Brook quickly realized the Three Eyed Raven's ability could be exploited like a loophole.
He did not need Bran to speak prophecy aloud.
All Brook had to do was place the most likely answer in front of him and watch his face.
A flinch.
A tightening of the lips.
A tiny shift of the eyes.
That was enough.
After all, most of the conclusions were Brook's own deductions. Bran was not "telling" him anything, so it felt like the backlash never triggered.
Bran had always been described as a disposable tool, something you used once and then left to cool down for years, almost like some ridiculous forbidden technique.
But now?
Brook could harvest information just by reading expressions, and Bran looked like he was still alive.
Brook narrowed his eyes.
So what, exactly, was the condition that triggered the backlash?
Did it strike only when the future was spoken?
Or would Bran simply die one day without warning, like the bill finally coming due?
To test the edge, Brook pushed again.
"Will I get the Dark Dark Fruit?"
His eyes gleamed.
"Or the Sun God Fruit? Let me put it another way… do you think I prefer black stockings or white stockings?"
Bran's entire body stiffened.
His face went pale, and he looked like a man standing on a cliff, trying to convince himself he could fly.
Then, trembling, he answered anyway.
"Captain Brook… probably likes black stockings."
He swallowed hard.
"Just like me."
"Yohohoho!"
Brook burst into laughter so loud it rolled across the sea like cannon fire.
"Excellent. When we get back, I'll introduce you to a black silk warrior from the Kingdom of Women!"
Brook's original target had been the Dark Dark Fruit, or the legendary Sun God Nika Fruit.
But after thinking it through, he found the Dark Dark Fruit far more fitting.
It carried the scent of the Underworld, the weight of Hell.
Brook liked that.
With Bran in tow, Brook returned to the sky, back toward Ballon Island.
He had already decided where to place this new "asset."
The decision making department.
From now on, future choices might depend on Bran's mood, the subtle shifts of his expression.
Brook did not know whether this would silently shorten Bran's lifespan, or whether one day the backlash would arrive and Bran would simply drop dead.
But Brook also believed in a simple rule.
People were meant to work.
If they did not die working, they would explode working and earn their boss two Ferraris and a few more concubines.
Since Imu had chosen to hide and quietly repair or strengthen the Uranus, Brook would not go looking for trouble.
Let time drag.
The longer it stretched, the deeper Brook's foundation became.
He mobilized everything.
Search the Dark Dark Fruit.
Search the Sun God Nika Fruit.
Search the Op Op Fruit.
The Dark Dark Fruit should be somewhere in the New World.
The Operation Fruit should be in the North Blue.
He remembered the original course of history.
The Dark Dark Fruit had been discovered by Newgate's Fourth Division.
The Emperors rarely left their New World territories, and those waters were always close to the West Blue.
After Teach killed Thatch of the Fourth Division and stole the Dark Dark Fruit, he somehow crossed the Calm Belt, reached the West Blue, recruited Lafitte, and formed the Blackbeard Pirates.
Then they entered the Grand Line, following a similar route to the Straw Hats, only slightly earlier.
They attacked Drum Island.
Later, they met the Straw Hats in Mock Town on Jaya.
If Luffy had not ridden the Knock Up Stream to the sky, Teach might have captured him.
As for the Sun God Nika Fruit, a fruit with its own will?
Who knew where it had wandered.
How it was found by the World Government.
How it was escorted by CP9 Who's Who, only to be stolen by Red Haired Shanks.
That same year, Shanks reached Foosha Village in the East Blue, and Luffy accidentally ate what the world called the Gum Gum Fruit.
Brook exhaled slowly.
Now that he had the possibility of eating two Devil Fruits, he felt almost helpless.
If he had known earlier, he might have kept the Azure Dragon Fruit.
That fruit was terrifying.
Powerful.
It could fly.
It could command elements.
But the past was past.
Now he could only hope the Dark Dark Fruit surfaced soon.
It had been so many years already.
Who knew where it was hiding?
He had considered chasing the Sun God fruit too, but that fruit felt… picky.
It demanded a pure heart, a simple laugh, something bright enough to burn.
Brook glanced inward.
His heart was not exactly white.
If you sliced open the hearts of most transmigrators, they would not be red.
They would be black.
Brook snorted to himself.
"Thinking about Devil Fruits is pointless right now. My soul hasn't split, and I don't even have a spare heart ready."
There were not many enemies in the New World who met his standards.
Whose heart could he take?
Did he have to kill an admiral?
Or one of the Five Elders?
Then another thought surfaced.
Roger did not have many years left.
But would his terminal illness affect the strength of his heart?
