The Disappearance of the Gild-Gild Fruit

"So, you want to possess power!"

"Do you want to be the masters of your own fate?"

"Yes!" Sugar nodded hurriedly. "Like that scoundrel Leonard, I've wanted to beat him up for a long time!"

Monet didn't speak, but from the look in her eyes, Gray already knew her decision.

"Then~ come with me!"

"I'll show you the winds of fate!"

"Sister!" Sugar wanted to follow Gray's invitation, but thinking of her sister Monet, she could only wait for her to make the decision.

Gently patting Sugar's head, Monet's heart was in turmoil. As a seventeen-year-old girl, she was already an adult.

The eldest sister is like a mother; every decision she made would affect their future.

Should I follow him?

After asking herself that, Monet already had the answer: "At the very least, it won't be worse than it is now."

She watched Gray wave his hand to suppress Leonard and his men, his posture effortless and confident.

It was a level of confidence she had never possessed.

Monet couldn't argue with her own heart: she admitted that she was envious.

"Fine, we'll go with you!"

"Wait for us a moment, we need to pack our things!" After saying this, Monet took Sugar to the back room to pack their luggage.

"No problem!"

The two sisters went inside to pack their clothes, leaving only Gray and Leonard's group at the scene.

"Now, it's your turn!"

Leonard knew the moment of truth had arrived. "Sir, I have money, a lot of money!"

"I'll use my money to buy our lives!"

"Boring." If the other party hadn't said that, Gray might have just punished them and called it a day. But with Leonard saying that, and thinking about how he would just squeeze the commoners to make up for his losses once they left, Gray felt disgusted.

Although he wasn't a good person himself, he had no interest in commoners, and even less affection for those who oppressed them.

When he encountered something that displeased him, he would just crush it.

Thinking this, Gray acted accordingly.

"Gravity Crush, Hell Trip!"

He flicked his finger downward, and the speed of the gravity field instantly accelerated, exerting a violent crushing force upon Leonard and his men.

They didn't even have time to scream before the immense gravity instantly crushed them to death.

Gray and the others didn't have to wait long before Monet returned with Sugar, having packed their clothes and Beli.

"Let's go!"

"Right!" Seeing the miserable state of Leonard and his men, for some reason, Monet and Sugar felt a sense of relief instead of the fear they should have felt.

As he led the two sisters toward the coast, Gray explained the situation: "I am currently a member of the Donquixote Family."

"Once you join, don't worry about anything else; just focus on training to improve your strength."

After a brief explanation, they reached the ship, and Gray handed the two over to Baby-5.

"Baby-5, arrange a room for them. Start their physical training tomorrow. I'm going to find Doffy to discuss something."

"Aye! Leave it to me!" Baby-5 patted her chest in assurance. As Gray turned to leave, she held her cheeks with a look of intoxication. "Ah! Gray-sama needs me again!"

Knock, knock!

"Enter!"

Pushing the door to the captain's quarters, Gray saw Doflamingo standing by the window, holding a glass of red wine and gazing at the distant sea.

"Fufufu... it's Gray!" Doflamingo turned to look at him, puzzled. "Is something the matter?"

Gray: "I need to discuss something with you."

"We've clashed with Tsuru several times, and I think those Six Powers are quite good. Can you find a way to get the training methods?"

Hearing this, Doflamingo pondered for a moment. "No problem, I'll find a way!"

Since a family member wanted to learn and strengthen their power, Doflamingo naturally wouldn't refuse.

"Then I'll leave it to you!" With the long-desired Six Powers finally being sought after, Gray felt he had checked off one of his concerns.

"There is one more thing: I saw a pair of sisters with potential on the island earlier, and I've invited them aboard."

"As for whether they officially join the Donquixote Family, you can arrange that." Since he was still living under someone else's roof and wanted to "leech" the Snow-Snow and Hobby-Hobby fruits from the original story, Gray naturally wouldn't overstep his bounds.

"Fufufu, since you invited them, I will certainly take a good look at their potential." Gray was a family executive, and this was his first time inviting someone onto the ship.

Doffy would naturally weigh the gravity of his words. Besides, since this was a matter of increasing the family's strength, there was even less reason to refuse.

"Alright then, I'm going back to training!" With the serious business concluded and his mind cleared, Gray naturally returned to continue the unfinished screening work.

After Gray left, Trebol entered Doffy's room once more.

"Doffy! It's bad!"

"What is it, Trebol?"

"Didn't you want to open up the auction market in the Sabaody Archipelago a while ago?"

"Yes! And then?"

"The Gild-Gild Fruit that the family stashed there to build our reputation was stolen! Someone set a massive fire and snatched it during the chaos!"

Upon hearing this, blue veins bulged on Doffy's forehead: "Fufufu... do you know who took it?"

"Not yet. The person who took the fruit didn't cross paths with our family members; the underlings who saw them have all been killed!"

"Fufufu... it seems this was planned!" Doffy had never intended to sell this fruit; it was only meant to boost the auction house's reputation, and he had planned to have an underling secretly win the bid during the auction.

By passing it from his left hand to his right, he would have built his reputation without handing over a powerful Devil Fruit to an enemy.

Unfortunately, everything had been going so well!

On the eve of the auction, such a thing had to happen. Not only was the initial plan ruined, but he didn't even know who had stolen the powerful Gild-Gild Fruit.

"Losing the wife and the army" wasn't even enough to describe it!

This year could be called the unluckiest year for his Donquixote Family.

The Op-Op Fruit and Law were both gone, and he had killed his own brother, Corazon, with his own hands. Then, after a fight with Tsuru, he was still being pursued by Kizaru.

He had originally thought that they could pursue him while the Donquixote Family developed in the shadows, keeping out of each other's way.

But the auction house in the Sabaody Archipelago, a key point for their development, had suffered a major blow right at the start; both the Devil Fruit and the auction house were gone.

The more Doffy thought about it, the angrier he became: "We dare not say anything about a Marine Admiral pursuing us. But for some random nobody to dare snatch a Devil Fruit from the Donquixote Family—they must not know how to write the word 'death'!"

"Trebol, remember to keep an eye on the strong individuals who have recently made a name for themselves on the sea. The power of the Gild-Gild Fruit won't let that person stay quiet for long."

"Notify me when you find them. No one can steal our things and continue to live comfortably."

"Understood, Doffy!" With his signature snot hanging, Trebol wrapped his cloak around himself and walked out to arrange for the family underlings to shift their intelligence gathering toward the rising powerhouses.