Venerdi Sou.
Female.
Over thirty years ago, she had been a researcher in the Golden Lion Pirates' research-and-development division—an outstanding talent even within that team. They said her ability was on par with, or perhaps even greater than, Dr. Indigo, who would later become the head of the research team.
And yet, despite her brilliance, her incessant eccentricities and endless problem behavior earned her repeated scoldings from above. In the end, her achievements were constantly cancelled out by her misconduct, and she never rose past being a junior researcher. She stayed a rank-and-file researcher for the rest of her life.
"What kind of person was my mother…?"
"Well, what can I say…"
"Honestly, there's no better way to put it than what I just said. She was a true oddball."
The one saying that was Golden Lion Shiki—the same Shiki who'd been fighting me just a little while ago—and beside him stood a man just as large, with white clothes and an equally pale face, the kind of look that made you wonder if he even belonged in the same world as the rest of us.
Apparently, that man was Dr. Indigo, the current head of the research team.
Even if I set aside the fact that his voice sounded exactly like Lord Frieza's, everything about him was so distinctive it was almost unreal. Every time he walked, he made a sound like someone stepping on a whoopee cushion.
…If someone like him is calling my biological mother a weirdo, then what on earth does that make her?
"Alright, then. I'll keep going. You're probably going to hear some things that'll hit you hard, so brace yourself—at least a little."
"What do you mean? Hard as in genuinely serious, or hard as in 'what kind of lunatic does that'?"
"…It was thirty-three years ago."
Oh. He's just going to ignore that, huh.
And yes, I know it's a little late to mention this, but I'm currently sitting in what looks like a reception room inside Shiki's hideout.
This is where I'm being told about my "biological mother," and before he started, Shiki handed me a single photograph.
The woman in it… even I had to admit it. She looked so much like me it was unsettling—though she was much shorter, smaller overall.
Soft, fluffy white hair. Eyes that tilted slightly upward. A mouth drawn into a serious straight line. Casual clothes beneath a lab coat.
She looked exactly like a researcher.
This was the photo of "Venerdi Sou," the woman Shiki insisted was my biological mother.
I kept my eyes on that picture as I listened.
---
Thirty-three years ago—
Back then, Shiki clashed with the Roger Pirates again and again. Each time, he tried to recruit Roger, and each time, he never got the answer he wanted.
Every battle brought damage—never small, never clean—and sometimes Shiki himself took wounds.
This time was one of those. He'd been injured in a fight against the man who would later be called the Pirate King, Gol D. Roger, and he was lying in bed at his headquarters, letting the injury mend.
"Damn it… that Roger bastard. Always has to make a mess of things…"
The wound wasn't serious, but the doctors advised him to treat it properly anyway. If he left it half-healed, it could come back to haunt him later. So Shiki agreed to rest for a while.
Normally, Dr. Indigo would have handled Shiki's care at times like this—but Dr. Indigo had also been injured in the battle, and he was resting as well.
That was how Shiki ended up with another doctor in his stead.
A brain said to rival Dr. Indigo's, and in medicine and biology, perhaps even surpass him.
And, unfortunately for everyone in earshot…
a genuine eccentric.
Knock, knock.
The door rapped, and Shiki—already sensing something unpleasant—answered with a careless, "Yeah, come in."
The door swung open.
"Excuse meeeeeee! Boss, sirrrrrr! How are you feeling todayyyyyy?!"
"Shut the hell up! Lower the volume, you damn quack! I don't care about my condition—my mood's already ruined because of you! Every time!"
She burst in at a volume no hospital should ever allow: a petite female doctor.
Small enough you could mistake her for a child at a glance. Glossy platinum-blonde hair. A beautiful, vivid color—paired with eyes so steady they almost looked unhinged, as if madness might be lurking just behind them.
Her name was Venerdi Sou.
"Looks fineeeeeee! At this rate you can be discharged the day after tomorrowwwww! I'll prescribe your medicine nowwwww! Anything else worrying youuuuu?!"
"My ears hurt. Run a test, just in case. And not you. Get someone else."
"What did you sayyyyyy?! That's terrrrrrible! I'll examine you right awayyyyy! Please show meeeee!"
"Don't shout and lean toward my ear, you idiot! You'll rupture my eardrum! How many times do I have to tell you to stop yelling?!"
