Chapter 111: Seeing Lan Lan and Kaka Again
The water was cold. Freezing. The kind of cold that seeped into bones and stayed there.
The gangster boy—one of Bege's inner circle, a hardened survivor of the West Blue underworld—gasped for breath as he broke the surface. His arms were locked around his boss's waterlogged body, struggling to keep Bege's head above the waves.
"Boss Bege! Someone! Anyone! SAVE BOSS BEGE!"
His voice echoed across the empty water. No response came.
The Queen Mama Chanter loomed above him, silent and still. Its decks, which had once bustled with Homies and crew, were now a ghostly tableau of carnage. Blood trickled down the scuppers, dripping into the sea like dark rain.
"Is everyone dead?! ARE YOU ALL DEAD?!"
The gangster boy's teeth chattered—from the cold, from the fear, from the soul-deep terror that had taken root the moment he had watched Uchiha Itachi move through the Chanter's crew like a scythe through wheat.
He killed them all. Every single one. Even the new recruits—those three super rookies with bounties over a hundred million—didn't even have time to scream.
"Please... somebody... ANYBODY!"
A rope dropped over the side.
The gangster boy looked up, his heart seizing with desperate hope—
And saw Baron Tamago leaning over the railing.
Except... it wasn't Baron Tamago anymore.
"L-Lord Egg?!" The gangster boy's eyes bulged. "You're ALIVE?!"
"Grab the rope, fool! Pull Bege up before he drowns!"
The being that shouted down at them was no longer the elegant, long-legged aristocrat who had sipped tea and quoted poetry. Baron Tamago had transformed—his egg-shaped body now reduced to a smaller, rounder form. A chick's form. Soft yellow down covered his head where his teacup had once perched. His voice, once refined and measured, had become high-pitched with stress.
Baron Chicken Cub. The intermediate stage of the Egg-Egg Fruit's resurrection cycle.
The gangster boy scrambled up the rope, hauling Bege's unconscious body behind him. The mob boss was pale, waterlogged, barely breathing—but alive. The Castle-Castle Fruit's defenses had protected his internal organs just long enough for rescue to arrive.
As the gangster boy collapsed on the deck, gasping, he finally understood.
"The Egg-Egg Fruit... you can resurrect after fatal injuries!"
"Obviously." Baron Chicken Cub's voice trembled as he raised his black teacup—miraculously unbroken—and took a shaky sip. "But the transformation requires time. And silence. If that monster had noticed me regenerating..."
He didn't finish the thought. He didn't need to.
"Terrible. Absolutely terrible." His small body shuddered. "I've never encountered anyone like him. Not in all my years serving Mother."
The gangster boy looked around at the blood-soaked deck. "Then... everyone else...?"
"Dead. All dead."
A groan from across the deck.
Pekoms sat up, coughing blood onto his chest. The penetrating wound through his torso was still there—ugly and raw—but it had missed his heart by centimeters. His leathery turtle shell, the gift of the Kame-Kame Fruit, had absorbed just enough of the strike.
"GAROO... cough, cough, cough..."
"Pekoms! You're alive too!"
"First aid... get me the first aid kit..." Pekoms clutched his chest, his tiny eyes wild with pain and residual terror. "My Observation Haki... I sensed the attack coming. But it was too fast. Too precise. I could only harden my vitals in time..."
He shuddered.
"Without the Kame-Kame Fruit... I'd be dead. Without a doubt."
Three survivors. Out of an entire ship's crew.
The three new-era pirate recruits with bounties exceeding one hundred million? Dead before they could draw their weapons. The veteran crew members? Cut down where they stood. Even the Homies—the living souls that had animated the ship—had been ripped away and sealed.
"We survived," Baron Chicken Cub whispered, "purely because of our Devil Fruits."
He finally understood why Itachi hadn't simply destroyed the Chanter outright. Sinking the ship would have been chaotic. Messy. Survivors might have escaped in the confusion, might have found a way to contact Whole Cake Island.
