Faced with Shirogai's proposal, Brook's skeletal face showed clear struggle and fear.
"No! A little angel like Labu, following pirates like us who have long since stepped into darkness, will face dangers like this again and again!"
Brook's usual cheerfulness and his habit of joking about his skeleton body were nothing more than ways to endure the pain. Had he truly accepted what he had become?
Reality did not care.
Whether he accepted it or not, it would move forward all the same.
Aside from gathering the fragments of his broken heart and forcing himself to continue, what else could he do?
"Oh, although I no longer have a heart that can beat."
Brook laughed at himself, then lay back on the cloud. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and finally made his decision.
"Yohohoho... Labu will definitely have a better future. Shirogai, let's go."
Shirogai looked down at Labu below. She wandered through the village, humming off-key while searching for Brook. He gently shook his head.
"Brook, if you leave like this, you will regret it."
"Bink's Sake, I will bring it to you... sought in dreams last night and tonight... the one who says goodbye slowly fades away..."
The trembling song drifted through the air.
Brook listened, and his expression grew heavy with sorrow.
"Shirogai, let's go. Let's leave this place, alright?"
Shirogai smiled faintly and placed a hand on Brook.
"I hope you do not regret it."
In an instant, the power of the Teleportation Fruit activated. The two vanished, crossing thousands of miles in a blink.
...
Labu, unable to find Brook anywhere, sat on a small hill, sobbing as she stared at the distant sea.
"Oink, oink..."
The pink pig beside her rubbed gently against her, its eyes filled with concern.
Labu hugged the pig tightly, burying her face into its body as her voice trembled.
"Fatty... I lost Papa."
"Oink..."
Fatty nudged her softly.
"I feel like..."
Her voice broke.
"...I have become an unwanted orphan again."
The same hollow pain returned, just like when her mother passed away in the hospital. The vast world felt empty, and no one seemed to care.
The string holding her world together had snapped once more.
Leaving her drifting, helpless.
"Hehe..."
Before Fatty could comfort her, a man's voice sounded beside her.
"The scenery here is quite beautiful, is it not, little one?"
"Oink! Oink!"
Fatty immediately stood in front of Labu, staring warily at the unfamiliar man.
Labu slowly raised her tear-filled eyes.
The man before her was a stranger. A young man with short black hair, crescent-shaped eyes, and a gentle smile. He wore white, his presence calm and unfathomable.
What unsettled her the most was that she could not sense anything from him.
No kindness, no malice, not even indifference.
Her Observation Haki could not read him at all.
He stood there like the ocean itself, deep and immeasurable.
Labu looked at him for a moment, then turned away. Without a word, she began walking off into the distance.
Running away was how she survived.
Danger was something she could not fight.
But she could run.
For a while, she had not needed to. She had her skeleton Papa.
"Little Labu..."
The man turned his head slightly, his smile unchanged.
"Do you want to know where Brook is?"
Labu froze mid-step.
"So it was you!"
She spun around and rushed at him, her small fists striking wildly as tears streamed down her face.
"Bad guy! Give Brook Papa back to me! Give him back!"
"Oink! Oink!"
Fatty charged forward as well, biting down on Shirogai's leg with determination.
Shirogai chuckled softly.
"Quite lively, both of you."
Their desperate attacks held no threat to him. When the gap in strength was this vast, even resistance could appear harmless.
He caught Labu's fist with ease, then reached down and lifted Fatty by the scruff of its neck.
"We are leaving now. It is time for you to see that lonely skeleton who cannot escape his guilt."
In the blink of an eye, space distorted.
They vanished.
...
"Let go! Let go!"
Labu struggled in Shirogai's grip, shouting angrily.
"Bad guy, you are going to..."
Her voice suddenly stopped.
A familiar voice echoed through the air.
"Yohohoho... yohohoho... Bink's Sake, I will bring it to you..."
Her body trembled.
"It is Brook Papa! It is Brook Papa!"
She broke free instantly and ran toward the sound without hesitation.
Fatty tried to follow, but a hand caught it mid-charge, lifting it helplessly into the air.
"Oink!"
Shirogai held the pig calmly, watching Labu run ahead.
"You should give them some space. A reunion like this does not need an audience."
He glanced at Fatty, his eyes narrowing slightly in thought.
"Hmm... excellent quality. This would make a fine roasted suckling pig."
Fatty froze in pure horror.
(Omega level fear)
Its entire body went stiff.
It had just realized something terrifying.
It might become dinner.
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