"Sigh, it's because you're constantly in a state of darkness right now, Captain."
"In order to repair your injuries and purge the dark energy Arton and Nojiko left inside your body, your whole body has basically been in an elemental state of the Dark-Dark Fruit this entire time."
"In that condition, any treatment I try on you just gets treated as damage and your Dark-Dark Fruit automatically repairs it." Doc Q explained.
In other words, if Blackbeard wanted to blame someone, he could only blame himself. The fact that Doc Q couldn't treat him wasn't the doctor's fault.
"Haaah, whatever. If you can't treat me, you can't treat me. How's everyone else doing?" Blackbeard took a deep breath and asked Doc Q.
Ever since that battle with Arton's Flameblade Pirates, he'd been in constant agony—but it wasn't enough to make him forget about the condition of his crew.
In that fight, quite a few members of the Blackbeard Pirates had been badly injured.
"As for them, you can relax. I've already done everything that can be done." Doc Q said. "As long as they get a proper period of rest, they'll recover to the best state their bodies will allow."
"Good, that's good… Damn it, it still hurts like hell!" Blackbeard gave a small nod, cursing through gritted teeth.
"There's one more thing I think I should tell you, Captain." Doc Q said.
"Hm? What else?" Teach frowned and looked over.
"This." Doc Q unfolded the latest newspaper in front of Blackbeard and said, "That guy somehow ran into Morgans."
"Morgans did a special interview on him, and Arton didn't hold back—he even talked about some of his own abilities and his crewmates' abilities."
At those words, Blackbeard's eyes flew wide open. "That guy is really that unguarded? He even spilled his own ability? There's no way that's not fake, right?"
No wonder Teach thought that. For Devil Fruit users, the more secretive their abilities were, the bigger edge they had in battle.
Take him, for example—if the enemy didn't know about his Dark-Dark Fruit, he could make use of that ignorance and drag them into his grasp, kneading them however he liked.
But Arton had gone and laid his abilities out in the open. Blackbeard just couldn't think of a reason to take that at face value.
"I don't know, maybe it is fake. But judging from the abilities Arton has shown the world so far, what he said does have a certain degree of credibility."
"It's really something—Nojiko actually has the same sort of power you do, Captain. She can extract Devil Fruits from other people's bodies." Doc Q said. "The Marines and the World Government really ought to stick a higher bounty on Nojiko."
"What? Arton even dared to expose that? He's really that confident in his crew's strength?" Teach was floored. He reached out, trying to snatch the paper from Doc Q's hands—but the stabbing waves of pain running through his body made it impossible for him to sit up and read.
Seeing this, Doc Q could only shake his head helplessly. "I'll read it to you instead, Captain."
"The paper also says Ace boarded Arton's ship while chasing you and ended up having a fight with Nico Robin."
"Oh, and it looks like Nico Robin's already been accepted by Arton. The evidence is that she showed a Fruit ability that lets her transform into a flame witch."
Blackbeard's eyes went round. "Ace already chased me all the way there?"
"No, more importantly—Robin… a flame witch? A Mythical Zoan ability?"
Doc Q nodded. "That's probably what it is."
Teach clenched his fists, grinding his teeth. "That bastard is really extravagant."
"Or did he just take a liking to Nico Robin's body and decide to use a Mythical Zoan Devil Fruit to keep her?"
"Wait—can Nico Robin still use her original Devil Fruit power?"
That was the key point. If Nico Robin could also use a second Devil Fruit ability… then it would mean Arton very likely had the power to let his crewmates wield two different abilities as well.
If that were true, the Flameblade Pirates were downright terrifying.
"As for that, the paper doesn't say anything. Maybe Nico Robin just figured her Hana Hana no Mi wouldn't work on Ace." Doc Q shook his head and glanced at Blackbeard. "Or maybe Morgans simply chose not to write that part in."
After a brief hesitation, he ultimately decided to read out the part of the story that mentioned Teach himself.
