Chapter 79

"Run!" A man screamed right before his body was flung away by a monstrous arm and crashed into a tree.

There were bodies littered all around the place, a few dead, the rest injured to various degrees, and the survivors who remained on their feet, started running towards the tall walls of Petra.

"He's a monster!" A young boy, who had just seen his older brother get killed, screamed, and his heart stopped when he stumbled on a rock and fell forward.

He frightenedly rolled onto his back, and his eyes widened in horror when he saw a small figure coming down at him from the sky, drawing his monstrous fist to burst open his head.

A few gunshots sounded out as the attacker was shot, but they failed to deter him and he continued to approach the fallen boy.

Just when another death seemed certain, a small hand blocked the monstrous fist, and then the person simply pushed away the attacker.

"Go." The young boy heard someone say, and he opened his eyes to find a tall young man looking at him with his cold grey eyes.

He immediately struggled up to his feet and then ran for his life, joining the rest of the people as they left behind the carts of fruits and the jars that were filled with nectar.

Sin blocked the powerful slash with his finger without even looking at it, and then he painfully grabbed the monstrous hand. He glanced around and then looked right into the eyes of the nine-year-old boy who had wreaked carnage here and found his rage-filled eyes glaring back at him.

A growl escaped the boy's lungs, but then his eyes quivered as a sense of dread washed over him. He instinctively tried to retreat but failed to free his arm from the young man's grip.

"What's your name?" Sin asked, but the boy, who bore a scar on his left cheek, did not answer him.

He could sense bloodthirst, rage, confusion, sorrow, and fear from the young the young boy, a mixture of emotions that made him frown. And he could tell at a glance that his mind was not in a stable state right now.

"Sleep." He lightly said after the boy started struggling even more to break free, targeting him with a powerful burst of Haki, which rattled his mind and stole away his consciousness.

The young boy fell to the ground, but his left arm, which Sin was holding onto, did not return to its original state, and it made the Captain of Blackstar Pirates narrow his eyes.

Sin crouched down as he carefully began inspecting the fur and the claws, and then the muscles on the arm as his mind ran through the list of the possible Zoan Fruits.

He glanced at the gunshot wounds on the boy's body, which were pushing out the bullets that had failed to travel deep into his hardened flesh, and he frowned some more.

The animal had to have very strong regenerative ability.

Whatever Zoan Devil Fruit the boy had eaten came with some very dangerous primal instincts and bloodthirstiness that had latched upon the destabilised state of his mind.

Sin, who knew a lot about Zoan Devil Fruits, could tell at a glance that the Fruit was likely an Ancient Zoan or a Mythical Zoan, but he was not exactly sure which Ape species it belonged to if it was the former type. And another thing that was certain was that this child had gone through some terrible trauma, where his subconscious was keeping the arm in this state to protect himself.

"What's with his arm?" Yamato frowned as she walked over and curiously looked at the sleeping boy.

"His subconscious is keeping it active. His mental state is very weak and is being overpowered by the primal instincts of the Zoan Fruit that he consumed." As soon as he said that, the two watched the arm start decreasing in size, but it did not return to its human form and remained quite large compared to the small body of the boy.

Sin saw the wounded people in the distance coming towards them, and he paid attention to their expressions and emotions.

They were horrified, scared, and hateful, and some even felt guilty and sad as they looked at the boy lying near his feet.

"What did you do to him?" He lightly asked, and quite a few of them tensed at his question.

"He killed them!" Someone angrily shouted and cried as he glanced at the body he was carrying on his shoulder, but Sin simply ignored him and looked at a young boy, who was bleeding from his life arm and looked to be around twelve years old.

"Come here." He ordered, using his Haki, and the young boy fearfully looked at him. "If you don't want to die, keep moving towards the town." He warned the rest of the group, who gulped and did as they were told.

When they got close enough and found out that the monster was still breathing, they panicked and started running towards the walls.

"What's your name?" Sin smiled at the boy whom he had ordered to approach him.

"J-uro..." He stammered.

