[Devil Fruit user "Marco" detected.]
[Devil Fruit confirmed as Mythical Zoan, Model: Phoenix. Analyzing and recording its abilities in the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia.]
[Effects by Level]
[Level 3: Grants access to all standard Devil Fruit abilities. The user can transform into the mythical Phoenix, gaining extraordinary physical traits, stamina, and the power of flight. Regenerative flames burn around the user's body, allowing them to turn their body into fire. These flames deal no damage, but serve as a powerful defense. They can burn souls and render incoming attacks ineffective. As long as the user has stamina remaining, they can rise from the ashes even after being reduced to nothing. Unlock cost: 1.5 billion Berries.]
[Level 4: The regenerative flames can heal others, though the effect is weaker than on the user. Because the flames restore life force itself, they are effective even against viruses and diseases. Unlock cost: 6 billion Berries.]
[Level 5: Devil Fruit Awakening, Phoenix Fire. Upon awakening, the user's body is enveloped in the flame clouds unique to awakened Zoans, dramatically boosting all attributes. The user can grant special "Flames of Life" to allies and form contracts with them. All damage taken by contracted allies will transfer to the user until the contract is canceled. Unlock cost: 12.6 billion Berries.]
[Analysis complete.]
Sitting aboard the Flying Nimbus, Shinko listened to the Devil Fruit Encyclopedia's report with great satisfaction.
The Bird-Bird Fruit, Model: Phoenix was the first Mythical Zoan to appear in the original story, and even among its kind, it ranked near the absolute top.
Its flight capabilities, its ability to transform the user's body into regenerative flames, even more broken than a Logia's elemental body, and its essentially immortal nature made it an incredible Devil Fruit.
Its only drawback was that its awakening wasn't focused on direct offense, serving mainly as a support tool.
Still, Shinko was thrilled to acquire such top-tier abilities for free.
He and Marco flew together toward the Duel Arena.
Along the way, Marco looked down at the injured citizens steadily gathering around the stadium.
The arena could only hold about a third of Dressrosa's population. Most of the citizens were desperately trying to squeeze inside, but with space running out, they had no choice but to cluster outside the gates.
"Lord Shinko!"
"Lord Shinko, please beat Doflamingo!"
"Your Excellency of the Twelve Zodiac, you saved my child! You're Dressrosa's hero!"
"Mom, who's that next to Lord Shinko? Is he that other Twelve Zodiac member you talked about, the Rooster? He really does look like a chicken!"
"Don't be rude! He isn't wearing a Sea Beast mask, so he must be Lord Shinko's follower."
"Hey! Watch your mouth! That's one of the Whitebeard Pirates', "
The citizens below burst into excited chatter as Shinko and Marco flew past overhead.
Marco, the alleged "follower," had sharp ears. His face darkened as he shot Shinko a look.
"You're pretty popular around here."
"Of course," Shinko said as if it were obvious. "I'm not a pirate, after all."
Marco went quiet. He couldn't really argue with that.
"That Heavenly Demon really does nothing but bring misery to people."
Taking in the destruction across Dressrosa, Marco frowned.
He was calm and grounded by nature. Most of the time, he wouldn't meddle in someone else's conflict, knowing it could drag his crewmates into trouble. But as a doctor, seeing innocent people suffer genuinely rubbed him the wrong way.
Pops was the same. Whitebeard wasn't the type to interfere in every injustice he ran across, but if someone bullied defenseless people, especially the elderly or kids, right in front of him, the Yonko would crush them without a second thought.
Of course, Whitebeard would never admit his true motives out loud.
'"Don't get the wrong idea! I didn't do this to save any of you!"'
Whenever he wiped out pirates committing atrocities, he'd laugh and tell the rescued civilians:
"I'm a pirate! If something pisses me off, I smash it! Gurararara!"
Recalling this, Marco shook the thoughts from his head.
At least the people of Dressrosa had met Shinko, even if Whitebeard wasn't here. Marco knew full well Shinko was strong enough to handle Doflamingo on his own, there was no need for him to step in.
