The Toad is Used

On the rock, the whole group had gathered, surrounding a fallen Barbossa with a sword lodged in his chest.

Puss couldn't help but look up, eyeing Jack's head with confusion.

"So that's why you called yourself Sparkle," he joked, glancing at Jack's red bandana, which hid his shiny bald head.

"Yeah, I don't use that trick very often. Still not quite over the hair loss. Sadly, it's a family thing," Jack said with a shrug, then turned his focus back to Barbossa.

"Jack... you're a man of many secrets. Who would've thought... Cough! Cough!" Barbossa smiled, mocking him, then coughed up blood from the wound in his chest.

"Ladies love mysterious men," Jack bragged, teasing.

"Haah... Jack, Jack, ten years ago I left you with a sword so you could kill yourself, and now, ten years later, you kill me with the same sword... Cough!" Barbossa mocked both Jack and himself as he struggled to breathe.

"That's what they call krama." Jack raised a finger, looking at Barbossa with a serious face.

"Karma," Elizabeth corrected, but Jack casually waved her off, earning an irritated glare in return.

"Cough! Cough! Jack, you win," Barbossa coughed more blood and admitted, "Take good care of the Pearl for me."

"Of course I'll take care of my ship," Jack rolled his eyes.

Barbossa smiled and shakily, weakly reached into the pocket of his coat, pulling out a green apple.

He brought it to his mouth and, using the last of his strength, took a bite.

"Tastes like... blood."

He chewed, mixing the apple with the blood in his mouth as he spoke.

"After ten years of wanting to eat them, in the end, all I got was a bitter apple soaked in blood."

Barbossa's voice began to fade at that point, and the pace of his chewing slowed as blood seeped onto the rock beneath him.

With the final remnants of his strength, he looked once more at Jack and smiled.

"See you in hell, Jack..."

And with those words, the light faded from his eyes, and his raised hand dropped, letting the apple fall. It bounced off the rock and landed in the water.

Plop!

Puss looked at the now-dead Barbossa with little pity in his eyes, but then his fur bristled as he heard a low, melodic sound he recognized... a whistle.

"Whoooo-ooo-ooo-oooo-ooo..."

He quickly looked around and saw nothing. He looked at the others and saw no reaction from them either, making it seem like an illusion.

But he knew it wasn't. He had been there… la Muerte.

Puss took a deep breath and narrowed his eyes. He would fear nothing in this life.

Although he wasn't ready for that challenge yet, he didn't believe it would come so soon—after all, he still had 9 lives and didn't take them lightly.

Putting it aside, he took another deep breath and pretended nothing had happened.

The three people and two animals stood in silence for a moment longer before exchanging looks.

"What now?" Will asked.

"Well, we still have to break our curse, but first, let's tie up the pirates and avoid accidents. Close the chest," Puss took the lead and ordered.

Jack's eyes twitched at being given orders—especially when it involved hard work—but reluctantly, he went to help.

With the lid placed back on the chest, Puss jumped on top of it.

"You disarm and tie them up with ropes. Tight. I'll guard the chest to avoid any accidents," Puss said, looking at them.

"Hey, you're taking the easy job!" Jack complained, wrinkling his nose.

"I already did the hard part." Puss smiled and pointed at the piles of pirates lying unconscious across the cave, making Jack freeze.

Will smiled slightly at the scene and got to work.

Tornado was about to follow, but Puss stopped him.

"Tornado, don't cause trouble. Your hooves won't help here. Go guard the cave entrance to make sure none of them wake up and escape. I had a hard time preventing that earlier, and it wouldn't be good to slack off now," he said seriously.

"Snort!" Tornado snorted and nodded.

Puss wasn't lying—he had really worked hard during the fight, with his dulled instincts, to keep his senses focused on the cave entrance in case anyone tried to flee.

With clear roles assigned, Puss lazily lay on top of the cursed chest, watching contentedly as the others worked, dragging stinky pirates back and forth and tying them up.

Elizabeth, even though she was told she didn't have to help, rolled up her sleeves and joined in anyway.

