One Piece: Dungeon Shop. Scamming Garp, Reward: Eight-Tails Jinchuriki-Chapter 347: Dungeon: Demon Slayer!

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Chapter 347: Dungeon: Demon Slayer!

Blake smiled, a thin, knowing curve of his lips. He tapped his finger lightly on the wooden counter, the sharp click echoing through the tavern like a gavel.

"Son?"

"Whitebeard is also an Emperor of the Sea. You’ve seen how he treats those children—girls who don’t share a single drop of his blood. Tell me, Katakuri, what do you see?"

Katakuri remained silent, his breath hitching behind the thick layers of his scarf. It was a brutal, unavoidable truth. Whitebeard was a man who would cast aside the power of a god for a handful of orphans, while his own mother, the woman who birthed him, would tear a limb from her own child for the sake of a misplaced dessert. The contrast wasn’t just stark; it was a cold, jagged blade twisted into his heart.

"Would you like to hear a story?"

Blake leaned forward, the shadows of the tavern playing across his face, casting his eyes into deep, mysterious pools.

"In a realm far beyond the horizon of this sea, there exist creatures known as ’Demons.’ They are monsters that prowl the night, feeding on human flesh and shunning the sun. They possess immortal bodies and a terrifying, singular strength. In many ways... they are just like your mother."

Katakuri’s head snapped up.

Feeding on humans... immortal...

It was a chillingly perfect description of Big Mom during her Hunger Pangs. When the madness took her, she wasn’t a mother; she was an apex predator that saw the world—and her children—as nothing more than ingredients.

"In this story, there is a young boy, a charcoal seller from the mountains," Blake continued, his voice soft yet resonant. "In a single night, the world he knew was incinerated. He lost his mother, his brothers, his sisters. The only survivor was his younger sister—but she had been tainted, turned into one of those very monsters that slaughtered their family."

Blake paused, letting the weight of the tragedy settle.

"If it were your mother, or any of those ’strong’ men out there, what would they do? They would see a ’defective’ sibling. They would kill her to preserve their pride, or perhaps lock her away as a curious tool. But that boy... he didn’t."

Blake’s voice turned into a gentle whisper that seemed to bypass Katakuri’s ears and speak directly to his soul.

"He carried her. He bore his demon sister on his back through the freezing mountain snow. He crafted a box of wood to shield her from the sun, and with a heart full of hope and a hand that had never so much as held a blade, he stepped onto the path of Shura. He became a slayer of demons, not for glory, but to find a way to make her human again. Time and again, his bones were shattered. Time and again, he stood at the precipice of death. But he never let go of her hand. Even when she was a mindless monster, she was his world. He protected her with his life."

Katakuri was paralyzed. In the theater of his mind, a vivid image flickered to life: a frail, desperate boy struggling through a blizzard, a heavy wooden box strapped to his back. Every step was a battle against the elements, against the world, and against fate itself.

That boy...

Katakuri realized with a surge of agony that the charcoal seller was the man he had always wished he could be. A man who didn’t care about "perfection," but about the weight of the person on his back. If he had been braver—if he hadn’t spent decades crafting a mask of invincibility—could he have given Brulee a life without shadows?

"That boy..." Katakuri’s voice was a ragged tremor. "What was his name?"

Blake didn’t answer directly. Instead, he reached into the empty air and pulled. Reality itself seemed to yield to his touch as a black screen, shimmering with a cold, blood-stained aura, manifested on the counter.

On the cover, a boy with a birthmark like a dancing flame stood with a broken black Nichirin Sword, his eyes burning with a resolution that surpassed any King’s Will. Behind him, a girl with a bamboo muzzle in her mouth looked out with a gaze that was both ferocious and heartbreakingly loyal.

"This is a story about an ’imperfect guardian,’" Blake said, pushing the screen toward the Sweet Commander until it rested beneath the tray of donuts. "And it is a story about how to cut down every demon in this world—both the ones in the dark, and the ones in your heart."