"Captain, you're still recuperating, but there's something I think you need to hear—so you can get your head around it as soon as possible." Doc Q said.
"Hm? What is it?"
Seeing the way Doc Q's gaze wavered, Teach suddenly had a very bad feeling. "Arton also exposed your Dark-Dark Fruit ability."
"At this point, pretty much the whole world knows what your Dark-Dark Fruit does—and what's special about your body."
"Oh, and Arton even went out of his way to mention that you might be planning to absorb Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit into your body."
Chapter 462 – Hard to Stop
"W-What…? Damn it, that bastard!" Blackbeard's eyes rolled back in agony, and he actually passed out from the shock.
But not long after, he woke up again on his own, dragged back to consciousness by the pain tearing through his body.
"Damn it, I will get my revenge on you, Arton!" Blackbeard Teach howled.
This time, he truly hated Arton to the core.
He had no idea how Arton had guessed his plan to steal Whitebeard's Tremor-Tremor Fruit ability, but now that Arton had said it out loud, plenty of people with sharp minds were bound to pick up on it.
Maybe Whitebeard would deliberately take precautions to stop him from seizing that power. Or even if Whitebeard died, other people would make sure he never got anywhere near Whitebeard's corpse.
Those people might be the Whitebeard Pirates' own members, maybe even the Marines or the World Government.
Just thinking about how his plan had once again veered off into an unpredictable direction made Blackbeard's heart ache to the extreme.
…
New World seas.
Whitebeard Pirates.
Aboard the Moby Dick, the members of the Whitebeard Pirates stared at the newspapers in their hands, lost in thought and silent for a long time.
In the end, it was Whitebeard himself who broke the silence with a booming laugh.
"Gurararara! How interesting—Ace actually ran into Arton? And he even had a fight with that new crewmate of the Flameblade Pirates."
"Nico Robin's ice can actually freeze Ace's flames… I just hope he doesn't lose his confidence over this." Whitebeard said with a smile.
"That Ace would cross paths with the Flameblade Pirates is surprising, no doubt about it. But more than that, Pops, shouldn't we be more worried about Teach?"
The Fifth Division Commander, Diamond Jozu, lifted his head and looked toward the towering Whitebeard. Beside him, fellow division commander Flower Sword Vista nodded in agreement.
"Yeah, Pops. Ace didn't run into any real danger while he was with Arton but next he's heading straight for Teach."
"If the newspaper is right, Teach's Devil Fruit ability is way too special. Ace might end up taking a heavy loss against him."
As fellow members of the Whitebeard Pirates—especially veterans like Vista—they knew Ace's strength very well.
Ace did possess all three types of Haki, but he'd spent far, far too much time focusing on developing his Fruit's power.
Someone who specialized that heavily in Devil Fruit development going up against Blackbeard Teach, whose power specifically restrained Devil Fruits… no matter how you looked at it, that wasn't a good matchup.
"Ace's situation is definitely something we need to keep an eye on. If he can find Teach as soon as possible, that'd be for the best." The First Division Commander, Marco, rested his cheek on his hand as he spoke slowly. "After all, Arton seems to have seriously injured him."
"Marco, you're not worried about Ace?" Jozu turned to look at Marco and asked.
"Of course I'm worried about him. But you all know there's no way for us to stop Ace. Just like back then, when we couldn't stop him from chasing after Teach." Marco shook his head and glanced over at Whitebeard. "Even Pops couldn't stop him at the time."
The others all looked toward Whitebeard as well, memories surfacing of the moment Ace left the Moby Dick.
Yeah… back then, Whitebeard had clearly told Ace he had a bad feeling about it and wanted him to not go after Blackbeard Teach. But even so, Ace had still left on his own.
Back then, when Ace was still on the Moby Dick, none of them had been able to stop him.
And now Ace was alone, far off in the Grand Line—how were they supposed to stop him now?
....
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