Chapter 254

—

Tears streamed down involuntarily from Yamato's cheeks but she didn't bother wiping them.

She only leaned closer to Amon, her head resting on his shoulder.

She's been wanting to kill that man for years… decades, even. Yet, now that he was dead, murdered brutally right before her eyes, she couldn't help but look back into the bit of sweet memory they shared in the past.

He was still her father, after all.

And so, how long did she stare at the scene like that?

For seconds which felt like hours, Yamato merely gazed.

The slow-motion world came to an end when Amon's hand wrapped around her arms.

Yamato glanced at his unreadable crimson eyes before taking her gaze away.

She was grateful he didn't look delighted or happy at Kaido's death, or at the very least he was considerate enough to hide it from her at this moment.

The Sins stood behind her with Wyper who had woken up just a while ago leaning over to Urouge.

Then Amon's voice came to her ears.

"It might sound mocking coming from the guy who initiated the execution to begin with, but…" Amon squeezed her arm softly. "I am sorry for your loss."

Yamato merely nodded.

After another short silence, Amon turned to Hancock.

"Boa, take her away from here please."

Hancock nodded at his words, her face as neutral as possible, and then slowly guided Yamato away.

Only when she was gone and Amon confirmed she wasn't trying to peak in with her Observation Haki, did he shrug.

He turned to the remaining Sins. "You guys should go and finish of the remaining Beast Pirates that evaded the Conqueror's Haki burst, or somehow managed to regain their consciousness."

Each of them nodded, but before they could go Amon opened a small «Healing Room» just big enough to cover the five of them.

Urouge and Yona clasped her palms as if to pray in the presence of this miracle, while Tsumi brushed off dust off her dress before doing the same.

Wyper was the one who was visibly affected by the room as his wounds, bruises and bleeding stopped, and then started to reverse. In seconds, he was back to almost his top condition.

"Oh…" Wyper blinked. "Huh, pretty good ability. How many fruits do you have now?"

Amon winked. "That's a secret."

Wyper stared at him for a moment before turning around. "Well, whatever. Just don't wink like that."

Then, with Yona, Tsumi and Urouge, the Sins walked away too. Leaving Amon alone with the dead Kaido and unconscious Raki.

When they were at a safe distance away, Amon went closer to the dead body of Kaido, ignoring Raki's limp body nearby, and then crouched down close to Kaido's severed head.

Kaido had a frightened expression as he saw his death approach, and now that he had died that expression was plastered on his face.

'Good enough to be made into a trophy.'

Amon thought and nodded in satisfaction. But that's not why he was crouching down.

First, he took out a fruit from his pockets and placed it on the ground. It was hard to figure out what fruit Kaido had, exactly. Mythical Zoans are rare, after all. However, Amon had actually found out about it almost a year ago since he was looking for strong devils fruit for a long time already.

Slowly… the fruit he placed started to stir, swirl, and then change into a completely different and new one.

Then, the spherical and slightly oblong fruit, somewhat resembling a pinecone, started to gain a blue exterior that looked like scales. On its top, the fruit's two identical, separate stem-like leaves started to turn orange.

Soon, as minutes passed, the Fish-Fish Fruit, Model Azure Dragon rested on the ground.

Devil fruits reincarnate faster than the speed that human souls leave at. So, Amon knew Kaido's soul was still lingering in his dead body.

So, instead of taking out his Devil Fruit Mastery first, he decided to… do something else, something better.

Slowly, Amon drew his hand closer to Kaido's severed head and then clutched on his skull with his five fingers.

Before that, he watched the near future for a while, nodding at the result and continuing his work.

"«Soul Devour»"

With a light channel of his 6th fruit, Soul-Soul no Mi of the diseased Big Mom, Amon sucked on Kaido's soul out of his just dead body.

A pink tangible light, looking almost like gum, stretched out of Kaido's skull and slowly went inside Amon's palm.

As was the case with Raki, Souls don't immediately leave the body of the user. That's why Amon could indeed suck on Kaido's soul like sipping juice from a straw. Normally, the target needed to feel fear for this fruit to work, but maybe because Kaido was dead, or because of the fact that he was indeed frightened by Amon, it worked on the dead body of Kaido.

It was a tough job to do, but as Kaido's soul rushed in him, he felt it trying to fight his own.

But Kaido's soul was lacking any form of actual consciousness, while Amon was a person who had maintained his consciousness even after death, even after crossing dimensions. It was easy to guess who would be the winner, even without considering the control over souls as a general Amon had with his new fruit.

