The bitter wind tore through the massive cavity in the air.
Like a killer whale opening its fanged maw wide enough to swallow the blizzard whole.
A single gunshot rang out. A pirate with a caved-in, bloody face got violently launched backward, plowing a long furrow through the snow.
Smoke rose from Conrad's swollen, frozen fist as snow flurried down around him.
Thud~!
The surrounding pirates' eyes rolled back in their heads as they collapsed unconscious, one after another.
Rosinante pulled the fishing spear from his coat and climbed up from the snowy slope, shaking his head hard. His clown-painted smile twitched. "Conqueror's Haki?"
Familiar memories, but a different presence entirely.
Conrad turned back, his heroic face shadowed with dark lines—the Haki had gone to his head.
His teeth bared in two rows of white, mouth opening as if to speak, then stopping—leaving only an unsettlingly friendly grin.
"Thank you so much!" Rosinante carefully cradled the Ope-Ope Fruit in his arms and bowed, his right hand gripping the lead bullet gun hidden in his coat.
When he looked up again, Conrad's back was already disappearing down the mountain.
Rosinante exhaled in relief and hurried down the mountain himself, running toward the west side of Ghost Town.
That's where Trafalgar Law was waiting—a thirteen-year-old boy dying from Amber Lead Disease.
They'd left the Donquixote Family and spent nearly three years searching all over the North Blue for a cure, but it was useless. Law's life was running out.
That's why Rosinante had taken this desperate gamble, stealing the Ope-Ope Fruit despite making enemies of pirates, the Navy, and Doflamingo all at once.
Shortly after they left, Barrels was helped out of the burning building by his men. Looking at the pirates scattered across the snow, blood streaming from his forehead, veins bulging, he roared in fury:
"Drake! Where the hell are you hiding, you useless piece of shit! When I need you most, you're nowhere to be found! You're stronger than anyone here, you goddamn coward!"
"Never mind my injuries! Go! Get back that five billion... that Ope-Ope Fruit!"
"Yes sir!" The pirate crew grabbed torches and weapons, pursuing through the snow.
As evening fell, the snow grew heavier. Footprints disappeared almost as soon as they were made.
At the edge of Ghost Town, Conrad leaned against a stone wall, pulling his leg from the deep snow. Each step felt impossibly heavy.
Must be from unleashing Conqueror's Haki for the first time without knowing his limits—he'd overloaded himself, leaving him weakened.
"Were you captured by those pirates? Where's your home?" Rosinante caught up and draped his feathered coat over Conrad's shoulders.
Conrad's face was flushed red. He exhaled a huge puff of white breath and kept moving forward.
Rosinante reached out to touch his forehead, then yanked his hand back like he'd touched a boiling kettle, eyes wide. "You're burning up! You have a high fever!"
He forced an awkward smile. "Let me take you to the Marines."
Conrad remained silent, kept walking.
"Cora-san, could he be deaf?" asked a boy wearing a spotted leopard fur hat, his skin covered in white mineral-like patterns.
"Maybe." Rosinante looked sympathetic. He was the Donquixote Family's number two, codename Corazon, and had been using his Calm-Calm Fruit powers to pretend to be mute.
But the truth was, at age eight, he'd run away crying after witnessing Doflamingo shoot their father in the head and decapitate him.
He'd been found and adopted by Admiral Sengoku, becoming a Marine. Fourteen years later, he'd returned as an undercover agent in Doflamingo's now-infamous pirate crew.
But now, having stolen the Ope-Ope Fruit—capable of performing the "Eternal Youth Operation"—to save Law, he could never return to the Marines.
Rosinante instructed, "Law, you go wait on the ship. I'll take him to the west shore and come find you right away."
The west shore had a Marine surveillance ship. He needed to deliver his final intelligence report to the Navy—it contained a list of underworld figures who'd done business with Doflamingo over the years, along with his next invasion target.
Trafalgar Law stared at Conrad's back. His pupils were tiny, making his eyes look almost entirely white, giving him a cruel appearance.
