"Ohayou, Gray-sama!"
"Ohayou!"
After greeting Gray, the more graceful and lovely-looking Baby-5, now with a hint of quietness about her, automatically sat on Gray's lap and let him carry her to the family dining hall.
After a year together, the psychological scars of the abandoned girl had finally faded quite a bit thanks to Gray's efforts.
To Baby-5 now, Gray was the person she wanted to spend the rest of her life with. She only wanted to be needed by him.
"Ohayou, Aunt Jora!" ×2
"Ohayou, little Gray, Baby-5." Jora now had to handle meals for the family's officers and look after Dellinger, too.
There was no other way. Dellinger was too young. As a half-Fish-Man, he wasn't accepted by ordinary humans. Maybe that was why he'd been abandoned.
If he hadn't been lucky enough to run into the Donquixote Family, he might have died in some unknown corner the very next day.
"Could you look after Dellinger for me? There are still a few dishes in the kitchen that need finishing!"
"No problem. Leave him to us!" The two of them went over to the cradle. Dellinger stared at them with his big, round eyes.
"Ah~ So cute!" Dellinger really was adorable as a baby. Even Baby-5 couldn't resist rubbing his little cheeks.
But Gray didn't know that Baby-5 had already fallen into a lovestruck reverie. Ah~ The children Gray-sama and I have someday will definitely be this cute, too.
No, they'll be even cuter than this! As she imagined it, Baby-5's face practically started smoking. Dellinger, on the receiving end of her hands, felt it most clearly.
Because it hurt!
"Waaah~"
"Oh my! What's wrong?" Feeling guilty, Baby-5 quickly let go and gently rocked the cradle.
Looking at the red marks on Dellinger's face, Gray fell silent. His silence was deafening!
Still, seeing Baby-5's blatant attempt to cover it up, Gray didn't say a word.
"It's normal to have no experience when you're looking after a child for the first time."
"And using Dellinger to get some practice is no problem at all!" Gray, whose heart was as black as coal, thought this and instantly found himself feeling both shameless and justified.
Dellinger wasn't forced to endure the pair's torment for long before Doflamingo brought everyone inside.
"Let's eat!" Even if he had something to say this early in the morning, Doflamingo would wait until after the meal.
"Oh~"
No matter how much time passed, Gray's enthusiasm for Sea King meat never faded.
To Gray, vegetables and fruit were his life, while Sea King meat was his enemy.
If his enemy came for him, he'd even give up his life.
Gray, who had been wolfing down his food, suddenly paused, just like Doflamingo.
They exchanged a glance, then turned to look toward the docks. Even the buildings couldn't obstruct their sight.
Through Observation Haki, they clearly sensed a powerful presence heading this way.
"Fuffuffuffu... Gray, congratulations~ I didn't expect your Observation Haki to have reached this level!"
Gray replied, "Isn't that obvious?"
"I never hid the fact that I was training my Observation Haki."
"Fuffuffuffu, very good! You really did surprise me. I knew you were talented, but I didn't expect you to be even more talented than I thought."
After taking the last bite of meat, Gray wiped the corner of his mouth. "I do like hearing honest words like that."
"But don't be so honest next time. People might kill you to keep you quiet!" After joking, Gray pointed toward the harbor.
"Look! Here they come."
"They're not even trying to hide their hostility toward us!"
"Fuffuffuffu..." Doflamingo held his forehead, caught between two extremes.
Love and fury intertwined!
He was delighted that the family had someone like Gray, a talent even better suited than Luo, in his plans, to grow into his right-hand man.
As for his fury, it was aimed at the enemy who was about to arrive. "Looks like the Donquixote Family has been quiet for too long. People have forgotten to fear us."
Having never met a true enemy or witnessed a powerful fighter, Doflamingo had been ruling the North Blue from his little corner of the world. Like Kid in the original story, he was arrogant and full of himself; those attitudes had always filled his heart.
"Hey, hey, hey! Doffy, are enemies coming?" After Gray and Doflamingo finished talking, the confused group finally understood what was going on.
Too busy to be shocked by Gray's Observation Haki, Trebol, Diamante, and Pica quickly spread out their own Observation Haki.
Of the three, Trebol's Observation Haki was the weakest. He'd only just awakened it and was still getting used to using it.
As for improving his Observation Haki, that was simply impossible.
In the original story, Trebol had gathered Diamante and the others only after failing to conquer the Grand Line. They went looking for their king, hoping he'd lead them back to challenge the Grand Line again.
Haki was the power of will. Given Trebol's mindset and condition, the fact that he had any Observation Haki left at all meant he still had some drive. At least he hadn't become as dispirited as the shut-in Moria.
As for Diamante and Pica, their Observation Haki wasn't much stronger than Trebol's.
Diamante was too busy performing as a clown, insisting on developing his trash Devil Fruit and combining it with swordsmanship.
Those two pursuits took up a great deal of his energy. The original story made it clear that, in the end, he had barely managed to combine them at all.
As for Pica, he focused on his Devil Fruit ability and Armament Haki. Training his Observation Haki simply wasn't his strong suit.
Gray, on the other hand, had been training his Observation Haki for half a year since awakening it. Every day, he was either draining it or recovering it. After such extreme training, wasn't it only natural that he'd grown tremendously?
Now, simply by spreading out his Soul Magnetic Field and using it for Observation Haki, Gray could cover a radius of a thousand meters around him.
After developing his ability further and merging it with the Heaven and Earth Magnetic Field, his Observation Haki covered an even greater area.
The principle behind this was that Gray believed the world itself was one enormous magnetic field. He couldn't cover the entire world, and in this world, he couldn't grow powerful enough to do so.
But he could carve out a smaller world!
A room could be a small world. An island could be a somewhat larger small world. And even the sea surrounding an island could be encompassed as a small world.
Through this development, Gray had more or less perfected his own unique form of Observation Haki.
The reason he'd sensed the powerful presence approaching in the distance at the same time as Doflamingo was that he'd been doing his daily Observation Haki training that morning.
Even now, as he ate, Gray's eyes behind his sunglasses were closed.
Gray's Observation Haki training now involved more than just scanning a wide area with En. He also sent his Haki in one direction, then, when it reached its limit, scanned an even wider area like a radar.
He went to all this trouble partly so he could drain his Observation Haki as quickly as possible, instead of always having to wait an hour before using it again.
The second reason was that he wanted to develop an ability he'd envisioned.
It wasn't exactly an ability—it would be more like a technique. Developing it would require him to extend his Observation Haki much farther.
Thanks to Yiqi Hua San Xiaobai for the 100-coin tip.
Thanks to Ma Bufei for the 333-coin tip.
Love you all~ Mwah!
Before you continue