Inside Stussy's room—
"What the hell happened?! Number One, how did Fire Fist Ace lose that quickly? What exactly did you arrange?!"
On the other end of the Den Den Mushi, Buckingham Stussy was tearing into her clone without restraint.
Stussy frowned and patiently explained everything that had happened, only to be rewarded with another round of furious abuse. By the end of it, even her patience was wearing thin.
"Isn't your goal simply to have Weevil defeat Fire Fist Ace?"
Her voice cooled.
"Then leave the rest to me. What you really want is Whitebeard's inheritance, isn't it? If you want Ace taken down, then stop shouting and do as I say."
"You…! How dare you speak to me like that, Number One?!"
Buckingham Stussy stared at her in disbelief.
That clone who had once struggled to find any meaning in her own existence—
how dare she talk back to the original like this?!
…
Elsewhere—
"Pfft… hahahaha!"
Sabo finally lost control.
Looking at Ace's swollen, thoroughly beaten face, he burst into helpless laughter.
"That's enough, Sabo!"
Ace's entire face turned red as he clenched his fists.
"You stood there watching me get beaten, and now you're laughing at me too?!"
He lunged forward and tackled Sabo.
"I thought all those years outside had finally taught you some manners, but underneath it all, you're still exactly the same bastard!"
Ace grabbed both corners of Sabo's mouth and pulled hard.
Sabo was already laughing so much that tears had appeared in his eyes.
"S-Sorry, sorry… but seriously, Ace, your face right now is just way too funny!"
That only made Ace angrier.
"I'll kill you!"
He threw his weight onto Sabo and started viciously stretching his cheeks.
Watching from nearby, Cain tilted his head.
"Hey, Uta…"
He leaned closer and lowered his voice.
"Don't you think the position those two are in looks a little weird?"
Uta studied them seriously.
Her cheeks slowly turned pink.
"…A little."
Before either could comment further, a familiar electronic sound suddenly came from Sabo's body.
"Pururururu! Pururururu!"
"Huh? A Den Den Mushi?"
Still pinned beneath Ace, Sabo blinked and pushed at his brother's face.
"Sorry, Ace. Get off me for a second."
Ace finally released him.
Sabo sat upright and simply touched one hand to the side of his head.
He didn't pull out a Den Den Mushi.
He didn't pick up a receiver.
He just started talking.
"Hello?"
"Yeah, he's right beside me. Mm-hm. Got it."
Then the call ended.
Sabo turned around—
and found Cain, Uta, and Ace staring at him with wide eyes and slightly open mouths as though they had just witnessed something unnatural.
"What?"
Sabo frowned.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"Monster."
"Machine."
"Cyborg."
All three answers came almost simultaneously.
Ace stepped forward and placed one hand heavily on Sabo's shoulder, his expression full of grief and sympathy.
"I knew the Revolutionary Army had a difficult road ahead, and I knew eating the Rumble-Rumble Fruit made you much stronger…"
He shook his head sadly.
"But I never thought that for the sake of power, you'd eventually give up being human altogether."
"What are you idiots talking about?!"
Sabo immediately waved both hands.
"This is the Rumble-Rumble Fruit!"
Cain frowned.
"The Rumble-Rumble Fruit can turn you into a Den Den Mushi now?"
"…More or less."
Sabo glanced toward Uta.
Understanding what he meant, she immediately deployed the Music Domain around them, isolating the room from outside sound.
Only then did Sabo explain.
"The Rumble-Rumble Fruit allows me to generate and detect electromagnetic waves. Den Den Mushi communications also work by transmitting specific communication frequencies, so in theory, if my brain could decode those frequencies fast enough, I'd be able to intercept and understand Den Den Mushi conversations directly."
He tapped the side of his head.
"I can't do anything that ridiculous yet, obviously. But using myself as a human Den Den Mushi is easy enough."
"The call just now was transmitted directly to me."
Ace instinctively took a step back.
