In one corner of the Merveille airspace lay a Sky Island with absolutely nothing on it.
This was one of the provisional Sky Islands Papa had casually hauled up from the Blue Sea ages ago, and it wasn't being used for anything in particular. No animals lived there either.
Which made it the perfect island for rough-and-tumble stuff. Mock battles, firepower tests, that sort of messy business.
In that sense, maybe "unused" wasn't quite accurate after all.
And today, once again, we'd gathered here to run a few experiments, but...
"All riiiight! Let's get this presentation started right awaaaaaay! If anything catches your fancy, I'll pour even more effort into it, so please consider increasing the budgeeeeet!"
"..."
Today's experiments were going to be a little... stimulating. (That's the most diplomatic way I can put it.)
☆☆☆
It hadn't even been that long since the last presentation on Plaga and Kadu, and here she was announcing yet another batch of "new inventions." This woman's development pace really was abnormal.
Isn't invention supposed to be the kind of thing that takes months, years of trial and error before finally... you know? Well, okay, I'm aware that doesn't apply to certain geniuses.
Still, frustrating as it was to admit, experience had taught me that her inventions were always extremely useful, in direct proportion to the mental toll they exacted on the rest of us.
So when she made a request like that ("I want to do a presentation!"), it simply couldn't be ignored.
And so me, Papa, Indigo, the five girls, and my two close aides, basically the same lineup as that meeting the other day, had gathered for today's "showcase."
Unlike last time, though, it wasn't just Mama. Several people from the Laboratory were bustling around in assistant roles. The fact that she wasn't working alone meant this round wasn't quite as top-secret as before; these had been properly developed as Laboratory projects.
They were still top-secret level, no doubt about that.
But compared to those two inventions, or the secret of Mama's body... yeah.
"Chief Sou, preparations are complete."
"Thank yoooooou! Then let's get started right awaaaaaay! First up is thiiiiis!"
One of the assistants signaled that preparations were done, and Mama, as if she'd been waiting for exactly that, reached into her coat and pulled something out.
What she held was... a shell? Oh, a Dial.
"That's riiiight! I've reported on the original Dials I've developed several times before, haven't IIIIII?"
"Yep. Mama, you've made a whole bunch of them."
The Paper Dial, which stores plant fibers and ejects paper.
The Soap Dial, which produces a soap compound usable as both shampoo and body wash.
The Purifier Dial, which absorbs seawater or dirty water and expels it as drinkable fresh water.
The Steam Dial, which stores both water and heat simultaneously to generate high-temperature steam.
Like that, Mama had developed all sorts of original, selectively bred Dials.
But apparently she'd created yet another new one... and that would be the one she was holding now?
A small spiral shell type. Somewhat flat and round. A bit smaller overall, but similar in shape to an Impact Dial, maybe.
Mama aimed it at the target her assistants had set up.
Not huge, but made of metal and fairly sturdy-looking.
Then, when Mama pressed the apex of the Dial's shell...
Pyun!!
"...Huh?"
A Laser came out.
Let me say that again. A Laser. Came out. From a Dial.
The fired Laser pierced through the iron-plate-reinforced target, struck the ground behind it, and detonated.
"I call it the Laser Diaaaaal! It's a selectively bred version of the Lamp Dial thaaaaat stores light, converges it, and fires it, allowing you to casually unleash Laser attacks just like the ones Pacifistas uuuuuse!"
"I don't think that's the kind of firepower one should be casually unleashing, though..."
"So the World Government's prized Future Weapon for their Human Weapons can fit in the palm of your hand, huh... Grandma, you're amazing as always."
"Can you mass-produce these? 'Cause if so, that's insane."
No kidding. A weapon smaller than a gun with this kind of firepower? Seriously dangerous.
That's exactly what I was thinking, but Mama said "Well, the thing iiiiis," looking frustrated about something.
