After teasing the big fox familiar to satisfaction with a cat teaser, the other little fox tossed aside her fishing rod and crawled over. And then there was nobody left fishing on the deck…
With both mouths fed full, Yuriko gracefully withdrew at that point, smiling as she slipped to the side. With so many eyes around, if she got dragged back into a round two, she wouldn't be able to handle it.
She yawned, and drowsiness came rolling over her. Supporting herself against the wall, she made her way back to the room on wobbly, aching legs.
Although Yuriko had retreated, this brutal battle continued until the next morning. Jasmine was truly worthy of being a Phantom Zoan oni — her recovery and endurance were the strongest among them all. She'd taken seven rounds and still had fight left in her.
When Yuriko woke up the next morning and found only her daughter still battling, she jumped back into the fray to jointly fight against the great demon king Ren.
The result was still defeat.
The journey continued over the following days, but Yukiko, Jasmine, Yayoi, and Qiyue left first, taking Saori with them.
The first four were the main combat forces stationed at Seirai Island in Inazuma and couldn't be away for too long, while Saori could help with paperwork. Seirai Island was nothing like the Flower Capital — there was actually quite a lot to deal with every day, and many matters involved fighting and killing that had to be resolved by force.
Inazuma's internal affairs were quite peaceful by comparison — the various districts didn't interfere with each other, and many had finally turned a corner. Even Bell After was no longer worried about food supplies; the winter snow was cold, but with the development of foreign technology and Enkanomiya's technology, many innovations had been applied to civilian life.
At the very least, Bell After now had electric heating, powered by massive quantities of Electro Crystals.
The next to leave was Keiko.
She was mainly anxious to get back to the research in Enkanomiya. She could have left Stussy in charge — Stussy's research abilities were debatable, but after studying alongside Vegapunk and the others for so many years, she had knowledge in many areas.
But Keiko felt more at ease watching things herself, and she also wanted to check on Robin's progress.
Robin's intelligence had far exceeded Keiko's expectations. In just two years, she had already reached a level comparable to the other researchers.
She was only an ordinary researcher, to be sure — but remember, she had previously been nothing more than an archaeology scholar. Now she had made achievements in physics, chemistry, and biology. Her transition was even faster than her mother Olvia's.
Speaking of the two of them, Robin had ultimately eaten the Flower-Flower Fruit. This fruit was a tremendous help for her research and studies. Sometimes she could do the work of a dozen people by herself.
As a result, Robin became Keiko's assistant.
Olvia, on the other hand, had eaten the Smooth-Smooth Fruit. In her early years, she had traveled with expedition teams for archaeological work, and her skin had grown rough. Keiko figured that this mother-daughter pair would eventually end up like Yuriko and Jasmine, or Ayame and Iris, so she gave the fruit to her.
But the Smooth-Smooth Fruit wasn't that easy to handle. After eating it, Olvia would have to bear the responsibility of developing it all the way to Awakening.
Yukiko still hadn't gotten rid of the scars on her back.
With so many people leaving at once — especially Keiko, who was particularly loud about everything — the ship grew considerably quieter. The remaining Saya was quirky and spirited, but Ayame was rather serious.
Right now, Ayame — whom Ren had just described as serious — was wearing a maid outfit, bending over and speaking near his ear.
"Lord Ren, there's a ship approaching."
"A ship?" Saya, who had been feeling bored, immediately perked up her ears.
"That's right. There's no flag on the sails, and it's not a warship. But after spotting us, it immediately changed course. It's probably not a merchant or passenger vessel," Ayame explained.
Merchant ships on the sea weren't traveling vendors who approached every boat they saw to do business. In fact, most merchant ships tried their best to avoid other vessels, precisely to prevent running into pirates and losing their cargo.
If you encountered another ship approaching you at sea, there was an eighty percent chance it meant trouble.
"It's a Slave-Hunter Crew ship," Ren said. His Observation Haki had detected that vessel long ago, and he could also hear the wailing coming from inside its hold.
"Slave hunters? There are still people like that!" Saya had been at sea for so long — this was her first time encountering a Slave-Hunter Crew. She was immediately furious.
In her eyes, the members of a Slave-Hunter Crew were beyond redemption.
After all, even someone like Doflamingo, the uncrowned king of the underworld, had largely stopped touching "human trafficking" and contraband trade under Ren's constraints.
The Donquixote Family's main business now was arms dealing. And that guy had apparently gotten in touch with Caesar Clown recently — he'd even asked Ren before whether he needed any artificial Devil Fruits.
Ren naturally had no interest in defective products. That kind of thing was less practical than just using oni.
That matter had been dropped, but Ren was interested in the copy of the Dragon-Dragon Fruit that Caesar held. Doflamingo was already negotiating with Caesar for that fruit.
Taking it by force was certainly an option, but if you relied on robbery for everything, then money lost all meaning. Besides, Doflamingo never called himself a pirate. He had established the Donquixote Family, not the Donquixote Pirates!
That wasn't to say he was particularly law-abiding. In truth, he only followed the rules on the surface.
No matter how dirty things were behind the scenes, the surface had to look presentable. That was the kind of person Doflamingo was.
…
"Captain, that ship has turned toward us too! We've been spotted!"
On the slave ship, a sailor with a single-lens telescope shouted loudly.
But the others didn't seem particularly concerned.
"Hahahaha, looks like we've run into some idiots. Maybe they think we're a merchant ship or a passenger vessel," one man laughed.
"Could be we've run into colleagues."
"Just hope it's not those lunatics from the organ trafficking organization," another chimed in.
There was actually quite a bit of cooperation between Slave-Hunter Crews and organ trafficking organizations. After all, during slave transport, some captives might not hold up. Throwing people like that overboard to feed the fish would be a waste — better to sell them cheap to the organ traffickers.
A small profit is still profit.
But that didn't mean the relationship between the two was good. In fact, that kind of cooperation only happened between parties that trusted each other and had worked together multiple times.
If you ran into an organ trafficking fleet by chance on the sea, they'd often open fire as soon as you were in range. They didn't care whether the people they were attacking might get seriously injured.
As long as there was still a breath of life left in them, there was still a market.
[
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