The sky was gradually darkening, dusk giving way to night.
"Hey, hey, is this really okay? You're coughing up blood here!" Cain asked quickly as he looked at the huge bump on Yamato's head and the blood at the corner of her mouth.
"It's fine, it's fine. I'm used to injuries like this already."
Yamato wiped the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand and coughed a few times.
The bleeding stopped almost immediately.
"Cough, cough… yeah, it's fine now. Compared to the hits I've taken from Kaido, this is nothing."
'Seriously, Mythical Zoan users are all insane tanks,' Cain thought to himself.
"You're Cain, right? Ace told me about you," Yamato suddenly said.
"So you're the one who sent me that message back then. That's amazing. Wano was completely closed off, and you still managed to get the information in."
"Yeah, I heard about you from Ace too." Cain nodded. "As for that letter, I did use a few tricks, but honestly, I wasn't completely sure it would reach you. Since you're here, though, I guess it worked."
"Um, there's something I want to ask…"
Yamato's face suddenly flushed a little red.
She poked at the hem of her clothes with one finger and spoke in a much quieter voice.
"How… did Ace describe me?"
Cain blanked for a second.
'Hold on. Weren't you supposed to be the second coming of Kozuki Oden? What's with this shy expression all of a sudden?'
After thinking it over, he answered anyway.
"You're his closest friend. Ace said… he believed that one day, out on the sea, the two of you would definitely meet again."
"And thank you, he told me you were the one who made his Vivre Card."
Without that, they would never have been able to tell what condition Ace was in at a time like this.
"You mean this?" Yamato smiled and pulled out her own piece of Ace's Vivre Card.
She gently rubbed it between her fingers, remembering the promise she and Ace had once made, and murmured softly.
"Even if the timing is wrong, even if the place is wrong, I really have gone out to sea now. I will meet you again. I will save you, Ace."
The moment she finished, Yamato suddenly shook her head and pulled herself together, then looked apologetic.
"Ah, sorry. I got a little too absorbed in looking at it. Huh?! You actually fell asleep!!"
"Ah, I'm really sorry! It's a family condition. I just randomly doze off without meaning to."
Cain, startled awake by Yamato's voice, rubbed his head and hurriedly apologized.
"Ace had that happen before too," Yamato said with a laugh at Cain's embarrassed expression. "At the time, I seriously thought he'd dropped dead."
"But speaking of that…" Yamato suddenly lost her smile, leaned closer to Cain, and asked in a lowered voice, "If both you and Ace have that weird habit, then why doesn't your brother Katakuri have it at all?"
As she spoke, she glanced curiously toward Katakuri, who was standing near the bow and looking out at the sea.
Cain froze for a moment, not knowing what to say.
How exactly was he supposed to explain that?
After all, that sort of thing came from the Monkey family line…
No, that wasn't right.
Cain himself still wasn't one hundred percent sure he was really related to Big Mom at all.
And besides, when he'd asked Katakuri for help this time, he had basically taken advantage of the way Katakuri cared about his younger siblings.
That thought made Cain feel even more guilty.
Which was why, after greeting Katakuri when they first met, Cain had barely spoken another word to him since.
It really was incredibly rude.
Just as Cain was still inwardly beating himself up over it, he turned his head and saw that Katakuri had already gone into the cabin.
Not long after, he came back out carrying warm milk and several sweets, then silently held them out to Cain and Yamato.
"Eat."
Katakuri's face was as expressionless as ever, but Cain clearly caught the fleeting gentleness in his eyes—the sort of softness only an older brother would show.
The guilt and awkwardness in Cain's chest deepened even further.
All he could do was silently mutter sorry in his heart.
He lowered his head, accepted the milk and sweets, and started eating in small bites.
Meanwhile, Katakuri stood off to the side, watching Cain quietly, carefully observing every little movement he made, while his thoughts kept returning to what he had just heard at the bow.
…
"Katakuri-nii-san, Katakuri-nii-san, something's wrong. Very wrong!"
A hurried voice suddenly spoke up beside Katakuri.
It was the enormous face on the ship itself—a Homie—communicating with him.
This was the power of Big Mom's Soul-Soul Fruit.
By extracting souls from others and placing them into inanimate objects, she gave them life and intelligence. Those creations were called Homies.
If the spirit of the Merry had been born from the crew's cherished memories and their bond with the ship, then the Queen Mama Chanter's spirit had been artificially created directly by Big Mom herself, allowing it to communicate with people.
