Several days earlier.
A room within the Hideout at the main estate on Merveille.
Deep in its innermost reaches, in a conference room reserved for conversations of the highest secrecy.
"What is it, Mama? What did you want to talk about?"
"Clearin' out the room and askin' both the current Admiral Sue and the Supreme Advisor to listen together... that's awfully dramatic. What the hell are you schemin'?"
"I'm soooorry, but the subject matter is what it iiiiis! I wanted to do a slightly dangerous experiment and needed permissiooooon!"
"...Mama, you always just do things on your own and get approval after the fact, and this experiment is dangerous enough that you're actually asking permission beforehaaand...!?"
"Damn, it's been over thirty years and I can still feel the stomachache from when she came to me with somethin' similar comin' back..."
"Oh my, Boss, is your tummy not feeling weeeeell!? I'll get you some medicine lateeeer! You can't push yourself just because work is busy, you knooooow! Your body is your greatest asseeeet!"
"You're the cause."
"...So, Mama. I'm honestly scared just to hear it, but I'll bear with it and ask... what's this experiment? Could it be... research using The Real Deal that was in that Vault?"
"Sharp as ever, Sue-chaaaan! That's riiight, half correeect!"
"Half?"
"What's the other half? No, I know askin' is gonna scare me as usual, but I got a feelin' I gotta ask."
"The other haaalf..."
"I want to modify myself one more tiiiime, and I need your permission to do iiiiit!"
"...Excuse me?"
☆☆☆
"Granny's gonna... modify herself!?"
"I had heard that Granny was ravaged by illness... so this is to resolve that?"
"I see, so by using the Op-Op Fruit's Powers, even something that outrageous becomes possible."
One day.
I was telling the three girls about this, along with the two who had recently joined the "daughters."
The "dangerous experiment" Mama had consulted us about... or rather, the modification surgery for Mama's own "treatment."
Mama, Venerdi Sou, had her body ravaged by an incurable disease, and she had been on the brink of death.
Then, during the Ape's Concert, she encountered a small miracle that extended her lifespan somewhat. Thanks to that, she was able to be taken outside by us when we appeared what felt like several months later.
And so she managed to live to see this world "34 years later." But for her, the threat of illness had not entirely passed.
Because that "miracle" hadn't completely cured her disease.
Her condition had temporarily improved, but slowly yet surely, the illness was eating away at Mama's body once more.
At this rate, it was thought that Mama's body would reach its limit again in just a few more years.
But that's all in the past now.
A little while ago, Iris and Snow brought a large number of Devil Fruits from the world of the future.
Among them was the Op-Op Fruit, which Mama ate (without permission), becoming a Modification-Free Human.
Everyone unanimously agreed that "a crazy person just got a crazy Power," but even so, the fact that Mama, a super-genius scientist and super-genius doctor who deserved five or six "supers" stacked on top, had obtained the Op-Op Fruit's Powers was, well, enormous.
Mama's own disease? She used her Modification-Free ability to its fullest and cured it in seconds. And while she was at it, she cleaned up nearly all the side effects and adverse impacts from the outrageously reckless modifications she'd performed on her own body before.
Of course, it wasn't just Mama herself. She went through the entire Golden Lion Pirates and fixed, one after another, injuries and illnesses that previous medical technology couldn't handle, including lingering aftereffects. (And yes, I do mean "fixed" in the broadest sense of the word.)
I'm a little reluctant to admit it, but the contribution was undeniably commensurate with the fact that she'd eaten the Op-Op Fruit. Possibly even more than that.
However, even for Mama... as I said "nearly all" just now, she wasn't able to completely remove every last effect of the disease and modifications.
Because even with Modification-Free, there are types of irreversible damage that simply can't be healed.
In Mama's case, there were several such issues, especially with her nerves and internal organs.
Just because an organ isn't functioning well doesn't mean you can do an organ transplant or nerve reconnection and call it cured. The human body's internal organs are delicate in many ways.
I'll say it again: even Modification-Free, even a ridiculous Power that could create something like a Centaur in the Original Work, what's impossible is impossible. There are limits.
But Mama was trying to cover and solve that with... yet another outrageous technique.
That was the research she'd locked away in that Vault. The Real Deal. Something so dangerous that Papa and I had considered using our authority to forcibly halt and dispose of it.
After getting a thorough explanation, it did seem practically viable, and I could believe Mama's technical skill was more than sufficient to succeed.
Even so, it wasn't like I had no reservations. In fact, I had a lot. A whole lot. But ultimately, after discussing it with Papa... we gave permission.
That was one week ago.
"...One week ago?"
After listening to the whole explanation, Iris spoke up as if something had just occurred to her.
"...Hey, Mom? You gave Grandma permission for the modification surgery one week ago?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Once permission was granted... when was Grandmother supposed to perform this surgery?"
"She said she could do it as early as the next day, once she had permission. Apparently, human experimentation using slaves... enemies and criminals, was already done."
"One week ago, the next day... that would be six days ago, right?"
"That's right."
"...Yesterday, I saw Grandma in perfectly fine health, energetically running all sorts of experiments and research, dragging Hogback around."
"Yeah, I saw that too."
"...So that means?"
"It means the surgery succeeded and she's cured."
"..."
Not even a moment's space for a somber mood to settle in. That's the Mama quality standard.
My daughters stood there with dumbfounded expressions. I get it, I really do. I felt the same way.
