Earlier.
Seeing how lively the scene had become, Law did not linger for long and turned back toward his submarine.
He also handed Cain a Den Den Mushi.
If anything abnormal happened, Cain only needed to contact him, and he would come over.
At this moment, Luffy and the others were sitting together, quietly listening as Jinbei and Koala spoke about how the two of them had met.
As for those events from the past, Koala, now a member of the Revolutionary Army, no longer had any hesitation.
She spoke calmly and honestly.
She had once been a slave of the Celestial Dragons. It was the fish-man Fisher Tiger who climbed the Red Line and rescued her from Mary Geoise.
After that, she was entrusted to the Sun Pirates that Tiger had formed, which was how she met Jinbe.
Later, she parted ways with them and eventually joined the Revolutionary Army.
She explained each part clearly, one by one.
Luffy looked at Hancock, then at Koala.
Seeing that neither of them looked strange, he lowered his head again and continued focusing on eating meat.
There were some things he understood in his heart. Since the other person did not bring them up first, he would not ask.
Hancock looked at Koala speaking and laughing freely.
Her face still carried her usual arrogance, but there was a trace of recognition in her eyes that had never been there before, along with a faint, almost imperceptible longing.
After all, they shared the same past.
Koala could speak about it calmly, while Hancock still could not face those memories directly.
However, when Hancock turned to look at Luffy, who was devouring food beside her, her cheeks quietly flushed.
No one knew what she had thought of.
…
On the other side, Cain stood shoulder to shoulder with Katakuri, talking about the Charlotte Family.
"Brothers and sisters? Our family does indeed have many members. If we went through them one by one, I'm afraid there wouldn't be enough time to name them one by one," Katakuri said.
"Then let's start with those younger than me," Cain replied. "After all, I already have Luffy as a younger brother, and he really doesn't make anyone's life easy. It would be nice to have a younger sister."
Cain did not mean anything else by it.
He simply wanted Katakuri to get to Pudding as quickly as possible so Pudding could resolve the issue with Uta.
After all, once they reached Totto Land, he could not exactly open his mouth and immediately say he wanted to find Pudding.
Katakuri nodded when he heard that.
Since Cain had already agreed to return to Totto Land with him, Katakuri shared what he knew.
"A younger sister, huh? In that case, the only one close enough to your age to have common topics with you would probably be Pudding. She's only three years younger than you."
"Flampe is even younger, but her personality is far too willful."
"Oh, right. Pudding is the user of the Memory-Memory Fruit. Even fragmented memories from infancy are something she can see."
"When the time comes, I can take you to her. Then we should be able to find out when exactly you were lost."
After listening, Cain inwardly shouted, 'Well, damn!'
He had not even said much yet, and Katakuri had directly exposed the key information on his own.
This saved Cain quite a bit of effort.
Still, now that he thought about it, there did seem to be a vague, blurry period in his memories from infancy.
Could even those things be seen?
Seeing Cain fall silent, Katakuri assumed he was thinking about the bounty poster.
After all, when he first arrived, Cain had been holding one.
So Katakuri continued, "You don't need to mind me. Although your bounty is much higher than mine, with your performance on the battlefield and your courage in risking everything for your brother, our younger brothers and sisters will surely be very happy to meet you."
"Ahaha. After all, to save Ace, I spent quite a long time training under the Dark King!"
Cain laughed as he responded.
Although he said that aloud, his heart was full of guilt.
Katakuri was sincerely treating him as a younger brother, yet Cain was only thinking about how to use him to help resolve Uta's problem.
Was that not using him?
If Katakuri knew those thoughts, he would surely say that family was supposed to help one another, and that this did not count as using him at all.
At this moment, Cain had already begun thinking about how to repay Katakuri.
Right.
He would make him a doughnut ten times the normal size.
The problem was that Cain only knew how to cook ordinary food. When it came to desserts, he knew absolutely nothing.
He looked at everyone present, then at Sabo, and immediately thought of Ivankov.
There were plenty of okama chefs on his island.
No, forget it.
Luffy?
Forget it, forget it. He only knew how to eat!
Did Cain not know any dessert chefs?
…
As everyone was talking, a sharp sound suddenly cut through the air.
It was the clean sound of a blade slicing through trees, grass, and stone.
Sabo, who had been constantly sensing the island's movements, reacted first.
With a casual motion, he sent two bolts of lightning crashing into the distance. Immediately after him came Katakuri and Cain.
Almost in the blink of an eye, several thorny vines burst from the ground and twined toward everyone.
Katakuri instantly raised a mochi wall coated in Armament Haki around the group.
Cain shouted, "GET DOWN!" while swinging his weapon.
He collided hard with a deep crimson slash and forcefully knocked it back.
"Divine Departure?! Who's using that move?"
Cain turned his head sharply, and the others recovered from their evasive movements as well.
A pitch-black figure holding a long sword slowly walked toward them.
"RAYLEIGH!"
Seeing the newcomer, Luffy instinctively shouted.
Cain, however, was deeply confused.
The Divine Departure just now had no Conqueror's Haki coating at all, and its power was far weaker than what he remembered.
More importantly, that slash had not come from the "Rayleigh" standing in front of them.
Cain immediately denied it to Luffy.
"No, it isn't him. This guy…"
"CAIN!" Sabo shouted urgently.
Cain nodded.
"I know. There's more than one…"
As the figure slowly walked out, a group of people followed behind him.
Cain recognized them at a glance and blurted out, "The Roger Pirates!"
Then he immediately denied it.
"No. They're fakes…"
The reason was simple.
Their art style was completely wrong!
Combining the thorny vines that had suddenly erupted from the ground with these strange counterfeit figures in front of them, Cain instantly understood who the attackers were.
He immediately rushed to Uta's side and shielded her tightly.
He did not believe a mere artificial Devil Fruit would be enough to alarm "them."
If "they" had really made a move, then they had to be here for someone.
And that person could only be Uta, the daughter of Shanks.
Sabo and Koala, Luffy and Hancock, Jinbe and Katakuri, all sensed that something was wrong and had already prepared for battle.
Those fake Roger Pirates charged toward them.
But they did not attack.
Instead, they pushed Luffy and the others apart, forcing them in different directions. At the same time, countless thorny vines split the battlefield in the blink of an eye.
Cain stared solemnly at the "Roger" in front of him.
This thing's aura was far too weak.
And it was not the real enemy.
The real enemy was…
Cain raised his head, his gaze turning grave as he looked above the thorny vines.
Standing there was a small dragon-like man wearing a strange hood.
In front of Cain, behind "Roger," an old man with a cross-shaped beard slowly walked out.
The old man spoke toward the little dragon-man.
"Kihahaha! So it was blocked! Hey, don't use me as your test subject, Killingham!"
The little dragon-man called Killingham then answered,
"I didn't expect this many people to be here either. My Nightmare Den needs some reference points for imagination. Since your impression of them is so deep, this power can be considered a decent combat force on our side!"
The ones who had arrived were the elites of the Celestial Dragons—
Saint Killingham and Saint Somers of the God's Knights!