Smoker began rubbing his forehead. The longer he listened to Luffy, the more his headache grew. In the past fifteen minutes, he hadn't heard a single good piece of news. Any Marine captain in the East Blue knew the story of 'Clockwork Island.' Thousands of corpses from the 'Ace Family' and a sunken island. Pirate base or not, the destruction of an entire island couldn't go unnoticed. Before the destruction of Don Krieg's armada, the story of 'Clockwork Island' was considered the most famous of all the stories about Roronoa Zoro and his crew.
"How strong is this Cthulhu?" finally, Smoker asked the most important question in the current situation.
"Stronger than Sanji, 'The Butcher,' and 'Beheader' combined," Luffy answered without hesitation. "You should consider him as another Roronoa Zoro, then maybe someone from your people will survive today… The problem is that he looks like an ordinary twenty-year-old guy with black hair and brown eyes. Cthulhu is very good at blending into the crowd, so until he starts acting, you're unlikely to recognize him. By the way, he's the one who incapacitated all your observers."
At this moment, Smoker recalled another extremely important fact:
"How did he do it? With the power of a fruit?"
"The true power of Cthulhu is probably known only to the 'Pirate Slayers' captain," Luffy shrugged slightly. "But if you're interested, I've never seen him swim, which is very suspicious."
"There are many rumors about the 'Pirate Slayers' being immortal... Is Cthulhu responsible for those rumors too?" Tashigi spoke up for the first time in quite a while.
"Cthulhu is definitely responsible," Luffy nodded confidently. One could be sure that if his family were present during this conversation, they would have probably started committing supersonic facepalms by now. Except for Yosaku. Poor guy would have faced a long series of suicides. "Cthulhu loves to fuel various rumors about their family and sometimes even starts new ones himself. However, when it comes to the rumor of immortality, the Butcher' is much more to blame… Actually, if you're asking me this question… I take it you don't even know the true power of the 'Butcher' and the 'Beheader,'" Luffy's expression darkened noticeably. "You plan to capture the 'Pirate Slayers' while knowing practically nothing about them…" the boy sighed dejectedly.
Smoker had already begun to suspect that his approach was flawed. Even if he and his men managed to imprison all the 'Pirate Killers,' what price would the Marine be forced to pay for their capture? And was it really worth it? On the Grand Line, stopping such a pirate crew would be much easier compared to the East Blue, and almost certainly without numerous casualties. After all, compared to the soldiers serving on the Grand Line, the East Blue's patrols could be considered mere greenhorns.
"So, why is Yosaku the 'Butcher responsible for the immortality rumors of the 'Pirate Slayers'?" When Luffy's pause dragged on, Tashigi urged him on.
"It's all about his fruit," Luffy seemed to be eagerly waiting for the question from the girl, and immediately continued to spill the secrets of his family. "I have no idea what fruit he ate, but now he's impossible to kill."
"Impossible, you say?" Tashigi frowned.
"In the most literal sense. I've seen the 'Butcher has his head, arms, and legs cut off, his heart removed, burned alive, and drowned. The more severe the damage, the longer he takes to recover, but as the 'Pirate Slayers' captain suspects, even if you burn the 'Butcher' to ashes and scatter his remains in the wind, he will still recover after some time. In water, he drowns, chokes, and seems to die, but as soon as he's on the surface, he immediately comes back to life and starts vomiting water. If you want to defeat the 'Butcher,' think about how to capture him, not kill him. Water and Sea-Prism Stone affect him just like any other Devil Fruit user, but even if you kill him with Sea-Prism Stone, he will still recover.
"Are you saying he can't be killed at all?!" Tashigi asked in shock.
"I don't know," Luffy shook his head. "It's probably possible to kill him, but it's very difficult. It's much easier to simply capture him. As I said, despite his immortality, he's susceptible to all the weaknesses of Devil Fruit users. A Sea-Prism Stone net will solve all problems."
Unlike his lieutenant, Smoker reacted almost calmly to the news of the 'Butcher's' immortality. It was an intriguing fruit power with interesting possibilities, yet the combat potential of such a fruit paled in comparison to the combat potential of a Logia fruit. Smoker even felt a sense of relief upon learning the details of the 'Butcher's' power, as he initially suspected the presence of a Logia in the 'Pirate Slayers' crew. The power of a Logia could cause him far more trouble than the power of immortality. An immortal might be a complete weakling, while a Logia fruit could turn even a complete weakling into a highly troublesome and dangerous opponent. Especially for local waters. Nonetheless, there was something in what Luffy said that particularly intrigued Smoker:
"I can't quite grasp… if the 'Butcher' has a previously unknown fruit power, how did the 'Pirate Slayers' know that he could have his head cut off and not die?"
"The 'Pirate Slayers' captain conducted certain experiments and, in the middle of the night, cut off the 'Butcher's' head… There was a lot of blood and screaming."
Tashigi fell into yet another state of shock at this answer.
"And after that, the others still continue to follow Roronoa Zoro?!!" This time, Smoker didn't even try to hide his astonishment.
"They're all crazy over there," Luffy answered the captain's 'cry of the soul' with complete seriousness. "If you try to judge them by ordinary logic, you'll be wrong ten times out of ten. After the family members saw the decapitated 'Butcher,' for example, the 'Queen' got angry at her captain not for the murder, but for the noise made in the middle of the night. Her main complaint against the captain was that he could have cut off the 'Butcher's' head during the day, and didn't need to do it at night. In turn, the 'Beheader' was displeased that he wasn't killed along with his best friend and eternal rival.
"You… you're telling the truth."
No matter how absurd it all sounded, Smoker felt a distinct chill in his heart, realizing that the kid was speaking only the truth. Smoker did not take his eyes off Luffy and could not see even a hint of a lie. Everything was exactly as he had described.
"Are they… are they really that crazy?!" Tashigi's voice broke. "How can anyone follow someone who cuts off their heads based on assumptions?!"
"I see you're finally beginning to grasp what kind of monsters have come ashore in your port today," Luffy said with a hint of irony. "At the same time, you still don't understand how strong the bond is between all the members of the 'Pirate Slayers.' I always talk about them as a family, not as a crew, for a reason. Because I've been with them from the beginning, I understand better than anyone that the 'Pirate Slayers' cannot be called a team. If you want, you could consider them a gang of fanatics who firmly believe in every member of their family without exception. Even if someone else had decapitated the 'Butcher,' the other family members' reaction would have been the same. They all firmly believe that no member of their family would ever deliberately harm another. One could say that this case was the most extreme test of their family ties. Of course, I can immediately say that the downside of such a connection is that if someone not truly devoted to their cause joins their crew, they could easily destroy them all.
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(the Loguetown arc is finished in there, and next one will start soon explaining part of Luffy's past...)