Heart Of A Dragon - 6

"So this is Punk Hazard, huh?" Kaden commented to himself as he dropped from the air to land on the edge of a cliff overlooking the island, wincing as he did so.

It was a mess of a place. He'd landed on the front side of the island, which was a mess of dead trees as far as the eye could see and massive ruins of destroyed buildings that was probably the old research centre used by Vegapunk initially.

His body hurt like hell. Every moment sent a spike of pain through him. It had been just over an hour now since he'd fought Graydle.

It was a wonder he was conscious at all.

Well, he knew why he was conscious.

It was simple.

After he managed to drag himself from the crater he'd been smashed into by that bastard Graydle, he'd made a beeline for the doctors office in the marine tower and ingested a whole lot of pain relieving drugs.

They were great.

So now instead of every fibre of his body feeling like utter agony was coursing through it, it was just proper normal agony.

It would have been nice to stick around until he recovered back there and maybe get a hero's welcome Luffy style, since that guy always managed to get huge parties thrown in his honour.

He couldn't.

He'd just murdered an entire base of marines including a Vice Admiral. And he was massively injured.

He wasn't planning on sticking around and finding out who would pop up to deal with that fact and when.

And there was more of an urgency in him. He needed that copy of Kaido's fruit, yesterday! That was how urgently he needed it.

He was weaker than Graydle, that was a fact. He won through luck. That disgusted him in ways he couldn't put into words.

So after raiding the marine base for all its funds just like he had for G5, and adding the hundred and thirty or so million beri they had in the coffers to his loot, he'd rushed his way here despite the pain.

Thankfully after months of training himself to the limit and getting his shit kicked in by Commodore Yarisugu, his pain tolerance was pretty damn high.

'Besides…Zoans give enhanced healing abilities on top of enhancing the physical abilities at the base.' Kaden thought.

Though that Axolotl fruit was looking mighty tempting right about now as well. Devil Fruits tended to take the natural abilities of animals they were based on in regards to Zoans and ramp them up to the eleven.

That fruit probably had some crazy ass regenerative powers.

It wasn't an option for him sadly.

Well, it was in the sense that he was going to get it regardless, just not eat it. He'd need to recruit allies at some point, he was well aware that to accomplish anything of remote greatness, he'd need allies. He'd need allies regardless unless he wanted to just hide away from the world.

The devil fruit could be a good boost to an ally in the future. The same with the metal metal fruit. Or he could sell them for a shit load of money.

Even the weakest of devil fruits went for over a hundred million beri. A logia like the metal metal fruit? Five hundred million plus easily. And the same could be said for the Axolotl one too. The power to regenerate lost limbs and more? That was incredible.

So yes, sadly for Smiley, even though Kaden needed the absolute power boost and potential the dragon fruit would give him, he was still going to blow that lonely giant slime up and steal the fruit that gave it life for himself.

'Other side of the island it is.' Kaden sighed, kicking off the ground once more and launching himself into the sky, wincing in pain with every kick.

___________________________________

Honestly, it was almost anti-climactic in a way. Just how easy it was to accomplish his objective that is.

The entrance to Caesar's lab was easy to find, granted he already knew the rough area of it. And right now it wasn't hidden by a blizzard.

It was walled off by a huge metal door and a video transponder snail hanging out front keeping an eye on things.

He just had to wait for someone to step out, which didn't take long to be honest, and then with a quick kick off the ground and moving at rapid speeds with Soru, he was inside before the transponder snail could notice a thing.

It was a huge place with metallic walls and flooring spread into the side of a mountain. And it was sparsely populated.

The only residents of the place, were the crippled pirates who had been 'saved' by Caesar floating, who could only move around thanks to his inventions and Caesar himself.

And considering when Caesar wasn't busy in his lab he was drinking himself silly or ordering whores to attend to him and just generally living it up, it meant that he was more or less completely uncontested when he moved around.

And before long he found it.

'There you are.' Kaden's eyes lit up with glee and excitement as he stepped into an abandoned laboratory room and caught sight of his target. A large purple coloured apple with green spots all over it sitting quietly and alone within a display case.

The cloned version of the mythical zoan devil fruit - Fish Fish Fruit Model: Azure Dragon.

Kaden wasted no time, quickly he made his way over to it and with a quick punch of his fist, he shattered the glass display case and scooped it up.

Excitement so palpable rushed through his veins he felt his breath come out in short rapid bursts and his fingers trembled, "One of the greatest powers in this entire world, and you're all mine." Kaden laughed to himself gleefully.

Before quickly stashing it in his pants pocket. Right now, he was only wearing his boots, pants and red tank top, alongside a bevvy of bandages over his torso and arms, stained quick deeply with the blood from his wounds.

He turned on his feet and then disappeared in a blur of speed using Soru.