If Brook obtained a healthy Roger heart, would he gain something from the D bloodline?
Would he awaken the kind of Observation Haki that heard everything?
With Crocus and his healing ability, maybe it was possible to secure a healthy, strong heart.
Brook's mind spun again.
What poison had Imu fed Roger through Mullin?
Was it a poison of the body, or the soul?
At the very least, it had not damaged Roger's fertility.
Because he and Rouge still had a child, Ace, one or two years before Roger's death.
Brook's mood darkened.
He felt he had wasted countless powerful hearts in the past.
Now they were dust.
Or worse, they had become scum and zombies under Abefor.
It was almost heartbreaking.
He had blown that bald Elder to pieces.
If only he had been able to take the heart of Ethanbaron.
Brook could not help but feel bitter envy for another world's shinobi, who collected eyes like trophies and stored them neatly away.
In the future, Brook would have to do the same.
Find a truly strong heart.
But after repeated attempts, Brook discovered something unpleasant.
His soul had fused too completely with the original Brook's.
It was solid, seamless, with no cracks to pry open.
Damn it.
Did he truly need the power of the Operation Fruit to carve the first incision, to separate the souls properly?
But even if the Operation Fruit could swap minds, could it perform surgery on the soul?
When Franky and Chopper swapped minds, the Human Human Fruit ability stayed in Chopper's body. It did not follow the mind.
So were mind and soul two different things?
And even if Brook found the Operation Fruit, how many years would it take to raise an excellent user?
In the end, he could only rely on himself.
He kept returning to Vegapunk.
He kept arguing with Marshall D. Tim.
He kept pushing, asking, testing, obsessing.
Time passed.
And the path to becoming a dual fruit user did not move even one step.
Until one day, during training, Brook noticed something.
His eldest son, Hades, and his goat horned Mythical Zoan had developed an ability tied to the soul.
His fourth son, Anubis, and the three headed hellhound fruit had also awakened something similar.
Brook's eyes sharpened.
So that was it.
His turning point was not hidden on the seas.
It was growing inside his own family.
From that day on, Brook worked even harder.
He pushed the second generation of Hell to develop their Devil Fruits, especially anything that touched the soul.
Hades and Anubis also understood.
They knew how much their father valued soul power.
So they trained like beasts, desperate to carve out a path, even if it was only one small step.
Just to help their father, even a little.
---------------
In the Holy Land of Mary Geoise, the rare lull in war became an excuse for indulgence.
The Celestial Dragons began sweeping the world for beautiful women, determined to restore their numbers as quickly as possible.
Imu had sacrificed far too many of them in those battles. Now, survival mattered more than blood purity. With each Dragon keeping twenty or thirty wives, and with endless supplies of so called vitality tonics and "kidney strengthening" medicines, their household halls never went quiet.
Royal families across the world followed that example like obedient dogs.
The result was predictable.
The Four Seas and the Grand Line grew more unstable by the day, and countless homes were shattered, torn apart by greed and authority.
And because neither the World Government nor the Hell Pirates launched another great war, the world continued to "develop" on its own.
Time slipped by faster than anyone expected.
Sea Calendar, Year 1494, twenty eight years before canon.
Brook was still trapped in his soul splitting experiment.
Imu was still repairing Uranus.
Dragon had already formed a small, secret circle that would become the roots of his Revolutionary Army.
In Wano, on Oniyama, Kaido the Beast King had a daughter.
Her name was Yamato.
Brook, eager to push the three Hell Kings into starting families, even handed the Dog-Dog Fruit, Model: Large-Mouthed True God) to his niece Yamato as encouragement.
It did not work.
Redfield, Shiki, and Newgate remained stubbornly unmoved.
Instead, under the "persuasion" of Brook and Hiruba, Miss Bakkin's powerful and foolish son ended up boarding Newgate's Third Division.
Hiruba wanted nothing to do with that burden. He only wanted Miss Bakkin to himself, a quiet world for two.
With pressure closing in from every side, Miss Bakin finally had no choice but to set Weevil aside for the time being. At Brook's request, the black tech modified man took Newgate's surname.
From then on, he was Edward Weevil.
Among Kozuki Oden's three Mink wives, Peggy, the pig Mink, was the first to bear him a son.
Oden named the child Kozuki Inosuke.
The boy carried both human and pig Mink blood, and even as an infant, he looked built like trouble.
To fulfill Shakky's wish, Brook worked himself to the bone until, at last, Shakky gave birth to a black haired daughter.
She named her Kikyo, hoping the girl would grow into a powerful warrior and archer.
Brook wanted to complain.
