Outside the Carrera Company headquarters, within the thick shadowed forest, four members of the Straw Hat Pirates regrouped.
"Where's Sanji?"
Nami stared blankly at Luffy, face stiff with frustration.
To prevent Zoro from getting lost again, she and Chopper walked with one in front and one behind him, supervising every step to keep him from wandering off. Yet somehow, the one who wasn't supposed to get lost had vanished.
Sanji, who had been walking with Luffy, had disappeared without a trace.
Nami felt like an exhausted, overworked mother dealing with a pack of uncontrollable children.
"He said he saw Robin, I think."
Luffy scratched his head, guilt spreading across his expression.
"Then he turned into an alley, and when I went to check again, he was just… gone."
"He saw Robin?"
Nami frowned, thinking quickly. Her jaw clenched.
"Then forget it. We'll go protect Mayor Iceberg ourselves. We cannot let him be killed!"
She hesitated, and her expression softened with worry and determination.
"We must bring Robin back."
"Of course!"
Luffy stretched lazily on a tree branch, gazing toward the brightly lit building in the distance with a wide grin.
"Not a single one of us can be missing!"
…
Outside Mayor Iceberg's residence.
"…"
"…"
Five foreman shipwrights sat in a rigid line at the entrance, their postures straight, their expressions solemn as they waited for any sign of approaching enemies.
"Trying to assassinate Mayor Iceberg?"
Dalston's muscles bulged beneath his shirt, veins throbbing as he roared,
"Bring it on! I'll crush those damn pirates myself!"
He and Lulu were still completely unaware of the truth. In their minds, pirates were here to steal from them and kill Mayor Iceberg. Simple problem, simple solution: defeat the intruders.
"Dalston, don't shout. You'll disturb Mayor Iceberg's rest."
Kaku scanned the surroundings calmly.
"They sent death threats to the company, which means they're prepared."
"It doesn't matter. While we're all here, they won't succeed."
A sharp gleam flashed on Lulu's glasses.
"But we should still stay alert."
Lulu, also unaware of the real situation, still treated the Straw Hat Pirates as enemies.
To him, this was a straightforward five-on-five confrontation—but reality was far more twisted.
Inside their group, two hidden agents quietly held opposing motives.
Following the original course of events, this fight should have been impossible to win.
"Coo coo, that's enough. We're not here to chat."
Lucci, wearing his top hat, spoke sharply. The pigeon on his shoulder let out a mechanical cooing sound.
"Pay attention to anything suspicious and don't allow any accidents. Coo, coo."
Tonight, with the Gorosei themselves acting, the situation was already different from anything in the plans.
Lucci's eyes remained emotionless as he kept his thoughts buried deep.
"…"
Barry flicked a look at Lucci and Kaku, a cold smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
"Yeah. Lucci's right. We have to prevent accidents and keep an eye out for anyone suspicious."
He puffed his cigar and scoffed silently.
Just as Shirogai had said before, these government-trained killers could wear masks for years, smiling and working beside comrades they planned to murder without so much as a twitch of guilt.
They were puppets of the World Government—tools shaped to obey the Celestial Dragons without hesitation, without thought, without resistance.
Fine.
If they wanted to play roles, then Barry would follow the script to the end.
Let's see who laughs last.
Traitors.
"…"
Lucci suddenly turned his head.
A faint ripple of killing intent.
He glanced toward Barry, who was smoking lazily, fidgeting like always, looking every bit the carefree worker he pretended to be.
Lucci frowned inwardly.
Was that killing intent coming from Barry?
Did he suspect something?
A cold surge of lethal intent rose within Lucci, but his expression remained perfectly smooth.
A true assassin could hide his killing intent without letting the world feel a thing.
…
Behind Water 7.
"Woo… woo…"
Roaring winds cut across the island, carrying dense mist and the unmistakable pressure of an approaching disaster.
The air itself shuddered with the coming Aqua Laguna.
"…"
Inside the thick fog, a towering black figure stood still, its silhouette monstrous. From afar, it watched a beam of purple-red light streak through the air.
Whoosh.
The light halted mid-air and slowly condensed into the form of Shirogai.
He hovered above the ground, expression calm.
Then he looked down and chuckled faintly.
"What a stench."
In Shirogai's eyes, the figure below was surrounded by a thick, foul black aura.
A suffocating sea of blood-red malice surged upward like a monstrous tide.
It was a natural shift in perception that only appeared once someone reached a certain threshold of true power—when one's understanding of the world transcended the ordinary.
Such overwhelming malevolence meant only one thing:
Countless deaths.
A reaper shaped into a machine of slaughter.
A soulless executioner.
"Hmm?"
Jaygarcia Saturn—Scientific Defense Martial God, one of the Five Elders—stood in his hybrid form. His lower body resembled a monstrous spider, while his upper half retained only traces of humanity.
He sensed the disgust in Shirogai's voice.
And for the first time in centuries, Saturn felt something he was unaccustomed to.
Someone was looking at him with the same contempt he reserved for insects.
"Hmph. Plunderer, Shirogai… how dare you look at me with such eyes?"
Black lightning crackled across Saturn's monstrous frame as a crushing wave of Haki exploded outward, pressing on Shirogai from every direction, attempting to bind and crush him in mid-air.
"Heh. Such weak Haki."
Shirogai floated effortlessly, the pressure bending and warping around him but failing to move him at all.
It was as if the air around him had solidified into invisible steel.
"What an unpleasant power."
Saturn's whiskers unfurled like living tendrils as he studied Shirogai, displeasure deepening in his cold gaze.
He had not expected this.
His Haki—capable of overwhelming entire armies—was doing nothing.
"One mere human, possessing such God-level power… how disgraceful."
Saturn's voice rumbled with fury.
_____
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