Zou Island, Mokomo Dukedom
Claw City…
The short monkey-mink youth Wegeta and the little cat-mink girl Darcy led Robin through the streets. Meanwhile, B., who seemed to have thought of something, stopped beside Robin, reached into the mouth of the green Den Den Mushi resting inside her bag, and rummaged around.
Wegeta watched in amazement as a black iron rod entwined with gilded patterns suddenly floated out of Jolyne Cujoh's bag.
How was such a long staff hidden inside that little bag?
Darcy was especially curious.
B. took the golden-black iron rod out from the "Den Den Mushi Castle," weighed it in his hand, and with a faint glow flickering in his narrow eyes, looked toward a distant direction.
Then he gripped the iron rod and hurled it with all his strength…
Whoosh!
...
Left Belly Forest…
Whoosh, whoosh!
A giant yellow cat over five meters tall darted rapidly through the forest, leaping and weaving between the trees.
Above his head was another figure moving just as swiftly, rising and falling through the air with repeated tap tap sounds under his feet.
A technique that allows flight?
As Nekomamushi ran, he observed the pirate called Giorno and couldn't help grinning.
As expected of someone worth 400 million Belly, a genuine expert.
So minks really are agile...
While walking through the air, Liam also observed the figure below.
I wonder what exactly their Lightning Strike techniques are like...
Soon, with a sharp tap beneath his foot, he kicked off in midair, flipped several times, and landed with a bang in the clearing ahead of Nekomamushi.
"This should be a good enough place."
Liam stood in the dusty forest clearing, hands in his pockets, looking up.
Perched on a treetop was Nekomamushi's imposing figure.
With his pipe clenched in his mouth, he pulled out a weapon resembling a harpoon and grinned.
"Yeah, now we can really let loose... But aren't you using a weapon?"
"Ah, I guess I forgot to bring one."
So that's what I forgot, Liam thought.
Nekomamushi gripped the harpoon from atop the tree.
"Even so, I'm not going to throw away my blade just because you're unarmed."
Blade?
That's clearly a harpoon!
Liam suddenly lifted his gaze and looked at the sky behind Nekomamushi.
Nekomamushi immediately turned around.
What?
Under the pale moonlight, a thin line shot over from the distance.
Bang!
The object brushed past him and slammed heavily into the ground in front of Giorno.
As the dust settled, it was revealed to be the gilded iron rod, embedded diagonally into the ground, that is, into Zou's hard skin.
There was no need to worry about Zou feeling pain or being startled.
Compared to Zou's immense body, the depth that this iron rod had pierced was probably not even enough to scratch its outer skin.
Liam pulled the golden iron rod from the ground, rested it on his shoulder, and looked up with a smile.
"Now I have a weapon."
"Heh... You really are a strange one..." Nekomamushi laughed loudly around his pipe and leaped down, thrusting his harpoon straight at Giorno below.
Liam swung the iron rod to meet it.
Bang!!
...
Claw City,
Just as ordinary animals are divided into daytime and nocturnal creatures, the residents of this mink city were similarly split into those active during the day and those, like the ones currently strolling through the streets, who were more accustomed to nighttime life.
The moonlight overhead gradually faded, and dawn was approaching.
The nocturnal mink residents on the streets were already beginning to yawn from time to time.
"Garuchu!"
"Garuchu..."
"Garuchu~~"
Since they were being guided by Wegeta, captain of the Heroic Travelers, the mink residents they encountered along the way were all quite friendly toward Robin, this unfamiliar human face.
Most simply looked at her curiously, while some enthusiastically greeted her with phrases Robin didn't quite understand.
The different race and unfamiliar culture fascinated Robin from a research perspective.
However, something did puzzle her a little.
The urban architecture she had seen along the way...
It looked very much like a style known as Amatsuki architecture.
As for which nation or civilization this architectural style had originally come from, that was no longer something history could determine.
But that didn't necessarily mean the style originated from the mink race either.
At least according to the historical records Robin had studied, the history of Amatsuki architecture far predated the roughly one-thousand-year history of the mink race.
If not for the streets being full of minks right before her eyes, Robin would have assumed she had simply arrived in an ordinary human kingdom.
"Darcy!!"
A couple rushed over from the roadside and hugged the cat girl tightly.
"Thank goodness..."
Robin stared blankly.