A daughter named Kikyo?
Was she destined to fall for some half human, half dog Mink later?
Then came an even stranger event.
Toki gave birth to a son for Brook under a bizarre phenomenon that shook heaven and earth.
Brook laughed until his ribs would have hurt, if he still had them, and named his sixth son Nika.
If the Sun God would not come to him, then he would make the Sun God his son.
The name carried a desire.
Brook wanted the Sun God's fruit.
As for the so called protagonist, Straw Hat Luffy?
In this era, there was no chance for him to appear at all.
While the Hell Pirates grew steadily, the Roger Pirates ran into a crisis that even legends could not laugh away.
Gol D. Roger coughed up blood.
His body weakened.
An incurable sickness dug its claws into him and refused to let go.
Every doctor they found delivered the same verdict.
No cure.
No hope.
In the original course of history, they would have gone to Twin Capes and brought Crocus aboard, buying Roger three or four more years, long enough to reach the final island.
But now, their answer was even clearer.
"Roger, we can only ask Brook for help!"
Rayleigh grabbed Roger by the collar and shook him, furious beyond words.
"The best doctor in the world is with the Hell Pirates! And you, you idiot, you're coughing blood and still grinning like a fool. It makes me want to kill you myself!"
Roger's smile did not break.
He looked almost regretful, but not afraid.
"Rayleigh… death isn't something to fear."
His gaze drifted, as if he was staring beyond the sea.
"It's just a pity… we never found the rest of the D clan."
He laughed softly.
"And we can't even leave behind a son to become the hero of the next era. Maybe I was born too early."
Rayleigh's expression tightened.
"Maybe the D clan you were looking for has been sitting inside Brook's base this whole time."
His voice grew heavy.
They had hidden from the Hell Pirates for so long, only to end up needing Brook anyway. It was almost as if everything had been arranged from the beginning.
Roger exhaled.
"There's no choice."
He looked toward the horizon, still wearing that foolish smile.
"We'll tell Brook everything about Raftel. We're the ones breaking the promise first."
He scratched his chin.
"I wonder if he'll blame us. Haha."
Rayleigh clicked his tongue, disgusted.
He knew Roger was trying to lighten the mood, but it did nothing for his temper.
Then he spoke again, voice strained.
"Roger… maybe Brook took our seeds and handed them to those terrifying warriors from Nine Snake Island. Maybe we've already produced a few children."
Roger blinked.
Then his eyes brightened, completely shameless.
"Really?"
He leaned forward, suddenly interested.
"That doesn't sound so bad. I heard the women there aren't even allowed to know who the father is."
His grin widened.
"If I suddenly had a few children, I think I could accept that now."
He sighed.
"What a pity. I'm sick, and I still can't find the D clan."
Rayleigh stared at him like he'd swallowed a rock.
"So you actually want cheap children."
He ground his teeth.
"If you wanted kids, couldn't you just have them yourself? Did you really need Brook to do it for you?"
A wail cut through the cabin.
"Captain Roger, please don't die!"
A blue haired kid with a red nose was bawling at full volume.
And in the next second, a red haired boy in a straw hat kicked him away.
"Captain Roger won't die, Buggy!"
Shanks snapped, furious.
"What nonsense are you shouting!"
Buggy flew back, hit the deck, and immediately launched himself forward again with daggers in hand.
Shanks drew his own blade, and the two little idiots started fighting like cats in a sack.
"Enough."
Roger reached out with one hand and separated them effortlessly, like plucking two noisy insects out of the air.
"This time, I'm taking you brats to the most prosperous pirate island."
He laughed.
"Haha!"
Buggy's eyes glittered.
"The most prosperous?"
His voice rose.
"Is it covered in gold?"
Gaban leaned down toward them, voice low and tempting.
"Golden Island. Golden City. Even a golden ship."
He grinned.
"They're all real. And there are beautiful ladies everywhere."
To be honest, the Roger Pirates' veterans also missed the service of the Eighteen Hell Islands.
And they had all left seeds in the Kingdom of Women too.
They just had no right to know whether any daughters had been born.
Still, the thought lingered.
Someday, among the warriors of Nine Snake Island, one of those girls might be theirs.
Buggy suddenly exploded again, pointing at Shanks with shaking hands.
"Shanks, it's all your fault!"
He clenched his fist.
"If it wasn't for you, my Chop Chop Fruit would've sold for a fortune! And you made me a landlubber!"
He drove a punch straight into Shanks' face.
Shanks refused to lose and fired back, landing one cleanly on Buggy's nose.
Two bloody streaks spilled down over the red, and the screaming started all over again.
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