Chapter 146
In a large throne room, 5 elderly men are bowing down on their knees to an empty throne with 20 weapons in front of it. Suddenly a figure shrouded in darkness, only revealing his blood red eyes, appeared on the throne.
"The 5 Elders greet, Im-sama!"
The figure on the throne remained quiet.
"We have found last the heir of the Bathory family, Vlad Bathory." said one of the elders
"His strength has increased immensely since he attacked Mary Geoise. We don't know the full extent of his powers, but we presume that with the Mythical Vampire fruit and the natural talent of the Bathory Royal family, he'll be on par with an Admiral." said one of the other elders
"What are your orders, sir?"
It stayed quiet for a long time till the figure shrouded in darkness finally decided to speak.
"Eliminate him before he meets Azure Ken and bring back the Final Key inside of him. That's all."
"Yes, sir!"
The elders said before the figure disappeared, and they walked out of the throne room.
"So that's where the Final Key is. That damn traitor sure is clever. Inside of his son is the last place we would be looking for the Final Key."
"After all these years, we can finally accomplish our dream."
"So which one of us is going to get it? We can't let something so important over to someone else."
"I'll go. I should get back into shape before we get all the keys back together." said the elder with the long Katana and glasses
The other four nodded, and he disappeared.
---
Back in Jiyū Island, Ken is meditating in his room with Shusui on his lap.
"Knock, knock, knock."
Ken opened his eyes and looked at the door.
"Come in, Laffitte."
The door opened, and Laffitte stepped in.
"I'm sorry to disrupt your training, but the pirate you told me to keep an eye on has made a move."
"Took him long enough. So what has he done?"
"He has attacked the Whitebeard Pirates."
"Did he survive?"
"He won, sir."
Shock was clearly visible on Ken's face.
"Did anyone die?"
"No, but the Whitebeard Pirates have taken a lot of damage, and I don't think that Whitebeard will survive for long."
"Do you think that anyone on our crew can defeat Blackbeard?"
"He has a fruit that can devour things, which makes him a really tricky opponent. But he has been wounded by Marco and Whitebeard. If Ace and Deuce distracted him, Tani, Sabo, and I could take him down. He is weak at close quarter combat, which makes him an easy target for us."
"What about his crew?"
"They are also very strong. He has 10 crewmembers in total, and they didn't hold him back at all in the battle against the Whitebeard Pirates."
'Who the hell did he recruit? The only two I can think of are Doc Q and Jesus Burgess. The rest of his future crew I either took or killed.'
"Keep an eye on this situation and tell me when something major is about to happen."
"Aren't we going to provide support?"
"We don't have the time to help someone else, and it's not like we're close enough to help them like that. We need to prepare the brats to sail out, and we need to get ourselves ready to wipe out 2 Yonko crews. We're the ones that should be needing help."
"I understand, sir. I'll be taking my leave then."
He turned around and was about to walk away.
"Laffitte."
"Yes, sir?"
Laffitte turned around and smiled at his Captain.
"Are you doing okay? Since we came back from Marineford, you've been acting weird."
"I, I… I'm sorry, Captain. But I'd rather keep it to myself. It's something really personal that I don't even know if it's true."
Laffitte bowed down, afraid that his Captain would get mad at his words.
"It's fine then. I won't dig into your personal life, but don't let it distract you from the matter at hand. Oh, and if you ever want to talk about it, I'm always ready to listen."
"Thank you so much, Captain. I'll make sure that this won't affect anything."
"Alright, you can go and train your apprentice now."
A huge grin suddenly appeared on his face, and he disappeared.
'If he wasn't so loyal, I would have thrown him out already. But even though he acts like a psychopath, he never goes overboard, so it doesn't matter that much, I guess.'
Ken closed his eyes and went back to meditating.
Laffitte appeared in the forest with a somber look on his face.
'Was that really you, sister?'
---
A week later. The previous quiet Onigashima is now filled with groans of pain. In front of Yonko Kaido, his three All-Stars are in a miserable state.
"When did you bastards get so weak! Come and hit back, you weaklings!" screamed Kaido
Queen, King, and Jack gritted their teeth and went all out. Kaido got hit by three strong attacks sending him back a couple of steps, but he firmed them and punched the three of them into the ground.
"I'll be back in ten minutes, and then we'll continue."
Kaido walked out of the huge training room, and the three All-Stars sighed in relief.
"Why the hell is he training us all of a sudden. He never cared about such things." said Queen
"It's the obvious choice. Captain knows that he himself won't be able to beat the Azure Pirates, so he is training us to back him up." said King
"I also heard that Big Mom is doing the same thing. And if both of them are taking such measures, then they must be really strong." said Jack
"It's probably also because of Whitebeard's recent defeat. I have a hunch that Blackbeard will be a torn in our sides if we leave him to grow." said King
"Tsk, I swear that I'll tear both of them up when we finally fight." said Jack
"It seems like you guys are totally okay, so let's continue."
"But it hasn't even been 1 minut-"
Before Queen could finish his sentence, he got sent flying. The rest of the day continued with them being beaten up and throwing up everything they ate with a lot of blood mixed in.
'I swear that I'll kill all those responsible for this!' thought all three of them
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Facts & Quotes:
- Monkeys shouldn't eat bananas. Bananas contain far too much sugar for monkeys to handle. Giving this fruit to animals is equivalent to giving them cake and chocolate.
- There's a bird that has "evolved" back into existence twice. The Aldabra white-throated rail.
- Human corpses can continue to move for more than a year after death.
- Unlike most snakes, anacondas give birth to live babies as opposed to eggs.
- Déjà vu is just a brain-processing lag.
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"When you convince yourself you can't do anymore, you're finished. Even though you may still have some strength left that you're just unaware of."
- Yomikawa Aiho (A Certain Magical Index)
"You said you worked hard? Well, maybe you need to work a little longer."
- Saitama (One Punch Man)
"You guys sure are a worthless bunch. If you wanna wallow in your tears, save it for after you've done everything you can."
- Seiya Kanie (Amagi Brilliant Park series)