I'm Not Interested in Devil Fruits

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"When you bring that stone statue back, be careful not to damage it. Who knows, maybe he's not truly gone. Perhaps there's still a chance for him to be revived, right?"

Hancock had no interest in conversing with the Marines, so Liam stepped in.

He flashed a smile at the disheveled Vice Admiral Bastille and the buried Smoker, then departed with the Kuja women after delivering his words.

"..."

Smoker, trapped in the ground, finally gathered the courage to glance at the pirates, but with only his head able to move, he could only catch fleeting glimpses of colorful skirts and trousers in his peripheral vision.

The injured Marines, pirates, and bounty hunters on the ground watched helplessly and fearfully as the Kuja pirates walked away.

The Marines were actually in a better position. Though they were injured or even incapacitated, at least they were still alive. With the fierce Kuja pirates gone, the operation was over, and they were safe.

The pirates, however, found themselves in a dire situation. They had hoped to slip away, but now, after being decimated by the terrifying monster Giorno, it was unlikely the Marines would let them escape…

Just as they feared!

Hina, unable to suppress the smoke emanating from her, controlled her emotions as she tended to the wounds of the injured Marines one by one, offering soothing words. She borrowed handcuffs from the Marines and then approached the non-Marines with a stern expression…

"As expected, the Marines are too despicable!"

"Marines… you can't break your word like this!"

"Damn Marines, you can't handle Chopper-na Giorno, you can't handle the Kuja Pirates… so you bully us honest pirates!"

"Damn it!"

Hina ignored the panicked and disgruntled voices. If you chose the path of a pirate, don't naively expect a dignified ending, right?

"Wait, I'm not a pirate! I'm a bounty hunter…"

Click, Hina efficiently handcuffed the people lying in pools of blood.

"We'll conduct identity checks when we return to the Marine base."

As for those who had lost hands or arms during Giorno's attack, she handcuffed them to their neighbors.

"Damn it…"

Bastille, clutching his crumpled mask, wiped the blood from the lower half of his face and took a few heavy breaths. 

He heard the voice of the head buried in the ground nearby saying, "Giorno used a magnetic Devil Fruit… I heard there's a terrifying legend on this island and in these seas about someone called the 'Iron Devil,' a suspected user of a magnetic fruit… cough cough! Cough cough cough…"

Smoker, the former Smoke-Smoke Fruit user who always had three large cigars in his mouth, actually choked while speaking. Unyielding, he kept the cigars in his mouth without changing his expression.

Bastille said with difficulty, "So, Chopper-na Giorno stole the 'Iron Devil's' Devil Fruit!"

With that, he picked up his shark-cutting blade and started digging around Smoker's head.

Crack, crack… The sound of the blade digging into the soil filled the air, with dirt and gravel occasionally sprinkling onto Smoker's hair. 

Smoker's eyes were red from the cigars as he muttered, "But the Kuja pirates haven't been on this island for long. When did he find the 'Iron Devil' hidden somewhere on the island, steal his Devil Fruit, and then come here to fight us…"

Does that guy know some kind of ninja clone technique or something?

'He actually does!' Bastille said, "Did you forget? That Chopper-na Giorno… he has some kind of ghostly ability… huff…" The Vice Admiral struggled to dig, finally freeing Smoker from the ground.

Smoker's arms were severely injured and immobile, so Bastille had to pull him out of the pit.

"Ghost ability, magnetic ability…" Smoker's arms hung limply as Hina, having finished tending to the others, came over with planks and bandages to temporarily bind his arms until they could get proper treatment. Smoker frowned, his eyes bloodshot, and said hoarsely, "These are two different abilities. How can he have both at the same time?"

"That's a question no one understands."

Bastille rested for a moment, feeling a bit better. He walked toward the stone statue of Vice Admiral Momonga. "But that's the reality, and we have to accept it!"

"Chopper-na Giorno… in front of this man, many common sense rules don't apply."

"For example, in today's battle, there were too many unexpected situations… Who could have predicted that Vice Admiral Momonga, our main combatant, would be turned into a stone statue at the very start of the fight? Who could have guessed that Giorno wouldn't use the Gasu Gasu no Mi (Gas Gas Fruit) he stole but instead had a brand new magnetic fruit? Who could have imagined that his personal strength alone… has reached such an astonishing level? His physical combat, Haki, everything is truly top-tier! It's monstrous growth…"

Bastille slowly approached the stone statue of Vice Admiral Momonga while thinking. 'Why does such a powerful figure have to be a pirate?'

He recalled hearing about how Vice Admiral Kuzan first met Giorno in West Blue. Back then, Giorno was just a weak teenager, and Kuzan had apparently seen his potential, wanting to bring him to Headquarters and guide him onto the right path… Kuzan's insight was truly remarkable! 

Even back then, he could see the extraordinary potential in Chopper-na Giorno… If Giorno had been brought to Headquarters back then, if he had been trained by Zephyr to become an honorable Marine, then the formidable and mysterious pirate Giorno would have been a different person— an outstanding elite Marine.

'Vice Admiral Kuzan, why didn't you insist a bit more back then and bring Giorno to Headquarters?'

Bastille inwardly lamented the missed opportunity!

Naturally, he knew this was a pointless thought. There would never be a Marine Giorno. There was only the formidable pirate Giorno, a headache for the Marines!

The Vice Admiral shook his head…

And who could have guessed that Chopper-na Giorno's cunning female Captain would be so sly!

At the very beginning, she deliberately appeared weak, pretending to hide at the edge of the battlefield, trying not to draw attention… but in reality, she was luring me in, wasting my time observing her… and in the end, I fell for it, caught completely off guard!

Damn it, damn pirates! That hateful, cunning female pirate!

Kuja Jolyne!

Bastille gritted his teeth in frustration, wanting to punch the stone statue in front of him, but he suddenly remembered it was Vice Admiral Momonga. His fist stopped just short of the statue's surface.

Crack! A piece of the stone statue broke off— it was the knife that had been petrified along with Vice Admiral Momonga…

Hina looked at Smoker's eyes, red from the cigar smoke, and asked, "Are you okay? In this state, you shouldn't smoke. I think it's bad for your health."

Smoker watched as strands of thick smoke drifted through her pink hair, a sign of her lack of control over the Smoke-Smoke Fruit.

Is this how it ends?

Smoker finally realized that his Smoke-Smoke Fruit had truly been transferred to Hina, and he… was now the Cage-Cage Fruit user, no longer the smoke man.

The emptiness of losing something important finally hit him, making his heart ache.

Seeing Smoker's dazed expression, Hina comforted him, "The Cage-Cage Fruit is also very useful…"

(End Of The Chapter)