Because this couple, who appeared to be Darcy's parents, consisted of a father with a dog's head and a mother with... a squirrel's head.
How exactly did they produce a cat girl?
Robin fell into deep thought...
After hearing her confusion, Wegeta rolled his eyes and said irritably, "We're minks, not actual animals! Whether cat-type, dog-type, or monkey-type, we're all members of the same race!"
That was true...
Robin pondered, and an image appeared in her mind: a cat girl falling in love with a dog young man, only to be forced apart because of the enormous differences between them...
If that were the case, it would be rather tragic.
"But still..." Robin looked at the cat girl nestled in the arms of her dog father and squirrel mother and said seriously, "She still appears to be an ordinary cat-type mink..."
Darcy's parents wiped the corners of their eyes and explained with smiles:
"We minks are different from you humans. We have two kinds of belonging. Family is one, naturally. But there's another as well, our 'tribe.' Darcy is our child, but at the same time she is also a member of the cat tribe. Meanwhile, we ourselves belong to the dog tribe and squirrel tribe respectively..."
Wegeta added, "It's said that within our bloodline lies the inheritance of every type of mink. So it isn't strange at all for a couple to give birth to any kind of mink."
"I see..." Robin nodded in understanding.
"But Darcy was willing to jump into the sea just to eat fish, yet now says she can't eat fish anymore... Why exactly is that?"
Darcy replied oddly, "Because after I turned into a fish, I can understand what fish are saying now... So how am I supposed to eat them anymore?"
Fish were hairless and normally part of the mink race's diet.
But once you could communicate with them, eating them afterward really would feel bizarre.
Robin asked in surprise, "Can Zoan Devil Fruit users understand the language of animals of the same kind?"
This was also the first time B. had heard of such a thing.
Robin knew Liam never used Zoan Fruits.
That was different from how he always claimed to have no interest in Devil Fruits, yet still didn't mind trying novel Devil Fruit abilities.
Zoan abilities, on the other hand, were something he genuinely never touched.
As for Zoan users they had spent long periods around...
After thinking for a moment, neither of them could recall whether the three Hancock sisters had ever mentioned being able to communicate with their snakes.
Then again, those sisters were already so familiar with the snakes they had raised since childhood that they practically seemed able to communicate even without Snake-type powers, so they weren't exactly a useful point of reference.
"I already told you, that's just your own delusion," Wegeta said irritably. "You're only a Fish-Fish Fruit user, not an actual Fish-Man. How could you possibly communicate with fish?"
Darcy stuck out her tongue at him.
"If you insist on believing that, then don't blame anyone else for the fact you can't eat fish anymore," Wegeta said. "And stop trying to jump into any body of water or ocean the moment you see one..."
Darcy made a miserable face.
"But I really wanna eat fish! Waaaah! As a cat, I haven't eaten fish for years now... Waaaaaahhh..."
At first the cat girl had only looked a little sad, but the more she cried, the sadder she became, until she broke into full-on wailing.
Robin smiled.
"If we removed your Fish-Fish Fruit, would that mean you could eat fish again?"
"Wah... Huh?" Darcy blinked through teary eyes, sniffling. "Really?"
Wegeta suddenly recalled a rumor he had once read in newspapers while following Boss Nekomamushi, about this **JoJo Pirates** crew...
B. crouched in front of Darcy.
His left hand, covered in blue flame-like patterns, directly reached into her chest and pulled out a triangular chip engraved with countless fish-like swirl patterns.
...
**Left Belly Forest, **
From within the forest came a constant stream of booming sounds,
Bang! Bang! Rumble...!
Flashes of brilliant light flickered amid the sounds.
That was electricity.
"Take this!"
Nekomamushi's harpoon clashed against Liam's gilded iron rod.
He grinned, and the fluffy tail behind him, wrapped in crackling lightning, whipped toward Liam.
Crackle crackle crackle!!
Liam deliberately chose not to dodge.
Nor did he use **Busoshoku Haki (Armament Haki)** to defend.
He took Nekomamushi's electrified tail head-on.
Thunderlight surged across his entire body, shocking him thoroughly.
Steam rose from Liam's body as he exhaled a puff of hot air from his mouth.
"Hah..."
"Not over yet!" Nekomamushi kicked off the ground.
His massive, fluffy tail, now like a lightning whip, lashed toward Liam again and again in a violent storm of strikes, like a raging tempest.
(End Of This Chapter)
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