"This dungeon is called—[Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle Battle]. I believe you need this. Not to perfect your strength, Katakuri, but to learn how to use those ’imperfect’ hands of yours to embrace the people you truly want to protect."

Katakuri stared at the screen. The energy radiating from it was cold, sharp, and smelled of winter air and steel. His blood, usually as steady as a calm sea, began to boil.

"Demon... Slayer..."

The image of the boy in the snow was burned into his retinas. He looked weak. He looked pathetic. He looked human. Yet, the fire in his eyes made every Conqueror’s Haki Katakuri had ever felt seem like a flickering candle. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

"Katakuri!"

A voice like a jagged shard of glass scraped across the tavern’s atmosphere.

A man in a flamboyant yellow coat, clutching a shimmering Candy Wand, stormed toward the table. Charlotte Perospero was livid. He had been outside, his pride stung by having to share space with the "Security Guard" Kaido, only to return and find the family’s greatest pride sitting with the shopkeeper like a student.

If Big Mom heard that her most "perfect" son was entertaining thoughts of rebellion, she wouldn’t just be angry—she would burn the world.

"What do you think you’re doing?!" Perospero slammed his wand onto the floor, his long tongue flickering with agitation. "Don’t forget why we’re here! Mama is waiting! Get up, now! We are leaving!"

Perospero reached out, his hand glowing with the sticky, syrupy sheen of his fruit, intended to drag his brother away.

BOOM!

A shockwave of dark-red Conqueror’s Haki erupted like a subterranean explosion. It was held in a tight, suffocating radius of three meters, but the intensity was enough to make the air turn heavy as lead.

"Ugh..."

Perospero felt as though a mountain had been dropped onto his shoulders. His knees buckled, and he gasped for air, his vision swimming.

"Forgive me, Brother."

Katakuri slowly stood up. The confusion that had plagued him for years was gone. In its place was a crystalline resolution—a sharpness that felt as though it could sever the threads of the future itself.

"Brother Perospero. Step back."

The command was low, but it carried the absolute weight of a Sweet Commander. Perospero’s pupils contracted into tiny dots as he looked at the man he thought he knew.

"Do... do you realize what this means?! This is treason! Mama hasn’t given her permission—"

"Mama?" Katakuri cut him off, his voice echoing with a hollow, haunting power. "Tell me, Brother... aren’t you tired? Tired of living like a ghost, measuring your words so you don’t lose your soul over a plate of sweets? Tired of being a tool instead of a man?"

Katakuri’s five-meter-tall frame cast a shadow that seemed to swallow Perospero whole. "I’ve had enough of that life."

"You’ve gone mad! You’re throwing us all into the pyre!" Perospero screamed, his voice reaching a fever pitch. "She will kill you! She’ll kill Brulee! She’ll kill Owen and Daifuku! Every sibling you claim to love will be erased because of your vanity! You aren’t a savior—you’re a murderer!"

Katakuri’s back stiffened. For a heartbeat, the image of his younger siblings being consumed by Big Mom’s wrath flickered in his mind. His fingers twitched. They were his anchor. His burden. If his choice meant their deaths, was it truly freedom?

Perospero saw the crack in the armor. He leaned in, his voice dripping with poisonous "concern."

"Listen to me, Katakuri. We were born as tools for her table. That is our fate. Put that screen down. It’s a devil’s contract. We can just go back, give her the secrets we’ve seen, and everyone stays safe..."

CRACK!

The sound of shattering glass tore through the tavern.

Everyone’s attention was yanked toward the far wall. A large, decorative mirror was rippling like the surface of a disturbed pond. Then, a pale, skeletal hand—thin as a bird’s wing—reached out from the silvered glass.

The Mirror-Mirror Fruit!

Perospero froze. Brulee?

A figure in a white dress, her face bisected by a jagged, horrific scar, stepped out of the mirror. It was Charlotte Brulee, the sister everyone called a witch. She was shaking, her knees knocking together, and her face was as white as bone. But as she stood before the most dangerous men in the world, her eyes were locked onto Perospero with a ferocity that defied her fragile frame.

"Don’t you... dare... touch my brother!"

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