"Hey! Doc Q! Is the captain really okay? He's been like this for a long time."
Long after Delia and Kikunojo had left, Blackbeard still maintained the same posture without moving. At first, there was a black smoke-like substance wrapped around his body—that was the Dark-Dark Fruit absorbing the injuries on his body.
But now, the black smoke had disappeared, yet Blackbeard still lay on the ground.
"It's fine. It's just that the pain is too much. If it were you, you would have died from the pain already. To be able to endure this double pain… as expected of the captain."
Doc Q was mixing eye drops for Van Augur on the side. For a sniper, Delia's Flash move was extremely dangerous—if he wasn't careful, it could ruin his future as a sniper
The doubled pain from the Dark-Dark Fruit could not be alleviated. If he wore Seastone handcuffs, it might mitigate the side effect of the doubled pain, but in that case, the damage he had taken would become irreversible.
Between enduring doubled pain and his egg shattering, Blackbeard made his choice.
After a long time, Blackbeard finally stood up shakily, clutching his crotch as he took one step at a time toward the port.
"Captain, where are you going?"
"Drum Kingdom... I heard the doctors there are pretty good. I think I need to go and have it checked..."
"Captain, are you looking down on my medical skills?"
"Cut the crap and lend me your horse..."
"No can do, Captain. Stronger can't carry you—you're too heavy."
"..."
Doc Q denied Blackbeard's request to borrow his horse. In the end, it was Burgess, the strongest among them, who acted as a "human horse," carrying the limping Blackbeard as they left this town, which brought them sorrow.
...
"Rotom, is the message still not going through?"
"Sorry, Ro~tom. The body is damaged—communication failure, Ro~tom..."
Rotom's main body floated above the small boat, expressing its helplessness over the communication failure. As one of the officers, they had also replaced the original Den Den Mushi with Rotom.
Rotom's abilities are much more convenient than Den Den Mushi in many aspects, but there is a drawback—Rotom itself does not have communication capabilities; rather, it is the electrical device it inhabits that does.
Ovens, refrigerators, lawnmowers—Rotom can exhibit different functions depending on the body it possesses. However, once the device is damaged, they become ordinary Pokémon and can no longer perform ultra-long-distance real-time communication as before.
"Was it Blackbeard's ability that broke it?"
"Yes, Ro~tom. The battle damaged the electronic components and it's beyond repair, Ro~tom."
Rotom itself can act as a repairman. Since they inhabit electrical devices, they can clearly identify which part is damaged and perform self-repair. However, if the core components are broken, there is nothing they can do.
"What a troublesome guy… I really underestimated him."
Rotom Phone was damaged during her battle with Blackbeard, which was why Delia was now unable to contact anyone else. Although she had already considered Blackbeard to be not simple, she hadn't expected that he had hidden his true strength so well.
"Miss Delia, the Log Pose also broke during the battle. If we keep sailing like this, won't we lose our way?"
"It's fine. We'll find a way eventually. The priority was to get off that island first. That guy… there's something off about him. His body is so bizarre it doesn't even seem human. Any normal man would be either dead or half-crippled after taking that kind of hit.
But that guy… he could still scream, still fight back..."
Delia touched the bandages wrapped around her right eye, recalling the details of the battle.
Every time Blackbeard was struck by lightning, he would scream and shout, yet he never seemed to suffer any fatal injuries. What Delia didn't expect was that even her final attack, Gigavolt Havoc, failed to knock him unconscious.
Gigavolt Havoc had no flaws in terms of power—aside from the slightly embarrassing activation pose.
Based on Blackbeard's own words, he experiences twice the normal pain. If he could withstand a double nut-cracking attack, in a way, he could indeed be called the "strongest man" in an unconventional sense.
"Alright, let me steer the ship. Go and try to think of a way to contact Onigashima first. You don't have to worry about the rest."
She wasn't sure about the current condition of her right eye, but she knew she would need to return to Onigashima to receive treatment. Blackbeard's counterattack had definitely not been light.
Logically, she should be resting right now, but she didn't have time for that. Kikunojo knew many things, but operating a ship wasn't one of them. That was the biggest weakness of Wano Country's native residents.
Due to Wano's isolationist policy, very few people there were skilled in long-distance sailing. If Kikunojo were to take control of the boat, Delia feared that this little boat might actually end up lost at sea.
"I'm sorry, Miss Delia..."
"Huh? What are you apologizing for?"
"It's my fault for dragging you down. If Blackbeard hadn't locked onto me with his gravity, you wouldn't have been caught..."
"It's fine. Weren't you also fighting his subordinates? That Laffitte interfering on my side was a real pain too.
Besides, if you really want to blame someone, it was my own fault for not keeping a close enough watch on my opponent. You don't need to blame yourself."
"But... but your eye..."
A few tears slid down Kikunojo's face. He blamed himself for Delia's eye injury and was filled with guilt.
"Heh, not bad. Looks like you finally see me as a friend. You're not the same as a few years ago."
Seeing Kikunojo cry, Delia actually felt like she had gained something. At first, she had taken an interest in his face, but if Kikunojo had still maintained his original distant attitude even after everything, she would have had no reason to continue their interactions.
From hostility to friendship, and now to today's tears—this showed that, in Kikunojo's heart, Delia is no longer one of the enemies.
She originally wanted to tell Kikunojo that she was fine and that once they returned to Onigashima, she would definitely be healed. Pedro was a living example—he had even gouged out one of his own eyes and had it put back. It was practically the same situation.
But then she reconsidered. Because of his identity, Kikunojo had no idea how powerful the medical treatments on the sacred mountain were. He had never seen Pedro being healed. To him, curing diseases and repairing damaged organs were two entirely different things.
So she didn't tell the truth. Instead, she deliberately acted dizzy and leaned against Kikunojo behind her.
This time, Kikunojo didn't push her away. Instead, he took the initiative to take care of Delia throughout the voyage.
The temporary blindness in one eye didn't affect Delia too much. Her stamina gradually recovered during the journey, and before long, they snatched another pirate ship.
"You guys… why the hell don't you even have a Den Den Mushi?! Do pirates nowadays not even need phones?!"
A group of trembling pirates huddled in a corner, none of them daring to refute Delia's question.
At this moment, Kikunojo spotted someone familiar through the binoculars...
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