"Firing it is easy, but making one is incredibly haaaaard! They take a long time to grow, and they'll fail if you don't raise them carefully, so the labor and costs are significant toooooo! Plus, you have to make it absorb light before firing, and it needs to absorb a certain strength of light for a decent amount of time, so there are problems with sustained combat capability as welllllll!"
I see, so it wasn't like a gun where you could just reload and fire the next round immediately.
According to her, when fully charged with light, six shots at that level of power was the limit.
Even that seemed plenty sufficient, but it apparently wasn't enough for Mama.
"I need additional budget to solve these issues, which is why I'm presenting it todaaaaaay! I already have some ideas in mind, so if I get the OK I can start right awaaaaaay! What do you say, Boooooss?"
"...I'll acknowledge its usefulness. Well, it's a bit scary to think about how it might be enhanced, but... fine. Approved. I'll allocate the budget, so research it and show me improvements."
"Thank you so muuuuuch! Then on to the next ooooone!"
As a weapon, it really was incredibly powerful. Papa had no choice but to acknowledge it.
Delighted by that, Mama moved on to preparing her next invention.
☆☆☆
After a short interval, what was brought out was... wait, what is this?
"...Grapes?"
It was a magnificent bunch of grapes, or rather, something that looked like grapes, with numerous fruits clustered together on a stem.
The appearance, or at least the shape, was grape-like, but one glance was enough to tell this was no ordinary fruit.
Every single one of those large individual fruits, rivaling kyoho grapes in size, had strange patterns on their surfaces.
Marks that looked like combinations of circles and Xs, reminiscent of the map symbol for a police station, scattered all over them.
What came to my mind wasn't, of course, Devil Fruits... but rather Artificial Devil Fruits like SMILE and TABOO.
Among such mysterious fruits, these had a certain distortion, a vibe unique to things made by human hands. ...Well, it went without saying that Mama made these, so of course human hands were involved.
Even so, the fact that their vibe was closer to Artificial Devil Fruits than natural Devil Fruits... that bothered me somehow.
That vague question, though, was neatly answered by Mama's explanation immediately after.
...Though it came packaged with an impact that far exceeded any sense of clarity the answer provided.
"Hey Sou, is that an Artificial Devil Fruit? Like SMILE or TABOO?"
"No it's nooooot! Though it's not entirely unrelated eitheeeer! In a nutshell, this is... an Antidote for SMILE!"
"An Antidote?!"
"That's riiiiight! With SMILE, for example, the chance of actually gaining Powers is only ten percent, and everyone else just becomes unable to swim and loses the ability to express any emotion besides laughing, riiiiight?"
Yeah, everyone knew that.
The fact that something so dangerous was still wildly popular on the black market just goes to show how unpredictable the world is.
Because of that, sometimes when I dealt with Pirates and other criminals, I'd encounter someone among them who would laugh hysterically no matter what happened, no matter what attack they took. ...That was probably because of that.
"Now, the fruit I created, which I've named CoPP, can release them from that 'can only laugh' condition and restore their original emotions! On top of that, it cures their inability to swim tooooo!"
"If that's true, you've really created something incredible again... This CoPP thing, does it have any dangers or side effects?"
"It dooooes!"
"It DOES?!"
"Unfortunately, it dooooes! Since SMILE itself is a total mess of a defective product, slapped together in the most haphazard and reckless way, 'fixing' it is no easy task eitheeeer! Imagine the most tangled spaghetti code you possibly can, and that's about riiiiight!"
According to Mama, SMILE is created by absorbing the Lineage Factors of countless animals into a fruit through chemical agents, and the resulting fruit is horribly unnatural, unstable, and distorted.
Truly a state where countless strands of code called Lineage Factors are packed together in a tangled, jumbled mess.
When someone eats it, if they can successfully incorporate those Lineage Factors into their body through the fruit and make them take hold, they gain Powers. This is what happens when the tangled spaghetti code successfully unravels.
