"Wow! Another me!"
Jewelry Bonney's eyes lit up when she saw the lifelike Clay Doll in Storm's hand.
She wriggled out of Bear's arms and ran over to Storm on her short little legs.
"Can I take a look at her?"
Jewelry Bonney stood in front of Storm, chin tilted up, gazing at him with a pitiful little look.
"Here."
Storm casually handed "Clay Doll Bonney" to the real Bonney.
Ever since he had gained the abilities of the Nine-Tails Fox Fruit,
all Storm had to do was touch his target to perfectly copy their appearance.
That was the Nine-Tails Fox Fruit's wondrous power of "Illusionary Form."
Combined with Storm's original Clay Fruit,
it allowed him to easily make a Clay Doll of any living being he touched.
Like "Clay Doll Bonney" right now.
"Wow!"
Little Bonney hugged her Clay Doll and couldn't help spinning around, so happy she could barely think straight.
But just then, the other thing Storm had said flashed through her little head, and she couldn't help asking,
"Um, what does 'Terminal Illness' mean?"
"Bonney! Don't ask!"
Bear had just recovered from the immense shock. The instant he heard his daughter ask that, he immediately called out to stop her.
Bonney was too young to understand what "Terminal Illness" meant.
But how could Bear not understand?
He looked at Storm again, his expression both humble and pleading.
"Please! Don't tell her!"
Storm gave Bear a cool glance, ignoring the plight of this "father."
He crouched down until his eyes were roughly level with Bonney's, then explained in an even tone,
"A 'Terminal Illness' is a disease that's guaranteed to kill an ordinary person who catches it."
Storm reached out his index finger and gently tapped the few sparkling gems on "Clay Doll Bonney's" cheek.
"As far as I know, the proper name for the disease you have is—
"Azure Jade Scales."
Storm had noticed it as soon as he entered the church.
Several irregularly shaped, scale-like hard patches dotted Jewelry Bonney's fair, tender cheeks.
In the dim light inside the church,
the patches on Jewelry Bonney's cheeks glittered like blue gemstones.
Perhaps that was the true origin of her name.
Bonney was her given name.
And "Jewelry," her surname, meant precisely "jewels."
(In the world of One Piece, surnames come before given names.)
One had to admit,
Bear had put a great deal of thought into giving Bonney the surname "Jewelry."
After all...
As far as Storm knew,
Bonney wasn't Bear's biological daughter. She was his "adopted daughter."
That was another very long story...
Bear's life unfolded in Storm's mind.
Over thirty years ago, when Bear was only nine, he took part in the God Valley Incident as a slave...
After the Rocks Pirates barged into the fray, Bear ate the Nikyu Nikyu no Mi amid the chaos and escaped from God Valley...
Those who escaped the God Valley Incident alongside Bartholomew Bear included the Okama King, Ivankov, and—
Jewelry Bonney's birth mother, Ginny.
One word summed up Bear and Ginny's relationship: childhood sweethearts.
But after escaping God Valley, fate no longer smiled on the poor "Bear."
Bear and Ginny spent over a decade together. They both joined the Revolutionary Army and became key members.
Until...
Ginny was captured by the World Government during a mission and forced to become a Celestial Dragon's wife. She later gave birth to Bonney.
While carrying Bonney, Ginny contracted Azure Jade Scales. The World Nobles cast her aside, allowing her to return to the sea.
After enduring countless hardships, Ginny made her way back from the Red Line Continent to the home where she and Bear had lived together.
She left her daughter Bonney behind, then succumbed to Azure Jade Scales, the disease having spread deep into her bones.
And then,
Bear took on the responsibility of raising Bonney.
How to put it?
Whenever Storm recalled Bear's past, he could barely bring himself to look at the man.
And that was only the "first half" of Bear's life.
In the future, to cure Bonney's Azure Jade Scales,
Bear would go so far as to offer himself to the World Government.
He traded becoming a Shichibukai and having his body converted into a cyborg in exchange for a treatment plan for Bonney.
Well...
Put simply,
it was the story of an honest, pitiful man who took in his childhood sweetheart's illegitimate daughter, then sold himself into slavery to a "bad boy" to save the girl's life.
Bear's life story—
even by the standards of the entire realm of jaw-dropping stories, it was pretty damn jaw-dropping.
That was why Storm had called him "Green Tyrant Bear," not "Tyrant Bear"...
How could one word like "tragic" possibly describe a life like that?
And in Bear's life,
what did Storm find saddest of all?
It wasn't that Bear had never accepted Ginny's feelings;
it wasn't that Ginny had given birth to a Celestial Dragon's daughter;
it wasn't that the Revolutionary Army's leader, Monkey D. Dragon, had ignored this so-called "comrade in arms" from beginning to end;
It was that Bear had always just taken whatever life threw at him!