Instead, he had disabled them first. Destroyed their sails. Stripped their ship's soul. And then—when they were focused only on escape, when their guard was completely lowered—he had executed them one by one with surgical precision.
"The liaison room!" Baron Chicken Cub scrambled to his feet, his tiny chicken legs carrying him across the blood-slick deck. "We have to contact Whole Cake Island! We have to warn Mother—"
He threw open the liaison room door.
And froze.
The Den Den Mushi lay in pieces. Every snail had been bisected with a single vertical cut, their shells split cleanly in two. The communication equipment was shattered. The eternal poses to Whole Cake Island had been crushed to powder.
Even the snails' backups had been destroyed.
"This guy..." Baron Chicken Cub's voice emerged as barely a whisper. "He really thought of everything."
He sank to his knees amid the wreckage.
"A complete and total execution. Every loose end tied. Every contingency eliminated."
Outside, the Queen Mama Chanter drifted aimlessly across the waves, a ghost ship carrying three broken survivors and a deck full of corpses. Without sails. Without communication. Without hope of reinforcement.
It would be weeks before they could reach Whole Cake Island.
By then, whatever happened in Dressrosa would already be over.
Green Bit — Southeast Coast
The sea was cool against his skin.
Itachi stood waist-deep in the gentle surf, methodically washing the blood from his arms, his chest, his face. The crimson stains dissolved into the salt water, spreading like fading clouds before disappearing entirely. His torn coat lay on the shore beside his ninja pouch, drying in the afternoon sun.
Better to clean it all off.
He scrubbed at a stubborn patch on his forearm.
Those little ones scare easily. No need to traumatize them further.
The irony wasn't lost on him. He had just slaughtered an entire ship's crew—had executed men who had begged for mercy, had lied to liars and killed them for their deception—and now he was concerned about frightening the Tontatta Tribe with a few bloodstains.
They trusted me. Simply because I knew Usopp's name.
They called me Itachilando.
They offered me food.
He wrung out his hair and waded back to shore. After a final inspection of his clothes—still torn, still battle-worn, but at least free of visible gore—he dressed and slipped into the forest.
The dense jungle of Green Bit closed around him like a living curtain. He moved through it with practiced ease—not running, but flowing. Each step finding solid ground. Each branch parted before it could snag his clothing. The creatures of the forest barely registered his passage.
He had been a shinobi for most of his life. Moving unseen was second nature.
When he had penetrated deep enough into the island's interior, he stopped.
A clearing. Surrounded by shrubs and flowering bushes. The earth here was rich and dark, cultivated by the Tontatta over generations. He could feel the life thrumming through it—the slow, patient pulse of growing things.
Itachi sat cross-legged in the center of the clearing.
His hands formed a seal.
The Spirit of the Tree World answered.
Roots grew from his lower body—not the parasitic tendrils of the Wood Release techniques he had used in battle, but something gentler. Seeking. Connecting. His chakra flowed downward through the network of roots, and the earth's energy flowed upward in return.
The transfer was subtle at first. A warmth spreading through his limbs. Then stronger—a tide of vitality pouring into his depleted reserves. His Sharingan, still active in its Mangekyō state, throbbed once and then eased. The ache behind his eyes faded. The fog of exhaustion lifted.
The bushes around him began to wither.
Leaves curled. Stems bent. Flowers wilted and dropped their petals. The vibrant green of the clearing faded to autumn brown, then winter gray. Within minutes, the lush vegetation had shrunk into dormant husks.
Itachi opened his eyes.
Too much.
He reversed the flow. Chakra pulsed outward from his body, returning energy to the depleted soil. The bushes stirred. Stems straightened. New leaves unfurled in shades of spring green. Within moments, the clearing was as vibrant as it had been before—perhaps more so.
Itachi rose to his feet, testing his body's response. His chakra reserves were full. His pupil power had regenerated. The fatigue from his battles with Fujitora and the Big Mom Pirates had been washed away as thoroughly as the bloodstains in the sea.