Even then, it took a few minutes to devour the soul actually, as sweat formed around his forehead. Amon's brows furrowed and relaxed multiple times and he gulped on here and there. He wasn't in any pain, but it was very uncomfortable.

Taking in people's souls should be very dangerous, more so for someone like Amon. He might not even be himself after this process ends.

That's exactly why he was purifying Kaido's soul of any will, desire, fear, or anything it contained. It was like flashing a memory drive into a clean state. Like magically purifying a bottle of wine into a bottle of mineral water.

However, he couldn't clean it entirely. But that wasn't a bad thing since he was still getting something… useful.

Amon, as he devoured Kaido's purified soul inside, started to see some of Kaido's… memories.

Amon had wondered when he first reincarnated—how exactly did he carry his memories even though he didn't have a brain. But this incident proved that souls carry the user's deepest memories in them, no matter who the person is. While Amon somehow carried on all of his humane memories, which was still a mystery why, Kaido only had a few broken pieces of his life in his soul.

One of his memories was the fight between Rocks against Garp and Roger.

'Whoa…Damn.'

Amon couldn't help but be impressed at the three of them.

Especially Rocks…

Soon, a few more minutes passed as Raki started to get up from the ground too. She groaned and looked around before her eyes locked on Amon who was sitting still except for his changing facial expressions.

With a loud gasp, before Raki could say anything, Amon fell back on his butt.

"Whew, that was heavy." Amon breathed heavily as he turned to Raki. "Oh, hey. You are up."

"Uh… you okay?" Raki rubbed her head while watching his sweating face. "You don't look so good."

"I am good. Don't worry. It was like… lifting a heavyweight, that's all."

He then turned to the sky. "Ah, what an interesting world we live in. Right?"

"Huh?"

Raki was confused and was about to start a barrage of questions before her eyes fell on the devil fruit resting on the ground and went wide.

"Oh, oh, it's there!!"

As Raki ran to the fruit, Amon instead curled his fist up. Black lightning, stronger than he could ever muster until now, crackled on his knuckles.

'Guess that worked…'

He had just devoured Kaido's Haki out of his soul. It was why he even devoured the soul, to begin with. The devoured amount wasn't as strong as the original, as Amon had to purify the dreams and desires then replace the empty husk with his own dreams and desires, but it was still a huge boost.

Amon needed not only fruits but Haki as well, after all.

He smiled at Raki. "Guess it's cheers and celebration for the both of us."

Now he just had to make her eat the fruit…

—★—

"I don't like it."

"What?"

"It's not as good!"

Raki complained to Amon's face as she stared at his red eyes with her new golden ones.

"My eyes look golden, but there is no special ability. No Wisdom Eyes and my light manipulation superpower is trash compared to the one I had before."

Amon's cheeks twitched. She should be happy with what she has.

He took on a deep breath and held himself back from slapping her two miles across the sea of Wano, before saying, "Look on the bright side, you can control elements. Isn't that good?"

Raki couldn't control elements directly before. She could manipulate the weather to call on tornadoes and thunderstorms, but nothing direct. But now she could.

"And?" She scoffed. "From before, I could control water with Fishman Karate, and wind with Wind Style. Those two just got a bit boosted with the new Wind Control perk. I can also control fire now, but except for the Heat Breath, it's nothing compared to Wyper!! What's so good about this!!"

Amon held on to the last string of patience as he pushed one last time. "That's not the only element, you know. Kaido could create and manipulate ice too, as far as I recall. [1] You can also make something called Flame Clouds, which could basically work like telekinesis if you get used to it. Finally," he shrugged. "You can manipulate a bit of lightning. I only remember seeing Kaido do that while he roared, and no it wasn't his Conqueror's Coating, I can tell different types of lightning, trust me. Try to get used to it, and you'll have something similar to me."

Raki blinked, unveiled excitement boiling up from inside her. She looked at her arm, which took a partial transformation that she gained from Kaido's Devil Fruit Mastery, before frowning.

"How do I bring it out?"

Amon tapped her arm with electricity which made her wince.

"Try to work on that feeling, imitate what you felt."

"Oh… okay." Raki clenched on her arm as she tried to imitate that feeling she just felt.

Then… black lightning cracked around her fist.

"..."

A short silence stretched around the room as both of them stared at her fist.

Amon rubbed his nose. "That's... not the one I was talking about, by the way."

Raki's breath caught, realising she didn't even have Enma on her waist, as she yelled out in ecstasy.

**

**

**

[1] Kaido was seen using ice-type abilities in a One Piece game. Of course, that was non-canon.