Ultimate Fruit

Chapter 106: Battles at Every Corner

Above the country of Dressrosa, a strange floating island was hidden above the clouds, overlooking the whole island below.

A man stood at the edge while fiddling on a deck of cards in his hands.

Beside him, an indigo-haired woman appeared.

“You sure are sly, Kohza. To use the marines like that.”

Hearing Nojiko’s remark, Kohza just chuckled and shook his head.

“All I did was provide the information. Plus, there was no need to waste our own people to go there and control the situation. The marines are better at that. Not to mention, there’s also the Revolutionary people below as well.”

Lucas had brought with him a card from Kohza. On the card was an image of a denden mushi. However, strangely enough, the denden mushi image would move from time to time...

While on the way to face Sugar and Trebol, Lucas had briefly explained the situation to Kohza and told him what to expect.

As a result, once he noticed the situation below had changed, he had contacted Fujitora who was in battle with the Strawhats.

Not only was the pressure on the Strawhats reduced, he had also made use of an Admiral level power to control the situation in the city rather than using their own force.

It was simply hitting two birds with one stone.

Suddenly, Kohza’s had paused from shuffling his cards.

He saw with an Eye Card that he placed one of Doflamingo’s men that Doflamingo was about to make his move.

Doflamingo shot a thick string straight out to the sky, intending to create an indestructible birdcage to trap everyone in Dressrosa!

Nojiko also saw this from above but Kohza was already one step ahead and threw a card to meet the string.

She sighed and shook her head.

“Even this was within expectations. I’m starting to feel sorry for the guy.”

“Have you forgotten the kids he had Caesar drug and used as experiments?”

Nojiko rolled her eyes.

“I was being sarcastic okay?”

At this moment, the card which Kohza threw had struck Doflamingo’s strings which were about to spread into a birdcage. Suddenly, the strings which were about to spread suddenly warped and were sucked into the card!

Storage Card.

In the past, Kohza had discovered he could turn things into cards and the card would still retain it’s item’s use.

Though he can’t turn people into cards, he can turn other things.

One time, he tried to turn Blueno’s Air Door into a card out of a whim. Surprisingly, it actually worked.

Since the card had retained the ability of the item stored...Kohza had a new special card in his deck, the Storage Card.

As the name suggests, it’s a card to store anything using the ability of Blueno’s Air Door which leads to an alternate space.

This meant that he had basically stored Doflamingo’s strings in that alternate space and not allowing him to create the birdcage.

Kohza stared down and watched Doflamingo’s confused look from his Eye Card.

Nojiko looked down as well but couldn’t see anything from so high up. In the end, she just shrugged.

“Actually, even if the birdcage was created, with Lucas down there, Doflamingo still wouldn't be able to escape.”

“I know. But this Doflamingo reminds me of someone from back then...and it irritates me.”

In the past, Crocodile had done the same thing in Alabasta.

Frame the King from committing a terrible crime, then appear as the ‘Hero’ who saved the day. When things started to turn worse, they scheme to let the people of the country fight against each other.

When he heard from Lucas that Doflamingo might start to control the people and make them fight against each other, he was reminded of the days when he led the rebel army of Alabasta to fight against the King.

He didn’t want to see something like that happen again.

“It was my mistake. I didn’t know there was such a thing as a devil fruit ability that could turn people into toys and erase their existence from everyone’s memory. I didn’t notice how much darkness was already in this city until now…”

Kohza regretted not taking action immediately in the past.

He had grown confident in his information network and didn’t notice how much Dressrosa was suffering.

He had only known that Doflamingo was using Dressrosa as his base to smuggle weapons but in his view, the city was happy and didn’t have anything wrong with it apart from those strange life-like toys.

It wasn’t that he was ignoring Doflamingo as well. He had been keeping tabs about him and monitored him from time to time, waiting for an opportune moment to strike.

Nojiko saw Kohza blaming himself. She frowned and smack him at the back of his head.

“???”

“Stop moping! Do you think you’re a superman that’s bearing the weight of the world!? We have a job to do!”

Kohza smiled wryly and nodded.

“You’re right.”

Then, he turned around just in time to see a few people arrive.

Looking at them, he nodded.

“It’s your turn now.”

Leading the men behind him, a man wearing a black suit and top hat with a pigeon on his shoulder grinned. It was Rob Lucci.