While Marco was lost in thought, Shinko suddenly spoke up.
"Oh? We're here. Isn't that the guy you're looking for down there?"
Marco looked ahead and spotted the Duel Arena in the distance.
Fierce fights were still raging outside its five gates, but four figures had clearly taken the lead at their respective entrances.
They were Kaido's Three Calamities, and...
A burly man who kept firing invisible air cannons, blasting away anyone who came near.
"Assoria!" Marco roared in fury.
Whoosh!
The Whitebeard Pirates' second-in-command beat his wings and swooped toward the ground at breakneck speed.
"Marco, 'cough, cough'… Wait!"
Assoria was already right at the entrance of the Duel Arena. His face turned pale as he turned and saw Marco diving toward him.
"I already won at Gate No. 4! By the rules, you can't attack me anymore… 'cough, cough'! Damn it, that hurts!"
Blood kept spilling from his mouth as he spoke, making Shinko frown.
Marco couldn't have cared less.
"The rules?" Marco sneered, plunging downward. "Whose rules?"
Intense flames flared around his talons, hardening with Armament Haki as he plummeted toward Assoria.
Only then did Assoria realize how stupid his logic was.
Under Doflamingo's rules, the winners of the five gates would move on to the final round to compete for Caesar. But Marco hadn't come for Caesar. Doflamingo had no leverage over him.
'I actually thought I could hide behind Doflamingo's rules to stop a Whitebeard Pirate?'
Even Assoria found the thought ridiculous. Where had such a dumb idea even come from, and why had he believed it so blindly?
"Phoenix Brand!"
Marco's strike was already upon him.
With no time to overthink, Assoria raised both hands.
"Air Cannon - Fire!"
A heavy blast of compressed air surged between his palms. At the same time, his body dissolved into air.
[Logia-Type Air-Air Fruit]
[Devil Fruit Effect: Grants the user the ability to control and turn into air, but cannot erase air from existence.]
Watching from above, Shinko felt something was off.
'He's weak.'
The thought hit Shinko instinctively. Assoria was undeniably weak.
The Devil Fruit itself wasn't bad. Even among Logias, the Air-Air Fruit was impressive. Nor was his Supernova title undeserved, with a Logia power, he had more than enough strength to cause chaos in Paradise.
But his mastery over his fruit was remarkably clumsy.
Against a high-level fighter like Marco, turning his whole body into air on such a massive scale was basically a death wish.
'How did a guy like this manage to kill a Whitebeard Pirate?' Shinko wondered.
A second later, however, that curiosity turned into complete disbelief.
"I knew it! I could tell earlier, you're weak!"
Marco had reached the exact same conclusion. He gritted his teeth, rare fury twisting his usually relaxed face.
"With strength like yours, there's no way in hell you killed Teach!"
The second those words left Marco's mouth, Roy's expression under Shinko's mask turned deadly serious.
'Teach?'
He repeated the name in his mind, unable to process what he'd just heard.
Only then did the reality of Marco's words sink in.
'The Whitebeard Pirate this guy killed was Marshall D. Teach?!'
To be honest, this was the most mind-blowing piece of news Roy had heard since arriving in Dressrosa.
Who was Teach?
The son of Rocks, the future Blackbeard, and a future Emperor of the Sea.
A man like that was dead? Killed by the rookie down there named Assoria?
'Impossible!'
Roy rejected the thought instantly.
He understood Teach far too well, maybe better than almost anyone else in the world.
Teach was one of the most patient, ruthless schemers in the pirate world. To get his hands on the Dark-Dark Fruit, he had laid low on Whitebeard's ship for decades, believing it gave him the best odds of finding it.
For all those years, Teach had hidden his true power. He was strong enough to scar Red-Haired Shanks, yet he played the part of a simple, loyal crewman with no big ambitions so convincingly that no one suspected a thing. He was even willing to spend his entire life as a nobody on Whitebeard's crew if the Dark-Dark Fruit never showed up.
The moment it did, though, Teach threw away everything he'd built without a second thought, murdering a crewmate to steal it.