"What is it, Chanter?" Katakuri asked in a low voice.
"Scary, scary!" the Queen Mama Chanter said in obvious fear.
Katakuri tried to reassure it.
"Is it because of Cain's Conqueror's Haki from earlier? Don't worry. He's one of us."
"No, no! Not the Conqueror's Haki! It's his actual presence—the feeling he gives off is practically the same as Mama's!"
Katakuri's pupils contracted sharply, and a storm rose in his heart.
The Queen Mama Chanter hurried on:
"The moment he stepped on board, it felt just like Mama herself had come in person. The aura is the same, but a little different too. Anyway, it's terrifying, terrifying!"
This was a perception on the level of the soul itself.
Because Homies were created from Big Mom's own soul, they were naturally extremely sensitive to her presence.
And since all Homies were absolutely loyal to Big Mom, there was no chance the Queen Mama Chanter would lie to Katakuri, Big Mom's own son, about something like this.
That could only mean Cain truly carried an aura extremely close to Big Mom's, enough to make the Homie instinctively feel awe and fear.
Katakuri didn't care in the least why he himself apparently didn't give off the same feeling the Chanter described.
At this point, there was no doubt left.
Cain was one hundred percent his real younger brother.
…
Thinking back on what the Queen Mama Chanter had just said, and on the guilty, evasive look in Cain's eyes earlier, the usually severe line of Katakuri's mouth unconsciously lifted into the faintest smile.
His eyes softened with relief and warmth.
Meanwhile, Cain, who was still eating his sweets with his head lowered, suddenly felt a strange chill run down his back and shivered.
…
Seven days remained until Ace's execution.
Newspapers swept across the seas, and the news that Fire Fist Ace of the Whitebeard Pirates would be publicly executed spread throughout the entire world in an instant.
This war had always been the Navy's final great operation to wipe out Whitebeard.
And as a pirate recognized by the World Government, Warlord of the Sea Doflamingo had naturally received a summons from the Navy as well.
He was ordered to go to Marineford and help resist the Whitebeard Pirates' assault.
Even if he didn't actually fight, at the very least he was supposed to stand there and make the Navy look stronger.
"Fufufufu… tell them I'm not going."
Faced with the Navy's Den Den Mushi transmission, Doflamingo looked thoroughly disdainful and rejected the order on the spot.
"My injuries haven't healed yet, and they still want me to fight? I'm busy."
At that moment, he was hovering over Dressrosa, looking down on the kingdom he ruled with his own hands.
In his hand was a picture of Yamato.
Though "picture" was giving it too much credit.
It was really more of a hand-drawn sketch.
Wano had been isolated for so many years that photography wasn't even a thing there.
His excuse about being too injured to move was pure nonsense.
The real reason he was so irritated was because he still had absolutely no leads on the task Kaido had given him:
Finding Kaido's "son" somewhere on the open sea.
As if that were easy.
It wasn't like the person would just deliver himself to him.
But the very next second, Doflamingo's gaze shifted toward a commotion in the streets below.
A figure in white was sprinting through the city with bread clenched in her mouth, chased by a crowd of furious civilians.
It was Yamato.
Doflamingo's eyes narrowed, and he let out a dark chuckle.
"Fufufufu… so that brat I've been looking for actually delivered himself right to my doorstep."
Having already suffered badly at Cain's hands once before, Doflamingo had absolutely no intention of taking this lightly.
He knew Yamato was Kaido's child, which meant the strength involved would be no joke.
He would have to go all out. He could not afford to underestimate this one.
The thought had barely formed when he shot downward like an arrow and appeared directly in Yamato's path.
The instant his feet touched the ground, he activated his awakened Devil Fruit power.
The surrounding buildings and streets turned into countless sharp strings that shot toward Yamato from every direction.
At the same time, he unleashed his Conqueror's Haki without restraint, flooding the area with overwhelming pressure in an attempt to suppress her outright.
But in the very next moment, Doflamingo was utterly stunned.
His body flew backward out of control as a sharp pain exploded through his chest.
Only one thought remained in his head: 'Wait… I lost?!'
What shocked him even more was that the instant he unleashed his Conqueror's Haki, three separate bursts of Conqueror's Haki had erupted at once—one from the "son of Kaido" in front of him, and two more from separate corners hidden within the surrounding buildings.
All three clashed and compressed together, and the one caught in the very center of that collision was Doflamingo himself.
"What the hell is going on?!"
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