Katakuri: That Day, I Almost Died.

Looking at those imposing horns, Katakuri's thoughts drifted far away once more, recalling secrets from many years ago.

That was eighteen years ago, when Ortolan was born. Katakuri himself had only been two at the time, so naturally he remembered nothing. His mother had told him these secrets only recently.

Eighteen years ago, Charlotte Linlin was still running with the Rocks Pirates. But just two or three years later, the Battle of God Valley erupted. The Rocks Pirates, who had once rampaged across the seas, disbanded, and the major shareholders of that "company" went their separate ways, essentially forming the current New World landscape of rising warlords.

So, theoretically speaking, the twenty-year-old Katakuri and his two brothers, along with Charlotte's Eldest Son, Perospero, now twenty-two, had all had their diapers changed aboard Rocks' ship. They might even have peed on the famed Golden Lion Shiki, Whitebeard Edward Newgate, Kaido of the Beasts, and the others. Of course, those men might also have flicked them... ahem.

Bane Ortolan had also been born aboard Rocks' ship. Like Katakuri and the others, he should have borne the Charlotte name, spent his brief infancy aboard Rocks' vessel, and, if he was lucky, gotten to tug Whitebeard's beard a couple of times—or perhaps even take a piss on Shiki's head.

His father was Bane Saronis. There were probably few people on the seas who still remembered him now, but twenty years ago, he had been a renowned pirate in the New World. A bull-type Mink, also known as a bull Mink, he had been a formidable figure of the Mokomo Dukedom. After going to sea as a pirate, he had earned a bounty as high as 300 Million Berries!

One had to understand that this was not twenty years after the start of the Great Pirate Era, when bounties had become so inflated that any random nobody with a little ability seemed able to get a bounty exceeding a hundred million.

This was twenty years before the present, when bounties still carried real weight! A bounty of 300 Million Berries was more than enough to make someone a truly famous pirate.

Then, one day, the great pirate Bane Saronis challenged the Rocks Pirates and was subsequently defeated by Charlotte Linlin, who had been a combatant aboard the ship at the time.

Although Charlotte Linlin had only been in her twenties then and was at the peak of her beauty—a stunning supermodel, one might say—she had already begun her own "Charlotte Family" plan. It was well underway, and she had already given birth to four children.

That was right. At only eighteen years old, Charlotte Linlin had already given birth to the first child of her life: Perospero, the eldest son of the Charlotte Family!

In short, after being defeated by Charlotte Linlin, Bane Saronis became her "spoils of war" in every practical sense. At the time, Charlotte Linlin happened to be between partners. As a Mink with fairly decent strength, Bane Saronis naturally became the next "husband" Charlotte Linlin used to propagate the Charlotte Family.

Whether it was beauty or strength, Charlotte Linlin had been one of the finest women on the seas at the time. Bane Saronis, who had been forcibly taken in as a husband, resisted for a while at first. But later... naturally, he became one of Charlotte Linlin's devoted admirers.

In Ortolan's memories, this unreliable old father of his had loved Charlotte Linlin deeply until the day he died. It seemed he had never resented her at all. That alone showed just how irresistible Charlotte Linlin had been in her youth.

Though Bane Saronis loved Charlotte Linlin deeply, Charlotte Linlin regarded him as nothing more than a tool. Eighteen years ago, Ortolan was born. Having tried a Mink for the first time, Charlotte Linlin had been greatly looking forward to this child's birth.

But the result was deeply embarrassing. It was as if Ortolan had suffered some bloodline curse of the Mink Tribe. Aside from the tender little horns on his forehead, which marked the impurity of his bloodline, nothing else about him had any connection to the Mink Tribe. He looked more like a human!

Yet despite looking human, he possessed no intelligence whatsoever. His eyes were clouded, his behavior no different from that of a beast cub, and his body was abnormally frail. He had inherited none of Charlotte Linlin's monstrous bloodline, and seemed to have nothing at all in common with the physically formidable Mink Tribe.

At first, Charlotte Linlin thought he might simply be too young and had not fully developed yet. She patiently fed and waited for him for nearly half a year. Then she confirmed that Ortolan truly was defective—he could not even be considered an intelligent life-form. Humiliated and enraged, Charlotte Linlin had nearly killed Ortolan. Only Saronis's desperate intervention allowed him to survive.

Immediately afterward, the furious and humiliated Charlotte Linlin drove both Ortolan and Saronis out of the Charlotte Family and off the Rocks Pirates' ship.

Thus, Ortolan was taken away and raised by Bane Saronis, until he could see clearly and faced a full moon for the first time... On that day, the muddleheaded, beastlike Ortolan died, while a soul from beyond this pirate world was reborn within his body.

In the eyes of Bane Saronis, that old father, after the full moon that day, his pitiful and tragic son Ortolan seemed to have received a gift from the moon god and awakened his intelligence. At the same time, his once-frail physique underwent terrifying changes at an astonishing speed!

Yet afterward, he did not take Ortolan back to find Charlotte Linlin. Instead, he took his child to an inconspicuous island and lived there in seclusion.

Until Ortolan turned ten, Saronis could no longer suppress Ortolan's Sulong during the full moon through his own strength. That year, the island where they had lived in hiding for ten years was turned into a hellish scene overnight by Ortolan, with dreadful casualties and destruction.

Afterward, they came to Tyrean Island. Every year from then on, whenever the full moon approached, Saronis would take Ortolan away from Tyrean Island to a nearby deserted islet, allowing Ortolan to destroy everything there. Once the full moon had passed, they would return to their peaceful lives.

There were two full moons each year. During the years they lived on Tyrean Island, they had never made a mistake—until about a year ago, when Saronis, that old father, finally grew too old. That was right. Unlike monsters such as Charlotte Linlin, he had not been extraordinarily gifted enough to become famous while young. By the time he became a great pirate, he was already in his forties. On top of that, his battles across the seas in his earlier years had left him with many lingering injuries. Three days before his sixty-second birthday, beside the fireplace and in Ortolan's company, he ended his sinful life with a kind smile on his face... Well, although he had lived in seclusion for over a decade during the final years of his life, he had once been a famous great pirate. Calling it a "sinful" life was not inaccurate.

After burying his old father, Ortolan was about to face his first full moon alone. Following his usual routine, he prepared a ship and put out to sea several days before the full moon, heading for the deserted island that had suffered his ravages for so many years.

At dusk that day, he sat quietly beside a massive rock on the deserted island, waiting for the moonlight to descend, to set himself free, and to reward the island.

Yet at that very dusk, a fleet flying the flag of the Big Mom Pirates arrived at the deserted island. They appeared to be planning to seize Tyrean Island, which belonged to the great pirate Golden Lion Shiki, and incorporate it into the territory of Whole Cake Island.

And the one leading them was Charlotte Linlin's proudest son, Charlotte Katakuri.

That day, Katakuri had intended to use that barren island as an advance base for his attack on Tyrean Island, where he would make his final preparations.

That day, the Charlotte Family's greatest masterpiece, Charlotte Katakuri, encountered a rampaging monster on the island and was beaten to the brink of death.

Then, after many years, Bane Ortolan once again returned to the sight of his mother by blood... Charlotte Linlin.