"And what's his name?" He pointed at the sleeping boy and asked, and Juro's body started shaking in fear as he looked at the monstrous arm.

"Grount."

"He's not going to wake up," Sin told him, and his words visibly relaxed Juro. "Tell me, what did you and your party do to Grount?"

As soon as Juro heard his words, the blood drained from his face and then tears broke out.

He did not speak for a while, but then when Sin asked him again, he told everything that happened earlier today and where everything began.

Their party worked for a merchant, and every three days, they ventured out of the walls to gather Fruit and Nectar, and sins only kind could enter the natural opening in the trees that they gathered nectar from, their party consisted of several orphans.

Grount was an orphan who was brought to Petra after the ship he and his parents were on got crushed by a storm.

And since the last two weeks, he had been working with them.

The boy told them that Grount was bullied by some older boys in their Party, who used to beat him and even snatched away his earnings and food. And Yamato was horrified when she heard that Grount was even sexually abused by them.

Today, when they were collecting the nectar, they were attacked by two leopards, and as they ran for their lives after killing one, the older boys who used to bully Grount, pushed him off the cart to earn them the time to escape when the second leopard started coming after them.

"Grount then suddenly became a monster and pushed the leopard away..." The boy kept crying as he told them what happened afterwards, and the men that Grount had killed were the same ones who had abused him and had thrown him off the cart.

"Go." Sin allowed Juro to leave when the boy started promising them that he had never harmed Grount, and the young boy immediately ran towards the town.

"We are not leaving him here." Yamato made it very clear, and Sin nodded to her words.

He had already decided to take the boy with them, and he crouched down to pick up him before he started walking towards Eretzia.

Yamato threw several curious glances at the sleeping boy, and then she just focused on their surroundings, sensing the eyes that were watching them.

"They are smart." She said when no animals dared to bother them, and Sin smiled.

"Yes, their instincts are quite sharp. And so are yours." He smiled. "What Devil Fruit did you eat?"

Yamato looked at him in surprise before she happily grinned.

"I stole it from my father." She proudly told him. "Inu Inu no Mi, Model: Okuchi no Makami. I did not mean to steal it though, and I did not even know what it was. I just came across it in my father's vault and ate it because I hadn't eaten anything in a while, and my father was very upset about it. He told me he had spent a lot of time searching for it and that it was a Guardian Deity that the people of Wano believed in."

"Mythical Zoan?" He smiled as he recalled the words of a certain man. "Do you know that Mythical Zoans have their own Wills? There's always a possibility that the Devil Fruit chose you and it was not an accident."

"Who told you that?" Yamato was a little surprised at his words and curiously asked.

"Someone who possessed a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit, and he was a genius who had dedicated his life to Devil Fruit research." He sighed as some memories flashed through his mind. "Evil genius, yes, but he was undoubtedly a genius.

"What was his name?" She could guess from his words that the man was dead, so she curiously asked about his name.

"Mors." He lightly said. "His name was Black D. Mors."

"He was your family member?"

"He was my paternal uncle."

"I am sorry." Yamato mistook the hollowness in his words as his sadness, but Sin smiled when he received her condolence.

"Don't be." He said and then raised his head to look at the sky that was littered with bright stars. "All Mythical Zoans come with some special abilities. What abilities does your Devil Fruit grant you?" He curiously asked.

"Special abilities? Like controlling Ice?" She frowned and asked.

"You can control ice?" He curiously looked at her.

"Yes." She nodded before a grin crept on her face. "And I can do this."

Sin raised his brow when he heard her words in his ears but did not see her speak.

"You can talk to people without speaking?" He raised his brow and she nodded her head. "Nice." He grinned. "Anything else?"

"I can sometimes hear what people think or when they are not around but take my name in their minds, but it doesn't always work." She frowned. "I am still trying to figure that out."

"You possess telepathy and need training with it." He nodded. "You will likely unlock some more abilities upon your Devil Fruit Awakening." He told her, and the prospect of growing stronger excited her a lot.

The two kept chatting for the rest of their way as Yamato started asking him about things that he could do with his powers.