If they fail, the already tangled and jumbled code gets even more tangled, ensnaring the person so they can't move, and as a result, instead of gaining power, they're left with nothing but the drawbacks.
Mama's CoPP solves this through sheer brute force. It uses an extremely potent compound to destroy all the unnaturally incorporated Lineage Factors.
Imagine pouring acid on all the code that's ensnared your entire body, dissolving every strand to physically eradicate them, thereby freeing the person trapped within. That was the general idea.
Naturally, doing something like that doesn't leave the person unscathed.
CoPP itself contains toxic compounds, so eating it directly harms the consumer.
Moreover, this toxin is inseparably linked to the compound responsible for the destruction of Lineage Factors, like two sides of the same coin, so detoxifying it beforehand to eat safely was impossible.
The silver lining, if you could call it that, was that in small amounts it wasn't terribly harmful, so eating one or two wouldn't kill you. Individual tolerance for poison varied, so nothing was guaranteed, though.
However, how many you needed to eat for the cure to work also varied by individual.
Some people could be cured with just one, while others might eat many, even an entire bunch, without being cured.
And of course, eat too many and you'd accumulate too much poison in your system and... die before being cured.
"I see. No such thing as a free lunch, huh."
"To remove a Mask of Smiles that never comes off, one must be willing to drink poison and shave years off one's life... What a thoroughly wretched thing, in every sense of the word."
"They brought it on themselves by trying to gain power through such a reckless method in the first place, so I guess it can't be helped. ...But hey, if this ended up circulating on the black market like SMILE did..."
"It'd sell like crazy, wouldn't it..."
"Mama, just hypothetically... say someone successfully uses this to cure themselves, right? Could they try SMILE again after that?"
Since SMILE counted as a Devil Fruit, even if you failed, you couldn't eat a second one.
But if this cured you and put you back to a clean slate...
"They caaaan! I've already tested it, and one of the test subjects successfully gained Powers from a second attempt at SMILE!"
"Yeah, this would definitely sell. There'd be loads of idiots thinking they could just detoxify and try again if they failed."
"Truly, what a wretched thing..."
"Just one additional note though: if an Ability User who successfully gained Powers from SMILE eats it, they won't revert to being powerless! That's already stabilized, so all they'd do is eat poison for nothiiiing!"
Incidentally, this was trivial, but the name CoPP apparently stood for "Control Poison with Poison." Fight poison with poison, huh.
"One more thing to add: it's also effective on the symptoms of people who can only laugh because they ate leftover, already-used SMILE, of couuuurse!"
"Hm? What's that about?"
"Oh, you didn't know, Boooooss? SMILE works just like Devil Fruits: only the first bite has the power to grant abilities! So the 'second bite' onward is just an ordinary fruit, but the side effects of the forced smile and being unable to swim still take effect from the second bite onwaaaard!"
"So if someone eats the leftovers after the first person took their shot, that person also loses the ability to do anything but laugh. That's nasty... Well, whether anyone would actually do that is another matter."
Who would deliberately eat someone else's leftover SMILE?
At that point it'd basically be... a form of torture or execution that steals everything but your smile.
...Which, conversely, meant it was conceivable if that was your actual goal. Though I'd never heard of anyone doing it.
So, for people who'd lost everything but their smile from eating leftover SMILE, this CoPP was also effective as an Antidote.
Moreover, since the Lineage Factor complications were less severe than for someone who'd failed on the "first bite," they could be cured with fewer doses.
...Well, whether there'd ever be an occasion to use it for that purpose was honestly questionable.
☆☆☆
The next invention was... another Dial?
This time, a tiny spiral shell like a pond snail. About the size of a thumb, fitting snugly in the palm of your hand.
"Here we gooooo!"
"Hm? 'Here we go,' Mama, you don't need to set up a target this time?"
"Nooope! Don't need one, and you'll understand what kind of Dial it is right awaaaaaay!"
I wondered what that meant.