Bear had never truly fought back. Not even once!
Storm pitied his misfortune.
But he was even angrier at Bear for never standing up for himself!
"Azure Jade Scales."
When that nightmarish name reached Bear's ears again, his heart filled with despair.
About a year ago,
after endless effort, Bear had finally found a doctor who could identify the name of Bonney's disease.
The doctor had told Bear about Azure Jade Scales.
For patients suffering from Azure Jade Scales,
whether sunlight or moonlight,
any natural light found in the world would worsen their condition!
And even if they managed to avoid natural light, the Azure Jade Scales would continue to spread over time.
Last year,
the doctor had given Bonney a diagnosis: the child had no more than five years to live!
What had made Bear even more desperate then was that,
after finally finding a doctor who recognized Azure Jade Scales,
the man had told him the disease was incurable.
Bear still remembered,
when Ginny had returned from Mary Geoise, her entire body had been covered in things like blue stones.
Could...
Bonney now be doomed to suffer the same fate as Ginny?
Bear's gaze went unfocused. He couldn't manage a normal response.
"So this disease is called Azure Jade Scales?"
Bonney was silent for a moment. Clutching the Clay Doll tightly in both hands, she forced a smile.
"I thought it was called 'Blue Gem Syndrome'..."
As she spoke, Bonney began to back away.
When she reached Bear's side, she finally couldn't take it anymore. She dropped the Clay Doll and buried her face in Bear's belly.
After a while,
a faint sob came from Bear's belly.
That sob seemed to be a signal.
Bear, already terrified, couldn't help pulling his daughter into his arms.
Father and daughter burst into tears together.
"Bonney! My daughter!"
"Daddy! I'm going to die! Waaah—"
In the dim church,
Bear and Bonney's cries echoed incessantly, like a demonic chant.
"Are father and daughter both crybabies? Is this some kind of family tradition?"
Storm couldn't help picking at his ear, looking thoroughly annoyed.
"The sea doesn't care about your tears.
"Instead of wasting time crying, why not think about finding a doctor to treat her?"
At that,
the father and daughter, still clutching each other and bawling, immediately froze.
"...Huh?"
Bear raised his head, his bewildered face covered in tears and snot.
"Treat her? Didn't you just say Azure Jade Scales was a Terminal Illness?"
Bonney turned to look at Storm too.
"Didn't you say ordinary people who get it are guaranteed to die?"
"Are either of you ordinary people?"
Storm rolled his eyes.
"Just look at Bartholomew Bear's build. He's clearly not a normal human!"
Some races in the sea were simply born with greater abilities than others.
That was an undeniable fact.
The Giant Tribe, for example.
And the Fish-Men, too.
As for Bartholomew Bear, he was also a member of the rare Buccaneer Tribe.
Their racial stats were pretty high.
Bear deliberately ignored the second half of Storm's words.
"Um, about Terminal Illnesses..."
Bear casually wiped his face.
"I once heard a doctor talk about Lead Disease. That's an incurable Terminal Illness too. It even wiped out an entire country."
"There are cases of Lead Disease being cured. You just don't know about them."
Storm said coolly.
"And as for 'wiping out an entire country,' you must've heard of the 'miracle worker who saved a country,' right?
"The Queen of the Kama Bakka Kingdom, the Okama King, Emporio Ivankov."
Emporio Ivankov?
Bear's pupils immediately contracted.
Ivankov was a dear friend of his!
Back then, he, Ginny, and Ivankov had all escaped from God Valley as slaves!
"Ivankov... Can he cure Lead Disease? Even Azure Jade Scales?"
"I don't know how powerful the Okama King's Healing Hormone is, or whether it can treat Azure Jade Scales."
Storm shook his head and answered calmly.
"But the Op-Op Fruit can cure Lead Disease. That's an indisputable fact!
"Besides the Op-Op Fruit, I can suggest two other treatment options for you.
"First, Dr. Vegapunk, the World's Greatest Brain. His medical skills are better than most people imagine!
"Second, there was Germa 66, an evil kingdom from the North Blue that had mastered top-tier Artificial Human Technology."
About Ginny's Azure Jade Scales.
They weren't necessarily caused by the Celestial Dragons having their way with her, either...
In manga chapter 1103,
the Gorosei, Saturn, said this himself—
"Ginny became the eighth wife of the Holy Land."
"He conducted drug experiments on her."
"I never expected the 'blue scars'—possibly referring to the Azure Jade Scales—to appear again."
Anyway, no matter how you looked at it,
Bear, Ginny, and Bonney had all suffered terribly as a family.
This part of the story was truly explosive.
The kind of thing that would make anyone who believed in pure love drop dead on the spot.
--
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