Chapter 19: Why Won't You Let Me Leave in Peace?
"Aaaah!! It's a monster—"
The Carpenter finally snapped out of his shock, screaming as he scrambled backward, all the while commanding his remaining puppets, "Stop it! Kill it! Hurry up and kill it!"
A monster?
Is he talking about me?
It was the first time Shane had ever heard someone call him that. He didn't think it sounded very nice. But on second thought, it seemed a part of him subconsciously enjoyed the title.
"Call me whatever you want!"
He grinned savagely and closed in, unleashing a flurry of punches that sent the puppets rushing to intercept him flying.
One that came at him with a sword was caught in a neck lock by his elbow. Using the power of his core, he brought up a knee and tore the puppet in two with his bare hands.
Amidst the flying wood chips, The Carpenter's face grew even more terrified.
Smack! Shane leaped up, jumping high off the stage and landing right in front of the main gate, blocking his opponent's escape route.
Now, only the town sheriff and the Marine Major, Tomte, were left guarding him.
"Get lost!"
He threw another two punches. The two men, along with their guns, flew back several meters with muffled grunts and collapsed to the ground, unconscious.
This was the result of Shane intentionally holding back. These two hadn't been fully puppetized yet. Perhaps after dealing with The Carpenter, there was still a chance for them to return to normal.
Grip.
Shane reached out. His speed, far exceeding that of a normal human, made it impossible for The Carpenter to dodge. He was grabbed by the neck and lifted up like a chicken.
The Carpenter struggled frantically, but the boy's grip was like an iron clamp, impossible to break free from in the slightest.
"Cough... cough cough..." The Carpenter's breathing became ragged, and he struggled to force words through his gritted teeth. "I'm... I'm suffocating! Let go! Let me go!"
Shane didn't loosen his grip, his eyes filled with disappointment.
"You're really weak."
"You're a Devil Fruit user, after all. I thought you might at least give me some fun, but it turns out you're just a coward who hides in the back, all bark and no bite."
"Without your puppets, you have no backbone at all."
"How could someone as weak as you have controlled the masters of eight dojos in the first place?"
"What kind of stupid question is that? Don't look down on me!" The Carpenter snarled. "I couldn't beat them in a straight fight at first, but couldn't I ambush them? If I hadn't run into an inhuman monster like you, who on Cherry Blossom Island would be my opponent..."
"Boss Shane!"
Junichi had walked up at some point. He wiped the tears from his eyes, which were now bloodshot, and gripped a sword he had picked up. "Please! Give me a chance! Let me kill him with my own hands!"
"Not so fast."
Shane held out a hand to stop him, then turned back to scrutinize the lavishly dressed middle-aged man. "I still have a few things I don't understand. I have to get them cleared up."
"Are you trying to humiliate me?!" The Carpenter shouted in shame and anger. "Who wants to answer your questions?! Just get it over with! Besides, I can barely breathe! How can I answer you if you don't let me go?!"
"See, that's one of the suspicious points."
When Shane wasn't fighting, it was as if his cellular activity returned from his muscles to his brain.
He glanced at his right hand, which was still gripping tightly. "I've been choking you for so long now. Are you really out of breath?"
"..." The Carpenter froze. He looked down abruptly and only then realized that his breathing was still smooth. The initial feeling of suffocation felt like a hallucination.
Why... why is this? How is this possible?
"I don't know if you've noticed, but a lot of what you say and do lacks logic," Shane continued, narrowing his eyes. "Let me ask you, you suddenly rushed over here and exposed yourself and all ten of your puppets. What for?"
"Weren't you desperately trying to make money? You spent years carefully building your operation on Cherry Blossom Island to finally get it under your control. Why the sudden self-destructive tendency today? Were you planning to run and find a new place to scam?"
Right, why did I do that?
The Carpenter was dazed, suddenly unable to understand it himself. He felt like he'd had this feeling many times before. —Just as he was about to figure something out, it was as if a membrane deep in his brain would block him, and his thoughts would get muddled and turn in another direction. The things he ended up doing were completely contrary to his original plans, yet at the time, he felt it was perfectly normal.
