“Mama calmed down just like that?”
“Looks like it. What in the world just happened?”
Perospero and Smoothie likewise could not understand what had happened. If Charlotte Linlin had merely been subdued, they would not have found it strange, after all, there were several extremely powerful monsters here.
Dragging things out until Charlotte Linlin regained her sanity, or coaxing her like a child, were both things they could accept. In the past, that was exactly how the Big Mom Pirates dealt with Charlotte Linlin whenever she went berserk.
“Linlin should be fine. It’s been a very long time since I last saw her wear this expression while sleeping… several decades, perhaps…”
Looking at Charlotte Linlin in this state, Streusen instead had a different thought. Among everyone present, he was the person who had spent the longest time with Charlotte Linlin.
Charlotte Linlin had become a pirate because of Streusen’s guidance, and he could tell that the mysterious incident that had just occurred seemed to have brought some sort of benefit to Charlotte Linlin, though he had no idea what exactly it was.
“This is bad! All the chess soldiers have collapsed!”
“The other Homies too, though they seem to have fallen asleep. Lord Perospero, what should we do?”
“Stay calm, don’t panic. This is only a minor issue!”
The Big Mom Pirates were made up of countless Homies. Food, toys, furniture, soldiers, even officers—Homies were woven into every aspect of the Big Mom Pirates.
Even the pirate ships were no exception, all of them containing souls. If the Homies were lost, the Big Mom Pirates would fall into chaos. At the very least, they would be unable to return to normal operations for quite some time.
Just cleaning up all the food collapsed along the roads would already consume a huge amount of time.
【Stay calm, Perospero. Think about what Katakuri would do right now…】
At this moment, Perospero temporarily had the opportunity to hold sole authority, but he did not want it in the slightest. Charlotte Linlin had fallen asleep, the Homies had collectively gone offline, and the people he had to face were Kaido and Red Hair.
Before he even realized it, his back had already been soaked through with sweat.
“Shanks, it seems something rather interesting has happened.”
“You sensed it too?”
“I use guns too. There’s no way I saw it wrong just now. That white light… what exactly was it?”
“Maybe it was their divine power. In any case, just keep watching. I believe this decision was the right one. We’ll be among the final winners, and that outcome… is probably what Captain Roger wanted to see as well.”
Compared to the panic among the Big Mom Pirates and the Red Hair Pirates merely watching from the sidelines, Kaido understood more clearly what had happened.
“The thing your Dad prepared for you?”
Returning before Yamato, Kaido weighed his Hassaikai in his hand, as though calculating something.
“That’s right. He said it was for you to repay a favor. There’s writing on the back of the note too, probably meant for you.”
“At the soul level… Worororo, what a concise method. In that case… this should more or less count as repaying that old hag’s favor completely.”
Theoretically, as long as someone abandoned morality, nobody could morally blackmail them. But between Kaido and Charlotte Linlin, it was not a matter of morality; there truly had been a debt of gratitude from the early years.
If he could not repay it, Kaido would always feel restrained whenever he did anything.
As for whether Charlotte Linlin accepted it or not…
She could choose not to accept the favor Kaido had repaid this time, but Arceus had not merely solved the current issue. If Charlotte Linlin refused to accept it, then she would have to return an equivalent favor instead, which would be even more difficult for her.
“Hey! Perospero, here’s some good news for you people, you won’t have to worry about Linlin’s eating disorder anymore.”
“M-Mr. Kaido, are you joking?”
Perospero, who was already overwhelmed because of the Homies all falling unconscious, suddenly heard Kaido calling his name, only to receive this news immediately afterward.
It wasn’t as though the Big Mom Pirates had never tried to treat this problem before, but the only result had been the deaths of several doctors. The eating disorder was like an incurable disease, something Charlotte Linlin had carried with her since the day she was born.
“If you could take some beating, I wouldn’t mind, but right now you don’t have that qualification. Once that old hag wakes up, I’ll tell her personally.”
Back when they were still on the Rocks ship, Perospero had already been born, so Kaido had some impression of him, but that’s all. After all, among all of Charlotte Linlin’s children, not a single one had reached the same height as her.
In a sense, that proved from another angle that bloodlines were not always useful.
If Kaido really gave Perospero a swing, what he would need to think about was how not to kill him outright with a single hit.
Not long afterward, Charlotte Linlin regained consciousness. Her body felt no pain whatsoever; Kaido had held back his strength just now. For Charlotte Linlin, nicknamed the Iron Balloon, that level of clash could not even leave a scratch.
However, she felt as though she had forgotten something. She still remembered the squad using Carmel as the trigger to ignite her emotions, but while she remembered that a battle had happened, she had forgotten how it ended.
At the same time, she felt that her thoughts were now exceptionally clear.
“Linlin, you’ve slept enough, haven’t you? I’ve already repaid the favour to you.”
“Hm? Kaido, what are you talking about?”
Looking at the unconscious Homies, Charlotte Linlin had not even had time to ask what happened before Kaido suddenly said that to her.
“You might not feel it yet, but some of your old problems ceased to exist starting today. Using something like this to repay your favor should be more than enough.”
That sphere of light was power from Arceus. Though it appeared pure white, in essence it was a manifestation condensed from the pure power of the Ghost Plate. Its effect was severance and stabilization at the level of the soul.
That was why Morgans’s camera could not capture its effects. After all, creations of technology could not capture something like the soul.
The Homies falling asleep was also because of this power. They had all been created from the souls bestowed by Charlotte Linlin, and the root of their existence was those very souls.
The Soul-Soul Fruit could grant Charlotte Linlin a greater reserve of souls, but it could not accomplish something on the level of Arceus. Faced with this soul-level lullaby, the Homies naturally could not withstand it.
From this moment onward, Charlotte Linlin’s eating disorder and Carmel, her greatest weakness, were gone. She would still become angry over matters related to Sister Carmel, but she would no longer enter that uncontrollable state where, like a zombie, her body acted on its own.
Hearing Kaido’s explanation, Charlotte Linlin frowned instead.
“Kaido, how are you going to prove something like that?”
“Time will prove everything. If you ever suffer from that problem again in the future, then I’ll owe you two even greater favors.”
“Mamamama~ Deal!”
Something like this required time to verify, but Arceus had already clearly explained the matter, and Kaido held absolutely no doubts about it, so he directly made an even heavier promise.
Charlotte Linlin had helped him when they were young, and now he had repaid her with an absolutely stable mental state, removing the greatest hidden danger of the Big Mom Pirates. For Kaido, that was already enough to settle his debt.
Charlotte Linlin also felt she wasn’t losing out. She knew very well about her own problem, but since she had never been able to handle it, she had simply let it be.
Now that it could be dealt with, there was no way she would give up this opportunity.
The conditions Kaido offered also showed more than enough sincerity, giving her no reason to refuse.
After many years, the two once again clasped hands, signifying that both of them acknowledged this agreement.
“Mamamama~ Well then, Kaido, you’d better be prepared. After all, my favors are very expensive.”
“Worororo, you don’t need to worry about that, but until you have another episode, I no longer owe you any favors.”
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