Several days earlier.
A room within the Hideout at the main estate on rveille.
Deep in its innermost reaches, in a conference room reserved for conversations of the highest secrecy.
"What is it, Mama? What did you want to talk about?"
"Clearin' out the room and askin' both the current Admiral Sue and the Supre Advisor to listen together... that's awfully dramatic. What the hell are you schemin'?"
"I'm soooorry, but the subject matter is what it iiiiis! I wanted to do a slightly dangerous experint and needed permissiooooon!"
"...Mama, you always just do things on your own and get approval after the fact, and this experint is dangerous enough that you're actually asking permission beforehaaand...!?"
"Damn, it's been over thirty years and I can still feel the stomachache from when she ca to with sothin' similar comin' back..."
"Oh my, Boss, is your tummy not feeling weeeeell!? I'll get you so dicine lateeeer! You can't push yourself just because work is busy, you knooooow! Your body is your greatest asseeeet!"
"You're the cause."
"...So, Mama. I'm honestly scared just to hear it, but I'll bear with it and ask... what's this experint? Could it be... research using The Real Deal that was in that Vault?"
"Sharp as ever, Sue-chaaaan! That's riiight, half correeect!"
"Half?"
"What's the other half? No, I know askin' is gonna scare as usual, but I got a feelin' I gotta ask."
"The other haaalf..."
"I want to modify myself one more tiiii, and I need your permission to do iiiiit!"
"...Excuse ?"
☆☆☆
"Granny's gonna... modify herself!?"
"I had heard that Granny was ravaged by illness... so this is to resolve that?"
"I see, so by using the Op-Op Fruit's Powers, even sothing that outrageous becos possible."
One day.
I was telling the three girls about this, along with the two who had recently joined the "daughters."
The "dangerous experint" Mama had consulted us about... or rather, the modification surgery for Mama's own "treatnt."
Mama, Venerdi Sou, had her body ravaged by an incurable disease, and she had been on the brink of death.
Then, during the Ape's Concert, she encountered a small miracle that extended her lifespan sowhat. Thanks to that, she was able to be taken outside by us when we appeared what felt like several months later.
And so she managed to live to see this world "34 years later." But for her, the threat of illness had not entirely passed.
Because that "miracle" hadn't completely cured her disease.
Her condition had temporarily improved, but slowly yet surely, the illness was eating away at Mama's body once more.
At this rate, it was thought that Mama's body would reach its limit again in just a few more years.
But that's all in the past now.
A little while ago, Iris and Snow brought a large number of Devil Fruits from the world of the future.
Among them was the Op-Op Fruit, which Mama ate (without permission), becoming a Modification-Free Human.
Everyone unanimously agreed that "a crazy person just got a crazy Power," but even so, the fact that Mama, a super-genius scientist and super-genius doctor who deserved five or six "supers" stacked on top, had obtained the Op-Op Fruit's Powers was, well, enormous.
Mama's own disease? She used her Modification-Free ability to its fullest and cured it in seconds. And while she was at it, she cleaned up nearly all the side effects and adverse impacts from the outrageously reckless modifications she'd perford on her own body before.
Of course, it wasn't just Mama herself. She went through the entire Golden Lion Pirates and fixed, one after another, injuries and illnesses that previous dical technology couldn't handle, including lingering aftereffects. (And yes, I do an "fixed" in the broadest sense of the word.)
I'm a little reluctant to admit it, but the contribution was undeniably comnsurate with the fact that she'd eaten the Op-Op Fruit. Possibly even more than that.
However, even for Mama... as I said "nearly all" just now, she wasn't able to completely remove every last effect of the disease and modifications.
Because even with Modification-Free, there are types of irreversible damage that simply can't be healed.
In Mama's case, there were several such issues, especially with her nerves and internal organs.
Just because an organ isn't functioning well doesn't an you can do an organ transplant or nerve reconnection and call it cured. The human body's internal organs are delicate in many ways.
I'll say it again: even Modification-Free, even a ridiculous Power that could create sothing like a Centaur in the Original Work, what's impossible is impossible. There are limits.
But Mama was trying to cover and solve that with... yet another outrageous technique.
That was the research she'd locked away in that Vault. The Real Deal. Sothing so dangerous that Papa and I had considered using our authority to forcibly halt and dispose of it.
After getting a thorough explanation, it did seem practically viable, and I could believe Mama's technical skill was more than sufficient to succeed.
Even so, it wasn't like I had no reservations. In fact, I had a lot. A whole lot. But ultimately, after discussing it with Papa... we gave permission.
That was one week ago.
"...One week ago?"
After listening to the whole explanation, Iris spoke up as if sothing had just occurred to her.
"...Hey, Mom? You gave Grandma permission for the modification surgery one week ago?"
"Yeah, that's right."
"Once permission was granted... when was Grandmother supposed to perform this surgery?"
"She said she could do it as early as the next day, once she had permission. Apparently, human experintation using slaves... enemies and criminals, was already done."
"One week ago, the next day... that would be six days ago, right?"
"That's right."
"...Yesterday, I saw Grandma in perfectly fine health, energetically running all sorts of experints and research, dragging Hogback around."
"Yeah, I saw that too."
"...So that ans?"
"It ans the surgery succeeded and she's cured."
"..."
Not even a mont's space for a somber mood to settle in. That's the Mama quality standard.
My daughters stood there with dumbfounded expressions. I get it, I really do. I felt the sa way.