"Your ability is way too unfair!"
His expression became genuinely wary.
"So if we're around you, do we have absolutely no privacy?!"
"Exactly!"
Uta folded her arms and frowned.
"That's terrifying. Nobody could hide anything from you."
Sabo spread his hands helplessly.
"What am I supposed to do? That's just how the ability works."
He sighed.
"I thought you'd all be impressed. Instead, you're looking at me like I'm some kind of freak."
"We're not Luffy."
Cain answered immediately.
"We don't get excited over literally everything."
Ace nodded repeatedly.
"Exactly."
Then, almost immediately, his curiosity shifted toward something else.
"How strong are you now, anyway?"
Ace didn't say it directly, but the answer was obvious from their fight.
Sabo had been fully capable of overwhelming him.
Especially that Thunder Dragon attack.
There was no way that had been ordinary lightning.
Sabo considered the question, then decided there was no reason to hide it from his brothers.
"The biggest reason my combat strength improved so quickly isn't actually the Devil Fruit."
Ace blinked.
"What do you mean?"
"It's because of Lilith."
Sabo smiled faintly.
"Sorry, you probably don't know who she is yet. Just think of her as someone ridiculously intelligent."
He continued,
"She gave me her access privileges to Punk Records."
"That means I can directly access the largest library of knowledge in the world."
Cain's eyes sharpened slightly.
Sabo tapped his temple again.
"And because I'm an ordinary biological human rather than one of the modified beings who normally interfaces with Punk Records, even if I connect through electromagnetic waves, outsiders can't easily trace that connection back to my location."
"In other words, I can safely browse the combat experiments stored there whenever I want—especially anything involving electricity."
His tone became more serious.
"Almost every attack I use now has some kind of high-level scientific basis behind it. I'm not just throwing lightning around and hoping something works."
"With the smartest mind in the world effectively backing me up, the improvement has been ridiculous."
Ace rubbed his chin.
He understood perhaps half of that.
"So basically…"
His expression became strange.
"You're a thug with an education now?"
Sabo's face twitched.
"That was one of Cain's sayings, wasn't it?"
He looked toward Cain.
"'A thug isn't scary. A thug with an education is.'"
Sabo sighed.
"How did that end up describing me?"
"Well…"
Ace looked at Cain.
Cain shrugged.
"It actually fits pretty well."
Uta covered her mouth and laughed quietly.
"I am not a thug!"
Sabo complained as he straightened the clothes Ace had wrinkled.
"My point is that having scientific modeling behind an attack is obviously better than blindly figuring everything out alone."
He turned toward Ace.
"That makes sense, doesn't it?"
Ace snorted.
"Sounds nice, but educated or not, you still ended up underneath me just now."
"That was an accident!"
Sabo immediately protested.
"If we fought seriously, I'm obviously stronger!"
He knew this wasn't the time to restart the argument, though, so he quickly dropped it and turned toward Cain.
"The call just now came from Commander Dragon's side."
His expression became serious.
"More precisely, it came from Lilith."
"Cain, the Revolutionary Army needs your help. They need you to pick someone up and take them to Egghead."
He paused.
"Apparently, the situation has something to do with you."
Cain pointed at himself.
"Me?"
Sabo nodded.
"Yeah."
"Something involving your Devil Fruit ability."
…
At the same time, Perospero was listening to the activity around Cain's room while also receiving reports from the tournament.
And unfortunately—
there was a problem.
Edward Weevil had gotten into a fight with several of the remaining contestants and simply beaten nearly all of them unconscious.
That included Vinsmoke Ichiji.
For reasons nobody was entirely sure about, Weevil then withdrew from the tournament.
Which meant the schedule had effectively skipped straight ahead to—
Uta versus Sabo.
Perospero stared at the report.
"It's not even noon yet!"
His face twisted.
"Are you kidding me? Why is every match ending this fast?!"
Then another problem occurred to him.
"…I really hope Caesar's ready over there."