As one of the Nine Red Scabbards under the "invincible" Kozuki Oden, Nekomamushi was naturally no weakling.
But saying he was overwhelmingly powerful? That would be an exaggeration.
Back in the Zou Island arc of the manga, he and Inuarashi had taken turns fighting day and night against Kaido's Three Disasters subordinate, "Drought" Jack, yet even after several days and nights of continuous battle, they still failed to defeat him.
At the very least, during this fight against the pirate Giorno Giovanna, Nekomamushi quickly realized just how unfathomably powerful his opponent was.
As the Night King of the "battle beast" Mink Tribe, his agility and speed needed no explanation. Yet Giorno's gaze never once lost track of him… No matter how he moved, Giorno's eyes stayed locked onto him. No matter how fierce or rapid his attacks were, Giorno always reacted in time. Sometimes, the timing of those reactions was so precise that it felt as though Nekomamushi's own spear had willingly thrown itself into Giorno's guard.
Such terrifying Observation Haki…
Excitement gleamed within Nekomamushi's slit pupils. Encountering such a powerful opponent was exactly what a samurai longed for!
The battle in the forest on the left side of the abdomen grew increasingly intense. The two turned into blurs of afterimages, fighting wherever they went, leaving collapsing and shattered trees in their wake…
Fortunately, the ground here was mostly Zou's tough and flexible skin. Otherwise, the land itself would probably have already been smashed apart by their battle.
"Huff…"
Nekomamushi landed atop a tree trunk and looked toward Liam, who held the golden iron staff.
"Nya-hahaha! Take this!"
With a crazed shout, he kicked off the trunk and thrust his spear viciously toward Giorno.
"Hm?" Liam's eyes sharpened. His Observation Haki clearly sensed that a flowing layer of Haki had coated Nekomamushi's spear!
He smiled faintly. Instantly, his own golden iron staff became wrapped in a layer of Ryuo as well. Without retreating an inch, he met Nekomamushi's spear head-on.
BOOM!
Haki surged wildly through the shattered forest, swallowing the figures of the two combatants.
Faintly, Nekomamushi's strange yowling cries could be heard. When everything settled, Nekomamushi was hanging from a tree.
Eyes wide, he stared at the sky.
What had that been just now?
He had actually used the same kind of Ryuo as Lord Oden?
However…
Nekomamushi gripped his spear and tried again, but the Ryuo he had unleashed earlier felt like a fleeting flash of inspiration. Now, he simply couldn't reproduce it!
It was almost as though Lord Oden, drinking heavily in the underworld, had glanced upward for a brief moment. If he were still alive, he would surely have wanted to fight an expert like Giorno as well.
"Nya-hahaha…"
Still hanging from the tree, Nekomamushi burst into laughter. From below, Liam asked, "You okay up there?"
"Giorno, that Ryuo you used just now… did you learn it from Dark King Rayleigh?"
Nekomamushi gazed calmly at the sky.
"I mean…" Liam looked up at him. "Could you come down before talking? Isn't hanging there uncomfortable?"
"Ah!" Nekomamushi jolted and widened his eyes in realization. "No wonder I couldn't see you… hehehe!"
He nimbly flipped down from the tree. The giant fluffy cat, over five meters tall, made the over-two-meter Liam look like an ordinary-sized human.
Resting the golden iron staff on his shoulder, Liam said, "Your information network's pretty impressive. You even know I met Rayleigh. Do the News Coos deliver newspapers all the way up here too?"
Nekomamushi replied seriously, "You weren't with Rayleigh for very long, were you? Yet you already learned Ryuo…"
"Alright, alright, enough flattering me awkwardly." Liam laughed. "Let's keep fighting instead!"
Grinning, Nekomamushi asked, "Whenever I used my Lightning Strike techniques, you never defended with Armament Haki. Was there a reason for that?"
Liam replied, "Fish-Men can manipulate water, while you Minks can use electricity… But even you people seem unable to fully explain this sort of 'innate ability,' so I figured I'd experience it firsthand myself!"
"You want to learn our Lightning Strike techniques?"
Nekomamushi clutched his stomach laughing. "I've never heard of anything like that before! You really are a weirdo…"
Liam swung his golden iron staff and laughed loudly. "Then a weirdo I'll be!"
…
By the time the two once again descended into fierce combat, dawn was already beginning to break.
In the central city of Zou, the Mokomo Dukedom, the glow of dawn spread across the streets.
Through the triangular chip covered in swordfish-like spiral patterns, which was held in B.I.B.'s right hand marked with blue flame patterns, no light was reflected at all, because the thing wasn't a physical object to begin with. At its core, it was simply a mass of energy.
"So this is the Fish-Fish Fruit…"
Wegeta stared at it in shock, while even Darcy looked up at it with eyes full of curiosity.
Robin asked in surprise, "You two can see it too?"
"We can only see a blurry silhouette of light…" Wegeta shook his head in confusion. "That black figure… is it your companion?"
Robin smiled. "You could say that."
Darcy happily exclaimed, "So I'm not a fish anymore?!"
She tried it out, and sure enough, she could no longer transform into a fish! The little girl immediately cheered and turned to run away, only for Wegeta to grab her by the back of the neck and lift her up.
"Wait a second! Morning's 'fire rain' is about to start!" he scolded irritably.
