Kairo appeared somewhere inside the castle, with Zoro right there beside him.
He felt Luffy's presence getting closer. Good to know.
Anyway, his current mission was to find Hogback and use his body to reanimate the swordsman from Wano and have Zoro box with that man for twelve hours before they had to return back to the sea.
Luffy would be boxing Moria, and Kairo may or may not use the Abyss to buff Moria enough to push Luffy to use Gear 4. And even after he used Gear 4, push him even further, until he was within an inch of his life, then heal him, and then dip.
It shouldn't be all that hard.
Now, it would be time to find the doctor.
He walked to the fireplace.
"This place is bland," Zoro added. Shit felt empty. There were animal faces on the wall, but apart from that, shit looked more bland than water.
"It's the house of a lazy bum. You can't expect much," Kairo said, his eyes on the fireplace.
"Figures."
Kairo then pressed a button, and the fireplace flipped.
"A secret entrance. How generic," he said wryly.
The pig mask on top was about to start moving to scare Kairo, you know, the usual shit.
Yet as it prepared itself—
A light burst of Conqueror's Haki knocked it, along with every single one of its amigos, out.
Zoro picked up on that burst, his gaze watching as several shadows seemed to leave the puppets and go outside.
Somewhere in the nearby forest, several people regained their shadows.
"After you," Kairo said calmly.
Zoro entered through the secret pathway, with Kairo walking behind him. They were making their way toward where the doctor was.
Meanwhile, with said doctor—
The man could be seen stitching someone's body. It was a new corpse he had been given. It was fresh, and he wanted to see if he could boost this body's physical strength way past its baseline so that when a shadow got in there, it could be way stronger.
He was close, just as he reached out his hand.
"Cindry, pass me the fork," he demanded, yet he received no reaction at all.
"Cindry-chan!"
Looking up, he saw that Victoria had fallen limply to the floor.
"Cindry..." He rushed toward her as if to check on her. She didn't have a pulse—well duh, she was dead.
"Cindry..." He shook her body, but he got no fucking reaction at all. She felt like a corpse...
"Doctor Hogback," a voice could be heard saying.
The man was annoyed.
"Not now. I am busy." He was most focused on the beauty in his hands.
The vampire bat person opened his mouth and said,
"Absalom... Commander Absalom has been killed."
Hogback froze.
Wait, what?
"Repeat yourself. What did you just utter?"
The bat opened its mouth once more and said,
"The pirate ship we attacked. When Sir Absalom boarded it—"
That caught him off guard. Absalom should have been invincible. How the fuck did he get noticed? And how did Perona let this slide?
"When Sir Absalom was feeling up one of the crewmates, one of the pirates reacted and slashed his hand off."
Hm. Okay, that explained how they knew where he was, but nothing more.
"Spill it. Why did Perona not interfere?" With her ghosts, she could get the pirates, no matter how strong they were, to be depressed and save the guy. Hogback could reattach his hand—no biggie.
"...The pirate ripped Absalom's Devil Fruit off from his body..."
This had Hogback befuddled.
"Ripped... off?" he repeated, as if to make sure his ears were working properly.
The bat nodded.
Who the fuck had the knowledge to just rip off someone's power like that?
Hogback realized something horrifying:
Whoever did this understood Devil Fruits on a level even Vegapunk hadn't published about.
But who the hell would be such a person? It's not every day you walk into someone with such knowledge.
"Did you get the name of that pirate?" the doctor questioned, but the bat didn't know shit, which meant he only had one other question.
"What was their flag?"
"A Jolly Roger with a straw hat."
Hogback had no clue about that.
His mind thought for a bit before new information entered his brain.
He began shaking a bit.
"The member who did that wouldn't happen to have dark skin, wings, and flames on his back, would he now?"
He hoped to heaven it wasn't what he was thinking about.
"Yes, he did," the bat replied.
Hogback felt whatever hope he may have had vanish from his body. He remembered when he got the news of an admiral going extreme diff with that person. His ass was not admiral tier. He would not be winning that 1v1. He was going to get fucked so badly.
Shit. He needed to leave.
He needed to take all his shit and abandon Moria right now. That was the only way.
"What's up, Doctor? In a rush?"
Hogback froze.
Turning around, he saw the figure of a Lunarian at the door... oh, and a swordsman, who was currently dragging around the knocked-out body of the greatest swordsman Wano had ever produced—just knocked out. He didn't even have a shadow anymore.
"I hope this wasn't the battle you promised me," Zoro said, sounding disappointed. This Ryuma fella was quite weak.
"This one is weak. To face his prime, I need a better vessel."
Kairo's gaze landed on Hogback.
"You wouldn't be against that, would you now, Doctor?" he said softly.
A/N
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