Slowly, the hundreds of still-living pirates were bound, and Puss finally moved.

He jumped over and approached a clump of tied-up pirates—the one in particular where Ragetti and Pintel were tied together, unconscious with their heads slumped forward.

Puss came closer, jumped, and slapped the back of Ragetti's neck hard, waking him with wide eyes and causing his glass eye to pop out.

"Ah! My eye!" he cried, still groggy, waking his partner, Pintel.

"Uhh... Ragetti?" the chubby man mumbled, groggy as he woke.

But Puss was already ignoring them. He pulled out another cloth pouch from his boot, picked the eye up off the ground with a smile.

'Puss in Boots, Pirate Lord,' he thought playfully as he removed his foot from the boot and stored the pouch with the eye inside, then put the boot back on.

Pintel and Ragetti, now fully awake, saw the whole thing but remained silent, afraid of this demonic cat.

Puss smiled at them, then turned away and headed back to the chest.

Everyone had gathered there again.

"Now, second phase. Take the treasure. It would be a shame to leave it here, since it's already in our hands. We'll split it equally when we part ways." Puss smiled, watching Jack and Will's eyes light up—though Elizabeth's seemed confused.

"But how are we going to carry all this treasure?" she asked, looking at him with doubt.

"With this." Puss took a paw out of his boot and pulled out the body of a little toad.

This time, confusion appeared in everyone's eyes, but the cat didn't care.

"Will, bring me some coins from the floor," Puss asked, skipping any titles and addressing him directly by name, ignoring formalities.

William didn't mind and picked up some coins from the rock nearby and approached.

"Put them in his mouth," Puss opened the toad's mouth and instructed.

He hadn't tried this before, but he didn't think it would be a problem.

Will, though confused, followed the instructions and began placing coins into the toad's mouth. Slowly, more and more coins went in, and the toad's little body began to grow bit by bit.

"Amazing!" Will exclaimed.

Jack and Elizabeth immediately realized it was something magical and ran to help fill the toad's mouth.

Taking advantage of their lack of fatigue due to the curse, they began dragging pile after pile of treasure into the toad's mouth, which kept growing.

Puss tested the weight and was impressed to discover that the weight of the items inside must have been reduced by about a hundred times, and the toad's body grew at a rate he couldn't quite understand just by looking. But if he had to guess, perhaps about ten times smaller than the actual space the items occupied.

Thus, hours passed as most of the pirates woke up, only to be knocked out again by Tornado to avoid trouble.

Puss was busy keeping the toad's mouth shut so the treasure wouldn't spill out.

'I need to enchant this thing. Having to keep its mouth closed so it doesn't spit things out is troublesome,' he pondered.

And so the work continued. The cave was practically emptied of its treasure, leaving only a few coins scattered around.

Even the coins underwater weren't spared by Jack and Will, who took advantage of not needing to breathe to collect them.

At last, only the cursed chest remained.

"Will, hold his mouth shut so the treasure doesn't escape," Puss said, and Will immediately stepped in to help.

The cat then took off a boot and pulled out the pouch containing the cursed coins.

He cut his palm and let the blood drip into the pouch, staining the coins, and within seconds, the wound closed.

The pouch with the coins was passed to the others, and in a few moments—after Puss helped Tornado—everyone's blood was present inside.

Jack opened a crack in the lid, and Puss threw the bloodied coins back into the cursed chest.

Immediately, they all sighed in relief as their sensations returned.

Closing the stone chest, they exchanged looks.

"I want to try to take the chest," Puss said bluntly, startling them.

"What are you talking about? You want to live like that?!" Elizabeth's eyes widened in shock.

But Puss shook his head.

"No, I have reasons to believe the curse is only triggered when a coin leaves the chest. If the whole chest is moved, I believe I won't be cursed," he said firmly, looking at them.

"But why? Why carry something so cursed?" Will asked, confused.

Puss smiled simply at the question.

"You never know when temporary immortality might be needed—for yourself or your allies."