Chapter 37

The wound nearly pierced straight through from his chest to his back. An ordinary person would have stopped breathing long ago, yet the waves on the monitor still rose and fell steadily.

The attending physician withdrew his stethoscope and shook his head silently-this was already beyond what medicine could explain.

"A devil's gift... truly frightening."

He turned to tell the nurse when to change the dressing, but before he finished, the ward door burst open.

Several shadows of varying heights crowded the doorway, cutting the light from the corridor into fragments.

"Rossi-!"

A sticky cheer rushed toward the bedside, accompanied by the sloshing of some liquid.

The boy opened his eyes to find a grinning face almost pressed against his nose, along with two transparent strands of drool about to dangle onto his sheets.

He could only move his eyes, rolling them toward the ceiling where no one could see.

"Ha! I told you he'd be fine."

An amused voice came from outside the door.

A tall, thin figure had to lean sideways against the doorway to avoid hitting his head on the frame. His gaze swept across the room from behind brown-tinted lenses.

"He is Doffy's blood relative, after all."

On the other side, a man with a silver scalpel stuck to his cheek nodded slightly.

Beside him stood another silent, burly figure, forced by his size to remain in the shadows of the corridor.

"Sorry to have worried you all."

Rossi's gaze passed over the edges of bandages barely visible beneath their clothes.

The outcome was written beneath those dressings.

"What happened afterward? Thompson-"

The moment he began, the doctor in the white coat at the foot of the bed hurried out with two nurses, even deliberately softening the sound of the closing door.

As the door shut, hurried footsteps could be heard retreating outside.

The room fell silent for two seconds.

"You were asleep for a full seventy-two hours."

The most talkative one dragged over a chair and sat down, its legs scraping shrilly against the floor.

"Thompson? That ** was cold as a stone.

Too bad you didn't see him at the end-"

He leaned forward, his loose robes almost covering half the hospital bed.

"That idiot actually jumped straight into the sea to put out the fire on his body."

A strange, nasal snicker rang out.

"A Logia drowning in seawater... unheard of."

"That bastard!"

A teeth-gritted addition came from outside the door. "By the time we dragged him out of the water, he was already dead.

Otherwise, we'd have made him taste-"

"Vincenso was arrested by a Marine commander."

The man with the knife stuck to his cheek took over. As he spoke, the little blade trembled with his facial muscles, making Rossi's fingers curl unconsciously-he really wanted to take it off for him.

Could this guy be a Devil Fruit user too? The kind who specializes in sticking things to his face?

"More than half the casualties aboard the Money were Vincenso's doing."

An incongruously shrill voice drifted in from the corridor.

"We didn't catch 'Flower Bow Tie' Paul, but the Jedi Family... has fallen apart."

Sticky laughter filled the room again.

"That's right. They're completely finished."

"From today onward, Spandamruze has only one voice."

Trebol tapped his fingertips against the edge of the wooden table, viscous excitement almost seeping from his voice.

The time frame he had originally estimated had been compressed into a few days and nights-the vacancy Thompson left was like a door suddenly thrown open, and they had already crossed the threshold.

The smell of disinfectant mingled with blood in the ward.

Diamante opened his mouth by the door, but he was interrupted before the words took shape.

"Stop."

Doflamingo's voice was quiet, yet it made the lashes of the person on the bed tremble.

Rossi saw his older brother turn, his gaze pinning the doorway from behind his lenses. "What were you about to say?"

"...Ahem."

Trebol picked up the thread, his sticky tone sinking lower. "Your injuries were too deep. Ordinary medicine couldn't stitch up the tears in your internal organs.

Doffy used that Devil Fruit-the String-String Fruit-to pull you back from death."

So that was it.

The scattered words that had drifted into his ears while he was unconscious suddenly formed a complete picture.

Rossi closed his eyes, his Adam's apple bobbing once.

He wasn't surprised that Doffy would save him-many years ago, down in the bottom of a cargo hold, when hunger had made his vision go black, that blond-haired boy's gesture of pushing over the last half-piece of hard bread had already been carved into his bones.

There were plenty of people who would share a drink with you, but far too few who would take a blade for you.

He had simply remembered something else: more than ten years from now, the Family should have obtained another Devil Fruit.

A golden-yellow Devil Fruit that could manipulate metal, and after Awakening, could coat even the air in hard wealth.

That was the power he had imagined would suit Doffy-raising waves of gold with a sweep of his hand, crushing enemies beneath the most expensive weight in the world.

Gold in this world was harder than steel, second only to diamond.

But now, the future had taken a turn.

"You're always the one charging ahead."

Doffy's voice pulled him back to reality.

The blond man tugged at the corner of his mouth, his fingertips twisting unconsciously-nearly invisible threads flashed through the air. "Am I supposed to just stand behind you and release my aura?"

He rose and looked down at the person on the hospital bed. "So what if it's the String-String Fruit? I'll take it further than anyone can imagine."

Rossi nodded.

He believed those words.

When it came to exploring a Devil Fruit's abilities, Doffy had always been among the best-the problem behind that future defeat had never been the Devil Fruit itself.

"At least..."

Rossi exhaled, a dull pain rising from deep within his ribs. "The String-String Fruit helps far more directly in combat than my Calm-Calm Fruit."

Rossi quickly gathered his thoughts, pressing his distractions back into the depths of his mind.

Images from his previous life connected to "threads"

began to surface.

The protagonist of one story seemed able to control fine strands like spiderwebs, using that ability to deal with all sorts of troublesome enemies-whether predicting the trajectory of attacks, interfering with an opponent's mind, laying deadly traps, releasing paralyzing **, or even controlling things from a distance... all those bizarre supernatural powers had ultimately fallen before the crisscrossing threads.