Then I noticed that the researchers had all... retreated to a safe distance. Why?
Wait, that's kind of scary. This is safe, right?
I waited with growing unease, and right in front of me, Mama pressed the apex of the Dial's shell with a click... and in that instant.
THUD-DUMP!!
"...?!"
Suddenly, radiating from Mama as its center, a wave of Haki, unmistakably Conqueror's Haki, burst forth.
Fortunately, no one in our group passed out from it. It was Conqueror's Haki, yes, but it wasn't that strong. But that wasn't the issue at all.
...This made even less sense than the last one! Wait, could it be... could it really?
"...Mama, what was that just now? Explain, please."
"Okaaaaay! This Dial is the Haki Diaaaaal! As the name suggests, it's a new breed of Dial that can store Hakiiiiii!"
"...What a ridiculous thing this woman's gone and made...!"
Papa pressed a hand to his forehead.
Admiration, bewilderment, amusement, concern that things had gotten complicated, all kinds of emotions jumbled together until none of them could surface anymore. At least that's how it looked.
I felt pretty much the same. Seriously, Mama really had created something outrageous.
This went beyond unprecedented. You can actually make something like that?! It's Haki! Haki! And Conqueror's Haki at that!
"That said, this is even harder to cultivate than the Laser Dial, and so far this one is the only success! It can only store one use, the stored Haki comes out several grades weaker than when used normally, and it hits the user too so it could backfire as self-inflicted damage, and there are problems everywhere! By the way, the Conqueror's Haki I just released was stored with Sue-chan's help the other daaaaay!"
...Oh, right. Now that she mentioned it, the other day Mama had asked me, "Could you unleash a little Conqueror's for meeeee?" and made me use Conqueror's Haki without explaining why... so that's what it was for.
But even so...
To take Conqueror's Haki, which only the chosen few could use, and make it so anyone could deploy it by storing it in a portable device, even if the result was a degraded copy... that kind of broke a lot of things.
"...Grandma? If Conqueror's Haki is possible... then, um... do Dials for Armament Haki and Observation Haki also exist?"
Iris asked tentatively. Right, that was the more important question.
More so than a bomb that intimidates people, those would be more powerful in a way... and more dangerous.
To that, Mama's answer was...
"Half correct! An Observation Haki Dial, unfortunately, seems difficult at this point! Since it works by sharpening the user's own senses, it doesn't lend itself to the approach of 'storing' iiiiit! But the other one, Armament Haki, I think I can dooooo! It's several degrees harder than Conqueror's Haki, though! I need budget for thaaaaat!"
Surprising as it was, Conqueror's Haki was the easiest one... that reaction aside.
Upon hearing this, Papa crossed his arms and began thinking with a serious expression.
No surprise there. This was that important.
Armament Haki was, in a sense, the baseline ability you were expected to master if you aimed for the top in the New World. Whether or not you had it made a dimensional difference in your fighting capability.
Because of that, the handful of advanced fighters who'd mastered it stood in a position of absolute superiority over the masses of rank-and-file combatants.
Without it, you had no means of damaging certain Paramecia or Logia Ability Users, after all.
The idea that such Armament Haki, usable only by a select few elites, could be stored and deployed by anyone... had the potential to fundamentally change warfare in the New World, or indeed every sea.
An upheaval on par with the invention of Gunpowder and firearms, if not greater.
Given that, it was perfectly understandable that Papa was being uncharacteristically serious (no offense).
After a prolonged silence,
"...I'll allocate the budget. But regarding this, I will not tolerate your signature 'runaway developments.' You will report progress to me and Sue at every stage. If any problems or concerns arise, you will seek instructions without fail and comply with whatever decision is issued. Even if that decision is 'Immediately cease all research and destroy every research outcome.' If you cannot abide by this, permission is not granted, and if you break these terms... Mama or not, there will be consequences."
