Plaything

Bang!

With a tremendous crash, the coast seemed as though it had been struck by a cannonball. Dust and mist obscured everyone's vision. When a light breeze scattered the haze, they saw that a blond man with a scar at the corner of his left eye had appeared at the harbor.

Roy was genuinely somewhat surprised this time. Bellamy actually dared to appear right in front of him. After all, behind Roy stood four or five thousand elite soldiers, along with a group of senior executives. If Roy abandoned all pretense of fair play and simply swarmed him, Bellamy would be finished before he could struggle more than a few times.

Roy glanced toward the harbor and saw that the Bellamy Pirates' ship was still out at sea. It seemed Bellamy had grown impatient and simply jumped over himself. As expected of a Spring-Spring Fruit user—his jumping ability was truly no joke.

"Phantom Sword Roy? Your reputation is quite enormous in the North Blue." Bellamy loved the feeling of taking away what others treasured, so he intended to flatter Roy first before letting him experience the plunge from heaven into hell.

"Oh, and?" Roy replied listlessly, his dead-fish eyes rolling. He had been honing his Flying Heaven Sword Style techniques in his dreams every day lately, leaving him a little worn out.

"You should know that only one legend is permitted to exist in the North Blue—and that is the Donquixote Family." Bellamy licked his lips like a hyena, his eyes gleaming with bloodlust. He waited for the other man to panic. After all, even in the latter half of the Grand Line, the Donquixote Family was a massive force feared by countless people.

"Oh." Roy felt there was simply no communicating with a Brain-Dead Fan.

Bellamy's dismissive attitude infuriated him. Besides, he had always had a fiery temper. Throwing his original plan to the wind, he transformed both legs into springs before everyone's astonished eyes. After compressing them with force, he shot toward Roy in an instant like a bullet leaving a barrel.

"Feel my wrath! Speed is power!" Bellamy shouted excitedly, seemingly already witnessing Roy being sent flying by the impact.

Yet to his shock, he passed straight through Roy's body as though Roy were some incorporeal ghost.

"So this is your strength? How utterly absurd. It seems you're no different from all the other trash." Roy sighed in disappointment. If this was all Bellamy could do, Roy did not even feel like drawing his sword.

"What nonsense! I'm not like those idiots who spend all day dreaming! I'm a man who has seen how vast the sea truly is!" Bellamy's legs became springs again, and with a fierce kick against the ground, he shot backward toward Roy without the slightest pause, apparently intending to catch him off guard.

What horrified Bellamy was that when he passed through Roy's body again, Roy's phantom actually opened its mouth and mocked him. "Is that so? Then it truly doesn't show at all."

"Why is this happening? Is this some strange Devil Fruit Ability?" Bellamy said with an ugly expression. The feeling of being able to see his opponent but not hit him was unbearably frustrating.

"Impossible. There must be something I overlooked. Next, I'll show you my ultimate speed."

As he spoke, Bellamy began bouncing all around the area. With every bounce, his speed increased another notch. By the end, his entire body seemed to have vanished from the space itself. Only the incessant reverberation of springs proved that he still existed.

But to the people around them, Bellamy had been fighting the air from the very beginning. Roy was clearly standing right beside him, yet Bellamy acted as though he could not see him. He continued roaring at and attacking empty space, occasionally showing terror and fury, as though he had suddenly gone mad.

This was the illusion technique Roy had developed after his Devil Fruit Ability entered its second stage. It could directly disrupt an enemy's five senses. However, Roy was still somewhat dissatisfied, since this ability was practically useless against powerful opponents who had mastered Observation Haki.

In Roy's conception, the next stage of illusion development could perhaps take inspiration from Tsukuyomi from Naruto, directly using dreams to control a person's mind. But that ability was far too difficult to grasp and remained beyond Roy's current capabilities.

Seeing Bellamy still bouncing around energetically, Roy decided it was time to end this farce.

Seizing an opening in Bellamy's attacks, Roy swept out with a whip kick and sent him flying into the sea. There was no need to elaborate on what happened when a Devil Fruit user fell into the water.

"Go. Send a few people who are good swimmers to bring him up."

Before long, a drenched and utterly bedraggled Bellamy appeared before Roy.

"Impossible... How could I lose? I wasn't supposed to lose..." Bellamy seemed to have suffered an enormous blow as he muttered to himself through tears and snot.

Roy understood. Though Bellamy's personality was vile, he was not the cowardly sort. There was only one reason he would react this way: he knew that after suffering defeat, he could no longer call himself a member of the Donquixote Family. For a Brain-Dead Fan, that was undoubtedly a devastating blow.

To be honest, Roy did appreciate Bellamy's loyalty. It would have been a decent option if he could recruit him. But Roy knew that was nearly impossible.

His dream ability could only subtly reshape powerful people over time, unless they had innate mental defects like Yonji. As for a Brain-Dead Fan like Bellamy, changing his loyalty to Doflamingo was practically impossible. Besides, Bellamy's potential was not worth Roy investing too much effort into.

"Though it was only a minor interlude, it did pass some of the boredom. Let's go." Roy had no interest in such a worthless burden as Bellamy, leaving him alone in his grief.

The Royal Palace of Dressrosa.

"Hey, Doffy, I just received some rather interesting news." Trebol, dragging a long trail of snot, looked at Doflamingo as he spoke.

"Oh? What news?" Doflamingo calmly avoided the snot Trebol flung his way and replied lazily.

"Do you remember that little punk in the North Blue who took our family's flag?"

"Mm, I vaguely remember something like that. What about him?"

"He has already suffered defeat in the North Blue. It seems he was beaten by a group of rookie pirates."

"Hehehe, just as expected of a little punk who would never amount to anything. After all these years, he still doesn't dare enter the Grand Line. I have no need for such worthless trash among my subordinates."

"Should we send someone to clean him up?"

"No need. I remember saying back then that if they failed, I would take back the name. That brat has also appeared in the North Blue now, so I'll personally deal with him while taking care of that little punk as well."