And the energy he had returned to the bushes—it had cost him almost nothing.
I drained them nearly to death. And yet, returning just a fraction of what I took restored them completely.
His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.
Is this another property of the Spirit of the Tree World? Not just absorption... but amplification? Drawing energy from the earth and multiplying it before returning it?
The implications were significant. But before he could pursue the line of thought further—
"It's all YOUR fault!"
"No, it's YOUR fault!"
"YOU made Itachilando sad! That's why he left! And now I'M sad too! WAAAAH!"
"YOU were the one who called him a monster at first! If anyone made him sad, it was YOU!"
"Did NOT!"
"Did TOO!"
Itachi closed his eyes.
Of course.
Lan Lan and Kaka emerged from the underbrush mid-argument, their tiny faces flushed with indignation. They had been sent by the Tontatta elders to find "Itachilando" and determine why he had departed so abruptly—a mission they had pursued with the single-minded dedication only children and very small warriors could muster.
They had argued the entire way.
"—and furthermore, it's 'Dong Tata,' not 'Dongdong Tata'! You always say it wrong and it's SO SAD—"
Kaka stopped mid-sentence.
Because Itachi Uchiha was standing right in front of him.
"AH! ITACHILANDO!"
"YOU'RE HERE! YOU CAME BACK!"
Lan Lan launched herself at Itachi with the full force of her tiny body, tackling his shin in what was presumably meant to be an embrace. Kaka followed a heartbeat later, attaching himself to Itachi's other leg.
"Itachilando! Are you sad? Is that why you left so suddenly?" Kaka's enormous eyes glistened with concern. "I was so sad! I thought I'd never see you again!"
"Yeah! Why did you leave, Itachilando?" Lan Lan peered up at him. "Oh! Was it a super-secret mission? Something super important?!"
Itachi looked down at the two tiny creatures clinging to his legs.
He thought about the blood washing off his skin into the sea.
He thought about the Queen Mama Chanter drifting empty across the waves.
He thought about Capone Bege's face as he sank beneath the water.
"...No."
He turned his gaze slightly to the side, unable to meet their earnest, trusting eyes.
"It wasn't anything important."
He gritted his teeth. Just slightly.
"We've met again. That's what matters."
Something just happened was not an explanation he could give to creatures like these. They would want details. They would ask questions. They would look at him with those wide, innocent eyes and try to understand things that no innocent creature should have to understand.
"Now." He gently pried them off his legs. "Take me to find Uso—Usolando."
The effect was instantaneous.
Lan Lan and Kaka's faces lit up like festival lanterns.
"ITACHILANDO IS GOING TO TAKE US TO FIGHT?! LIKE USOLANDO?!"
"That's right." Itachi nodded. "Exactly."
"THAT'S AMAZING!!!"
They didn't even hesitate. Two tiny hands grabbed two of Itachi's fingers, and suddenly he was being dragged through the forest by creatures the size of his thumb—pulled along with that impossible Tontatta strength that had nearly broken his fingers during their first encounter.
"Waaaah! This is incredible! I can finally fight alongside Captain Leo and the Dongdong Tower Battle Squad! A real battle! In Dressrosa!"
"You mean 'Dong Tata'! DONG TATA! Why do you always say it wrong?! I'm so sad!"
"It's Dongdong Tata! YOU'RE the one saying it wrong!"
"DONG TATA!"
"DONGDONG TATA!"
Itachi, being dragged between them like a parade float, kept his feet moving to avoid tripping.
I could have gone alone.
I should have gone alone.
I knew, the moment I decided to come back through their secret passage, that something like this would happen.
The arguing continued.
The dragging continued.
And somewhere beneath his carefully maintained composure, Itachi Uchiha—former ANBU captain, former Akatsuki member, the man who had just single-handedly neutralized an Emperor's warship—felt something dangerously close to exasperated affection for the two tiny, noisy, utterly guileless creatures pulling him toward battle.
End of Chapter
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