The hair on Who's-Who's body stood on end. A chill, like a demon's claw reaching from the abyss, seized his heart, making it nearly impossible to breathe. Only one thought echoed in his mind, a question with no answer.
'He already left the island! How... how did he get back so fast?!'
He looked up, his face a mask of pure terror. Suspended in the dark night sky was the black-haired young man, his arms crossed, looking down on them. A dark red aura swirled around him like a blood-red nebula, giving him the appearance of a mythological god judging the mortals below.
"Cough, cough! Bo... Boss... You're back!" Tesoro, who had been on the verge of unconsciousness, looked up at the figure in the sky, his face breaking into a wide, relieved grin. As long as the boss was here, everything would be alright.
Takero slowly descended. He glanced at Tesoro's battered and bloody state, and his brow furrowed slightly. Without a word, he pulled a small green bean from his pocket and flicked it. The Senzu Bean sailed through the air in a perfect arc and landed directly in Tesoro's mouth. He swallowed it without hesitation.
In the next moment, a miracle occurred. The deep, bloody claw marks on Tesoro's chest wriggled and sealed themselves at a visible rate. Broken bones mended, and torn muscles regenerated. In just a few seconds, all of his life-threatening injuries had completely vanished. He flipped up from the ground, and other than his torn suit, he was back in peak condition.
Takero nodded in satisfaction. "Go," he ordered. "Help me clean up the bugs inside the house. As for this big one..." His gaze, like a predator locking onto its prey, fell on Who's-Who, who was frozen stiff with fear. "...I'll handle him myself."
"Yes, Boss!" Tesoro replied, rushing into the villa without a second thought.
Who's-Who could only watch him go, not daring to move an inch. The animal instincts from his Devil Fruit were screaming at him, a frantic warning that if he so much as twitched a finger, he would be annihilated. His mind raced, desperately trying to find some way out of this impossible situation.
After a moment, Who's-Who forced down his fear and slowly allowed his body to revert to its human form. He lifted his head and tried to put on a calm expression, hoping to use the authority of the World Government to save himself. "'Strange Tail' Takero, you..."
"Who told you to stand when you speak to me?" Takero's cold voice cut him off.
"Boom—!!!"
An invisible, impossibly heavy force crashed down from above. Who's-Who felt as if two mountains had been dropped onto his shoulders. His legs buckled, and with a loud thud, he was forced to his knees. The stone ground cracked beneath him.
'Damn it! What... what is this ability?!' he thought in horror. This wasn't the spiritual pressure of Conqueror's Haki. This was a raw, physical force pressing down on him. He felt incredibly heavy, and every bone in his body groaned under the unbearable weight, as if something was trying to crush him into paste. And with each passing second, the pressure was getting worse.
"Ugh... Ahhhh!!!" Who's-Who could no longer bear it and let out a pained scream, biting his lip so hard that it bled.
Takero watched him with a blank expression, silently increasing the multiplier of his [Gravity Training Room] skill. This terrifying power was indeed the special ability he had gotten from the system. He was finding that it had uses far beyond simple training; it was also a brutally effective weapon. With just a thought, he had created an invisible, super-gravity field around Who's-Who. It was incredibly convenient, though he figured it would only work on small-fry like this. Against enemies on the level of Frieza or Cell, it would probably be useless.
"Bastard!!!" Who's-Who could no longer stand the humiliation of being toyed with. "You bastard! If you've got the guts, then just kill me! Stop this right now!!!"
Takero chuckled as if he hadn't heard him. "Oh? Still have this much energy? I guess the pressure isn't high enough." He increased the gravity multiplier again.
This time, Who's-Who was slammed flat against the ground like a fly hit with a flyswatter. He couldn't move a single muscle. A tearing pain shot through his body as he felt his bones begin to crack under the terrifying pressure.
"Rob Lucci!!!" he screamed with the last of his strength. "Where are you, you bastard! Come and save me!!!" But his only answer was the dead silence of the night. "Damn it—!!!" Who's-Who's wails grew louder, filled with the rage and bitterness of being betrayed.
On the rooftop of a distant building, Rob Lucci calmly observed the entire scene through a monocular. He saw Who's-Who's miserable state but had no intention of intervening.
One of the agents beside him finally whispered, "Officer Lucci, are we... really not going to help? Master Who's-Who is..."
Lucci gave the agent a cold glance. "If you want to die, you can go yourself."
The agent immediately fell silent.
Lucci slowly lowered his monocular, his voice as flat as ever. "Our orders were to wait for Marine reinforcements. That idiot got greedy and ruined the plan. Everything that is happening to him now... he brought upon himself." He turned and melted back into the shadows. "Let's go. 'Strange Tail' Takero is not someone we can handle. We will lie low and wait for former Admiral 'Black Arm' Zephyr to arrive tomorrow."
Without a backward glance, he left. The surviving CP9 agents, seeing their de facto leader retreat, followed him like ghosts and vanished into the night.
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