On Cain's end, Pudding's Den Den Mushi rang again and again, but no one answered.
"Looks like we'll have to use the ultimate weapon."
Cain muttered under her breath as the image of the man who constantly fought with Sanji flashed through her mind.
He was the only option they had left.
But when she called Zoro, all she heard was one long unanswered ring after another.
At that moment, Zoro was not exactly in good condition.
He had pushed himself too hard during training recently and was covered in injuries. Even his left eye had been hurt and was wrapped in thick bandages.
Perona rolled her eyes and called him a reckless savage who never gave anyone a moment's peace, but she still reluctantly took care of wrapping his wounds.
Unfortunately, her approach to bandaging was always modeled after her beloved stuffed bear, Kumacy.
And so, Zoro had once again been wrapped into a large, round "bear."
His arms and legs were bound as tightly as rice dumplings, while layer upon layer of bandages made his entire body look absurdly swollen.
Worse still, Perona had grown tired of listening to him complain.
"If you mutter one more word, I'm bandaging your mouth too!"
Naturally, Zoro refused to back down and continued grumbling.
Perona finally lost patience and wrapped both his injured eye and his argumentative mouth in several thick layers of bandages.
She left only one nostril uncovered so he could breathe, then stormed out of the castle.
Zoro was now trapped in complete darkness. He could neither see nor speak, and every movement was restricted.
All he could do was shuffle through the castle like a headless bear.
Then the ringing of a Den Den Mushi echoed from somewhere deep inside the building.
Zoro immediately tensed. His ears twitched beneath the bandages as he slowly moved toward the sound.
'Is it this way… to the left?'
He cautiously stepped forward and felt his foot strike the hard edge of a stair.
'Hm. Stairs?'
He hesitated for a moment before reaching a confident conclusion.
'Then the ringing must be downstairs.'
The moment the thought crossed his mind, Zoro missed the next step and tumbled down the staircase.
Even Observation Haki capable of accurately sensing his surroundings could not overcome the sense of directionlessness engraved into Zoro's very soul.
And so, while completely blind, he followed his own unique navigational logic and became lost inside the castle for the fifth, sixth, seventh—who even knew how many times.
…
"What the hell is going on? Why is nobody answering?"
Cain frowned as she ended the call.
None of the available methods were working.
What were they supposed to do now?
At that moment, Sanjiko, who had been happily mingling with the okama, approached carrying a plate of sliced fruit in one hand and an armful of brightly colored cosmetics in the other.
"Oh my!"
Sanjiko's eyes lit up with genuine regret.
"Big Sister, how can someone blessed with such a beautiful face put so little effort into her appearance? What a terrible waste!"
"Unlike you, little old me only needs the slightest touch of makeup to bring out every ounce of feminine charm."
"Come, come! Sit down and let me make you truly beautiful."
"You can enjoy some fruit while you wait for the results~"
Sanjiko enthusiastically began arranging her cosmetics, completely failing to notice that Cain's face had turned blacker than the bottom of a cooking pot.
Cain glared at Sanjiko in mounting fury.
This bastard still had not figured out who Cain and Uta really were.
Switching between personalities earlier had already been bad enough, but now the two modes had apparently blended together.
Not only did Sanji genuinely believe he was a woman, his deeply ingrained lust had followed him into that identity.
The look in his eyes made it obvious that he intended to take advantage of Cain.
"Get the hell away from me!"
Cain's expression darkened completely.
She grabbed Sanjiko by the head and slammed her face-first into the floor.
Bang!
Sanjiko's face made intimate contact with the ground.
"Seriously, what the hell is wrong with him?"
Cain raked a frustrated hand through her hair and turned toward Uta.
Uta shook his head helplessly before quietly pulling out the photographs he had taken the previous night.
He held them in front of Cain and lowered his voice.
"Maybe we can start here. Last night, he locked himself alone in his room and ended up in that condition."
"He's definitely hiding something embarrassing."
The moment Uta finished speaking, Sanjiko's body twitched violently.
He stiffly raised his head and stared at them, his face draining completely white.
"Y-you… saw everything?"
His voice trembled uncontrollably.
Cain and Uta exchanged a glance.
