The Puppet Master [One Piece]

The Last Devil Fruit

=Two Years Later=

~Echo's POV~

The Whitebeard Pirates clashed with Blackbeard and his band of heinous criminals shortly after leaving our care and suffered a crippling defeat. The Old Man sacrificed himself so his sons could flee the battle. A year after the incident the few remaining Whitebeard Pirates tried again, led by Marco and Ace, but they lost more brothers and were defeated once more. The majority of the remaining Whitebeard Pirates were scattered.

Over the past two years I learned everything I could about my newly developed Heavenly Haki. I learned to teleport myself at will and even acquired the ability to bring people with me, thought it took a lot out of me to travel with someone else. The first time I'd tried it, I was unconscious for nearly three weeks.

"Hey brat, what are you doing?" The sniper pondered as he poked his head through the door of my Greenhouse. We were back in Funesto. Many of the crew volunteered to help me repair the damaged city to set up a base of operations when we weren't at sea. The public believed Funesto to be cursed, and with my ability to communicate with the Sea Monsters, I was able to make sure no one wandered to it by mistake.

I looked up from my work station and turned to Yassop. "Cultivating a devil fruit that protects the liver and will grant the user the power to stay drunk for as long as they wish without the hangover."

"Really?!" His eyes lit up at the prospect of being able to drink as much as he wanted without ever facing a hangover again.

"No." I rolled my eyes and turned back to my work station. It was littered with various kinds of soil, herbs, charms, and vials of sea water.

"So, what are you working on?" He grumbled as he stepped into the greenhouse and sat on the edge of my workstation. His gaze trailed down to the various occult looking ingredients. "How exactly does one make a devil fruit?"

"Lots of trial and error." I shrugged as I began combining various different soil before sifting through the numerous herbs and charms to find the ones I needed.

"Looks kind of like witchcraft." Yassop commented as I bound one of the charms to a few sprigs of several different dried herbs.

"I guess it might fall into that category." I noted as I lit the charm on fire and dropped it into the pot of mixed soil.

"So, what's this one supposed to do?" He was being unusually nosy.

I turned my murky green gaze to him and folded my arms across my chest fixing him with a stern look. "What exactly are you doing here?"

He seemed taken aback by this, though it looked almost rehearsed, "I'm just curiou-."

"What is Shanks up to that he doesn't want me to know about and sent you to distract me?" I glared at him.

Yassop huffed, "Why am I always the one stuck babysitting?" He looked to the heavens as if expecting some kind of divine response.

"You know I could very easily find out on my own, I'm only being courteous by asking." I shot as I picked up a knife from my workstation.

Yassop stared down at the blade warily, "Hey, no need to get vio-." He cut off with a gasp as I drew the blade across my wrist, not enough to slice through the artery but enough to get a good flow of blood.

I turned my wrist over and let the wound bleed into the pot of soil and burning herbs. "Are you alright?" I looked to him curiously as his skin took on a sickly pallor.