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[Cover Story: Chopper and the Quack Doctor 1 - "The Doctor Lady and the Reindeer"]
[In the frigid, snow-swept Drum Kingdom, there's a treehouse deep in the mountains. A fashionable old grandma over a hundred years old sits inside wearing glasses, reading a newspaper. At the door, a reindeer carrying a pack pushes it open with its antlers and steps out into the endless white blizzard...]
"The ice is catching up to us!"
"Faster, Muscovado!"
A sailing ship flying the Big Mom Pirates' flag sped toward the barren island ahead. Behind it, an endless wave of cold froze the sea as it advanced. The wake churned up by the ship's stern turned to ice almost instantly.
At the stern, Charlotte Castard drew her sword and slashed repeatedly, sending out several flying sword strikes that shattered the ice pursuing them.
"Did it work?!" the others cried in delight.
But to their surprise, the broken ice didn't slow down at all. Instead, even more freezing air poured from the cracks. The spray kicked up by Castard's slashes froze in an instant, and the spreading ice surged toward the Charlotte Family's Muscovado.
"We're gonna get frozen~!"
The ship's singing figurehead kept cheerfully singing, but the people on deck looked grim.
At that moment, Katakuri thrust his trident into the incoming ice wave. Black-and-red Armament Haki lightning exploded outward as the ice shattered with a bang.
Immediately afterward, he kicked upward with his right leg.
His entire leg transformed into a massive stream of mochi, tracing an arc through the air. The tip was coated in jet-black Armament Haki, and it crashed down onto the advancing ice field that refused to let go of their stern.
BOOM!!!
The ice shattered into countless pieces beneath the kick.
But the spray thrown up by the impact froze in an instant, and the ice quickly spread onto Katakuri's elongated mochi leg.
Katakuri flexed hard. Armament Haki burst from his right leg, shattering the ice before he rapidly retracted it.
The Charlotte siblings aboard the ship sighed in relief.
"As expected of Brother Katakuri!"
But Katakuri's expression remained tense. His eyes were fixed on the sea beyond the ice.
Not too far behind them, two people were chasing their ship while riding a bicycle across the ocean.
"...Too late."
A faint red gleam flashed in Katakuri's eyes, as though he had seen a certain future.
"What?" Charlotte Angel, the seventh daughter, hadn't heard clearly.
Katakuri immediately shouted, "Mont-d'Or! Secure the 'dessert' now!"
Charlotte Mont-d'Or stiffened. "Right!" Without another word, he sprinted into the ship's interior.
He knew what that meant. Brother Katakuri's Observation Haki must have seen a terrifying future approaching.
Bang!
Mont-d'Or charged into the lower decks. Along the way, doors, windows, ceilings, tables, and chairs all greeted him with human-like faces. They were Homies created by Mama using fragments of other people's lifespans through the Soul-Soul Fruit.
Ignoring them all, he rushed straight to the cargo hold packed with dessert crates.
"Book World!"
With a wave of his hand, a giant book several meters tall appeared. The pages opened, revealing an entirely different world inside.
Before long, icy air began seeping through the gaps in the wooden hull.
"That damn Aokiji..." Mont-d'Or's face darkened. Carrying the giant book on his back, he stared at the freezing tide rushing toward him.
There was nowhere left to retreat.
Bang!
A black-and-red slash tore through the cold wave before it could reach him. Katakuri charged over like a five-meter-tall humanoid beast.
Mont-d'Or had barely begun to feel relieved when Katakuri grabbed him by the shoulder. A mass of mochi emerged from Katakuri's shoulder, hardened into a fist, and smashed through the hull with a BANG.
Then Katakuri hurled Mont-d'Or through the opening.
"Brother Katakuri!!"
Whoosh...!
Mont-d'Or flew out through the hole in the ship's side. Only then did he realize they had already reached shore; Katakuri had thrown him straight onto the barren island.
While tumbling through the air, Mont-d'Or activated his Book-Book Fruit ability and created two books beneath his feet. Their pages flapped open and shut like little wings, allowing him to barely hover in midair.
He turned back to look, and his pupils instantly shrank.
The Muscovado, his family's pirate ship, had already been frozen into a giant ice sculpture. Even the singing Homie figurehead had its expression frozen solid inside the ice.
On the deck, many Big Mom Pirates members who hadn't escaped in time were trapped where they stood. Some looked terrified. Some looked despairing. Some hadn't even had time to react. All of them had become human-shaped ice statues.
Charlotte Angel managed to jump off the ship in time and landed on the shore. Charlotte Castard had nearly been caught by the freezing air while jumping off. She spun around and slashed apart the icy mist at the last second to escape.
But when she looked back...
