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**”Such a rich aroma…”
Robin followed Liam as they leapt out of the ghostly fortress and into a lush, colorful jungle. Almost immediately, she caught a scent in the air – a scent so pervasive that it seemed to saturate the very atmosphere.
As they walked, they took in their surroundings. The jungle was teeming with bizarre and exotic flora. Trees and plants of all shapes and sizes were everywhere, laden with bananas, apples, oranges, pineapples, peaches…
Robin could name countless fruits and vegetables. However, despite her extensive knowledge, nearly half of the plants and fruits were completely unfamiliar to her, which made her curious.
The most ridiculous part? Some trees even had branches full of… delicious-looking blocks of flesh!
“It’s not the smell of flowers, it’s the smell of food…” Liam sniffed the air. “Is this island covered in food?”
Along the path, a massive flower bud bloomed, and its center was filled with small, rice-like grains that even emitted a faint, delicious scent… Robin leaned closer to get a better look, but the huge flower suddenly opened wider. Its petals, sharp as fangs, transformed into a huge, gaping maw, ready to swallow Robin’s pretty little head!
Startled, Robin was yanked backwards by her neck as Liam pulled her away just in time. The giant, carnivorous flower snapped at the air right where her face had been.
“Bite me?” Liam playfully leaned his head toward the flower’s snapping jaws.
Snap!
The flower bit down. Liam had quickly pulled his head back. “Oops, you missed!”
He leaned in again…
“Bite me?”
“Oops! Missed again!”
“Bite me?”
“Oops! Not… oh, got me this time (muffled)…”
“…”
Robin was speechless as she watched Liam stick his head into the flower’s mouth. Soon after, suspicious chewing sounds echoed from inside… She looked around the seemingly deserted jungle, a little concerned. Where was his ghost?
Robin tried using her Flower-Flower Fruit (Hana Hana no Mi) to grow a circle of arms around the flower’s jaws, prying it open.
She noticed that the flower was getting weaker by the second…
When she opened the flower’s bud, she saw Liam sitting inside, his mouth full of rice-like grains. He licked his lips in satisfaction and said, “Thanks for the food!”
Robin remarked, “This island doesn’t seem like it’s inhabited by people…”
She turned her head to see Liam sitting on the ground with a… strangely calm and resigned expression on his face.
‘Is it that time again?’ Robin quickly realized what was going on. Soon she saw Liam nodding into the air next to him, clearly communicating with his spirit. Then suddenly, Liam began to convulse violently, as if electrocuted…
“AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH…”
Liam let out a bloodcurdling scream, his voice filled with agony. Robin, well prepared for this, quickly covered her ears.
The entire island began to shake violently.
No way, right? Robin thought incredulously as she covered her ears. Was Liam’s scream so intense that it caused an earthquake? No, if anything it would have attracted some terrifying jungle beast…
Usually at times like this, Liam would be in so much pain that he could barely move… If any beasts showed up, we’d be torn to shreds, leaving nothing but bloodied, mangled corpses…
Rumbling…
The ground continued to shake violently. Robin struggled to keep her balance as she looked up, her face filled with shock.
**The entire island’s surroundings were beginning to rise, bit by bit!**
It was as if long, massive petals were being lifted higher and higher, gradually curling inward toward the center of the island… Robin noticed that the jungle around her was filled with panicked animal sounds as this strange phenomenon unfolded. She even spotted a group of ape-like beasts quickly climbing a tree to avoid falling…
**Falling?**
Liam, enduring the excruciating pain and fatigue of his fusion with the Stand, lay on the ground and looked up at the trees, plants, and flowers that toppled and toppled over him. He clenched his teeth, but managed to murmur in awe in the midst of it all: “This feels like *Inception*!”
Soon, the ground beneath them tilted further, sending Liam tumbling down… And at the bottom, a massive, gaping red mouth resembling fiery lips had opened in the center of the island, eagerly waiting to devour.
On the raised “petals” of the ground, large trees leaned horizontally. A slender arm suddenly sprouted from the air and reached out toward Robin. The palm of the hand opened and another identical arm emerged, repeating the process until, on the seventh try, it finally grabbed Robin’s right hand!
“Ugh…” Robin gritted her teeth as her left hand grabbed onto another chain of arms that stretched down, wrapped tightly around Liam, and swung back and forth like a pendulum.
“You’re so heavy, you fool…” Robin frowned, feeling her left arm go completely numb, as if it were about to snap. This was bad – she could barely hold on…
Looking up at the “chain” of arms connected to the tree, Robin watched as the arms slowly disintegrated, turning into petals and drifting away in the fading light. The chain of her left arm was still attached to Liam, but they both continued to fall into the darkness below, like a pair of connected yo-yos…
**Rumble…**
Beasts living on the “petals,” or sea creatures stranded from the ocean, all began to fall toward the “core of the flower,” right into the center of the island.
The giant mouth that had opened in the center of the island was like a bottomless abyss, devouring all the descending creatures like a feast from the heavens.
The island, resembling an upside-down flower, closed completely. As they plummeted, Robin watched the last bit of light at the top fade away.
**Pop! Pop! Pop!** Explosive sounds echoed through the air in the darkness, coming from below.
…
In the pitch-black darkness, Robin blinked.
At the last moment, Liam’s ghost had appeared and caught her.
Then she felt a small, sharp pain in her left arm – Liam was trying to free himself from the grip of her Flower-Flower-Fruit (Hana Hana no Mi) creation.
As soon as Robin released her Flower-Flower Fruit powers, she heard a series of “pops” echo from below, followed by bursts of air.
Feeling weightless again in the darkness, Robin soon felt warm arms around her. **Pop, pop, pop…** She heard Liam exclaim, “You hugged me so tight I couldn’t even move! Scared me to death, I almost died…”
“…”
Robin felt a little hurt, but before she could respond, she heard Liam say in a dramatic, almost exaggerated tone – she could even picture his overly animated expression just by hearing his voice – “How could he do that to me! I was only trying to save him~! Jeez… Ow! Why did you bite me?”
Unable to resist, Robin bit his arm. Soon after, the surroundings seemed to change, and she realized that she had sat down.
Though the world remained in complete darkness, Robin could feel around and quickly understood – they had returned to the interior of Liam’s ghostly fortress. They were now sitting at the opening created by Liam’s Shiro Shiro no Mi (Castle-Castle Fruit) on its surface.
…
B.I.B. could float, and without the burden of two fragile human bodies, it had nothing to fear from the upheavals of earth and sky.
After the island had folded in on itself and sealed off all light, Robin, now sitting side by side with Liam at the opening of B.I.B.’s fortress, couldn’t see anything… But she could clearly feel Liam’s body heat beside her. His body seemed far stronger than the average person’s, radiating more warmth, almost like his very breath was hotter than normal…
In the darkness, the sound of objects tumbling could be heard continuously, accompanied by the enormous chewing sounds coming from the even darker depths below…
Robin found the atmosphere strange and unsettling. After thinking for a moment, she said, “That was close earlier. If we had fallen into that giant mouth down there, we’d definitely have been chewed up into a mess of bones and flesh…”
.…..
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