"I'm sorryyyyyy! Before I joined your ship, Boss, I worked at a hospital full of hard-of-hearing grandpas and grandmas, and I got used to raising my natural voice so they could hear meeeee!"
"Then fix your 'natural voice' before it starts damaging people who were perfectly fine. I've gotten reports that some of my men are already going half-deaf because of you!"
"Eeeh, reallyyyyy?! That's terrrrrrible! Then I'll speak even louder from now on so everyone can hear me properlyyyyy!"
"Stop! That's the opposite of what I said! Don't create more victims! If you're done, get out!"
Sou's looks, her voice, and the sheer audacity with which she talked to Shiki without an ounce of fear were enough to get her branded an oddball. But the true core of her strangeness lay elsewhere.
In what she made.
Her position as a "doctor" was, from the start, merely a way to put her talent to use. Her real domain was research.
Under Shiki's orders, she worked in the lab on all manner of experiments—driving forward the development of groundbreaking technology, new medicines, and weapons.
A drug that drastically increased self-healing, letting the body recover on its own from grievous injuries and even lethal doses of poison.
A drug that boosted immunity enough to allow the user to eat food that was somewhat spoiled without any ill effects.
A powerful truth serum fit for interrogations of captured enemies.
A drug that produced a sense of happiness, easing—or even erasing—depression and fear of death.
A highly efficient stimulant that flooded the body through rapid absorption, paired with an Awakening effect that made fatigue vanish in an instant.
And countless others.
She developed much more than medicine, of course, but that was enough for now.
Many of her creations strengthened the pirate crew's fighting power, or became valuable sources of income. Without question, her results were impressive enough to warrant an executive position within the crew. Some of her weapons even flipped battles on their heads—sometimes in conflicts against enemy organizations that included the Roger Pirates.
And yet.
She also ignored orders, created drugs no one had approved, administered them to "patients" (the crew) without permission, and funneled massive research budgets into projects nobody had authorized. There were too many problem behaviors to count.
When one of his men once asked Shiki for his assessment of her, Shiki had reportedly said, "Her looks and her brain are perfect, but everything inside ruins it," and, "I'm a pirate, but even I want her to have a little more morality."
Sou carried on with her work without caring that people treated her like a "tragic beauty."
As the years passed, her research only grew more advanced. Eventually, she pushed as far as the old work of a certain research organization—research into "Lineage Factors." She applied it to human modification and enhancement, and even began pursuing the study of "Artificial Devil Fruits."
Even Dr. Indigo, working alongside her, was said to have been stunned by her pace. If only she had time, he claimed, she could have produced astonishing results across all of it.
…If only she had time.
Twenty-nine years ago—
By then, Sou's name was widely known as a veteran researcher (still, astonishingly, a junior in rank). And that year, something changed.
An abnormality was discovered in her own body.
"A disease…?"
"Y-yes! A rapidly progressing type—and it seems incurable, toooooo! Ah, but don't worry, it's not something that infects other people, so please rest easyyyyy! I tried all sorts of things, including self-diagnosis, but it doesn't look like it'll workkkkk!"
"…You're going to die."
"I ammmmm! Roughly two years, maybe a little more, I thinkkkkk! I considered making a cure myself, but it probably won't be in timeeeee!"
"You don't look shocked. No regrets? No fear?"
"I'm not unshocked, you knowwwww! But humans never know what might happen or when they'll die, so I've always lived exactly how I pleased, making sure I wouldn't leave regrets behindwwww! I'm surprised myself, but I've accepted it pretty wellllll!"
"So you did understand that much… Hah. You really are a hopeless woman."
Sou might have been a menace in a hundred ways, but she'd been with them for years. Hearing that one of his own would die soon did unsettle Shiki. In his heart, he couldn't pretend it didn't.
But the person who was actually dying spoke as if she were discussing the weather. Because she was so unchanged—so relentlessly herself—Shiki found it oddly easy to listen, to take it in.
It wasn't that he didn't feel the weight of it.
It was that the seriousness refused to settle in the room.
Knowing, dimly, that this made it easier on him, Shiki asked anyway, "So… you came to tell me you're quitting? You want to live what's left however you like?"
"You're half righttttt! I do want to live freely, but I don't plan to quittttt! I still have to hand over all the research I'm doinggggg! But, you see, there's something dangerous I want to try, so I've come to ask for permissionnnnn!"
