Chapter 130: Entering Beast's Nest (1)

"Holy smokes, Maynard."

Up in the sky, there was a huge mass of dark smoke that floated by. Grey in colour, it was evident that they were the indication that something, no, many things were burnt.

Said dark smoke was connected to an island that stood in the middle of the sea. Without a doubt, it was Dressrosa.

"Oi, Smoker!!"

From the body of the water near Dressrosa, Maynard waved his hand.

Smoker chuckled dryly.

"And people call me crazy."

Shaking his head, he flew down and caught Maynard by hand. Pulling up the bigger man and placing him on top of a floating smoke-cloud that he generated underneath, Smoker commented,

"...You look quite cooked."

"Haha, I suppose so!"

Maynard laughed heartily, feeling a bizarre sense of freedom that he never felt during his time in the Marine.

"Now that I managed to find my way back..."

Raising his hand at the smokes that covered Dressrosa, Smoker concentrated.

His hair flew wildly and his body glowed in grey. In correspondence, the huge volume of smoke that traveled upward began to swirl abnormally, before its colour changed to that of white.

'Transmutation: White.'

They condensed and condensed before they were no longer able to resist the pressure and burst into a huge fit of water. Pouring down Dressrosa, they collided with fire and generated steam, which Smoker caught onto and converted back into rain.

Maynard watched, flabbergasted, as this process repeated over and over until the conflagration in Dressrosa was completely subdued.

"Huff... huff... it's quite hard to get used to this."

Smoker muttered as he finally lowered his hand and the glow on his body faded.

"Maynard, let's take some rest before we go."

"Y-Yeah, sure."

"Also, let's have a meal. I'm starving as hell."

In Smoker's hand were a couple of fish. Maynard's eyes popped out in surprise,

"When did you even catch these?!"

...

"Anyway, what even is happening in the outside world?"

With fish bones scattered around, Maynard complained.

"It's been almost a month since we last read news, Smoker! As far as I remember, Revolutionary Army seemed to be readying to go to war against the World Government, and Marines were failing to keep the rising surge of pirates contained!"

"True."

Smoker sighed lightly.

"But you know what? There's no point in thinking about things that are out of our control. Just focus on the matter that's in our hands right now, which is—"

"Yeah, yeah. Kaidou, of how he ruins the lives of people and attained that Gum Gum fruit, which in secret was, uh..."

"Human Human fruit, model: Nika."

Standing up, Smoker flicked his finger. A small ball of white smoke was shot forth from said flick before it collided with the ground and generated a white smoke-cloud.

"Get on and take out that Eternal Pose to Wano."

Smoker tapped his stomach and grinned in satisfaction,

"Time to get back to work."

"I swear..."

Maynard mumbled in envy as he stepped on the cloud,

"Whatever devil fruit appears in front of me, I'm going to eat it without any hesitation."

"Even if it's a useless fruit?"

"Define useless."

"Fish Fish fruit."

"How is that useless?"

"Duh,"

Smoker smirked,

"Can a fish breathe outside the water?"

"No?"

"But then, the devil fruit user is cursed by the sea."

"...Oh!"

Maynard then laughed out loud, uncontrollably.

"Hahaha, what the fuck?! So whoever ate Fish Fish fruit will never be able to use that ability, be it on the surface or in the water?!"

"Theoretically."

"HAHAHAHA!"

"I'm pretty sure that Kaidou's devil fruit is Fish Fish fruit though."

"...Eh?"

Talking about trivial topics, the cloud flew out of Dressrosa at a rapid speed. Maynard, while expressing his impression of the speed at which they traveled, ensured that they were going in the right direction by repeatedly looking at the needle in the Eternal Pose to Wano.

BANG!

Then, a noise of gunfire, along with the sudden bullet that went past Smoker's side, interrupted the peace.

"Haa?!"

Maynard cried in annoyance and Smoker simply gazed down.

"...Marines?"

Smoker squinted his eyes as a marine warship entered his eyes. Then, he raised his hand to catch a bullet with his fingers.

"No Haki."

"...How are they able to shoot from this distance? Just how good must their eyes be for them to..."

Maynard, amid his speech, paused. He then muttered,

"...Doll?"

"Doll, you said?"

Smoker raised his eyebrow and Maynard nodded.

"I guess you don't know as much since you trained under Garp-san. In our group who received training from Zephyr-sensei, Doll was the best sharpshooter. I never knew her skill would get this good though."

Shrugging, Smoker dropped the bullet that he was holding and casually flicked his hand, deflecting another bullet that came his way.