Weaving threads into nets, setting mechanisms, building cushioning barriers... a female character in another work had likewise pushed the use of threads to the extreme, and many of her techniques were worth drawing on.

Besides, Doflamingo had been born with that rare king's disposition.

As long as he mastered the trick of coating it onto his threads, even the seemingly ordinary String-String Fruit would be enough to enter the world's highest-level battlefields.

Devil Fruits and the three types of Haki-

Any one of those powers, honed to its limit, could secure a place on these seas.

But to stand at the summit, every weakness had to be eliminated.

Since there was currently no way to obtain a method for training Haki, they could begin with Devil Fruit abilities.

"Doffy."

"I have some ideas about how to develop the String-String Fruit..."

When it came to wildly imaginative ideas, Rossi had never thought he would lose to anyone.

What was more, he already knew how Doflamingo would use this ability

in the "future."

Combining the two would surely allow the strength of the companion before him to advance by leaps and bounds in a short time.

Rumors seeped into every corner of the docks like the damp sea breeze.

"The Jedi Family... really collapsed?"

"Absolutely.

Even 'Big Bucks' Thompson is dead. They say the Four Suits Family and two boys of unknown origins killed him..."

Deep inside a warehouse, a group of men with guns and blades at their waists spoke in low voices, their tones mingling excitement with unease.

"Bullshit!"

The enormous man at their head suddenly raised his hand and slapped the subordinate who had just spoken to the ground.

The heavy flesh on his face quivered with the movement, undisguised greed churning in his eyes.

"That useless Thompson fell into the sea and drowned on his own! A Devil Fruit user dying such a ridiculous death... if I'd known that was all he amounted to, I would've replaced him long ago!"

No one knew the burly man's real name. Everyone at the docks called him "Battle Tank."

He stood over two meters tall, his shoulder width almost proportional to his height, his knotted muscles like cast iron in the dim light.

Anyone who saw him would first think, "Monster."

"It's not too late to act now, boss!"

"Exactly. As long as you lead us, dealing with those brats won't take any effort."

The desperadoes gathered here had a clear purpose-to carve up the power vacuum left by the Jedi Family's destruction.

They knew better than anyone that although the recent bloody battle between the Four Suits Family and the Jedi Family had ended in a pyrrhic victory for the Four Suits, nearly all its core members had been killed or wounded.

The new faces patrolling the streets now were nothing more than laborers hastily recruited from the docks.

As for the Family's actual officers-the four young leaders and the two newly joined boys-they were still lying deep inside the hospital, covered in bandages, their fates uncertain.

"A few half-grown kids and two brats from who knows where, dreaming of controlling Spandamruze..."

Battle Tank gave a cold snort, cracking his knuckles.

The smell of rust and engine oil filled the warehouse.

A man with his flat cap askew was shouting at the top of his lungs, spraying spit onto the face of the companion beside him.

Just then, the heavy iron door blasted inward, the crash striking everyone's eardrums like a blunt weapon.

Wood splinters and dust swirled in the yellowish lamplight.

"What blind bastard-"

"Got a death wish?!"

Someone stood in the shadow of the doorframe.

His sunglasses reflected the lone bulb hanging from the warehouse ceiling, the light carving cold, hard lines across his face.

Ignoring the curses rising all around him, he kept his hands in his coat pockets and stepped unhurriedly over the threshold, his soles grinding the broken wood on the floor with faint crunches.

An uproar of laughter immediately erupted.

"You little punk, go back and **-"

The laughter stopped abruptly.

A sharp sound cutting through the air drowned out all the noise.

A dark hole suddenly appeared in the center of the still-grinning man's forehead. His expression froze in comical astonishment as he toppled backward, knocking over the empty oil drums stacked behind him in a clattering crash.

The warehouse went deathly silent.

The figure at the door finally pulled out his hands.

Faint wisps of smoke still drifted from the muzzles of two old-fashioned flintlock pistols.

He raised his arms, the barrels slowly sweeping over one rigid face after another.

"My name doesn't matter."

His voice was level, as though stating something unrelated to him. "But the man sending you on your way comes from Donquixote."

Gunfire tore through the silence again, denser and more violent than before.

Roars and screams were shredded by the shrieks of **.

Outside the warehouse, the night wind carried the distinctive sour rot of the distant mountain of garbage.

A tall figure shifted his feet uneasily, viscous liquid dripping from his body and spreading dark stains across the muddy ground.

He kept turning to look at the tightly shut door, the firelight leaking through its cracks flickering.

"Wait quietly."

The speaker sat in a wheelchair, most of his face wrapped in bandages, leaving only his eyes exposed.

His voice was quiet, but carried something unquestionable. "Those people inside don't even qualify as an appetizer."

"But their leader..."

The tall figure's voice was high and thin, forming a strange contrast with his rocklike physique. "That guy's fists nearly smashed my bones."

Behind the wheelchair, another boy built like an iron tower nodded silently.

As he clenched his fists, his knuckles gave faint cracks.

"That was in the past."

The eyes above the wheelchair turned toward the warehouse, as though they could pierce its walls. "Once the threads wrap around them, even the hardest bones are just a pile of parts waiting to be dismantled."

The gunfire inside the warehouse gradually thinned, replaced by an even more teeth-grating cutting sound-like extremely fine steel wire biting into leather, or wind sweeping over taut strings.

Now and then, one or two wails broke through, too brief to sound human.