Actually, the very next day, the day of the surgery itself, Mama burst into my office that night and announced, "It was a successssss! I still need to monitor things a bit mooooore!" with tremendous energy. I nearly fell over.
...Sorry for telling you so late, and sorry it ended up being one big after-the-fact report all at once.
And there's one more thing I need to apologize for.
The reason I gathered you all here today was partly to report that Mama "seems to be cured," and... there's one more reason.
"...And that reason is?"
"After this, Mama wants to present her research findings, including some content related to that modification surgery. It concerns Mama's health and other things, so I thought everyone here should hear it together. We're family, after all."
"...And your real reason?"
"I knew I'd be mentally destroyed listening to a terrifying report and research presentation, so I wanted to at least increase the number of people suffering alongside me."
"Excuse me!?"
I mean, come on, with things like this, you can get through it when you have people to share the painful experience with and complain to each other afterward, right?
Usually it's Papa and Dr. Indigo who get dragged along for Mama-related things, but given the nature of this particular topic, there was a very real possibility three people wouldn't be enough to handle it...
"No, I'm really sorry, but... please, just let yourselves get dragged into this without complaint."
"First time Mama's ever asked us for something like this..."
"For it to be that serious... this Real Deal research Granny has been working on must be something else."
"I'm prepared to accept and love everything, Mom's selfishness and Grandma's troublesome habits included, all of it... I really am, but wow, this is scary..."
"...You don't think something might come up that was, like, so bad it was better off not being passed down and just dying out with the old world... right?"
"That it can't be denied is what frightens me... Grandmother Sou was already gone in our era, after all..."
Well then, with everyone's agreement secured (?)... off we go, to the top-secret conference room.
Mama should be in there, with her materials all prepared, setting up for a presentation or something like a thesis defense.
☆☆☆
"Everyooone! Thank you so much for gathering here today despite your busy scheduleeees! I didn't know Alice and the others would be listening too, but Grandma will do her best to explain things clearly, so please enjoy yourselveeees!"
"The lightness of her delivery is in inverse proportion to how gruesome the content she's about to discuss will be..."
"Can't be helped. I've never once seen her speak in a serious tone. This is the woman who reported the fate of her own death in her usual manner while bundling a research presentation that exploited said fate right along with it."
The presenter: Mama.
The attendees: Papa, Dr. Indigo, myself, and all five daughters.
A total of 9 gathered in the top-secret conference room deep within the Hideout.
In terms of scale, it felt like... a university seminar presentation, maybe?
'Wait, was she being serious with that opening like it was some kind of warm-up act? There's no way this is content anyone could "enjoy" listening to... and there's clearly something dangerous sitting on the lectern besides the documents.'
"Hey, Grandma, can I ask something before we start?"
"Of couuurse? What is it, Leona-chan?"
"Your volume today is kinda, like, pretty normal, yeah? Usually your voice is super loud and carries, but today it's fine even in this small room."
"Oh, I was wondering about that too. Mama, could it be because of... whatever that thing is you're wearing on your ear right now?"
Mama currently had something like a headset attached to her ear.
There shouldn't be anything like headsets in this world, so I'd been wondering what it was.
"Correct! My natural voice is so loud that it seemed to be causing everyone just a teensy bit of trouble, so I made a device that reduces conversational volumeee! Adjusted so it's just the right level for normal people to listeeen!"
"'Teensy bit' is puttin' it mildly... well, if she's bein' considerate, I'll take it."
"Indeed. I'm mildly moved that after over a decade, this has finally occurred to her."
Tearjerking words from two people who'd known Mama since before I was even born.
According to Mama, that headset-like device incorporated a Tone Dial, and as she said, it suppressed the wearer's voice to a level comfortable for normal people to hear.
Honestly, it still felt slightly loud, but it was definitely at a level where we could have a conversation indoors without our ears hurting, so it wasn't really a bother.
...I was aware that my standards for "good enough" had become rather unfortunate because of how things normally were.
Anyway, with the preamble out of the way...
"So, Mama... today's presentation is about, um... those clearly dangerous-looking specimens sitting on the desk, right?"
As I spoke, I looked at the two large jarred specimens placed on the somewhat oversized desk, or lectern I suppose, beside where Mama was standing.
They reminded me of the animal dissection specimens that used to sit in the science lab back in middle school...
In one jar was an insect that looked like a cross between a spider and a centipede.
It was quite large, and long. Roughly the size of a medium to somewhat large snake.
Well, in the One Piece World, having insects this big isn't strange at all. They're common on Merveille, even.
But even accounting for that, there was something... distinctly uncanny about this insect.
The label read: "Plaga."
I recognized this. It was one of the things inside that Vault.
And in the other jar... a f-fetus... specimen?
Inside was "something" shaped like a human fetus, yet clearly not human, its body appearing to not even be formed from flesh.
It had strange jagged protrusions and tentacle-like appendages. Genuinely inhuman. If someone told me it was an alien larva, I might have believed them.
The label read: "Kadu."
Unlike the first one, I didn't recognize this... wait, no. I did.
That's right, this was something Mama had brought back from the Ape's Concert. I remembered storing it with Enigma, thinking 'What even is this, gross,' while forcing myself to bear with it.
Plaga and Kadu.
These two objects, which looked dangerous just from their appearance, so much so that it would be fraud if they turned out not to be, were the subject of Mama's "Real Deal research" and... today's topic.
And what we didn't know at the time was that Mama had already used these to pull off something outrageous. We were about to find out.
To be continued...