"…You called it 'dangerous' yourself, and you're actually asking first? What kind of research is it? I'm almost scared to even hear it. What, are you going to research Ancient Weapons or something?"
He was genuinely bracing himself. A new drug. A weapon. Some other horror he'd regret giving a green light.
"In one word, human modificationgggg! I want to create 'Superhumans' by altering the 'Lineage Factor' in the human body and giving them tremendous powerrrrr!"
"You've been doing that already. Without permission," Shiki said, the memory sour in his mouth.
He'd never forgotten all the times she'd used low-level members from subordinate crews, or prisoners taken in battle, for "interesting"… no, highly advanced and dangerous experiments.
This wasn't new. The part that was new was that she was asking.
"The method is different this timeeeee! Even by my standards, I want to try something completely absurdrrrr! And the subject is the real issueeeeee!"
"…Huh. Who's the subject? If you're coming to me like this, it's not some random captive or slave you picked up, is it?"
He guessed the "subject" was the reason she'd come. That much was correct.
But the next words were beyond anything he'd imagined—and beyond anything he could immediately process.
"It's meeeeeeeee!"
"…Huh? You?"
"Yes! I want to modify the body of Venerdi Souuuuuuuu!"
"…You want to modify yourself? Is that even possible? 'Modify' means surgery, doesn't it? You planning to cut yourself open?"
"Nooooo! The modification itself will be done through medication and other methodsrrrr! If there are parts that absolutely require surgical procedures, I might use local anesthesia and make incisions, buttttt!"
"…This guy's insane."
"Thank youuuuu! That's the highest complimenttttt!"
"Even your sense of praise is twisted… Whatever. You're dying, and you're going to… what, turn yourself into a Superhuman? I'll say it straight: you're hopeless physically. What's the point?"
"That's not ittttt! I'm the one being modified, but I'm not the one becoming the Superhuman! My child isssss!"
"Huh? A kid…? Yours? Wait, you have a kid?"
"Not yet, but I'm going to make oneeeee! I'll modify myself into a Superhuman Mother Body—give myself the functions of a living biological facility meant to raise a Superhumannnn! I'll strengthen all of the child's abilities from the fetal stage while it grows inside meeeee! Then I'll give birth normallyyyyy! The child will be born with power that surpasses human limits—a true Superhumannnn!"
"…You're a woman. You don't hesitate? Treating your body like that—treating your own child like that. I mean, I've let you do plenty of messed-up research, so maybe I'm not one to talk…"
"Not at alllll! Men and women are just whether you have a stick or a hole, whether you're the one who impregnates or the one who gives birthhhhh! I happened to be the latter, so why not make effective use of ittttt! It's a function that never even got its turn until nowwwww!"
"Oh right. She really is this kind of person…"
"Besides, when you experiment on slaves, you have to question them, read their vitals, and constantly adjust the treatment accordinglyyyyy! But if it's my own body, I can tell exactly what's wrong and what needs to be done, and handle everything myself—idealrrrr! The only drawback is that the strain on the Superhuman Mother Body is so high it becomes 'disposable,' which is a bit of a shameeeee!"
She kept talking—tone unchanged, volume unchanged—spilling one thing after another that made it feel like the listener's sanity was what was being tested.
And as Shiki grew visibly more exhausted, Sou finally reached what she'd come to say.
"So, since this will be my final research project, I want your permissionnnnn! And there's one more thing I'd like to consult you abouttttt! To make a child, I need a fatherrrr!"
"Yeah, well… you can't make a brat with just a woman. Do you have someone in mind?"
"Yes! If we're going to make a strong child, the father should be strong toooooo! Children don't always resemble their parents, but when you look at the Big Mom Pirates, it's not something you can ignoreeeee!"
"…Fair. Linlin's kids are monsters, just like her. It was like that even back in the Rocks era. The older ones were already fighting on the battlefield themselves."
"Yes! And, as you know, I'm frail by nature, so I want the father to be as strong as possibleeeeee! So I thought about it, and… it should be you, Boss!"
"…Mm. Mm-hmm… what?"
"You're the strongest person I knowwwww, and you're also someone I can actually ask! Your potential is more than enough, toooooo! I think we could make a child with incredible latent abilityyyyy! So…"
"It will take about a year to modify my body into a Superhuman Mother Bodyyyyy! After that… would you impregnate meeeee?!"
"...Ehhhhh?!"
To be continued...