Impassively, Smoker lowered the altitude at which they were travelling and directly approached the marine warship. The pace at which the bullets were being fired got faster, but Smoker, and even Maynard, weren't having a hard time dealing with them.

After all, there was no Haki infused in those bullets.

"Heya, Smoker, Maynard!!"

And as they finally got to see the faces on the ship, Smoker and Maynard found one short-haired woman, Doll, waving her hands at them as she grinned.

"It's been a fucking 4 years since!! How come you didn't even visit me once, huh?!"

"Thhhhaaaaannnnnnk you for such a warm welcome, Doll."

Smoker rolled his eyes as he made a sarcastic comment. But nonetheless, discarding his mask, Smoker grinned as he and Maynard landed on the ship.

"Still serving in G-14?"

Doll held her fist out, to which Smoker casually met it with his.

"Heh, I'm the commander now!"

"W-White Hunter Smoker...?"

"And Maynard who recently defected..."

"V-Vice Admiral Doll...?"

Maynard looked around the marines who seemed confused and frightened by the sudden appearances of Smoker and Maynard.

"Anyway, what are you doing here even? Pretty sure this area isn't under G-14's charge."

"Well..."

Doll then dropped a bomb.

"You see, Dr.Vegapunk disappeared from my area. And I find it highly likely that it was the doing of Kaidou."

""...What?""

Smoker and Maynard blinked, wondering if they heard it wrong.

"So..."

Maynard muttered,

"Kaidou not only kidnapped, uh, Tontatta tribe from Dressrosa, but also kidnapped Dr.Vegapunk?"

Smoker added on,

"Don't forget about him snatching Gum Gum fruit from World Government's ship."

"...What?"

""Huh?""

"Huh?"

And this time around, it was Doll's time to be dumbfounded.

__________

BOOM!

"K-Kaidou-san, you're back!"

Dropping from the sky, Kaidou revealed himself from the cracks on the ground.

With a deep frown on his face, he roared,

"ASSEMBLE ALL THE ALL-STARS AND TOBIROPPOS!!"

After his battle against Smoker paused, Kaidou had some time to cool down his head.

Regardless of whether his fight was enjoyable or not, it was for a fact that he lost high number of troops at the hands of Smoker.

Smoker's hostility, as well as his vow to kill Kaidou, remained as the truth. Kaidou knew that this was just the beginning; even if he weren't to chase after Smoker's whereabouts, Smoker himself would come after him.

"One Piece... Joy Boy...!"

After some time passed, Kaidou was found to be seated on his throne-like seat that matched his gigantic size. In his palm was a purple devil fruit, Gum Gum fruit.

"Joy Boy is the one who awakened the power of Gum Gum fruit! This means that if I can have one of my underlings become Joy Boy... won't this mean that I stand closest to One Piece?"

Talking to himself, Kaidou grinned.

"And the one who will eat this fruit..."

Kaidou placed the fruit back in a chest next to him, before calling one geisha who was playing shamisen.

"You there!!"

"Y-Yes...?"

"Bring Yamato!!"

"U-Uh..."

When said geisha seemed troubled, one lean and tall man with thick make-up on his face made an entrance with a sly smile on him.

"You must be gentle with women you know, Kaidou-san~"

Turning to said man, Kaidou grinned.

"Euchre."

"I hope that we are not late, Kaidou-dono."

One by one, Tobiroppos entered. Amounting to five in total after Hibiki's death in Dressrosa, were now standing in front of Kaidou with pirate-like vibes in them.

"And there, I went boom, bang! Then, that guy was like ouch, and—"

The muscular and bald man who has a scar on his closed right eye was 'Iron Armour' Whist. He seemed to be talking endlessly about his past feats, one that others seemed annoyed to hear.

"Shut up for one second, Whist!"

Roaring at Whist was 'Weightless' Gong Zhu, a short and scrawny man of old age, whose hands were supporting his hunched back. He, with three strands of hair remaining atop his bald head, currently his face red from his anger at Whist.

"Ohoho, aren't you two a little bit too excited?"

The man of thick make-up, Euchre of the 'Duality', laughed in a feminine manner.

"...As Euchre said, we should calm down. We're here because Kaidou-dono called us, no?"

Another man with long black hair and samurai-like armour on him stated with his eyes closed and arms crossed. He was 'Thousand Blades' Canasta.

"..."

Finally, a sharp-looking green-haired man, taller than all the other Tobiroppos, stood still with his hands in his pocket. He was Pinochle the 'Predator'.

