Darren rubbed the stubble along his jawline, eyes fixed on the glowing, paw-shaped orb suspended in the air before him. A deep, dark crimson pulsed within its center like coagulated light.
"Gotta admit," he muttered, lips twitching into a smirk, "it’s kinda cute."
But he wasn’t fooled.
This was no harmless ball of fluff. It wasn’t a simple air cannon like Kuma’s Paw Impact. This was something else entirely—a condensed mass of fatigue, strain, and pain, drawn directly from his body. The residual suffering from years of brutal combat and punishing training, ground down to its rawest essence.
One touch would level an ordinary man.
Even a seasoned Marine might crumple under the sheer weight of it.
Kuma spoke, voice low and calm. "My ability doesn’t make the pain disappear. Someone else has to bear it."
Darren’s brow creased slightly. "What if no one does?"
Kuma gave a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his head. "Then I take it on myself."
He said it lightly, as if it were nothing.
But it wasn’t nothing.
For years, Kuma had quietly shouldered the pain and illness of the poor, the forgotten, and the sick. He and Dragon couldn’t always track down pirates to dump the suffering onto—not when working in impoverished slums or remote nations where every second counted.
Every agonized groan, every collapsing lung, every ounce of weight someone else couldn’t carry. He took it into his own body—silently, without complaint.
And now, the crimson orb had begun drifting. Slowly. Inevitably.
"Oi, oi!" Dragon stepped forward suddenly, puffing his chest. "Let me take it."
Darren raised an eyebrow. "You sure?"
Dragon scoffed. "You think I can’t handle it? I earned the title ’monster’ long before you came along."
But deep in his eyes—behind the bravado—was something more calculating. The source of this content ɪs 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵•𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮•𝓷𝓮𝓽
If I carry this pain, Darren will owe me. And if he owes me... he can’t say no when I ask for money later.
Once, Dragon had scoffed at the idea of berries.
Money? Ha. A symbol of corruption. A chain on the soul. I’m above it.
But after scraping by for half a year on dry rations and ideology, his pride had withered into hunger. His convictions hadn’t died—but they’d learned to coexist with practicality.
So now, with righteous fervor, he raised his arms like a martyr and declared, "Come on. What kind of friend would I be if I let you bear it alone?"
Then, without hesitation, he plunged both hands into the orb.
Dragon’s grin faltered.
He dropped to his knees.
The silence was deafening.
"Cough, cough... I just... wasn’t ready," Dragon gasped. He braced himself on trembling knees, face red, sweat beading on his forehead.
He was shaking. His body rejected the pain instinctively, muscles seizing, eyes wide.
For a moment—just a split second—he thought he saw his dead grandmother waving to him inside that orb.
This wasn’t fatigue. This wasn’t even just pain.
This was torment condensed into a living thing. It was the accumulated agony of a man who had pushed his body to its absolute breaking point over and over again. And survived.
Dragon had taken on the pain of the sick and dying before—but this? This was something else entirely.
It was not just a weight.
It was a life lived on the edge of collapse.
He turned to Darren, face pale.
Just what the hell was this man’s body made of?
Kuma seemed equally stunned, eyes wide with a rare hint of disbelief.
They just stared at the mass of pain still floating in the air—only marginally smaller than before.
Less than one-fifth had been absorbed.
The remaining four-fifths hovered ominously, pulsing.
If either of them tried to absorb it again, they might be bedridden for a half month—assuming they survived at all.
Dragon swallowed hard, voice dry. "Uh... Darren..."
"Alright, alright, I’ll handle it," Darren snapped, glaring at him. He pulled out a newly configured Den Den Mushi and dialed Stussy’s number.
A moment later, the receiver crackled to life. "This is Stussy."
"Darren here," he said, calm as ever. "I need ten—no, thirty... actually, make that a hundred criminals or pirates. As deserving as you can find. I’ll need them here within three minutes."
The Pleasure District was Stussy’s territory. With her influence and resources, rounding up a hundred unlucky souls on this island within three minutes should be child’s play.