The White Dove slowly docked at the entrance between the enormous petals. The island's unusual surroundings drew exclamations from everyone.
"Wow! These... these flowers are huge!" Stella exclaimed, craning her neck to look at the towering petals.
"It feels... a little dangerous here." Savi hunched his shoulders. His animal instincts told him the island was dangerous.
Tesoro was more concerned with practical matters. "The plants here seem to grow food. It's not a bad place to stock up."
Sensing the presence of many enormous creatures on the island, he snorted. "It's a good place to train."
Roy had already spread his Observation Haki across the island, but his expression was grim. He couldn't sense Pea's presence anywhere.
Pea had been Roy's companion for three years, and Roy knew him well enough that, if Pea were on the island, there was no way he could escape his detection. Roy could only sense a faintly similar presence from one creature.
Never mind. I'll go take a look at that creature that feels like Pea first, Roy decided.
"Come on! Follow me ashore."
"Yes, boss!"
Wrapped in his psychic power, Roy landed lightly on the ground, with Tesoro and the others close behind.
He closed his eyes and concentrated, sensing the direction again, then stepped on the others as he headed into the island.
The enormous insects and irritable man-eating plants they encountered along the way left them even more astonished. As for the animals and plants that dared block their path,
there was no need for Roy to lift a finger. Tesoro and Savi, eager to show what they could do, dealt with them easily.
Before long, they arrived beneath the Ramen Waterfall, one of Roy's favorite places back then. All sorts of food grew in the open space around it.
Before they could express their amazement again, there was an exceptionally large "peashooter" man-eating flower in the middle of the clearing, along with a boy lying on a huge leaf with his legs crossed, looking as though he had just woken up.
The boy looked no more than eleven or twelve. He stood 1.5 meters tall and was well-proportioned, with a pair of transparent, butterfly-like wings on his back. His upper body was bare, and he wore only a crude grass skirt around his waist. His emerald-green eyes were watching them with amusement.
Good grief! Roy could only think, Good grief! Wasn't that his damn self from back then?
Tesoro and the others looked equally shocked, glancing at the boy and then turning to look at Roy.
Savi was even more curious. "B-boss, th-this... this..."
Stella covered her mouth, staring at the boy's face.
Roy had also noticed that the boy's face was almost identical to his own. Only his long, pointed, elf-like ears and emerald-green eyes were different from Roy's.
(The giant pea in the clearing patted the boy with its tongue.)
"Hey! Pea, how many times have I told you not to use your tongue..."
Seeing this, Roy walked forward with a smile, looking at the boy on the leaf, his gaze falling on (green-haired Roy).
"Looks like you had some kind of fortuitous encounter too, Pea!"
As Roy sat down, the boy waved a hand, and the huge man-eating flower behind him slowly lowered him to the ground.
"Hee-hee! We meet again, Roy. But now I'm the real Roy!"
Pea giggled and sent several vines out from his fingers, winding them toward Roy.
Roy paid the approaching vines no mind. With a flick of his finger, he knocked them aside, then flashed forward and rapped Pea on the head.
A large bump immediately rose on Pea's head. He clutched it and looked pitifully at Roy, sparkling tears welling up in the corners of his eyes.
When Tesoro and the others saw the boy attack, they immediately went on guard. They didn't care why the boy looked so much like Roy.
Bullet had already coated both hands in Armament Haki. If anything went wrong, he could immediately move in to help.
But seeing Roy subdue the boy so easily, they all relaxed a little. After all, the scene before them was simply too bizarre.
Roy also released his Observation Haki to its fullest, carefully probing the boy Pea before him. The mental fluctuations from the boy's body did indeed carry Pea's presence, though they had become more complex. Inside the huge man-eating flower beside him, meanwhile, only some residual, dim instinctive awareness remained.
Roy couldn't figure out what had happened either, so he simply asked, "How did you end up like this? Did you eat some kind of Devil Fruit, Pea?"
"Mm-hmm."
The boy on the ground nodded at once. He got up, pulled Roy over to sit in a small clearing in front of the Ramen Waterfall, and waved the others over to join them.
Once everyone was seated, he stuck his hands into the ground, and before long the surrounding food automatically arranged itself in front of them.
Only then did he explain to Roy, "After you left, Roy, I was bored all by myself, and the animals on the island kept 'bullying' me, so I could only run toward Lord Baron's center. Ordinary animals and plants didn't dare go there."
"When I was looking for food there, I ate something, though I don't know what. Afterward, I could turn into this."
Hearing this, Roy knew Pea must have eaten an extraordinary Devil Fruit.
"Pea, do you know what fruit you ate?"
"Hm? After I ate it, it seemed to be called the Zoan Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Model: Fairy."
Watching Pea try hard to remember, Roy asked again, "Then what abilities do you have now?"
"Abilities?" Pea scratched his head. "I can take your appearance, and I can control the plants around me. I can also absorb energy from plants to replenish myself, so I don't have to eat anything else. Hee-hee~"
Roy looked at the happy Pea and felt happy for his good fortune too. He had originally been wondering where he could get a Human-Human Fruit for Pea. After all, if he brought Pea aboard, he would be the only one among them who could communicate with him.
Now things had worked out. Pea had eaten a Devil Fruit himself, and it was the Human-Human Fruit, Mythical Zoan, the Zoan best suited to him.
After all, even Chopper of the Straw Hat Pirates had only eaten the Zoan Human-Human Fruit, Model: Human. Yet even that fruit had given him such great intelligence and considerable fighting power. (Chopper's fighting power really is pretty good, especially that signature Chopperbeard move. The author likes it a lot.)
"Then what's the story with that giant pea man-eating flower over there?" Roy asked, pointing at the flower beside them.
"Oh! When you left, you said you'd come back for me. After I turned into this, I waited here for you and split it off when I got bored."
As he spoke, Pea walked up to the man-eating flower and held out his index finger. A vine extended from its tip and pierced the flower.
Under everyone's astonished gazes, the enormous man-eating flower slowly shrank, gradually merging into Pea's body along the vine.