Even though they had not fully recovered yet, if Big Mom and the others truly wanted to leave, ordinary people would not be able to stop them.
Unless Cyrus acted personally—or perhaps Issho did—no one here could hold them back.
Cyrus had not used any special method to imprison them, but none of them had tried to leave.
Judging by the way they had acted just now, they had even been prepared to face death at Cyrus's hands.
"With your strength, you still care about whether you or Captain Rocks was stronger?"
Seeing Cyrus fall silent, the Golden Lion asked in confusion.
"I'm just curious. After all, I never got to meet the man. But many of you true great pirates currently active in the New World are connected to Rocks in one way or another."
"Heh. Curiosity is normal. A man like that really was…" Big Mom sneered before continuing, "After all, back then, he personally killed a Marine Admiral."
After saying that, she shoved a huge lump of sweet cream cake into her mouth.
"He's that strong?" Cyrus said, raising an eyebrow.
"You can't do that?" the Golden Lion asked, staring at Cyrus with a surprisingly serious expression.
The hole on top of his head, however, was still extremely hard to ignore.
"I haven't done it yet."
Cyrus shook his head.
He had no need to go out of his way to kill a Marine Admiral just to prove himself.
Although the current three Marine Admirals were the strongest among all past generations of Admirals, the gap between Marine Admirals would not be too outrageous.
Issho also possessed Admiral-level strength, and after their clash at Sabaody Archipelago, Cyrus had a clear sense of that.
"Hey, brat."
Big Mom suddenly looked at Cyrus and spoke.
Cyrus frowned slightly.
"You seem to lack the proper respect for the person who defeated you."
"Mamamama! So what? Are you going to kill me?" Big Mom said this without backing down.
Cyrus narrowed his eyes at her.
He did not want the Soul-Soul Fruit to flow out into the world, and he had been planning to search for the Dark-Dark Fruit later so he could extract the Soul-Soul Fruit.
But if Big Mom truly wanted to die, then the Soul-Soul Fruit was not so important that he would tolerate everything for its sake.
Perhaps sensing the killing intent rising from Cyrus, the Golden Lion glanced at Big Mom with a frown before speaking.
"So, how exactly are you planning to deal with us?"
"Deal with you?"
Cyrus thought for a moment.
As long as he remained here, even if these three tried something, he could handle it.
But he could not stay here forever, nor could he bring all three of them onto his ship.
They were behaving now, but once he left, that might not remain the case.
Still, there was one possible solution.
He did not need money himself, but the Hunter Guild required enormous funding.
The combined bounties of the three people in front of him were almost ten billion.
Right, and there was another five-billion-Berry man currently on his way here.
Have the Marines keep them?
Cyrus narrowed his eyes and swept his gaze over the three of them.
That look immediately gave Big Mom, the Golden Lion, and Silver Axe a bad feeling.
"I'm planning to exchange you with the Marines for your bounties."
The moment Cyrus said that, all three of them froze in place, then looked at one another.
"If I remember right, that slash at Mary Geoise was yours, wasn't it?"
The Golden Lion's voice was clearly filled with speechless disbelief.
"It was mine. But does that conflict with me claiming bounties from the Marines? Since they issued bounty posters, then the money has to be paid. Otherwise, I'll personally visit Marine Headquarters and have a talk with the Fleet Admiral about it."
Cyrus's reply silenced the three of them once more.
Wasn't that just robbery?
Then again, with Cyrus's strength, if he went to Marine Headquarters to "talk" with Sengoku, nothing much would probably happen to him.
And the bounty money would likely have to be paid.
"Right. This will have to wait a few days. An old friend should be coming to join you."
After saying that, Cyrus stood and turned to leave.
"An old friend?"
After Cyrus left, Silver Axe muttered those words and looked between Big Mom and the Golden Lion.
"That brat… no, that guy really is hard to understand. With his strength, he could get as much money as he wanted, yet he actually plans to ask the Marines for the bounty."
"Who is this old friend?" Big Mom asked, her eyes filled with doubt.
"Who else could it be?"
The Golden Lion raised his hand and touched the hole in his head.
Pain surged through him, but it also made his mind clearer.
"Other than Whitebeard and Kaido, we don't have many old friends left."
"Kaido!"