“I’ve long heard of the CP-0 Aegis...hmph, let’s see what they’re made of.”

Beside him, Jabra chuckled while licking his lips.

“Kukukuku, it’s time to hunt!”

Finally, there was the rectangle-shaped nose, Kaku.

“Hehe, don’t worry, Kohza. We’ll get the job done. We always do.”

“I’ll leave it to you three then.”

Kohza nodded and motioned for Nojiko to help them down. However, the three had already disappeared and jumped down.

Nojiko pouted and rolled her eyes.

“Hmph, I hope they slip and fall to their deaths!”

“...”

This time, he only had Lucci, Jabra, and Kaku set out since the others were out on a separate mission.

Blueno and Kalifa are handling matters in the former Gran Tesoro ship.

Kumadori and Fukurou are currently in Wano, gathering intel.

Back down in Dressrosa, three men wearing white clothes and strange tribal masks watched the situation unfold in Dressrosa calmly.

They were none other than the CP-0 that Lucci had mentioned!

One of the men looked towards the man who appeared to be leading them.

“Seems like Doflamingo’s in trouble. Is it this Lucas that he mentioned?”

The reason why they appeared here was because Doflamingo had already reported to the World Government that Lucas was still alive.

As expected, the World Government was greatly frightened.

The Marines had taken a huge setback just defeating him along with Whitebeard...now they found out that he was still alive!?

This was the man who can stand beside Whitebeard! And he was also still so young!

Not to mention that weird ability of his that can control the Sea!

The World Government wanted to have Lucas...not to recruit him, but to take his power away from him!

As such, they took the matter seriously and sent three of their best agents from CP-0.

The man who appeared to be leading the three didn’t answer. Instead, he looked behind him and suddenly shot out a flying shigan towards a pillar behind them.

*Boom!*

Just a casual move and the pillar was blown away!

From behind the pillar, three men in black appeared in front of them.

“What a rude greeting.”

Lucci snorted and looked over at the three in white.

“You must be CP-0?”

“...You...Rob Lucci...forrmer member of Cipher Pol 9.”

“That’s right.”

The man from CP-0 fell silent for a moment before speaking again.

“A ruthless man like you, Cipher Pol can still use you.”

“I’ll have to decline. I don’t like being used anymore.”

“Then why are you here?”

“I wanted to see how good this so-called CP-0 is...!”

After saying that, Lucci no longer spoke and directly charged at the man who looked like he was leading the others.

Kaku and Jabra also fought off the other two as Jabra took the tallest one while Kaku took on the remaining one.

The one facing Kaku calmly dodged his attacks while speaking.

“Kaku, you are also a good candidate for CP-0. We do not need to fight.”

Kaku just shrugged.

“Despite how it looks like, we’re actually quite free you know? Besides, I agree with Lucci as well. I want to see what the CP-0 is made of!”

Kaku grinned and pulled his two swords, Oto and Kogarashi, which were both former swords of Shiki.

“Rankyaku Kamikaze!”

Seeing the flurry of blade waves surround him the man from CP-0 couldn’t take things casually anymore and started to get serious.

Meanwhile, Jabra had long since turned into a wolf and started his hunt.

While the Former CP-9 fought against the CP-0, Lucas had already led everyone imprisoned underneath out to the surface.

Kohza had called him already and told him things were under control at the moment.

Lucas turned to the prisoners and spoke.

“Everyone. We’ll take care of Doflamingo, you all can move about freely but don’t cause any trouble. Otherwise, I’ll find you and throw you back underground!”

Actually, Lucas can’t really be bothered about them.

The group of prisoners looked at each other, not knowing how to react.

Then, someone stepped out in front and faced Lucas.

Don Chinjao looked at Lucas for a while, then suddenly bent down. That was still fine, but when he did so, his pointy head struck the ground and made a huge crack on the ground.

“For giving my prized head back, I thank you!”

“I get it already so stop destroying the ground!”

“As thanks, we’ll go and defeat Doflamingo instead!”

“Us too! We’ll be the ones to take down Doflamingo!”

“No! It will be me!”

“I’ll defeat him! With that, I can gain popularity!”

“...”

Hearing all these people wanting to go against Doflamingo, Lucas can only smile bitterly.

I’m not even the one doing anything to Doflamingo...forget it, let them deal with him then.

