One Piece: Global improvement system

300: Sudden Confrontation — Doc Q vs Perona and Mitsu!

May 26, 1504, Age of the Sea CircleA few minutes before Orion encountered Hawkins, the small boat Doc Q was traveling in reached the shores of Gourde Island without anyone noticing his presence.

"Mmm, I'm a little hungry. I suppose it's impossible to completely go against my human physiology," the gloomy boy muttered as he stepped off the boat somewhat unsteadily.

He had been drifting aimlessly for days before finally reaching this island almost miraculously, just as had happened so many times in the past. It was almost as though the universe itself were guiding him, ensuring that he would not starve to death out on the open sea.

Even so, Doc Q had altered his body through the use of specific diseases, allowing him to function at an acceptable level without needing to consume large amounts of food, though as he himself had just murmured, it was impossible to completely go against human biology.

"I hope this island has at least one decent clinic. The books I took from the previous island no longer contain anything new that interests me," the boy continued muttering while walking unsteadily toward the nearby crowded city.

Eventually, he arrived at a stall selling pumpkins—the signature food of this island—and immediately began eating the pumpkins on display without paying any attention to the stares of the people around him.

"Hey, brat! What do you think you're doing?! You have to pay for that!" shouted the owner of the pumpkin stand as he rushed toward Doc Q while waving a broom around, as though he planned to beat him with the cleaning tool if he did not receive a satisfactory explanation.

"How annoying," Doc Q muttered with his mouth full of pumpkin, and without even raising his head, he released a cloud of viruses invisible to the naked human eye, which struck the enraged stall owner directly.

The man could not continue advancing and collapsed to the ground while struggling to breathe.

Although Doc Q could use a vast number of diseases to infect his enemies—thanks to the powers of his Devil Fruit—not all of the illnesses at his disposal consumed the same amount of energy, so he had a handful of basic attacks that he commonly relied on because they required very little mental energy.

In the case of the pumpkin vendor, Doc Q had used one of his favorite attacks: a highly contagious virus that did not kill the victim immediately, but instead forced them to suffer for many agonizing hours before finally causing death nearly a full day after infection.

It was a simple and cruel method of dealing with the people around him, and Doc Q generally used this attack to "cleanse" the cities he visited so that he would not have to endure the presence of those annoying humans surrounding him, trying to interrupt his thoughts with their whining and complaints.

At that moment, the unfortunate pumpkin vendor already had one foot in the grave, though he would suffer terribly for quite some time before reaching it.

A great commotion soon began to spread through the corner of the marketplace where the pumpkin stand was located, as the vendor's sudden collapse into an agonizing state alarmed all the surrounding people, who quickly began to panic.

The pumpkin vendor's wife rushed over to try to help her husband, but the instant she came into contact with him, she too collapsed to the ground, her complexion pale and her breathing strained, because as had already been mentioned, the virus used by Doc Q was highly contagious from person to person—even if it was not particularly resilient in the environment itself.

Little by little, a large crowd began gathering around the pumpkin stand, and several more individuals attempted to help the couple, only to fall victim to the illness just like them.

As the number of people lying on the ground with obvious signs of severe sickness continued increasing, the crowd began retreating fearfully, though there was always an exception to the rule.

A serious-looking boy wearing a mushroom-shaped hat arrived where the infected patients lay, and to everyone's surprise, he did not collapse as those who had previously attempted to assist the victims had, because the child in question was a genius doctor and had taken the necessary precautions before approaching the infected.

Equipped with a face mask, gloves, and protective goggles, Law approached with a bottle of disinfectant in hand, examining the patients lying on the ground with great professionalism while attempting to determine the cause behind their sudden collapse in the middle of the marketplace.

Doc Q saw that there was a child even younger than himself—he was currently eleven years old and two years older than Law—dressed like a doctor and attempting to treat the people he had just infected with his virus, and for some reason he could not fully explain, he felt a tremendous irritation rise inside him.

Although the zombie-like boy was generally indifferent toward the people who crossed his path, it was impossible to ignore someone attempting to cure a person he himself had infected, because that was practically a personal challenge his pride could not tolerate.

For that reason, Doc Q dropped the pumpkin he had been eating onto the ground and approached Law, raising his hand with an obsessive look in his eyes while gathering a massive amount of viral particles within it, prepared to eliminate this blasphemous child who dared challenge him in the field of medicine.