Rosinante had told him this boy had saved him, making it possible to get the Ope-Ope Fruit and shove it in Law's mouth—essentially saving Law's life too.
"Alright, hurry back." He wrapped his sweater tighter and walked quickly around the corner.
Rosinante nodded, jogged up in front of Conrad and crouched down, patting his back with that weird smile. "Climb on."
Conrad didn't understand the words, but he understood the gesture.
Before he could refuse, Rosinante grabbed the black feathered coat and hoisted him onto his back.
Rosinante looked skinny, but he was twice Conrad's height. Carrying a boy was nothing—his long legs powered through the snow.
"Running a fever this bad... how long have you been sick..."
Conrad blinked, staring at the vast snowfall.
He wasn't sick. He was thinking, trying to remember how this disaster played out in the story.
When people think hard, their brains heat up.
Zhang Sanfeng of Wudang once said about teaching the Tai Chi sword: forget half of it, forget most of it, forget it all—that's the highest level. Having no moves defeats having moves.
Conrad had always been blessed with this gift—he forgot things as soon as he saw them, always learning something new from the old.
But now, this supreme talent had become his shackle. An anime he'd watched just five years ago, and he couldn't remember the specific details.
"When does the Donquixote Family come ashore? Which direction are the Marine warships? Who was leading them again?"
Conrad's temples throbbed and burned. His memories were hazy—he knew what he was trying to remember, but couldn't recall it clearly.
Rosinante felt the furnace-like heat on his back and quickened his pace. "Almost there, hang on a bit longer. The Marine ship has a doctor who can definitely cure you."
Thump!
Conrad suddenly shoved off and rolled from Rosinante's back into the snow, his face so red it looked ready to drip blood.
"Impossible! These are MY memories! How can I not remember them?"
He laughed. Laughed loudly. This couldn't stop him.
His brain couldn't hide his memories from him!
"I! Am the master of my own body!" Conrad slapped his hand on the Baihui acupoint at the crown of his head, forcing Haki into his brain. "Memories! I command you—come out!"
BOOM!
Pitch black, blinding white, endless buzzing.
In an instant, his senses sharpened. Conrad's vision turned inward. Countless images arranged themselves like shelves and cabinets in his mind—like a library.
The pages of One Piece flipped rapidly. The food stuffed in his stomach was quickly broken down and absorbed, feeding his brain with blood.
The images grew clearer, as if he were there himself—every blade of grass, every tree, every word, every action. Even the sounds echoed in his mind.
Watching Conrad ramble incoherently, Rosinante started to panic. Had the fever fried his brain?
He looked toward the coastline at the mountain's base. The mast of the Marine surveillance ship was visible behind the cliff.
Under the snow-covered tree canopy along the shore, he could faintly see a squad of Marines in cloaks with rifles, holding binoculars and trudging toward the island center.
Rosinante grabbed Conrad's wrist and pulled—but couldn't budge him. Since they were this close, he figured he'd just go deliver the intelligence report and have the Marines come rescue the boy.
But before he'd gone far, a voice suddenly came from behind—words clear and sharp, cutting through the howling wind.
"Don't go any further. Come back."
Rosinante spun around in surprise. Conrad's face had lost all its color, his black eyes clear as mirrors.
"You can talk?"
"I can now." Conrad spun the fishing spear in his hand, raised it high overhead, stepped forward and hurled it with an explosive breath.
The spear cut through wind and snow, sailing past Rosinante, aimed straight at a mushroom-headed Marine wearing sunglasses in the squad uphill.
CLANG!
The impact rang out, loud and clear.
The sunglasses Marine's expression didn't change. His arm, covered in dull metallic luster, blocked horizontally and deflected it.
The broken spear shot sideways, piercing through three of his Marine companions and embedding deep into a thick tree trunk.
Three corpses stained the white snow red. Blood pooled and flowed.
"Corazon? You can speak?"