There really was something going on.
Cain produced a leather whip from somewhere and flicked her wrist.
The end wrapped perfectly around Sanjiko's ankle. With a single tug, she hoisted him upside down from a ceiling beam.
"W-wait! We can talk about this—uwaah!"
Before he could finish begging, the whip struck him solidly.
Ivankov hurriedly dismissed the surrounding okama and covered Bella's eyes so the child would not witness such a "brutal" scene.
However, even after being subjected to chili water, onion juice, and whips soaked in alcohol and salt water, Sanjiko gritted his teeth and refused to speak.
Even worse, Cain was currently female.
After taking so many blows from a beautiful woman, Sanjiko somehow began enjoying himself. His eyes gradually became unfocused, and even the sounds escaping his throat changed in tone.
The more Cain whipped him, the more disturbed she became.
At last, she stopped with a look of utter disgust, shook off the whip, and called Caroline over to continue in her place.
Since they could not reach Zoro, they had no choice but to settle for the next best thing.
Cain had Ivankov produce Zoro's wanted poster and shoved it directly into Sanjiko's face.
"If you don't confess every filthy little secret you're hiding, I'll tell Zoro every single detail."
Sanjiko, who had only just been lowered to the ground, instantly went rigid.
His expression changed repeatedly, and his lips trembled, but he still clenched his jaw and refused to speak.
Cain exchanged another look with Ivankov.
Understanding immediately, Ivankov slowly extended five needle-tipped fingers toward Sanjiko.
On one side was the wanted poster of his eternal rival, Zoro.
On the other were hormone needles capable of instantly changing him back into a man.
Behind him stood an eager okama holding a whip dripping with salt water.
Any one of the three was unacceptable to the current Sanjiko.
If Zoro discovered he had become a woman, Sanji would be reduced to that moss-headed bastard's laughingstock forever.
That was psychological torture.
Being whipped by an okama was physical torture.
And returning to being a man meant facing the entire population of okama once more as a male.
That was both psychological and physical torture combined.
Attacked from three directions, Sanjiko's mental defenses finally collapsed.
He squeezed his eyes shut, as though crushing the last scraps of his dignity, and poured out the secret buried deep inside his heart.
"Seriously?"
Cain's expression became indescribably complicated.
"You don't want to change back just because you're obsessed with your female body?"
"You really are vain, Sanjiko-chan," Ivankov said with a laugh, sounding oddly appreciative. "Though that attitude suits Momoiro Island perfectly."
Uta also wore a difficult expression and gently shook his head.
"I never expected Sanji-san to be so… um…"
Before he could finish, Cain raised one leg high and brought her heel down hard on Sanjiko's head.
She ground him beneath her foot like garbage and spat aside in disgust.
"Gross."
But when Cain looked down, she saw the bastard staring lecherously upward from beneath her shoe.
Cain immediately exploded.
Thankfully, she was wearing jeans.
If she had been wearing a skirt, he would have seen her underwear!
What a disgusting bastard.
"Why are you enjoying this too?!"
Cain gritted her teeth and called out,
"Iva-chan, give me a hand!"
"Let's remodel his face properly."
"Doesn't he love this body? Doesn't he treasure that face?"
Cain paused, a dangerous smile spreading across her lips.
"Then I want to turn his face and body into something he'll never be able to lust after for the rest of his life."
Ivankov froze at the suggestion.
Sanjiko instinctively retreated, terror flooding his eyes like a rising tide.
He wrapped both arms tightly around himself and released a piercing feminine scream as he stumbled backward.
"Y-you… stay away from me!"
"Don't come any closer!"
"That isn't your decision."
Cain clenched her fists.
Together with Ivankov, she began the drastic "reconstruction" of Sanjiko's face.
"Yes, shave off those curled eyebrows!"
"And part his hair to the right!"
"Make his cheeks a little rounder. Yes, that curve. Don't overdo it."
"Lower the corners of his eyes slightly. A little more. Right, right."
"Longer eyelashes, narrow the nose a little—hey, that's too far! Bring it back!"
Ivankov's fingers moved rapidly as hormonal power silently surged through the air.
Cain stood beside him issuing instructions like the world's most demanding sculptor.