"Hmm..."

Rubbing his chin, Canasta then pointed it out,

"Are the All-Star-donos not here yet? As the highest-ranked officers, they should be setting an example—"

"Aw, cut the crap with your samurai-shit, Canasta!"

Then entered the gigantic man with obese body, Queen. He, while adjusting the sunglasses that he wore, snorted before stopping in front of Kaidou.

"Moooooooaaaaaaaaaaa."

Just after, along with the strange noise, the room began to shake. Eventually, a man whose size was even greater than Kaidou entered the room. He, whose eyes seemed to be staring at the thin air, was more obese than muscular, but somehow, was able to support his tremendous weight with his equally thick legs.

"Fooooooooooooooood."

Tobiroppos, upon facing the might of an All-Star, fell silent.

"...I don't like that guy."

Snorting Queen turned his face the other way.

This gigantic man was Jack the 'Famine', one whom no one would believe to be a human.

"So everyone is here, it seems!!"

Kaidou finally opened his mouth with a grin. Confused, Whist raised his hand,

"Err, King isn't here though? I mean, maybe he's dead, which would then make sense, since you called us, uh, so King died and we fight to decide who's going to be the next All-Star, and—"

"Shut up!!"

Snarling, Gong Zhu cut Whist's words.

Kaidou chuckled as he leaned his cheek onto his hand.

"He's already here."

Queen snorted and Jack simply stared blankly. Behind Tobiroppos, at the entrance to the room, there stood King, whose back was leaned to the wall.

He, with mask still covering his facial appearance, spoke,

"...I was here from the very start, weaklings."

"Now then!"

Kaidou began speaking,

"I called you today for the preparation of a war... one that will rise very soon, here in Onigashima!"

"A war?!"

As Whist loudly exclaimed, Kaidou's eyes narrowed, recalling his fight against Smoker.

"'White Hunter' Smoker... he will soon arrive with his allies. Their goal is to free Wano and other countries from our grasp."

"..."

King frowned as he remembered the feats that Smoker showcased in Dressrosa.

"To proceed our plan of attaining One Piece... traps, schemes, and whatever they may be, we must use all we have to kill them with minimal damage on our side. After all, after White Hunter comes the Pirate Alliance followed by Linlin."

Kaidou then looked at Queen and asked,

"Queen!! How much have you proceeded with the enhanced warrior project?!"

"Heh, I was waiting for you to say that!"

Queen rubbed his hands together as he smiled darkly.

"Though its completion will take some time, I've completed the prototype! By extracting the specific genetic information from Tontatta tribe and inserting them into our members, they were able to attain a strength at least a tenfold of their original strength—just as how Tontattas have an extreme strength relative to their size!"

"Uh,"

Whist commented,

"Yeah, I didn't understand a single thing of what you said."

"Fooooooooooooooood."

"Worororo... perfect."

Kaidou grinned.

"How many enhanced 'Gifters' do we have so far?"

"Around thirty!"

"WORORORO!!"

Kaidou seemed delighted by the news, laughing boisterously.

"Now then... the only thing that's left to do... is to have Yamato eat this Gum Gum fruit—"

"K-Kaidou-san!!"

Then entered, one goon whose face was pale. Kaidou's grin faltered and he raised an eyebrow, wondering what was wrong.

"P-Prince Yamato, h-he..."

"...What did Yamato do this time?"

"He broke into the storage and ate a devil fruit!"

"...WHAT?!!"

Kaidou exploded in a rage. His body shook and his eyes gleamed in red, unable to remain calm after what he just heard.

Nevertheless, he took in a deep breath. Breathing in and out a few times, he finally asked in a growl,

"...Which fruit did he eat."

"I-It's..."

The goon gulped.

"Dog Dog fruit, model: Okucho-no-Makami!"

And that day, the top-most room of Onigashima collapsed, again.

"YAMATO!!!"

__________

"...Just how close is Kaidou to One Piece?"

After matching pieces of information, Maynard groaned as he massaged his temple.

"Damn."

Doll hummed,

"I didn't expect the situation to be this bad. I mean, the disappearance of Dr.Vegapunk is concerning by itself, but now..."

Watching as his two friends grimaced, Smoker let out a confident grin.

"What's the point of worrying? Isn't the solution to all those problems simple?"

Looking at the front, Smoker's eyes found the wild waterfall that crashing down from high above.

"Destroy Kaidou and his Beast Pirates. That's all we need to do."