Lucas wasn’t like Luffy who wanted to do it himself. Since these guys want to help, then let them help.

“Fine, fine. Go ahead and deal with him if you can.”

“OHHHHH!!!”

Everyone cheered and charged forward as they head straight to the palace.

Meanwhile, Luffy had also broken free from Doflamingo’s string ball prison and started to chase after Doflamingo.

Zoro and the others managed to find the Factory but somewhere along the line, Zoro got lost again and found himself inside the palace already.

“Huh? You...you’re that Mingo guy right? Is this the factory?”

“...”

Suddenly, a hand grabbed his foot from below.

Looking down, the castle floors had formed into a hand that held him and dragged him right outside!

“W-what the!?”

While Zoro was falling outside, he saw a large shadow loom over him. Above him, a huge mass of stone formed into a person who looked down on him.

He was Doflamingo’s top executive, Pica!

“This is as far as you go, Pirate Hunter. Roronoa Zoro.”

Zoro heard Pica’s voice and was shocked.

Soon after, he started to laugh while falling.

“Bwahahahaha! W-what’s with that high voice!? That doesn’t suit your image at all!”

“...”

Pica’s face darkened.

“RORONOA!!!”

Over the distance, Lucas saw Pica’s huge stone body and heard him shout.

Huh? Wasn’t Zoro heading towards the Factory with the others? Why is he there?

Right after he thought of that, Lucas shook his head.

Zoro probably got lost again and angered Pica by laughing at his voice…

Lucas ignored the two fighting and stretched his Observation Haki around the city.

He could see Fujitora handling the citizens and calming down any riots that are happening.

There was also Lucci, Jabra, and Kaku fighting against the CP-0 in a corner of the city.

Koala had also appeared beside Sabo and reported to him as he started to delegate tasks to the others in the Revolutionary.

Ace had found his crew and started to help out with taking down Doflamingo as well.

Overall...there was no need for him to take any action really.

“Huh...guess I don’t have anything to do…how about you, Luna?”

Lucas turned towards Luna and saw she was being carried by Olvia while hugging onto her new doll. She was fast asleep.

Olvia smiled and made a shushing gesture.

“She just fell asleep. Don’t wake her now.”

“Ah...okay…”

Lucas nodded awkwardly and tried not to think about it.

He thought for a while then decided.

“Well, since Luna is sleeping, let’s find a quiet place. The sunflower field is pretty quiet, let’s relax there for a while.”

“Sure.”

Olvia nodded and looked at Robin.

Robin smiled then shook his head.

“I’ll go help out with the others. There’s plenty of time for us to catch up later. You can look after Luna.”

“But...how about this. There’s still Rebecca here. She can watch over Luna. I want to fight along with you.”

“E-eh? Me?”

Suddenly being called, Rebecca was surprised.

Before she could react, Olvia had passed Luna in her arms and she couldn’t reject anymore.

“It’s settled then. We’ll go and help out while you stay with Luna. Don’t worry, with Lucas beside you, you’re as safe as you can be.”

After saying that, Olvia pulled Robin and walked away, leaving Lucas and Rebecca along with the sleeping Luna.

Lucas scratched his head.

“Guess it's just us then.”

“...Seems so…”

Lucas patted her shoulder and directly teleported to the sunflower field.

Rebecca was surprised by the sudden change of scenery and couldn’t help but ask.

“...How is it that you are so powerful, Lucas? You even displayed multiple abilities, unlike a normal devil fruit user…”

Hearing this question, Lucas showed a wry smile and shrugged.

“I’m unclear as to why as well. But it seems that I am capable of turning my wishes into reality...well, somewhat. There are still limits. It doesn’t seem to be a devil fruit ability at all.”

Rebecca then looked at Luna in her arms.

“Is that why Luna-chan is so powerful too?”

“Yeah...seems like she inherited my powers as well.”

Rebecca sighed.

“Such a thing...if our family had powers like yours, we wouldn’t have been defeated by the likes of Doflamingo. If my child can have such powers, I wouldn't need to worry about my country too...”

“Err…”

Lucas was surprised and awkwardly scratched his cheek.

Rebecca looked at Lucas in confusion, wondering why he looked that way.

Then, she recalled what she just said and understood.

Instantly, her face turned red.

“I-I didn’t mean it like that!”