Out of Control

In the damp, chilly dungeon, Sig and the Prison Demon panted as they temporarily called a halt...

"That's all you've got! Whatever your goal is, just say it!" Sig swiped his thumb across his nose.

The Prison Demon shot Sig a furious, vicious look, then spoke between breaths himself. "That's all I've got? You really do have some other kind of power... If only you were a little stronger..."

The Prison Demon was just as frustrated. His body was too weak to make full use of the Prison-Prison Fruit, and his opponent had managed to even the odds with his "bizarre ability."

"Since neither of us can do anything to the other, why don't we... talk?" Sig raised an eyebrow.

"Talk? Heh, I... damn it!" The Prison Demon cursed himself.

Sig could tell that he seemed to have realized something.

Sig was about to ask him about it when a wave of drowsiness washed over him, and he instantly "fell asleep."

It didn't seem like much time passed before Sig truly regained consciousness. The familiar sea breeze filled his nostrils, along with the scent of the Sea Bass's deck, built from materials from the Eve Tree. That just now... was it a dream?

No! There was also the smell of blood!

Sig's heart tightened, and he struggled to open his eyes.

Sure enough, Fisher Tiger and Jinbe seemed to have just been through a fight. The other crew members stood around them, all on guard. There were traces of blood on the ground, and even... chunks of flesh?

There was a fight, and I didn't even wake up?

Sig shifted slightly, then suddenly realized he was tied up! Anchor chains bound him to the mast.

Could it be...

Sig's expression immediately darkened. Was I the target of the fight just now?

"W-what's going on? What happened?" Sig hurriedly asked.

Jinbe's wary expression eased a little when he saw him. "Sig, you're fully awake?"

"I... just now, was that... me?" Sig stared at the bloodstains on the deck, his heart giving a hard lurch.

He quickly looked around at his companions, but couldn't find Hachi anywhere.

Seeing Sig's expression, Fisher Tiger relaxed a little too, then said, "Don't worry. Most of it was your blood... and flesh?"

Sig's first reaction wasn't relief, but confusion. "Huh?"

Since when did I have that much... flesh?

Are all those shapeless clumps of human tissue on the ground mine?

Sig immediately looked down and saw that although he was tied up, he didn't seem to be missing any body parts.

"That's right. You don't remember any of it?" Fisher Tiger asked.

"As for what I remember... I was just fighting someone with the power of the Prison-Prison Fruit in my consciousness. I don't know what happened 'outside.'" Sig answered honestly.

Jinbe sat down tiredly and pulled out his pipe to light it.

"Phew, you were something just now, kid." Jinbe exhaled a cloud of smoke as he spoke.

Jinbe then briefly described Sig's earlier state, leaving Sig himself in a cold sweat!

After Sig fell asleep, Jinbe suddenly heard a noise nearby and went to check. He found Sig lying on the ground, his whole body convulsing.

At first, Jinbe thought it was a side effect of the Devil Fruit, so he hurried over and called Aladdin.

But just then, Sig's whole body twisted and swelled. From Jinbe's description, it was completely different from Capone Bege's "Castle-Big Boss" transformation in the original story...

In the original, Bege transformed into a giant castle. Sig, on the other hand, stretched and swelled until his body was a bloody mess. Once he'd reached a certain size, his flesh began turning into inorganic substances like brick and iron, leaving him in a state that was half living creature, half inorganic structure.

Even now, Sig couldn't tell whether this was just how things worked in this world, which wasn't very anime-like to begin with, or whether... his "loss of control" was different from using the Devil Fruit ability normally.

During the transformation, pipes extended from Sig's body one after another, and the cold, rotten aura of a prison kept pouring out. Rats even crawled out of his body!

That was basically where the flesh on the ground had come from...

From Jinbe's description, Sig estimated that at his largest, he hadn't been as big as the Castle-Big Boss that Capone Bege could manifest, but he had still stood over ten meters tall. He'd looked like a prison brought to life, with iron bars and torture devices constantly jutting out of his flesh. Much of his body had still been made of flesh, making him look especially grotesque.

In the end, Jinbe and Fisher Tiger had teamed up to restrain him. Jinbe had gotten the idea to swing a current of seawater in a Sea Current Shoulder Throw and pour it into the prison giant's mouth. Only then did the flesh dissolve, and Sig return to normal.

As for the "meat scraps" on the ground, they were what remained after the rats had "melted."

Fortunately, none of the other crew members had been hurt!

Fisher Tiger rolled his neck and said, "A Devil Fruit... So it really is the sea's curse! If I were alone, that would have been a bit of a problem!"

There was a lot of modesty in his words.

The reason Jinbe and Fisher Tiger had needed to team up to restrain Sig wasn't that Sig had actually been strong enough to fight both of them at once while "out of control."

They had kept trying to wake him and hadn't used much force—in fact, they'd held back quite a bit. That was why the fight had turned into a two-on-one struggle. After all, the sight of Sig's body going "splat, splat," and shedding chunks of flesh had made the two of them reluctant to hit him too hard.

"But... are you going to have to stay immersed in seawater from now on, Little Fei?" Fisher Tiger frowned slightly.

Although Fish-Men could stay in the sea, they were... Fish-Men only liked to play in the water. Staying in it all the time would make them uncomfortable. After all, even Fish-Man Island was inside bubbles on the seafloor, not directly underwater!

"No, there's also that thing." Jinbe tapped the ash from his pipe onto the deck, then glanced toward the cabin.

Just then, Hachi ran up, waving something in his hand as he shouted, "Boss Jinbe, I found them!"

Sig saw a pair of Seastone Handcuffs in Hachi's hand.

Jinbe took them and said to Sig, "We confiscated these from a Marine warship earlier. Unfortunately, the key wasn't with them, so you might not be able to take them off for a while... Hold on to them and try them out first." As he spoke, he shoved the handcuffs into Sig's hands, still bound as he was.

"My Devil Fruit ability is sealed, but... I'm not as weak as I expected," Sig said after testing it.

Normally, a Devil Fruit user would go completely limp upon touching Seastone Handcuffs. The Seastone used by the Marines was highly pure, and its effect was to seal the power completely.

"That's good... To be safe, I'd rather you didn't use your Devil Fruit ability again."

"Mm, I understand." Sig didn't want a second incident either.

As he spoke, Jinbe cuffed Sig—both cuffs went on his right wrist, of course. That way, they wouldn't interfere much with his movement; he just had some extra weight on his right hand.

Hmph.

Sig thought he heard a faint scoff. It seemed... to be the Prison Demon's voice!