Katakuri was still standing on the deck, frozen solid. His body was locked in the very pose of someone about to leap from the ship.
"Brother Katakuri!" Castard shouted and instinctively prepared to jump back aboard.
"Don't be reckless!" a shout came from above.
She stopped and turned around. Mont-d'Or was hovering in the air on top of his two flying books.
Mont-d'Or glanced at the frozen figures aboard the ice-sculpted Muscovado and said grimly, "Those people are already done for... But they were only ordinary crew members, not our brothers and sisters. Brother Katakuri won't be defeated that easily!"
"That's right!" Charlotte Angel ran over with her sword in hand. "Sis, that's Brother Katakuri we're talking about, the undefeated Brother Katakuri! What we need to do is keep ourselves safe and make sure we don't distract him later..."
Mont-d'Or let out a breath. "Good thing Brother Katakuri acted fast and had me protect the desserts..."
The two younger sisters immediately broke out in a cold sweat at the reminder. Only members of the family knew how important those desserts were.
A few days ago, Mama's eating disorder had flared up again. She specifically demanded the local specialty desserts of Magara Kingdom. And not just a few, she wanted a lot.
The problem was that Magara Kingdom was a member nation of the World Government. The siblings had all been at their wits' end, but once Mama's eating disorder started, it wouldn't stop unless she got the exact food she wanted. The longer it dragged on, the crazier she would become. She could even lose control entirely and destroy the Totto Land she had worked so hard to build.
In the end, Katakuri had stepped forward. After great difficulty, he managed to calm their rampaging mother and made a promise: he would bring back the desserts from Magara Kingdom, and he would bring back plenty of them. But until then, Mama had to endure it.
"The desserts are stored inside the Book World." Mont-d'Or patted the massive book strapped to his back.
Castard and Angel both sighed in relief. "That's good..."
"But that damn Aokiji destroyed our ship..." Standing on his two flapping books, Mont-d'Or looked toward the nearby shore with a dark expression. A bicycle was wobbling its way across the sea toward them. "My Book-Book Fruit doesn't fly very fast. If we want to retreat, we'll have to deal with that Marine first..."
His gaze narrowed. "And if I'm not mistaken, the kid standing on the back seat should be Giorno Giovanna of the JoJo Pirates."
"Giorno Giovanna?!" The twin sisters' expressions changed immediately. "The Giorno who fought Whitebeard?!"
"Why is he with a Marine Vice Admiral...?"
Mont-d'Or's face grew even gloomier. "The fact that nobody can figure out what's going on is exactly why this situation is so troublesome..."
Aokiji rode his bicycle up to the shore. The moment he put a foot down, the sea beneath it instantly froze solid.
Ding-ling-ling...
He rang the bell twice and said flatly, "Time to get off."
Whoosh!
The young man on the back seat leaped high into the air. Aokiji swung one leg over and casually got off the bicycle. With a light kick, he lowered the kickstand and parked it on the ice at the shoreline.
Meanwhile, Liam swept through the air and landed lightly atop the completely frozen pirate ship. Looking across the deck, he saw the various frozen pirates trapped in their final poses. There was obviously no saving them.
Then his eyes landed on the tall, imposing man with short purple hair and a scarf, frozen beside the railing. Liam grinned. "Still pretending? You really think this little bit of ice can hold you?"
Inside the ice, Katakuri's eyeball shifted and glanced at him.
Crack... crack...
Fractures spread across the ice encasing Katakuri. Then, BANG! The entire shell exploded into countless ice fragments.
"Giorno Giovanna..." Katakuri's voice sounded muffled behind his scarf, carrying a hint of weariness. His cold gaze fixed on Liam. "...You're right. My opponent is him."
Liam laughed. "Why are you looking at me? Your opponent is that guy ov, huh?"
Damn. That future-seeing Observation Haki of his was seriously ridiculous. He'd even predicted what Liam was about to say next.
At that moment, Katakuri looked toward the shore.
A Marine Vice Admiral with slightly curly black hair, small round sunglasses, and a well-tailored white suit was loosening his tie as he stepped onto the island.
A Marine Headquarters Admiral candidate. Codename: Aokiji.
He raised his eyes and looked toward the ship.
"..."
Katakuri tightened his grip on his trident and leaped down onto the island.
A battle between top-tier powerhouses was about to begin. Liam eagerly prepared to watch from the sidelines.
On one side was the unfathomably powerful Logia Admiral candidate, whose few fights in the original story had all seemed like he was barely trying. On the other was the First Sweet Commander of an Emperor's crew, a monster who had nearly maxed out his Armament Haki, Observation Haki, and Devil Fruit abilities.
Just what kind of battle would this turn into?
That's all for today. This fight needs some careful thought, so I'll write it tomorrow...
(End of Chapter)