"...Understood! I swear on my cheap pride as a researcher, on the debt I owe the Boss for taking me in, and on my daughters and granddaughters who are far more talented and adorable than I deseeeerve, I will comply!"
"...Good. I'll trust you on that."
For something whose actual invention was so wildly outlandish, the outcome had been decided in an intensely serious atmosphere.
☆☆☆
After that, pulling ourselves together, Mama's invention showcase continued.
The Haki Dial presentation had understandably pushed things into serious mode for a bit, but unfortunately (?) that atmosphere didn't last long... For the rest of the presentations, me, Papa, and everyone else watched with an appropriately deflated air of "This woman, I swear..." while still being impressed.
That's how loaded the lineup was with "insane" inventions...
First, a special coating made from yet another refinement of Wapometal. Oh, this was the finished version of the one I'd heard about from her before.
A plain wooden board coated with this stuff wouldn't break when slashed with swords or axes, wouldn't burn when doused in flames, and wouldn't corrode even from a fairly strong acid solution... It was an incredible coating agent. Just using it for ship hull paint would massively boost defensive capability.
Next, a Railgun that uses electromagnetic force to accelerate and fire projectiles.
It could launch shells at tremendous speed with tremendous power, but ordinary shells would burn up during acceleration, so specialized ammunition was required. Even so, the power was at a level that made even Papa go, "Seriously...?" and recoil.
There was also a simplified version, a Coilgun that could launch shells without Gunpowder. If the goal was deploying them in numbers, this one might be better?
For power supply, they reportedly used the superconductor that was recently developed along with Thunder Dials.
Official name: Mass Driver Cannon.
In Western terms, a "Mass Driver Cannon."
A large cannon with mechanisms at multiple points along its extended barrel that accelerate shells through blasts from Jet Dials, enabling ultra-high-speed, ultra-long-range bombardment.
While inferior to the Railgun and Coilgun, its major advantage was that it could use ordinary shells.
After parading out invention after invention of Mama's handmade terrifying weapons, the grand finale was a weapon worthy of closing the show.
What Mama held up for us to see, brimming with confidence, was...
"...Ramune?"
It looked like Ramune.
Not the candy tablet kind, but the bottled drink. The one that comes in that distinctive bottle.
That "distinctive bottle" was what Mama was currently holding.
"That's right, I've been calling it 'Ramune' toooooo! Though the contents are completely different!"
Oh, is that so. Only the container was Ramune-like.
Then... what were the actual contents?
"How should I explain this... In a word, it's a 'combined propellant and shell' used for firing a specialized cannon!"
"...'Combined'? What?"
"Before I explain, Sue-chan, do you remember when you and I went to Baldimore togetheeeer?"
Oh, of course I remembered.
Future Country Baldimore. The hometown of the genius scientist Dr. Vegapunk, and... the island where Franky was currently hiding out.
I'd gone there recently as a research trip and had my first meeting with Franky, who was in the middle of self-modification. He hadn't joined the crew yet during the Sky Island arc, after all.
I'd expected him to be on guard since I was technically one of the Shichibukai, but... being the author of Gurren Lagann apparently trumped that. From our very first meeting, he burst into tears going, "I'm a huuuge fan of yours!" and wanted handshakes and autographs... Yeah, no, it wasn't an unpleasant feeling? Just surprising.
On top of that, right after, he hit it off with Mama instantly, since she was every bit his equal in the developer spirit... and during the several days of our stay, they exchanged opinions and technical knowledge. They just went and did it.
Incidentally, during that visit, Mama had asked a favor, saying she wanted to "support the growth of the younger generation." I ended up granting a small indulgence.
All it amounted to, though, was providing some Wapometal and other materials, in quantities well within my discretionary authority.
I could only hope that the Franky Shogun, which should be completed in "two years," would turn out to be as powerful as in the Original Work.
...Though "two years" was already less than a year away at this point.
Also, I'd noticed there were a ton of Drills made (prototypes?) and left lying around Franky's Lab, which was curious... but whatever.