However, before he could do so, an adorable little girl with a deadpan expression on her face suddenly appeared in front of him, stepping between him and Law—who was focused on the patients and had not paid any attention to Doc Q.

"What are you doing?" Mitsu asked, lightly frowning.

She was not entirely sure why, but she could feel that the gloomy boy standing before her had absolutely no good intentions, almost as if she could instinctively peer into his soul, and had Orion been present, he would have been surprised to discover that Mitsu—who was not good at socializing at all—had developed her Observation Haki in the same direction as him, possessing a natural talent for empathizing with others and reading their emotions.

Doc Q's presence was extremely faint, almost like that of a walking corpse, so people generally ignored him unless he did something that made him stand out—such as stealing pumpkins from a market stall—however, Mitsu had noticed that he was planning to hurt her friend Law, and that was why she had stepped into his path, because after all, she was the group's bodyguard—self-appointed, just as Monet had self-appointed herself as Orion's maid.

She could not allow anyone to hurt Law while she was in charge of the group's safety, and because of that, her posture toward Doc Q was quite aggressive, taking the gloomy kid by surprise to the point that he unconsciously stepped backward after seeing the intense gaze of the small clone.

However, that hesitation lasted only an instant before it was replaced by a feeling of humiliation far greater than the one he had experienced when Law attempted to treat the insects he had infected with his viruses.

For Doc Q, who for years had been accustomed to destroying everything in his path and taking whatever he wanted by force, Mitsu's defiant gaze was an enormous insult, and the fact that he himself had felt fear and stepped back for even a moment was the greatest humiliation of all.

Because of that, something inside his mind snapped in that instant, and with an expression overflowing with madness, he smiled maniacally as he released massive quantities of the same virus he had used on the pumpkin vendor, generating an enormous wave of pestilence that spread slowly throughout the entire city, sparing none of the innocent people in its path, who began collapsing one after another as victims of the disease.

Even so, Mitsu sensed the danger through her rudimentary Observation Haki, and grabbing Law by the collar of his shirt, she ran at full speed toward Monet and the others, intending to bring them all to safety from whatever it was causing the uneasiness she was feeling.

Meanwhile, Monet had been observing the situation carefully, and with her sharp mind, she had managed to deduce almost perfectly what was happening, even though she could not see the pathogens that Doc Q was releasing into the air in massive quantities.

Because of that, she used her new Logia powers to create a small dome of snow to protect her little sister Sugar, though she intentionally did not close it completely, waiting for Mitsu to arrive together with Law and Perona—who was currently halfway between both groups—so that she could seal the snow sphere entirely and protect themselves from the mysterious attack of the gloomy boy, at least until Orion returned to help them.

Mitsu ran while carrying Law with absolutely no delicacy, heading straight toward Monet's dome, but Perona had other plans, because the moment she saw the people around her beginning to collapse to the ground in agony, she too deduced that the strange zombie-like boy standing before them was responsible.

Ignoring Monet's calls for her to run toward the dome and take shelter alongside them, the small gothic girl ran directly toward Doc Q while shouting,

"We can't let him hurt the people of this town! Orion would never allow it!"

Perona's words took Monet by surprise, because at no point had she been thinking about the safety or well-being of the suffering people around them.

It was not that she was indifferent toward them, but rather that she had learned to always prioritize her own safety and that of her sister Sugar above all else, especially after spending years living with the sword of Damocles hanging over her head inside the great slave facility where her life rested in the hands of others.

For the newly arrived Monet, worrying about other people was still a luxury she had not grown accustomed to, and in her mind there was only room to care about the people close to her, who now—in addition to her sister Sugar—also included her young master Orion, Law, Mitsu, and Perona.

As for everyone else, she currently had no space in her heart to worry about them, and perhaps she would need to spend a long time living peacefully in Pacific Kingdom before she could truly leave behind the selfish mentality forged by trauma and begin seeing the world the same way Orion and his companions did.

After all, Perona had grown up directly under Orion's influence and values, and because of that, she had inevitably developed a worldview completely different from Monet's. The moment she saw the people of Gourde Town being attacked, there had been no hesitation whatsoever in her mind—the only possible course of action was to help the innocent.

Perhaps Law, and even Mitsu, would not have reacted the same way as Perona, since they too were still relatively new within Orion's forces, but the small gothic girl definitely would not allow innocent people to be harmed right in front of her.