The scene was so "cruel" that even Uta could no longer bear to watch.
He hurriedly covered Bella's eyes.
"Bella, you mustn't look. Children shouldn't see this."
…
At last, the "reconstructive surgery" came to an end.
Sanji sat limply on the floor, his entire body trembling uncontrollably. Sweat and tears streamed together down his face.
Ivankov pushed a mirror in front of him.
Sanji kept his eyes tightly shut, terrified to look.
He was afraid.
Afraid that the mirror would reveal the nightmare that had haunted him all his life—a bearded, heavily muscled figure squeezed into a ballet dress.
He was even more afraid that Ivankov's "beauty treatment" had genuinely transformed him into something barely recognizable as human.
"Open your eyes," Ivankov said, his voice unusually gentle.
Sanji drew a deep breath.
His fingers clenched until the knuckles turned white.
Then, trembling, he slowly opened his eyes.
The reflection in the mirror was not the nightmare he had imagined.
There was no beard.
No bulging muscle.
No ridiculous ballet dress.
Instead, he saw a face carved into the deepest part of his soul.
Long golden hair fell softly over the shoulders, parted to the right and covering one eye.
The face was slightly rounder than his own had once been, but not heavy.
It carried a gentle, peaceful softness, though for some inexplicable reason it also looked far more frail.
The corners of the eyes drooped slightly, giving the entire face a warm and tender expression.
Long lashes cast faint shadows beneath the light.
Even foundation had drained away the natural color of the skin, leaving behind an almost sickly pallor.
It looked exactly like someone who had spent years confined to a bed, for whom even feeling sunlight had been an impossible luxury.
The face almost perfectly overlapped with the person in Sanji's memories.
The woman who smiled gently at him even while trembling in agony.
The woman who held a lunchbox swollen with rainwater and still smiled as she told him it tasted wonderful.
The woman who lay dying in bed and used the last of her strength to whisper,
"Thank you for being born."
Sanji's tears began falling without warning.
They were not suppressed sobs or wounded whimpers.
Large, burning drops rolled freely down his cheeks.
His lips parted, but no sound emerged.
Something scorching seemed to block his throat while bitter, overwhelming emotion surged from his chest, making his entire body shake.
"I never thought… I'd be able to see you again…"
He finally spoke, his voice so hoarse it was barely audible, each word forced slowly from the deepest part of his throat.
Tears poured down his face and blurred the mirror, but he refused to blink.
He did not want to blink.
He was terrified that the person in the mirror would vanish the moment he did.
Terrified that this was only a dream, and that once he woke, everything would return to the way it had been.
All he could do was keep his eyes wide and stare greedily at the woman in the reflection.
All the years of companionship he had lost…
All the longing that resurfaced during lonely nights…
All the tenderness he remembered while curled alone inside a cage…
Every memory overwhelmed him at once.
"I can't believe… I let myself sink this far…"
"It's… it's disgraceful…"
"But… but I…"
His voice trembled violently as he forced out each word.
"I… I missed you so much…"
Sanji raised a shaking hand and gently pressed his fingertips against the cold mirror.
The face before him was only an imitation, deliberately recreated through makeup and hormones.
Yet he could not bring himself to move his fingers away.
"Mom…"
…
Only Sanji's muffled crying remained inside the room.
The silence grew so complete that everyone unconsciously softened their breathing.
Cain stood to the side with her arms crossed and gave a small nod.
This was exactly the effect she wanted.
The person capable of dragging Sanji from this absurd obsession had never been Zoro, nor any threat they could make.
It was Vinsmoke—
No.
It was only his mother.
Sora.
Sanji's feminized appearance had always shared a few similarities with both his sister Reiju and his mother.
However, the hairstyle, bridge of the nose, shape of the lips, and small details around the eyes were different.
Combined with Sanji's overwhelming lust, his entire presence was completely unlike Sora's, making them look like two different people at first glance.
Sanji also wore heavy makeup so often that even he had never considered the resemblance.
But Cain's painstaking alterations had corrected every tiny difference.
Bit by bit, they transformed the face until it came infinitely close to the woman Sanji had longed for throughout half his life.
And struck directly at the softest place in his heart.