For a hundred years, the Ganan Remnants had watched helplessly as successive kings died in battle on the plains or succumbed to illness in their beds.
When one king died in battle, the next immediately took up the burden. They either guarded the boundary between the highlands and the plains or climbed down the cliffs into the deep sea to find food for their people.
By the time the responsibility fell to Yelena's generation, she was only five years old. Yet she never complained, shouldering the royal family's burden day after day, year after year.
Though Yelena was the youngest to fall ill, she never let her people see a hint of negativity. Instead, she gently comforted them every day.
The Ganan Remnants were not heartless; they knew how to be grateful. Even without powerful talents, the young men and women followed the royal family to guard the highlands.
But they simply weren't capable of climbing down thousand-meter cliffs like the royal family to find food in the deep sea.
Perhaps their ancestors had resented the royal family for allowing the Jacobites into their homeland and costing them their home.
But those who struggled to survive under the royal family's protection had never harbored the slightest resentment.
Not one member of the Ganan Royal Family had met a peaceful end. Those with talent fought bloody battles and hunted, only to die without exception.
Those without talent left with the royal family's help to seek assistance from the outside world. But the Navy did nothing, since the Kingdom of Jacob was affiliated with the World Government.
Pirates—vicious predators who believed in the survival of the fittest—scoffed at their plight. For many years, only the empathetic Roger Pirates had offered them help.
Most kingdoms stayed out of it, but a great power in the West Sea and a desert kingdom on the Grand Line offered a little assistance. Because of the distance, all they could do was condemn the Kingdom of Jacob at the Reverie.
Eventually, the royal family members who traveled far and wide began disappearing at sea. Among them was the previous princess, Yelena's mother.
She had returned from the Grand Line and given birth to Yelena, who had Oni blood. A few years later, she set out again, hoping to rescue Yelena's father, who had been captured by the Navy, and ask him for help. She, too, disappeared along the way.
"..."
Yelena met the eyes of her people, each filled with the desperate hope of a drowning person clutching at a lifeline. Her wavering resolve gradually hardened.
Louis watched it all unfold without a word. He felt that the bond between the Ganan Remnants and their royal family was even closer than the bond between the Lunarians on Bar and the Sky Islanders.
The chance of persuading Yelena to leave them was next to zero.
Not far away, the Red-Haired Pirates had fallen silent as well. After Shanks recovered from his daze, a relieved smile appeared on his face.
Hongou, the doctor, hadn't even had time to react before a movement beneath his sleeve distracted him.
He lowered his head and met a pair of teary purple eyes. "What's wrong, Uta?" he asked softly.
Uta, with her two-toned hair, stared straight into Hongou's eyes. Her little face was solemn. "You can cure Yelena, right?"
Hongou: "..."
Shanks patted Uta's head affectionately and smiled. "You have to believe in your crewmates!"
Hongou took a deep breath, then called out to the people, "Don't worry, everyone. I'll cure Yelena! We're friends, of course I won't just stand by and do nothing!"
The people looked up in delight, their eyes full of gratitude as they gazed at Hongou.
They quickly got to their feet and cleared the area, leaving Hongou room to examine Yelena.
But Hongou scratched his head and said, "There aren't any medical instruments here. We'll have to go back to the ship and use the equipment there."
He explained that he had prepared medicine for Divers' disease at Shanks's request. He had never expected this generation's Yelena to be in far worse condition than the kings of previous generations.
The fact that she could still fight was thanks to her powerful Oni blood. The Oni were one of the world's strongest human subspecies. Hongou even thought that if Yelena hadn't taken on her responsibilities until her teens, she might never have contracted the disease at all.
Hearing this, Shanks once again urged Yelena, "Yelena, eat that fruit first."
"Louis was right. Zoan-type Devil Fruits greatly enhance the body, so it might ease your pain considerably."
"It might even help with the treatment to come."
At his words, the Ganan Remnants' eyes lit up. After everything that had happened that night, they trusted Louis and the Red-Haired Pirates, and they all urged her on.
"Your Majesty Yelena, eat it!"
"..."
Yelena lowered her eyes and silently examined the Devil Fruit in her hands. It looked like a deer skull.
Then she gently lifted it, parted her cracked lips, and took a small bite.
"Ugh..." The overpowering smell and sticky, nauseating texture twisted her face into a grimace. Her skin turned ashen, and she began panting heavily.
The taste of the Devil Fruit nearly took her breath away. It was revolting.
Then, under the worried gazes of the people around her, she lifted the fruit again, preparing to finish it.
Seeing her, Louis recalled a bad memory. A look of sympathy crossed his face, and he stopped her.
"One bite is enough to give you the ability!"
Yelena froze, staring blankly at the fruit in her hands. After a moment's hesitation, she looked at Louis and replied, "But then all this fruit would go to waste..."
In the end, she still squeezed her eyes shut and ate the entire Devil Fruit, one bite at a time.
Louis, who had eaten a Devil Fruit himself, couldn't help but admire her. His teeth ached just watching.
"..."
A moment later, Yelena slowly opened her eyes and pressed a hand to her chest, sensing the changes in her body. A delighted smile appeared on her face. "Whew... it really doesn't hurt as much to breathe!"
Yelena's words brought tears to the Ganan Remnants' eyes and made their noses sting. Among the crowd, even some tenderhearted women and children were sobbing.
For a hundred years, illness had haunted the Ganan Royal Family. Now, that suffering was about to become history, and cracks were beginning to appear in the boulder that had weighed on their hearts.
Louis stepped forward and gently guided Yelena, encouraging her to try activating her new ability.
"Focus. Sense the other power inside your body, then awaken it with your will!"
Yelena closed her eyes and did as Louis said.
Meanwhile, Shanks and his crew began directing the people to move back, making enough room.
The next moment, under everyone's watchful gaze, Yelena's body underwent a violent transformation.
She grew taller, her body expanding from around 2.2 meters to 3 meters. The skin on her face gradually vanished, exposing a pale skull as fangs sprouted one by one.
Louis froze. "Wasn't it a deer?"
The Red-Haired Pirates held their breath, trying to figure out what kind of animal she could be.
Yelena's transformation continued, undeterred by their reactions.
Her body kept swelling, surpassing four meters. Pale fur sprouted through her skin, her feet became hooves, and her legs bent backward at the joints.
Her once-slender arms grew thick and long, while blade-sharp claws emerged from her fingers.
From the top of her fearsome, exposed skull, a pair of huge, pointed antlers sprouted beside her Oni horns.
At the same time, snow and ice came from nowhere, extinguishing the bonfire as a terrifying cold spread.
A burly man with sharp, sawlike teeth among the Red-Haired Pirates cried out, "Ice and snow—it's a Mythical Zoan!"
When they looked up, darkness had swallowed the six-meter-tall beast. Beneath the faint moonlight, Yelena's figure was gone, replaced by a terrifying creature standing upright on two legs, with four imposing horns and a long tail dragging behind it.
There wasn't a trace of skin on its face; its skull was exposed. Its huge antlers looked like tree branches in the moonlight. Where its eyes should have been, there were only empty sockets, with faint red light flickering within.
At last, an inexplicable hostility toward humans began to spread through the crowd...
Louis's mouth twitched. A question surfaced in his mind: was this the Human-Human Fruit or the Deer-Deer Fruit?
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