Chapter 63: The Surgeon's Touch

The colossal, flying Adam Wood fortress was too massive to leave hovering unattended in the sky for three days.

To keep Fleet Admiral Sengoku and the World Government completely in the dark, we brought the ship down under the cover of a moonless night.

I guided the Titan’s Glory into the secluded, junk-filled backwaters of Water 7.

Waiting for us in the dismantling yards was the Franky Family.

Moving with chaotic but startling efficiency, Franky’s men draped the entire ship in massive, scrap-metal tarps and industrial camouflage netting, hiding it perfectly within their boss’s territory.

To anyone passing by, it just looked like another mountain of discarded ship parts.

With the ship stashed and the shipwrights working on the Portal Gun, it was time to move.

I summoned the Sky-Rift Roc.

The magnificent bird expanded to the size of a small galleon, its metallic feathers gleaming in the dark.

Law and I climbed onto its broad back, settling securely between the massive wings.

“Take us to Totto Land, Roc,” I commanded.

I turned to look at Law.

“Put up a Room.”

Law raised his tattooed fingers, projecting a transparent, blue spherical barrier that perfectly enveloped the back of the massive bird.

Instantly, the roaring wind went dead silent.

“Keep it up,” I instructed, sitting back against my pack.

Law frowned, glancing at me.

“To block the wind?

For the entire flight?

Do you have any idea how drastically that will drain my stamina?”

“Exactly,” I grinned sharply.

“It’s stamina training, Law.

I told you I wasn’t going to let you slack off.

You rely on your Devil Fruit for quick bursts and sudden spatial control.

Let’s see how long you can sustain a continuous, stable field under high-speed friction.

Don’t drop it until we reach Totto Land.”

Law gritted his teeth, a vein throbbing in his forehead.

“I hate you,” he muttered, but he dug his heels in and focused, maintaining the barrier as the Roc tore into the stratosphere at supersonic speeds.

By the second night, illuminated only by a massive, glowing full moon, Law finally broke the tense silence.

He was sweating, clearly feeling the immense strain of holding the Room for over forty hours, but his stubborn pride refused to let it fall.

“Your Devil Fruit…

or whatever power it is you actually use,” Law started, watching me polish the dark metal of The Jade Wings.

“If you can create a perfect clone with a copied Devil Fruit just from a vial of blood, why limit yourself to beasts?”

I paused, looking at the glowing green blades.

“You’re asking why I don’t have a jade clone of Kaido or a Marine Admiral?”

“Pragmatically speaking, yes,” Law said.

“If I had that power, I’d hunt down the strongest Paramecia users on the Grand Line and build an invincible crew.”

“It’s a matter of principle,” I replied, sliding the blades back into their sheaths.

“Cloning beasts is one thing.

But creating a perfect, autonomous copy of a sentient human being crosses a line.

You are forcing a mimicry of their humanity into a cold stone statue to serve as a slave.

I’m reluctant to do it.

Plus, relying entirely on stolen Devil Fruits degrades your base strength.”

I held up my hand, counting on my fingers.

“There is also a hard, physical limit.

I can only maintain six clones at a single time.

Right now, I have the Gorilla, the Roc, the Unicorn, the Spider, and the Ferret.

That’s five.

I have exactly one slot left for Pudding.

If I ever want to clone someone else after this, I have to permanently give up one of the clones I currently possess.”

Law hummed thoughtfully, acknowledging the tactical constraint.

“So make this one count.”

Late on the third night, the Roc began its descent.

The bruised, purple skies of Totto Land loomed below us.

“Drop it,” I ordered, standing up.

Law immediately canceled the Room, gasping for air as the biting New World wind whipped against our coats.

He had actually managed to hold it the entire way.

We were hovering directly over Cacao Island.

Down below, the streets were paved with dark chocolate, the buildings made of biscuits, and the air smelled nauseatingly sweet.

We leaped off the Roc’s back, free-falling toward the candy streets.

Just twenty feet before we hit the chocolate pavement, the Night-Terror Ferret leaped from my coat.

It manipulated the street lamps’ ambient light, expanding my shadow.

We plunged silently into the pitch-black void, our momentum completely nullified, and stepped seamlessly out into a dark alleyway.

“Perfect,” I whispered.

We crept out of the alley.

The tension was suffocating.

Every single door, window, streetlamp, and tree on this island was a sleeping Homie.

“Tread lightly,” Law whispered.

“If one of them screams…..”

CRUNCH.

I froze.

I slowly looked down at my boot.

I had stepped on a small, pink jellybean resting on the chocolate cobblestone.

The jellybean suddenly opened two massive, cartoonish eyes.

It took a deep breath, preparing to unleash a high-pitched, island-waking scream.

“MOMM—!”

“Room.

Shambles.

Calm,” Law hissed instantly in a rapid-fire sequence.