Many people might think such a sense of justice was an unnecessary burden, but for Perona it was completely natural, and she did not feel she was wrong in her actions, which was why she ignored Monet's desperate pleas for her to take shelter inside the snow dome and instead ran directly toward Doc Q.

"Don't worry, Monet, I'm not defenseless anymore! Now I can fight too!" Perona declared proudly, thinking that now she possessed the powers of her Devil Fruit and was no longer a helpless little girl who burdened Orion.

Now she had the power to help Orion, and once she defeated the enemy standing before her and saved the people of the town, Orion would surely be very happy and praise her. Or at least, that was what the small gothic girl believed, because reality would not be nearly so rosy.

"Stop right there! Don't hurt innocent people anymore!" Perona shouted as she stepped in front of Doc Q and unleashed her Negative Hollows against him.

Doc Q, who had been grinning maniacally, felt something pass through his chest, though it was not a painful sensation, but rather an unpleasant one, like something damp rubbing against his skin.

Frowning, Doc Q began to feel somewhat irritated, and also a little sad, though he soon returned to normal, because his natural state of mind was already so terrible that Perona's Negative Hollows had very little effect on him, or at least not enough to leave him incapacitated.

In truth, what Perona's sudden attack had accomplished more than anything else was drawing the zombie-like kid's full attention toward her, while at the same time a great fury began to rise inside him. For reasons he himself could not fully understand, Doc Q felt that both Law and Perona were utterly detestable, and he wanted to erase their existence from this world.

Meanwhile, Mitsu threw Law into Monet's snow dome, telling the green-haired girl to seal the sphere without worrying about her or Perona, because she could sense that the attack Doc Q had unleashed was about to reach the area where Monet was standing.

Monet obviously did not want to leave the two girls outside the dome, because that meant exposing them to Doc Q's mysterious attack, but feeling her little sister Sugar's trembling hand clutching at her dress, Monet could not stop her selfish desire to protect her sister from prevailing, and gritting her teeth, she looked at Mitsu before completely sealing the snow dome, protecting Law and Sugar from the cloud of pestilence released by Doc Q.

Even though Monet was reproaching herself for failing to protect the entire group, none of her companions had any intention whatsoever of judging her for her actions. To begin with, in Mitsu's mind, it was only natural that she herself would be the one to sacrifice herself in the event of an incident, because after all, she was the group's bodyguard.

On the other hand, Perona was far too kindhearted to judge Monet, and instead would simply be happy knowing that she had managed to protect Sugar and Law.

As for Law, he was completely immersed in his thoughts and had not reacted at all even when Mitsu tossed him into Monet's dome like a sack of potatoes.

At this very moment, the young medical prodigy was analyzing the symptoms he had observed in the infected patients, searching through his vast mental database to determine what type of illness matched those symptoms. He knew perfectly well that he would not be of much help in fighting an enemy, but he was proud of his role as a doctor, and he wanted to at least help discover a cure for the affliction tormenting the people of this island.

In his mind, there was no possible way they could lose a battle while Orion was nearby, so his duty was to decipher the disease affecting the patients and help Orion treat them with the proper cure.

While Law, Monet, and Sugar remained inside the hermetically sealed snow dome, Mitsu was sprinting at full speed back toward where Perona and the gloomy boy were standing, because she had a terrible feeling that something awful was about to happen.

And as if to confirm that dreadful sensation, Doc Q suddenly began tearing at his own hair like a madman while violently shaking his head, displaying an intensity of emotion he had not shown in many years.

"...What did you do?... What are those ghosts?!!!" the boy screamed, exploding in rage as he felt unable to fully control his own emotions, while Perona stared at him in shock, because the effect of her Negative Hollows was not supposed to induce anger, but rather a state of resignation.

She had believed she could deal with Doc Q's threat simply by stripping away his will to move with the powers of her Devil Fruit, but she had not anticipated that her Negative Hollows would trigger a completely different reaction upon coming into contact with Doc Q's distorted—and already deeply negative—psyche.

"Damn it… I'm going to wipe this place off the map…" Doc Q muttered as he violently tore at his own hair, and then, opening his mouth unnaturally wide in a rather terrifying sight, he unleashed another wave of pestilence, loaded with the same virus he had used before but in far greater quantities, moving at incredible speed.

