The fortune White Flame seized from Cocapiro Town didn't all go to waste.
He left a portion behind for Angel Town's people, a gesture of quiet repayment.
As for the rest—
he handed it over to Baby 5 and Rebecca, letting them do whatever they pleased.
"White Flame, I knew you cared about me the most!"
Baby 5, flush with cash, unleashed her inner shopaholic.
She bought mountains of dresses, shoes, perfume, and jewelry,
strutting through every port they docked at like a queen of extravagance.
Rebecca tried to resist at first.
She wasn't one for reckless spending—
but after a few days of Baby 5's teasing and temptation,
she too was dragged into the endless vortex of "retail therapy."
For half a month, wherever their ship went,
the two women left behind trails of empty purses and loaded shopping bags.
Between them, they burned through hundreds of millions of berries
without even blinking.
A normal man would've gone mad.
But White Flame?
He didn't care.
To him, money meant less than dust.
He'd long since learned that in a world ruled by power, gold was only a side effect.
One Month Later — Punk Hazard
"We're here."
The island loomed on the horizon,
a scarred wasteland of blackened soil and crumbling structures.
The once-frozen half and the flaming half were long gone—
now it was just toxic land,
the result of a failed experiment that had poisoned the air years ago.
Since then, Caesar Clown had "cleansed" the toxins
and turned the island into his personal laboratory of horrors.
But today, even those horrors had been reduced to rubble.
Everywhere White Flame looked,
the landscape was littered with deep craters and shattered steel.
"Looks like Drought Jack's forces have already been here."
He sent out his six IBMs to scour the island.
They vanished into the haze—
but when they returned, there were no bodies, no prisoners,
only tracks:
massive hoofprints stamped deep into the mud.
"Jack's work, no doubt about it."
Yet there was no trace of the man himself.
"Jack and his men have moved on…"
White Flame crouched to inspect the destruction.
Even without survivors, the clues were clear—
the battle had been fierce.
"The Donquixote Family had left one person here to watch Caesar…
That would've been the Snow-Snow Fruit user—Monet."
He straightened slowly, eyes narrowing.
"But judging from the scope of this fight,
there's no way it was just her.
Someone else intervened."
His gaze sharpened, curiosity flickering in his eyes.
Someone had fought Drought Jack's army here… and survived.
That meant the other side wasn't weak.
"Interesting," White Flame murmured,
a faint smile tugging at his lips.
"If someone's keeping Jack busy…
that saves me the trouble of hunting him down."
Just then, a whisper echoed in his mind.
"Master… found… survivor…"
One of the IBMs had located something.
White Flame's eyes flashed.
He raised a hand—
and his body unraveled into bandages,
switching places with the IBM in an instant.
He materialized amid the ruins.
Half-buried beneath a collapsed wall,
a single white feather caught the sunlight.
He bent to touch it—
and in the next instant, the feather transformed into a gleaming shard of ice!
"Snow Blade: White Chill!"
The blade shot toward his chest like a bullet.
CLANG!
White Flame didn't flinch.
He lifted one finger, hardened it with Armament Haki,
and flicked the attack aside effortlessly.
"Still fighting, even like this?"
"How stubborn."
With a gesture, the earth rose up and sealed itself into a cage of stone.
Inside lay a woman—
bloodied, exhausted, her breath shallow.
Long mint-green hair spilled over her shoulders,
and her amber eyes still burned faintly despite the weakness in them.
"Monet…?"
The voice came from behind—
Baby 5 had just arrived, eyes widening in recognition.
"Monet-nee!" she cried, running up to the cage.
Monet blinked, focusing on the familiar voice.
Her lips curved into a faint smile.
"Baby 5…? You're alive?"
"Thank goodness… everyone else is gone,
the Young Master is dead… I thought you were too."
Her voice trembled, every word a struggle.
"White Flame, please—she's my sister!
Let her out, okay?" Baby 5 pleaded.
"No."
White Flame's reply was as cold as the steel in his eyes.
He stepped closer to the cage.
"Where is Drought Jack?"
Monet frowned weakly.
"Who are you…?" she rasped.
"You want Caesar too, don't you?
Forget it… you'll die trying."
She coughed violently, blood splattering her hand.
"Even the Young Master couldn't stop them…"
Her words trailed off as consciousness slipped away.
"White Flame!" Baby 5 shouted, panicked.
He sighed.
"Troublesome woman."
With a flick of his wrist, the stone bars melted away.
Without another glance, he turned and walked off.
Baby 5 rushed to catch Monet before she fell,
with Rebecca helping her carry the wounded woman back to the ship.
They worked quickly to bandage her wounds,
doing what little they could.
Standing alone at the cliff's edge,
White Flame watched the smoke rising from Punk Hazard's ruins.
"Big Mom's pirates…" he muttered, piecing it together.
"They're the only ones who'd fight Jack for Caesar."
His lips curved into a faint smile.
"A fight between two of the Four Emperors' top officers…
Now that might actually be worth my time."
For the first time in weeks,
a spark of genuine excitement glimmered in his eyes.
"Drought Jack… and one of Big Mom's Sweet Commanders."
"Maybe eternity won't be so dull after all."
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