"Bell, get the king out of here. I'll deal with the intruder!"
Seeing that the enemy completely ignored his warning, Chaka's expression darkened. After shouting to Pell, he immediately charged forward.
Pell didn't hesitate for even a moment.
Without saying a word, he picked up the unconscious Cobra and turned toward the passage behind the throne room, intending to escort the king to safety first.
The enemy's sudden appearance—and the mysterious ability he had already displayed—made it clear that protecting the king had to come before anything else.
Whoosh!
As the user of the Jackal Zoan Fruit, Chaka activated his Devil Fruit the instant he rushed forward.
His body transformed into a powerful human-jackal hybrid.
Zoan Fruits dramatically enhanced physical abilities, and in his hybrid form, Chaka's speed increased explosively. In the blink of an eye, he had already closed the distance and arrived directly in front of Kaito.
Boom!
An afterimage flashed past.
Kaito calmly continued walking forward.
Behind him, Chaka suddenly coughed up blood before dropping to one knee, agony twisting across his wolf-like face.
A deep fist imprint had appeared in the center of his abdomen.
Without even looking back, Kaito casually flicked the fingers of his left hand toward Pell, who was carrying Cobra toward the rear exit.
Whoosh!
The force generated by the flick instantly compressed the air into a bullet-like projectile that shot across the room.
Danger!
Pell had been watching both Chaka and the mysterious intruder from the corner of his eye.
The moment Chaka collapsed, alarm bells rang in his head.
As soon as he noticed Kaito's movement, every hair on his body stood on end.
Acting on pure instinct, Pell immediately released Cobra with his right hand while supporting the king with his left.
At the same time, he drew his sword and raised it defensively.
Boom!
The compressed air bullet struck the blade.
The tremendous force shattered the sword instantly.
Without slowing in the slightest, the projectile pierced straight through Pell's body, leaving a bloody hole clean through his chest.
He groaned as pain exploded through his body, staggering backward.
Whoosh!
Kaito suddenly accelerated.
In what looked like a single flash, he appeared directly in front of Pell and Cobra.
His left fist blurred.
Just as he had done to Chaka...
A lightning-fast punch slammed into Pell's abdomen.
Blood sprayed from Pell's mouth as he collapsed to his knees.
At the same moment, Kaito casually reached out with his right hand and took the unconscious Cobra from Pell's grasp.
He sighed lightly.
"Honestly..."
"I tried to do this the easy way."
"You would've suffered a lot less if you'd simply cooperated."
He shook his head helplessly.
Originally, he had intended to solve everything politely with his Conqueror's Haki alone.
Unfortunately...
Neither Pell nor Chaka had been willing to cooperate.
Sometimes, stubbornness accomplished nothing except earning a harsher beating.
Kaito immediately concentrated his talent attributes into Observation Haki.
His eyes sharpened.
Using Observation Haki's mind-reading ability, he began searching through Cobra's memories.
...Found it.
Only moments later, satisfaction flashed across his face.
His memories from his previous life had always been his second greatest advantage.
Knowing the events of the original story allowed him to profit from information others would never possess.
That was precisely why he had traveled all the way to Alabasta.
His real objective...
Was to verify the secret behind Devil Fruit rebirth.
Alabasta was one of the world's great kingdoms.
Throughout its history, two sacred guardian beasts had protected the nation—
The Falcon...
And the Jackal.
Coincidentally...
Generation after generation, Alabasta always possessed users of those exact two Zoan Devil Fruits.
Pell...
And Chaka...
Were simply the latest inheritors.
If this were merely coincidence, it would mean nothing.
But if it wasn't...
Then it suggested something extraordinary.
It meant the royal family likely possessed a method of controlling the rebirth of Devil Fruits.
In fact...
Something similar had already appeared in Kaito's memories of the original story.
During the Punk Hazard arc, Caesar Clown deliberately caused the Sara Sara no Mi, Model: Axolotl to reincarnate onto a nearby fruit.
Before detonating Smiley, Caesar had specifically ordered his subordinates to place a cart filled with apples nearby.
After Smiley died...
The Devil Fruit miraculously regenerated onto one of those prepared apples.
There was no doubt that Devil Fruits reincarnated after their users died.
That much had long been confirmed.
However...
There was no way they simply reincarnated onto the nearest fruit by coincidence.
If the process were really that simple, the secret would have been discovered centuries ago, and Devil Fruits would have become far easier to obtain.
The far more reasonable explanation...
Was that Caesar possessed some special technology capable of guiding the rebirth.
That event proved one crucial fact—
The rebirth of a Devil Fruit could be controlled.
That single possibility had brought Kaito to Cobra.
The Nefertari Family had been one of the Twenty Kings who founded the World Government.
It wasn't strange to imagine that such an ancient royal bloodline had preserved unique knowledge or artifacts passed down through the centuries.
Now...
After reading Cobra's memories...
Kaito finally confirmed it.
The Nefertari Family truly possessed a method of controlling Devil Fruit rebirth.
More accurately...
It wasn't a technique.
It was a special artifact.
A satisfied smile spread across Kaito's face.
"My trip wasn't wasted after all."
"Not only does this give me the chance to obtain the Devil Fruit I've wanted..."
"...it also means I'll be able to secure many more Devil Fruits in the future simply by hunting down other Devil Fruit users."
Boom!
Boom!
Boom!
Under the blazing desert sun...
Explosions echoed across the endless sands at regular intervals.
Each impact left behind a massive crater.
The craters formed a perfectly straight line stretching toward Alabasta's coastline.
Looking closer...
The cause of those explosions wasn't some natural phenomenon.
A gigantic square stone was repeatedly smashing into the desert before launching back into the air.
One face of the enormous stone was covered in densely carved ancient characters.
Resting securely on top of it...
Was a silver-white coffin tightly bound with thick ropes.
Boom!
Another crater erupted beneath it.
Sand exploded into the air as the massive stone leaped hundreds of meters forward once again.
Strictly speaking...
It wasn't the stone that was jumping.
It was the man carrying it.
Supporting both the gigantic stone block and the heavy silver-white coffin above his shoulders...
Kaito continued bounding across the desert.
Every time he landed...
The unbelievable combined weight forced both of his legs deep into the sand.
Boom!
Activating the Dragon-Subduing Leg technique, Kaito unleashed a violent shockwave beneath his feet.
The desert exploded outward.
Using that tremendous recoil...
He launched himself—and the enormous engraved stone together with the silver-white coffin—hundreds of meters farther toward the distant coast once again.
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