Dream Tapir

The Black Shadow seemed to have no substance.

It was like a rolling black-ink cloud hanging over the castle.

Drawn in by the tempting delicacy below.

The taste of a nightmare.

A nightmare more delicious than any that had ever existed aboard this ship.

Perhaps because the scent of the nightmare's master was unexpectedly familiar?

The Black Shadow bent down.

Like a waterfall of ink pouring from the sky, it wanted to swallow the delicacy below in one gulp.

At the same time, this torrent of ink kept a little distance from Buggy, seemingly on purpose.

It even seemed somewhat afraid of him.

"Moo—"

Just as the Black Shadow was about to touch Moria, it suddenly began to churn.

Its mooing grew pained.

As if it had eaten something that disagreed with it.

Amid its churning, the Pirate Ship wreathed in Azure Great Fire actually appeared within the Black Shadow.

Along with it came countless distinct yet independently evolving Fantasy Worlds.

There was a slender version of Moria, fighting an immensely huge figure with a long blade in the biting wind. In that scene, many of his companions were still alive.

There was one of him living like a wealthy landowner on a small island, though still dressed like a pirate.

And there was a doctor in a white coat, dancing with a dazzling star on a glittering stage.

Doctor Hogback in the castle turned his head away, blushing a little.

The Dream Tapir opened its eyes within the Black Shadow.

There should have been a dream among these, one woven from loneliness and joy. It was one of its prized possessions.

But all it saw was a lone Pirate Ship.

Azure Great Fire consumed the hull.

That figure—

"Moo—"

The eyes within the Black Shadow revealed unmistakable fear.

It remembered this man, a strange human with a manic grin. He had been spat out of the dream.

Why was he still here?

Fine cracks spread from the Pirate Ship, their point of origin, throughout the entire Illusion World. In an instant, slender White Silk covered the Black Shadow that blotted out the sky.

"Now this is interesting."

Buggy curled his lips, savoring his own distortion.

He had left a version of himself inside the Black Shadow's dream. It was his first attempt at Splitting Abstract Concept—and the concept was himself.

The world in his eyes had always been divided in two.

One endlessly went on killing and burning.

The other was the world before Buggy's eyes.

Ironically, this tearing and distortion made him feel more complete.

Strange.

That was him too.

He had never denied it.

Strange and chaotic.

How liberating, wasn't it?

Something fell out of Moria's massive Black Shadow.

The shadow of a hand?

Moria watched with his own eyes as the shadow passed in front of him, then slipped beneath Buggy's feet.

Could he control his own shadow again?

Hadn't it said it was unhappy with him?

His onion-shaped head felt like it was about to overload.

When his gaze landed on the Mad Clown, he suddenly shuddered.

Could that man really split his own shadow?!

Then what was the point of his Shadow-Shadow Fruit?!

A sense of absurdity suddenly flooded Moria's mind.

Along with his nearly broken spine and the wounds covering his body, which looked like a battered doll's.

Ah!

I'm sorry I was born.

"."

"Moo—"

The cries from within the Black Shadow grew even more anguished.

Like the cries of childbirth.

Layer upon layer of half-real, half-illusory Illusion Worlds drew ever closer to shattering as the white scars consumed them.

"Between Survival and Death, we have to choose one."

Buggy tilted his head up. In his other field of vision, the version of himself stepped off the Pirate Ship swallowed by Azure Great Fire.

He stood upon a pitch-black expanse.

"Moo!!"

The Black Shadow's cry seemed full of rage. Black Ink surged like the sea, constantly struggling against the power of division.

Crack, crack—

The first dream shattered completely beneath the spreading cracks.

On a Scenic Small Island, two pirates enjoying a life of luxury suddenly realized the world before them was collapsing.

Fragments fell, one after another.

They fell into harsh reality, turning into wisps of Gray Mist that drifted away.

Only two skeletons remained.

"Honestly, I really admire people who refuse to give in, even in death."

"I really do."

Buggy added.

"That way, I can keep seeing in them the beautiful melody played out as they move back and forth along a single taut string."

He raised a hand.

Little Right promptly flew into the air.

It easily reached the Black Shadow, which was already in pain.

The Real World began to crack as well.

Between the abstract, conceptual world and the Real World, the fissures symbolizing division began to converge.

Like two ropes tightening around a neck.

Bit by bit, they strangled the Black Shadow!

"Moo—"

The Black Shadow cried out in sorrow once more.

Its terrifying form, which had once covered the land, slowly contracted as it writhed.

Fine cracks spreading from two points kept compressing the space in which it could exist.

The Black Shadow solidified.

An elephant's trunk, rhinoceros eyes, an ox's tail, tiger's feet.

Its body was half solid and half incorporeal, like spilled ink, or black flames burning.

A Dream Tapir.

A creature said to feed on dreams.

But Buggy was more inclined to believe that some small animal had accidentally eaten a Mythical Zoan Fruit that embodied the Dream Tapir.

There were many such precedents on the Great Sea.

Like that fellow who ate the Human-Human Fruit.

Perhaps he could begin his second experiment.

An experiment in separating a Fruit from its host.

The first experiment had been about splitting the Abstract World.

The result was that Illusory Products like dreams vanished into nothing as soon as they came into contact with the Real World.

Meanwhile, concepts that were only half abstract, like shadows, could be split apart.

He could even control concepts split from his own body as if they were limbs.

As for what he'd told Moria—

He hadn't lied. He'd merely split off some of Moria's perceptions and thoughts about shadows.

For example, he could originally have taken back his own shadow or cut out Buggy's shadow to fight him.

"Moo..."

The Dream Tapir's spirit grew even more listless.

Cracks like those in shattered porcelain appeared across its half-real, half-illusory body.

Buggy showed no sign of holding back.

Instead, he watched the Dream Tapir's final struggle with interest.

Only in its rhinoceros-like eyes did fear and despair gradually fill its entire field of vision.

The Dream Tapir had lived for a very, very long time.

It had been living this way, day after day, even before the skull-headed man's recurring dreams began.

Filling—

Fog and darkness were its best hiding places.

The dreams of those who feared this sea were its finest food.

As it devoured more dreams, the enormous Black Shadow it created had nearly occupied the entire Foggy Sea Area.

In turn, it had pushed the Foggy Sea Area to expand outward.

It thought it would live this way forever, just like certain dreams that repeated day after day.

Its instincts had no room for exploration or curiosity.

Until this neurotic man appeared—

"Moo..."

The Dream Tapir gave a soft cry. Its body, covered in white scars, slowly settled before Buggy.

In the Dream Tapir's eyes, this man was like an unfathomably deep darkness.

Impossible to see through or understand, yet like a virus that made others instinctively fear and tremble, then imitate and submit.

"Moo—"

It circled behind the man, resting its head against his shoulder.

Its ink-wash body slowly sank into the darkness within Buggy.

It was begging for mercy.