"I'll deal with Teach! You all keep charging!!"
The Fifth Division Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates—Flower Sword Vista—roared.
In a flash, he leapt skyward.
A majestic slash tore through the air—
And split Xiao's cannon in half.
The turret exploded into scrap.
"Hey. You guys okay?"
Xiao flicked his sleeve, the Sky-Returning Cloak spreading like liquid shadow, shielding the loaders from the blast.
"It's okay! Thank you, Lord Blackbeard!"
The marines trembled, having just escaped death.
"We're sorry… we're too weak. We can't even aim properly. We're just a burden…"
They bowed their heads in shame.
Xiao tilted his head.
"Too weak?"
He rubbed the ring on his finger.
Three apples with strange spiraling patterns appeared in his palm.
"Want something that increases strength?"
The three marines froze.
"D-Devil Fruit?!"
Each one was worth over a hundred million berries.
Why would they receive such treasure?
"It's not a real one."
Xiao smiled lightly.
"Artificial. Replicated. About one-tenth the power. High failure rate."
He paused.
"Still want it?"
The battlefield roared around them.
"For justice!"
"Yes! For justice!"
Their eyes hardened.
They were soldiers.
If this was fate—
They would swallow it.
"Crack."
The apples were bitten.
Thunder erupted.
Flames ignited.
The three marines were engulfed in violent elemental power.
"AAAAHHHHH—!"
Their screams were drowned beneath cannon fire and war cries.
Lightning devoured flesh.
Flames consumed bone.
Two bodies could not withstand the collision of thunder and fire.
One burned to ash.
One collapsed into charred ruin.
Only one remained standing—
The gunner Xiao had replaced earlier.
But he did not survive by luck.
He survived—
By absorbing them.
The essence of the two fallen marines did not dissipate.
Their vitality.
Their will.
Their fragments of elemental power—
Were drawn into the last host.
Because this was not a simple artificial fruit.
It was a distributed fusion system.
Xiao had not forced a single host to contain thunder and fire.
Instead—
He divided the fused power into hundreds of fragments.
They remained connected as a whole.
If one host died—
Their portion redistributed to the survivors.
Including their life essence.
Including their will.
If the final host died—
The fragments would seek new carriers.
Cycle after cycle.
Power and curse.
The survivors would grow stronger.
Or explode trying.
The gunner trembled.
Lightning crackled across his hair.
Red flame streamed beneath his arms like burning wings.
His body stabilized.
He opened his eyes.
Inside them—
Thunder and fire burned together.
"Thank you… Lord Blackbeard."
"I will carry the power of my comrades."
"And uphold justice!"
He had inherited more than strength.
He inherited their will.
"Go."
Xiao patted his shoulder.
"There are others who need power."
The gunner shot forward in a streak of red lightning.
A low-rank artilleryman—
Now wielding dual elemental power.
Not full Logia.
Not true awakening.
But undeniably—
Natural-type manifestation.
Across the battlefield—
Eyes widened.
Akainu frowned.
Aokiji narrowed his gaze.
Even Kizaru tilted his head.
"That's… natural-type?"
"Thunder… and flame?"
"How?"
Doflamingo stopped smiling.
His glasses reflected lightning.
"That's not SMILE…"
SMILE took him over ten years to stabilize.
Even then—
Only incomplete Zoan types.
Artificial animal fruits.
Half failures.
Half grotesque.
But this—
This was natural-type fusion.
In days.
Then Doflamingo saw it.
Xiao in a corner.
Handing another patterned apple to a wounded marine.
The man swallowed.
Thunder erupted.
Boom—
Charred corpse.
Another test.
Another failure.
Another redistribution.
After more than a dozen attempts—
Another survivor emerged.
A second thunder-flame carrier.
Doflamingo's expression went stiff.
His lips twitched.
"Nani…?"
That wasn't experimentation.
That was battlefield selection.
Evolution through sacrifice.
Each death strengthened the network.
Each survivor grew.
This wasn't just artificial fruit technology.
It was a living distributed system.
A curse that matured itself.
The battlefield did not yet understand.
But the top tiers did.
Blackbeard was no longer just a pirate.
He was manufacturing forces mid-war.
And worse—
He was doing it calmly.
As if this entire battlefield…
Was merely a laboratory.
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