When Anita saw the scene before her, Werther and Tuski seemed nothing like their usual selves. They were so cold, so cruel.
Devil Fruit Item wasn't exactly a living thing, but it was conscious. Treating one so brutally felt wrong to her.
Yet deep down, she felt a strange thrill. Something inside her seemed to be slowly Awakening.
Setting aside Anita's changing state of mind, Tuski stood in the laboratory, smiling at the giant frog the powerful anesthetic had knocked out.
He curled his fur around a dozen or so scalpels and began modifying it.
Two days later, Tuski emerged from the laboratory, exhausted. Werther was practicing his swordsmanship on the deck.
"How did it go, Tuski? Did it work?"
Tuski nodded and handed Werther the Pocket Watch, now back to its original form. He passed him a note as well, then headed for the bedroom, apparently intending to catch up on sleep.
"Al, the modification is complete. I originally planned to remove its brain, but after doing so, I discovered it was still conscious, though it had entered a semi-paralyzed state.
"That led me to a bold guess: as long as the Pocket Watch remains intact, the devil inside this Devil Fruit can't escape. Perhaps this kind of devil is immortal, too?"
"So I went ahead and removed the rest of its brain. It worked. Although the Pocket Watch has completely lost its awareness and ability to think, it survived just fine."
"The storage item is a success. Open the Pocket Watch's cover, and it turns into a small frog with its mouth wide open. Anything brought close to its mouth shrinks, then returns to normal when taken out. (For details, see Capone Bege's Castle-Castle Fruit in the original work.)"
"The space inside is about five square meters, but