martial arts technique, Nero still has a slight edge, so he continues to serve as her Instructor.
What he said earlier wasn't entirely bluster or bravado, either. To some degree, he was saying it as a matter of personal pride, or perhaps partly to convince himself.
And for the sake of Nero's honor, I should mention that he himself has become substantially stronger than before... back when he lost to Franky on the Sea Train before arriving at Enies Lobby.
He went from being a Four Styles user to properly mastering all of Rokushiki, and he learned Haki too. On Papa's orders, he's been dispatched on various missions and accumulated Experience.
And now, on top of all that...
"Alright, Miss, from here on out I'm going all-in with my powers...!"
As he spoke, Nero's body began to transform.
Tough-looking scales? Hide? Whatever it was, it appeared across his body, covering him... and sharp hooked claws grew from his hands and feet.
From his back, which his outfit's design already left largely exposed, around the waist area, a slender, elongated tail extended, like a whip or a blade, cracking through the air with a snap.
His mouth split wide as rows of Fangs sprouted, and his eyes shifted into reptilian pupils with vertically slit irises.
If I had to describe it in one word: a lean, agile-looking lizard-man. Or rather... a dinosaur-man. That was what he'd become.
And the correct answer was... the latter.
Zoan-type Dragon-Dragon Fruit (Ancient Species)
Model: Velociraptor
That was the new power bestowed upon Nero by Papa, in recognition of his service and abilities.
A Zoan-type, which has outstanding compatibility with martial artists... and among those, an Ancient Species renowned for its toughness.
And yet, among dinosaurs, the Velociraptor is small-bodied but agile in return, a choice that perfectly lets Nero leverage his own strengths and fighting style. An optimal selection.
This sparring match and training with Leona served as an ideal opportunity for him to master his "dinosaur" powers as well.
After that, they continued training for a while longer... and were now on break.
In the end, today too, Nero managed to either dodge every serious hit from Leona or endure until the session ended without taking a single clean blow.
But he'd used quite a bit of Haki, and the fatigue was considerable. He headed back immediately after they finished.
As for Leona, she seemed reasonably tired too, but recovered quickly after a short rest.
Right now...
"Ahahahaha, hey hey, quit it, Dora! I just worked up a sweat, so if you lick me like that it's gonna be salty, y'know?"
Despite telling Dora to stop, she was doing her usual thing: bonding with her animal friend.
But unlike usual, the animal she was playing with wasn't one native to Merveille. It was a Cloud Wolf, brought from her Homeland... the Sky Island Skypiea.
This one had been with Leona for quite a while now... since right around the time the Summit War ended, actually.
Leona had been visiting Skypiea at the time, and on God's Island, she found a young Cloud Wolf that had gotten separated from its pack. It was also injured, so she brought it back temporarily and treated its wounds.
But even after recovering, it showed no desire to return to its original pack and seemed to want to stay with Leona (though to be fair, they hadn't found the pack itself either). So they started living together on Merveille. And at that point, she gave it the name "Dora."
Unlike the other Merveille animals, Dora was only about the size of a somewhat large wolf, so Leona sometimes brought her inside the house to dote on.
Now, this Dora is actually... pretty strong.
Playing energetically with Leona effectively served as training in itself, and on top of that, we asked Ohm, the Sky Breeder and specialist in raising and training animals, for his help. So Dora is properly disciplined, understands commands, and obeys them.
Above all, with proper training on top of that, Dora is, as I said, quite strong.
Admittedly, Dora doesn't do anything as outrageous as walking on two legs or boxing like Ohm's partner Holy, but she's strong enough to serve as a hunting dog when going on hunts with Leona on the Training Island, Lubots Island.
Now, this Dora is actually (part two)... also a new Ability User.
Seeing reasonable potential, Leona got Papa's permission to have Dora eat a fruit.
Oh, looks like she's transforming right now. Seems like she's going to carry Leona and "fly," going for a walk through the sky together.
Dora's fluffy-furred body began to change, parts of it becoming covered in tough, scale-like hide, similar to what Nero had earlier.
Of her four legs, the two front ones transformed into long, extended digits with hooked claws, reminiscent of a dinosaur's.
Her face shifted into something like a fusion of wolf and dinosaur, and wings sprouted from her back.
The result, if I had to put it in one phrase... was a chimeric creature that looked like a relative of a Griffin.
As you probably know, a Griffin has the head, front legs, and wings of an eagle, while its body, hind legs, and tail are those of a Lion. A mythical beast born from the fusion of two animals.
And this Dora, rather than eagle and lion, had the appearance of a pterosaur and wolf combined.
Face, front legs, and wings: pterosaur.
Body, hind legs, and tail: wolf. ...What a sight...
But even looking like that, Leona apparently found her perfectly adorable. After nuzzling against Dora affectionately for a good while, she climbed onto Dora's back, and the two took off for their aerial stroll.
"It's almost snack time, so make sure you come back, okay?"
"Okaaay!"
...Oh, almost forgot.
Name: Dora (Cloud Wolf)
Power: Zoan-type Dragon-Dragon Fruit (Ancient Species)
Model: Dimorphodon
I thought it was a Pteranodon, but it turned out to be slightly different.
Apparently the Pteranodon power does exist, but it seems it wasn't among the ones brought back from the future.
Now then, there are still more. New Ability Users.
To be continued...