The jellybean vanished from under my boot, appearing directly in Law’s hand, surrounded by a localized, soundproof bubble.

The jellybean was screaming at the top of its lungs, but absolutely zero noise escaped Law’s grip.

Law glared at me, his silver eyes burning with pure venom.

“Are you blind?”

“It’s a jellybean!” I hissed back defensively.

“It blends into the floor!

Just get rid of it!”

Law thrust his hand toward the Ferret.

The Night-Terror Ferret quickly grabbed the silenced jellybean and used its Shadow-Skip ability, diving into the shadows and teleporting the candy a few blocks away, dropping it into an empty, pitch-black chocolate barrel to temporarily trap it.

We moved on, but quickly realized Cacao Island was a total labyrinth.

“Are you sure this is the right street?” Law whispered, frustrated.

“I have no idea!” I whispered back.

“Everything is made of chocolate!

That biscuit house looks exactly like the biscuit house we passed three blocks ago!”

We spent a tense, agonizing forty minutes sneaking past snoring candy-cane streetlamps and avoiding icing-covered patrol squads.

We were completely turned around in the candy-coated maze before I finally spotted the opulent cafe that matched Jasmine’s Revolutionary intel.

The front door was a massive biscuit holding a candy-cane spear.

Instead of dealing with it, we simply sank into the Ferret’s shadow, sliding under the doorframe and emerging perfectly into the dark, luxurious bedroom on the second floor.

Sitting at a large vanity mirror, bathed in the soft glow of a candlestick Homie, was Charlotte Pudding.

She was young, dressed in a plush nightgown, but any illusion of innocence was shattered the moment she spoke.

Her thick bangs were pinned back, revealing a striking third eye resting horizontally in the center of her forehead.

“They’re all so pathetic, Rabian,” Pudding laughed cruelly, brushing her hair.

A flying carpet hovering near her bed chuckled darkly.

“It’s too easy for you, Lady Pudding.”

“A few tears, a little blush, and these idiot suitors think I’m a sweet, helpless angel,” Pudding sneered, her face twisting into a malicious, sadistic grin.

“Mama says the new political marriage prospect arrives next month.

I can’t wait to see the look on his stupid face when I blow his brains out at the altar.

Men are so incredibly gullible.”

A blob of jelly-Nitro-bounced on her desk, laughing hysterically.

I glanced at Law, shaking my head.

Totto Land was a madhouse.

Pudding yawned, turning off the candlestick.

She climbed into her massive, plush bed.

Within ten minutes, she was dead asleep.

Law stepped out of the shadows.

He held out a completely sterile, empty glass vial in his left hand.

With his right, he manifested a tiny, perfectly contained Room that expanded just enough to encompass Pudding’s sleeping arm.

He didn’t break her skin.

He bypassed her physical biology entirely, isolating a single ounce of blood directly from her vein and teleporting it instantly into the glass vial.

It was a flawless, zero-trace extraction.

Pudding didn’t even twitch.

We sank back into the Ferret’s shadow just as Charlotte Oven, the massive Minister of Browned Food, walked past the cafe on his nightly patrol.

We emerged in a pitch-black, secluded alleyway near the docks.

“We can’t leave yet,” I whispered, drawing The Jade Wings.

“That jellybean saw our faces before Law silenced it.

If Big Mom interrogates it, she’ll know we were here.”

Law crossed his arms.

“So we make the clone now.”

I unstoppered the vial and poured the blood over the dark metal.

The red liquid was instantly absorbed into the blades.

Deep within my mind, I felt a distinct, heavy click.

Whoosh!

Thick, heavy billows of brilliant green smoke erupted directly from the blades, completely obscuring the alley.

As the green mist faded, standing before us was a perfect, life-sized statue of Charlotte Pudding.

Carved entirely from flawless, polished jade, the statue opened its three glowing eyes, bowing subserviently to my will.

“Ferret,” I ordered.

“Bring the jellybean.”

The Ferret shadow-skipped away, returning a moment later holding the frantically squirming, terrified jellybean.

“Pudding,” I commanded the clone.

“Edit its memory.

Remove us.”

The Jade Clone stepped forward.

It reached its jade hand directly into the jellybean’s head, utilizing the copied power of the Memo Memo no Mi.

It pulled out a translucent strip of film—the candy’s memories.

With chilling precision, the clone snipped out the frames containing my boot, our faces, and Law’s Room, splicing the film back together seamlessly so it seemed like the jellybean had merely tripped on the cobblestone.

The clone shoved the edited memory back into the jellybean’s head.

The candy immediately went limp, falling fast asleep.

We placed the snoring jellybean gently back onto the street.

“Flawless,” Law smirked.

I dismissed the clone back into the blades.

We shadow-skipped up into the stratosphere, rejoining the Sky-Rift Roc, and left Totto Land without leaving a single trace behind.

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