Actually, the very next day, the day of the surgery itself, Mama burst into my office that night and announced, "It was a successssss! I still need to monitor things a bit mooooore!" with trendous energy. I nearly fell over.
...Sorry for telling you so late, and sorry it ended up being one big after-the-fact report all at once.
And there's one more thing I need to apologize for.
The reason I gathered you all here today was partly to report that Mama "seems to be cured," and... there's one more reason.
"...And that reason is?"
"After this, Mama wants to present her research findings, including so content related to that modification surgery. It concerns Mama's health and other things, so I thought everyone here should hear it together. We're family, after all."
"...And your real reason?"
"I knew I'd be ntally destroyed listening to a terrifying report and research presentation, so I wanted to at least increase the number of people suffering alongside ."
"Excuse !?"
I an, co on, with things like this, you can get through it when you have people to share the painful experience with and complain to each other afterward, right?
Usually it's Papa and Dr. Indigo who get dragged along for Mama-related things, but given the nature of this particular topic, there was a very real possibility three people wouldn't be enough to handle it...
"No, I'm really sorry, but... please, just let yourselves get dragged into this without complaint."
"First ti Mama's ever asked us for sothing like this..."
"For it to be that serious... this Real Deal research Granny has been working on must be sothing else."
"I'm prepared to accept and love everything, Mom's selfishness and Grandma's troubleso habits included, all of it... I really am, but wow, this is scary..."
"...You don't think sothing might co up that was, like, so bad it was better off not being passed down and just dying out with the old world... right?"
"That it can't be denied is what frightens ... Grandmother Sou was already gone in our era, after all..."
Well then, with everyone's agreent secured (?)... off we go, to the top-secret conference room.
Mama should be in there, with her materials all prepared, setting up for a presentation or sothing like a thesis defense.
☆☆☆
"Everyooone! Thank you so much for gathering here today despite your busy scheduleeees! I didn't know Alice and the others would be listening too, but Grandma will do her best to explain things clearly, so please enjoy yourselveeees!"
"The lightness of her delivery is in inverse proportion to how grueso the content she's about to discuss will be..."
"Can't be helped. I've never once seen her speak in a serious tone. This is the woman who reported the fate of her own death in her usual manner while bundling a research presentation that exploited said fate right along with it."
The presenter: Mama.
The attendees: Papa, Dr. Indigo, myself, and all five daughters.
A total of 9 gathered in the top-secret conference room deep within the Hideout.
In terms of scale, it felt like... a university seminar presentation, maybe?
'Wait, was she being serious with that opening like it was so kind of warm-up act? There's no way this is content anyone could "enjoy" listening to... and there's clearly sothing dangerous sitting on the lectern besides the docunts.'
"Hey, Grandma, can I ask sothing before we start?"
"Of couuurse? What is it, Leona-chan?"
"Your volu today is kinda, like, pretty normal, yeah? Usually your voice is super loud and carries, but today it's fine even in this small room."
"Oh, I was wondering about that too. Mama, could it be because of... whatever that thing is you're wearing on your ear right now?"
Mama currently had sothing like a headset attached to her ear.
There shouldn't be anything like headsets in this world, so I'd been wondering what it was.
"Correct! My natural voice is so loud that it seed to be causing everyone just a teensy bit of trouble, so I made a device that reduces conversational voluee! Adjusted so it's just the right level for normal people to listeeen!"
"'Teensy bit' is puttin' it mildly... well, if she's bein' considerate, I'll take it."
"Indeed. I'm mildly moved that after over a decade, this has finally occurred to her."
Tearjerking words from two people who'd known Mama since before I was even born.
According to Mama, that headset-like device incorporated a Tone Dial, and as she said, it suppressed the wearer's voice to a level comfortable for normal people to hear.
Honestly, it still felt slightly loud, but it was definitely at a level where we could have a conversation indoors without our ears hurting, so it wasn't really a bother.
...I was aware that my standards for "good enough" had beco rather unfortunate because of how things normally were.
Anyway, with the preamble out of the way...
"So, Mama... today's presentation is about, um... those clearly dangerous-looking specins sitting on the desk, right?"
As I spoke, I looked at the two large jarred specins placed on the sowhat oversized desk, or lectern I suppose, beside where Mama was standing.
They reminded of the animal dissection specins that used to sit in the science lab back in middle school...
In one jar was an insect that looked like a cross between a spider and a centipede.
It was quite large, and long. Roughly the size of a dium to sowhat large snake.
Well, in the One Piece World, having insects this big isn't strange at all. They're common on rveille, even.
But even accounting for that, there was sothing... distinctly uncanny about this insect.
The label read: "Plaga."
I recognized this. It was one of the things inside that Vault.
And in the other jar... a f-fetus... specin?
Inside was "sothing" shaped like a human fetus, yet clearly not human, its body appearing to not even be ford from flesh.
It had strange jagged protrusions and tentacle-like appendages. Genuinely inhuman. If soone told it was an alien larva, I might have believed them.
The label read: "Kadu."
Unlike the first one, I didn't recognize this... wait, no. I did.
That's right, this was sothing Mama had brought back from the Ape's Concert. I rembered storing it with Enigma, thinking 'What even is this, gross,' while forcing myself to bear with it.
Plaga and Kadu.
These two objects, which looked dangerous just from their appearance, so much so that it would be fraud if they turned out not to be, were the subject of Mama's "Real Deal research" and... today's topic.
And what we didn't know at the ti was that Mama had already used these to pull off sothing outrageous. We were about to find out.
To be continued...
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