"Fire rain?" Robin asked curiously.
Darcy dangled pitifully from Wegeta's one-handed grip while listening to his lecture.
"If you want fish, there'll be plenty later. No need to jump down there!"
Robin chuckled as she took Darcy from him and asked, "Once you've eaten fish, should we give the Devil Fruit back to you?"
"No no no!" Darcy shook her head repeatedly. "Being a little kitty is great! I don't wanna be a fish anymore…"
"This is a rare Ancient Zoan, though."
As Robin said this, she looked toward Wegeta instead. Children didn't understand the value of Devil Fruits, especially rare Ancient Zoans, but adults were different.
Wegeta snorted. "Ancient Zoans aren't that amazing… Our Mink Tribe is ancient too!"
"Yeah!" Darcy raised both little hands and cried sweetly, "We're ancient too!"
Then she added, "Don't wanna be a fish anymore… I'm a cat!"
Robin looked toward B.I.B. beside her. "So what about this Devil Fruit…"
"You can keep it," Wegeta said. "Very few Minks are willing to become Devil Fruit users. Even when there are some, most are like this little one here and ate them by accident."
Robin said regretfully, "Too bad it's a Zoan."
"What's wrong with Zoans?" Wegeta asked in confusion.
Robin smiled and looked at the chip in B.I.B.'s hand as she said calmly, "Why would a perfectly good human choose to become a beast?"
Wegeta replied speechlessly, "What part of you even looks human?"
She looked more like a ghost than anything else!
"Wuuu…" Darcy looked up at B.I.B. with teary eyes, looking utterly wronged.
The white glow in B.I.B.'s narrow eyes flickered slightly.
You're a kitten. You weren't human to begin with.
"Oh right!" Darcy suddenly realized.
Wegeta asked, "Since you don't want it, what are you going to do with that Devil Fruit?"
B.I.B. lowered its head and looked at the triangular chip with fish-like swirl patterns in its hand. Suddenly, Robin heard Liam's voice:
"You're thinking the same thing I am, aren't you?"
B.I.B. and Robin both turned toward him.
The original body sat on a rooftop not far away, carrying the golden iron staff that B.I.B. had tossed over earlier. His clothes were somewhat torn as he looked toward them.
That's right. The Stand replied.
Wegeta couldn't understand the cryptic exchange between them, but he noticed the golden iron staff in Giorno's hand, that was the weapon the black ghost had thrown far away earlier, wasn't it? So it had actually been tossed to Giorno? But from such a distance, how had that black ghost known Giorno's exact location?
And more importantly, why was only Giorno here? Where was Boss Nekomamushi?!
Liam said helplessly, "While we were fighting, that guy suddenly got sleepy and said it was time for bed…"
At that moment, the window beneath the rooftop Liam was sitting on opened, and an unexpectedly adorable dog head poked out. She tilted her head at the rooftop in confusion.
"Who's on top of our house?"
The voice was crisp and youthful, it was actually a dog-girl Mink.
"Wanda, who are you talking to?" another voice came from inside the house.
"Mom, there's someone on the roof…" the canine girl replied.
"I see… so it's already 6 a.m.?" Wegeta let out a sigh of relief.
The Night King Boss Nekomamushi and the Day King Duke Inuarashi were like fire and water, their relationship so terrible that they refused to see each other even until death. Because of that, they had established a rule, one governed the day, the other governed the night.
Now that it was past 6 in the morning, Boss Nekomamushi had apparently tossed aside his fight with Giorno and simply gone to sleep…
Robin looked beside her. B.I.B. was still holding the chip of the Fish-Fish Fruit. She said in surprise, "You can't possibly be thinking of…"
B.I.B. replied:
I've wanted to try this for a while, but I never had a suitable chip before. This one is perfect…
Its hand continuously tightened.
Crack… crack…
Fractures began appearing across the triangular chip. Finally, with a bang, B.I.B. crushed it directly into pieces, turning it into countless drifting particles of light.
Wegeta rubbed his eyes, wondering if he had seen wrong.
Sure, he had just said that most Minks didn't want to become Devil Fruit users, but even so, nobody could deny the value of a Devil Fruit itself, right?
And this was a rare Ancient Zoan! Even selling it would bring in an enormous amount of money! Yet these people had casually crushed it just like that? And since when could a Devil Fruit ability simply be crushed apart like this…?
Just because the Mink Tribe lived on the back of a giant elephant didn't mean they lacked the concept of money. Life in Mokomo Dukedom functioned just like a normal human city, there was production, commerce, shopping, and trade. The simplest example? Buying newspapers from the News Coos still required Berries!
"Yaaawn…"
Wegeta couldn't help but let out a huge yawn. Dawn had arrived, and after standing watch all night, he too was getting sleepy.
The short monkey Mink youth looked toward the towering structure in the center of the city.
At this hour, Day King Duke Inuarashi should already be awake…
…
The News Coo flapped its wings and cawed as it flew out the window after delivering the newspapers, leaving behind this strange nation atop the giant elephant's back.
Meanwhile, Duke Inuarashi rubbed his sleepy dog eyes as he examined today's newspaper. Suddenly, his drowsy gaze sharpened.
"So something like this actually happened…" he muttered to himself.
(End Of This Chapter)
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