The wave of viruses struck Perona almost immediately, since she was standing close to Doc Q, and continued spreading at tremendous speed, crashing into Mitsu, against Monet's snow dome, and rapidly extending throughout the entire island, reaching within seconds even the alley several minutes away where Orion had been speaking with Hawkins.

Perona dropped to her knees as Doc Q's virus invaded her body, though her condition was not as severe as that of the townspeople, since her physical strength was somewhat above average.

With a stubborn expression and refusing to give up on stopping Doc Q, the small gothic girl stretched out her hand once more, launching her Negative Hollows at him again, hoping that this time she would succeed in stripping away his desire to fight.

However, Perona's attack only enraged the gloomy boy even further, and with a gaze overflowing with hatred, he gathered a massive amount of viral particles in both hands, this time using diseases far more potent than the ones he had previously spread on a large scale.

He was willing to use all of his power to erase the blasphemous existence represented by the girl standing before him, who despite having been struck by his attack and infected by his virus, still glared at him defiantly while trying to stop him with those strange ghosts.

"Go to hell!" Doc Q shouted, throwing two punches that transformed into twin torrents of viruses aimed directly at Perona.

She was already too weak to move, and when she tried once more to summon her Negative Hollows, she failed because her energy had been completely exhausted.

Closing her eyes, Perona whispered inwardly, "I'm sorry, Orion," because not only had she failed to protect the people of the town, but she had also failed to protect herself, which would undoubtedly make Orion deeply sad because of her.

However, Doc Q's attack never struck her, and the small gothic girl opened her eyes in confusion, only to see a familiar back standing before her.

Mitsu, the group's self-appointed bodyguard, had arrived just in time to throw herself into the path of Doc Q's attack, taking it in Perona's place and becoming infected with deadly viruses that immediately began ravaging her body.

"Don't be stupid… while I'm here… nobody can hurt you…" Mitsu said with difficulty, showing an incredibly faint smile that broke through her usual deadpan expression, taking Perona completely by surprise.

"Mitsu…" Perona began to say as she saw the small clone starting to cough blood from her mouth, panic rising within her.

"You can tell me later… right now I need… to deal with the enemy," Mitsu said while walking toward Doc Q, who could not believe what he was seeing.

"You… Why are you still standing? WHO ARE YOU?!" the agitated boy screamed as he watched Mitsu approach him covered in her own blood, looking utterly terrifying.

The capricious doctor could not understand how someone could remain standing after being infected with the strongest diseases in his arsenal, nor could he imagine that Mitsu had been genetically modified by Vegapunk and his team of scientists, becoming the first clone superior to the original material they had ever successfully created.

"It's time… to end this…" Mitsu said with difficulty as she raised a finger to use Shigan and finish Doc Q off, but before she could launch her technique, she collapsed to the ground, overwhelmed by the diseases wreaking havoc inside her body.

Doc Q, who had fallen onto his rear out of sheer fear as Mitsu advanced toward him like a goddess of death, saw that she had finally succumbed to his attack and began laughing hysterically while struggling to stand back up and slowly walking toward the unconscious girl.

"This is what you deserve for trying to stand in my way hehe. Once you die, I'm going to cut you open like a frog to see what makes you so resistant… or maybe I could do it right now hehe."

Doc Q was already reaching his hands toward Mitsu's body while imagining all kinds of experiments he could perform on her, but before he could touch the small clone, Orion appeared in front of him like a specter, taking the zombie-like boy completely by surprise.

And Orion's expression was so distorted by rage that Doc Q almost fainted just from looking into his eyes.

"You… Who ar—?"

Doc Q tried to ask a question, but before he could finish it, his head was severed from the rest of his body by a precise strike from Orion's cutlass.

"It's far too dangerous to leave you alive," Orion said, and without paying any further attention to the decapitated Doc Q, he gently picked Mitsu up in his arms like a little princess before speaking to the terrified Perona, who was sitting several meters behind him.

"Don't worry. Now that I'm here, everything will be alright."

Orion's gentle smile contrasted sharply with the scene of death and tragedy unfolding all around them, but Perona felt complete trust that he would keep those words, and closing her eyes in exhaustion, she finally succumbed to the effects of the disease she had been resisting through sheer willpower alone.

A desperate race against time to save the people of Gourde—and above all, to save his precious companions—was now about to begin for Orion.