The moment Big Mom heard the Golden Lion mention Kaido, her eyes turned dark and gloomy.
Although Cyrus's arrival in Totto Land seemed unavoidable, it was also true that Kaido had been the first one to provoke him.
Big Mom had clearly shifted part of her anger onto Kaido.
"It should be Whitebeard," the Golden Lion said after thinking it over.
"What exactly is that man trying to do?"
Big Mom suddenly lifted her eyes toward the Golden Lion and asked.
"If he hands the three of us, plus Whitebeard or whoever else, over to the Marines, it will definitely cause an enormous storm in the New World."
As a great pirate who had dominated the sea for decades, Big Mom was not stupid.
She simply did not use her brain very often.
When she actually bothered to think, she could still return to a normal level of reasoning.
"Either way, from the moment you lost—no, from the moment he entered the New World—things were already thrown into chaos."
The Golden Lion said this, then let out a sigh.
"I really have gotten old. That guy's ambition is enormous!"
With the Golden Lion's personality, he would normally never say something like he had grown old.
But the helplessness he had felt during this battle had made him feel as though he could barely even struggle.
That gap had made him truly realize that he had indeed aged.
"Becoming King of the World."
Big Mom snorted lightly, and the inside of the candy tower fell silent.
....
After leaving the tower, Cyrus glanced back at the prison holding the three of them, then raised his head toward Issho, who was standing not far away.
When he was not releasing his aura, Issho, with his rolled-white eyes, looked just like an ordinary blind man.
"You don't need to guard them from now on. Once I take down Whitebeard, I plan to exchange the four of them with the Marines for their bounties."
Cyrus walked over and spoke directly.
Issho: "???"
Issho's face filled with confusion when he heard Cyrus.
"They're a waste just sitting here, and I won't be able to use them for anything in the short term. But there is one person on Whitebeard's ship that I care about. When I fight Whitebeard later, help me capture him."
"Who?" Issho asked.
"Blackbeard, Teach," Cyrus said.
"That man?"
Issho thought for a moment.
He seemed to have heard the name before, but within the Whitebeard Pirates, Teach was not exactly a famous figure.
Why would Cyrus want him captured?
"Devil Fruits have wills of their own."
Seeing the confusion on Issho's face, Cyrus smiled as he spoke.
When Cyrus had first thought about the Dark-Dark Fruit, his plan had only been to send a large number of people to search for it later.
But after thinking of that phrase, he began to form other ideas.
The claim that Devil Fruits had wills of their own seemed to be true.
After all, the Gum-Gum Fruit—or rather, the Nika Fruit—had deliberately avoided the World Government's search.
The Dark-Dark Fruit appearing among the Whitebeard Pirates, or more specifically near Blackbeard, might also be due to something similar.
Rocks might have been the previous user of the Dark-Dark Fruit, and he might even have had a blood connection to Blackbeard.
If that was true, then the Dark-Dark Fruit being obtained by someone in the Whitebeard Pirates might not have been a coincidence.
It really might have been drawn toward Blackbeard.
If that was the case, then perhaps the Nika Fruit could also be handled in the same way.
Cyrus did not want to eat the Nika Fruit himself. He simply did not want to watch Straw Hat Luffy appear as expected.
If that was the case, then he could not directly attack Red-Hair.
Shanks was also very clever.
He probably would not deliberately provoke Cyrus either.
"I can help you capture that man. But if he isn't there, then there's nothing I can do," Issho said with a nod.
"Don't worry. He'll definitely be there."
Cyrus smiled when he heard that.
According to Morgans's information, this time the Whitebeard Pirates had only come with the Moby Dick.
The affiliated pirate crews under Whitebeard had not followed.
But Blackbeard would definitely be involved.
At the very least, he would come to see what the result of this encounter would be.
"What about the rest of the Whitebeard Pirates?" Issho asked.
"Have Katakuri return. Let the members of the Charlotte Family out as well. Since I kept these people alive, they naturally need to show the value they should have."
"That should work."
There should not be too great a difference in strength between the officers of the Big Mom Pirates and those of the Whitebeard Pirates.
At the very least, holding them back should not be a problem.
"Make preparations. I don't plan to let Whitebeard sail too deeply into Totto Land. After all, his destructive power really is immense."
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