That was Teach, a monster who lived only for his ambitions, hid his cards deeper than anyone, and never moved without absolute certainty. But once he made a move, it was fatal.
Even with the butterfly effect in play, Roy refused to believe a man like that could die quietly at the hands of some random Supernova.
Bang!
Marco's talon shattered Assoria's Air Cannon in an instant.
His kick slammed hard into Assoria, sending him flying before Marco snatched him out of the air. The heavy Armament Haki coating Marco's talons cut off Assoria's ability to turn into air and slip away.
Marco gritted his teeth, glaring down at him. "Tell me what happened that day! How did Teach die?!"
His furious demand got to the core of his second reason for coming to Dressrosa.
According to news reports, Teach had recently gone out to buy supplies with a few lower-ranking Whitebeard crewmen. For reasons unknown, they ran into Assoria and got into a fight.
The Whitebeard Pirates sent backup right away, but by the time they arrived, all that was left was wreckage. The supply ship carrying Teach and the others was destroyed, and so were Assoria's Air Pirates.
At the same time, the Vivre Card Teach had left behind burned away to nothing.
There was only one explanation: he was dead.
Naturally, Marco and the rest of the crew couldn't accept it. They didn't care about the sensationalized stories in the World Economy News Paper, but Teach had been with them for decades. They had long since considered him family.
Losing family brought genuine grief. Besides, Teach was a veteran who had fought rival Emperor crews time and again. No matter how they looked at it, they couldn't buy that a rookie had taken him down.
So when Marco heard Assoria had surfaced in Dressrosa, he came looking for answers immediately.
"Teach…"
Assoria struggled in Marco's grip, but to Marco's confusion, his face went completely blank.
"Who… is Teach?"
"What? You bastard, don't play dumb with me..." Marco's rage flared, but he stopped short.
"Hmm?"
Assoria was coughing up even more blood now, his already weak body rapidly deteriorating.
"Wait. What's wrong with this guy?" Marco gasped. He hadn't used anywhere near enough force to cause this.
Acting fast, Marco spread his regenerative flames over Assoria, enveloping him.
His face changed immediately.
"What happened to your body?!"
As a doctor who could gauge vitality through his flames, Marco instantly spotted the problem. Assoria looked built and healthy on the outside, but inside, his body was on the verge of total collapse.
It was as if something had completely hollowed him out. His organs, blood, and life force were drained to an extreme degree. It was so bad that even Marco's regenerative flames couldn't restore him.
The man was already dying!
And right on cue...
"Teach…" Assoria kept mumbling the name.
Only now, with death closing in, did he realize his thoughts and memories had been scrambled lately. It was as if another person had been living inside his head.
Or maybe, at some point, he had merged with another person entirely.
The name Marco mentioned felt eerily familiar.
It was as though the other presence inside him had been named Teach.
Assoria parted his lips, trying to say something. But no words came out.
His head slumped to the side, his arms dropping limp.
He was dead.
"Hey! Wake up!"
Marco's face fell as Assoria died right in his hands.
"Looks like your mission didn't go as planned," Shinko's voice drifted over.
Marco shot a look at the Twelve Zodiac member without answering. Wasn't that obvious?
Shinko continued, "If you really want to figure out the truth, you should hang onto his body."
"…His body?" Marco frowned, looking over in surprise. "What do you mean?"
"Usually, when a secret's keeper dies, the secret dies with them," Shinko said with a smirk. "But that's not necessarily true for the Twelve Zodiac. Even the lords of the underworld have to give our boss a little courtesy."
Marco immediately remembered the rumor, that at the end of the battle in Totto Land, Star Lord had personally appeared and harvested Big Mom's soul.
In other words…
"Are you saying Star Lord can…" An unthinkable possibility took shape in Marco's mind.
Shinko didn't elaborate.
"I'll give you the details later," he said, waving a hand dismissively as he turned toward the Duel Arena and Doflamingo sitting high on his center throne.
"For now…"
"I've got business to settle first."
(End of Chapter)
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