"No!" The Carpenter suddenly shouted. "I almost fell for your tricks, you brat! I didn't expose myself! It was that bastard Sakuraba Itsuki who decided to die and revealed everything!"
"But when you came in, he hadn't yet revealed that the seven dojo masters were also puppets!" Shane's voice suddenly rose in volume. "Didn't you bring the sheriff and that Marine Major in yourself?! You could have controlled him the moment you walked in and cut him off! Then you'd have a million ways to convince the public he was an impostor! Why didn't you do that?!"
Why?
The Carpenter grew even more confused. Yeah, why? I had plenty of ways to cover it up and happily continue making my dirty money. Why did I suddenly decide to tear everything down?
He then vaguely remembered something else that was even stranger. He knew that among all his puppets, Sakuraba Itsuki was the most difficult to control, constantly having his own opinions and thoughts. Yet, he had never considered fully puppetizing him. He had even kept him close, entrusting him with the most secret and important tasks.
"Come here." Shane suddenly reached out with his other hand and grabbed the man's right hand.
"What are you doing?"
"Control me," Shane said coldly. "You have eight dead puppets. You should have free fingers to recruit new ones, right? Use your power. Try to control me!"
"B-but, people with great strength aren't that easy to control! You're even more impossible to control than Sakuraba Itsuki was..."
The Carpenter stammered. Before he could finish, Shane abruptly pulled Junichi over. "Then try it on him!"
"Eh? Boss Shane!"
Junichi had been listening intently, his own mind calming down and beginning to ponder the inconsistencies. He was stunned when he was suddenly pulled into The Carpenter's hands.
"..."
The Carpenter's hand trembled as he reached out and grabbed Junichi's arm, but then he froze again, a blank look on his face.
Planting the puppet strings, controlling others... He knew the principles of his Devil Fruit, but... how was he supposed to do it again?
"You see? Simply controlling these few puppets is the extent of the authority you've been granted," Shane said, lifting Junichi back with one hand. He looked at the richly dressed man. "Now do you still think you're really 'The Carpenter' who can create puppets?"
As his voice fell, Shane suddenly slapped the man's chest hard.
THWACK! The sound was crisp and short, like hitting a hollow bamboo tube.
The Carpenter knew better than anyone what that meant.
Shane finally let go, allowing the middle-aged man to slide limply to the ground in a heap.
"I... I'm not The Carpenter..." his expression was dazed, unable to accept reality, his voice dry. "I... so I... was just a puppet too?"
"So you're saying... the real 'Carpenter' is actually someone else?"
Junichi's brain felt like it was swelling, on the verge of crashing. "Then... then who could it be? And what grudge did he have against my father to do this to him?"
Shane looked at Junichi with pity and finally sighed. "Whoever started today's farce, that's The Carpenter."
He suddenly threw a punch, collapsing the chest of the middle-aged man's puppet body. Then he turned to the corpse on the stage and said in a low voice, "Am I right, Mr. Sakuraba Itsuki?"
No one answered.
The clock on the wall ticked by, second by second. The pin-drop silence lasted for more than ten seconds before a sound finally came from the stage.
Crick, crack.
A teeth-grinding sound of wood rubbing together abruptly broke the silence. The corpse's limbs suddenly bent backward at a ninety-degree angle, and in a grotesque, inhuman posture, it pulled its upper body upright.
With a series of dense clicks, Sakuraba Itsuki's body, still with its back to them, slowly twisted its head one hundred and eighty degrees, revealing that gaunt face, which looked like it was caught between crying and not crying, full of sorrow.
Junichi froze in place.
His hands and feet went cold. He felt an unprecedented chill rush from his spine straight to the top of his head.
"Why..."
The gaunt face finally spoke, its voice like a skipping record player, a bizarre overlap of human speech and the sound of vibrating wood. "Just why..."
"Why did you have to find out? And why did you have to say it out loud?"
"Why... won't you let me give the identity of 'Sakuraba Itsuki' a perfect curtain call, and leave in peace?"