...So all that happened, but... what about it?
"Among the technologies I learned about during that visit, there was this amazing concept of using cola as fuel to power super-powerful weapons, remember? This Ramune is my own take on that ideaaaa! Though in this case, the carbonated drink part is just the name; the contents are a proper chemical compouuuund!"
Ah, so that's why she'd gone with that name and appearance...
"To put it simply, this liquid has an incredible amount of Gas dissolved in iiiiit! And when you load the bottle into its dedicated cannon mount and fire..."
As she spoke, Mama loaded the Ramune bottle into the "dedicated cannon mount," which had apparently been set up at some point, clicking it into place like a cartridge and pushing it in.
Then she pulled the lever, and...
KABOOOOM!!
An Air Cannonball flew from the muzzle and... pulverized the massive stack of wooden crates that had been set up as targets.
Incredible... That was just like the Gaon Cannon mounted on the Sunny in the One Piece Original Work, or the Franky Shogun's General Cannon. A bombardment of ultra-compressed air.
And apparently, Mama's version didn't stop there.
An enormous fireball erupted, engulfing every last fragment of the shattered wooden crates scattered in the air.
All the expelled air had apparently ignited. Everything within range was being incinerated.
According to Mama's subsequent explanation, what had just occurred went like this:
1. Load the Ramune into the cannon. The bottle is unsealed.
2. The massive quantity of specialized Gas that was compressed and dissolved in the liquid reverts to a gaseous state. Furthermore, through chemical reaction, the liquid itself also becomes gas. The result: an absurd volume of air fills the cannon's interior.
3. Fire. Through a mechanism incorporating multiple Impact Dials and Jet Dials built into the cannon's interior, the Gas doesn't disperse but is focused and sent flying toward the target.
4. The air projectile hits and bursts apart. Mixing with the surrounding atmosphere triggers a chemical reaction, converting all the specialized Gas into a combustible gas that explosively ignites at room temperature.
5. All of that combustible gas catches fire. Burns explosively, incinerating the area.
6. The heat from the explosion causes the surrounding air to rapidly expand, creating a shockwave that blasts everything in the vicinity.
That was a bit long, but you get the picture.
And all that destructive power from a single shot using just one bottle of Ramune. ...Yeah. Insane.
Moreover, the dedicated cannon was equipped with numerous Dials, tuned to minimize recoil and strain, so as long as you had enough "ammunition" prepared, rapid fire at a reasonable pace was entirely possible.
And the most attractive aspect of this Ramune was... how cheap it was.
Amazingly, nearly all the raw materials for this Ramune could be sourced from processing crops grown in-house in Suzu's Territory in Merveille.
Some specialized chemicals needed to be added, and production did require a dedicated plant with a fair amount of labor, but it could be made almost entirely in-house. Considering the power per shot, plus secrecy and transportation costs, the cost-performance was overwhelmingly better than using conventional cannons.
If there was a drawback, it was that you needed a dedicated cannon to deploy it, but the cost-performance more than made up for that.
Faced with the most obvious utility of any invention presented so far, Papa looked genuinely pleased.
He cheerfully approved the budget and even said, "Go all out!"
It directly contributed to strengthening their forces and could be operated as a straightforward weapon, making it one of the more normal items among Mama's inventions. Though one could argue the bar for comparison had been set absurdly low by everything else.
Mama, too, looked happy to be praised and given such enthusiastic backing.
Well, all's well that ends well... is what I should probably say here. Ha ha ha.
It was not at all well, as we would come to learn... some time after that.
Several more months had passed, and it was right on the cusp of entering the "two years later" period.
When you let Mama get carried away, there's roughly a 150% (*) chance she'll pull something. I'd forgotten that... and so had Papa.
(*) Meaning she'll definitely pull something once, with a further 50% chance of pulling something a second time.
As for what exactly happened... what Mama created... that's a story for another time.
To be continued...