The boarding attack on the warship where Zephyr's marines waited had begun.
By choosing something that would never be allowed in normal conditions, the Guards—the ones once trapped on a mafia's fake smuggling ship—now had to cross blades with their old comrades.
Cazarie, a Guard member known for her skill with guns and her navy-blue short hair, usually stayed in the back when fighting as a three-man cell. She knocked down a marine rushing at her by hitting him with the reinforced leather-wrapped gunstock, then quickly aimed at another soldier coming at her and pulled the trigger.
Tan! Tan!
The strangely dry sounds cut through the noise of the battle.
Two shots.
A clear will to never let the enemy live.
The bullets, fired with a firm intent to kill the target, killed another marine.
The rifles used by the Guards and the ship's fighters were not simple muskets.
They were weapons seized after the war with Germa.
Prototype bolt-action rifles, J-319.
They used special bullets, so even Cazarie did not use them often. But for this war against the Navy Headquarters, they had taken them out of storage. In a way, they were some of the most expensive weapons the Black Cat had.
Unlike muskets, which required loading each bullet by hand, these rifles could fire up to five shots quickly, and loading them was easy. Thanks to that, they were showing great results in this battle.
"If we could mass-produce these… or at least make the bullets ourselves, things would change a lot. But that will need research," Cazarie muttered to herself, ejecting the spent casing.
—Cazarie!
The voice did not come from the Guards behind her or beside her.
"Cazarie!!"
It came from straight ahead—from the marines' side.
"…It's you. It's been a while."
There stood a young marine, around Cazarie's age—a man who had trained with her in the same class.
"I'm glad… I finally found you!"
The man who once stood beside her through harsh training now wore a white marine uniform. He looked at his friend in the black suit with a desperate face.
"Cazarie, please surrender! It's not too late! You don't have a bounty yet!"
"…How can you say something like that so easily?" Cazarie replied, her voice low. "It was the Navy that betrayed me. Don't tell me you're standing here without even knowing that. That would be a joke."
She ignored her former comrade and shot the soldier trying to ambush her from behind him.
"Cazarie! Pirates are hanged!" he pleaded.
"And if I hadn't become a pirate, they would have done things to me far worse than death. Yes… things that would have made dying a better choice…"
Bege, who planned to take over the marine slave business, had studied how slaves were treated. Later, the Guards learned those details too.
When Captain Kuro spoke with Capone Bege before them all, they already knew they would be worked to death with no escape.
But reality was even worse.
When they heard from marines in the West Blue—the same ones who fought with them in the pirate union incident—about how awful the freed slaves from the Holy Land were, every one of them imagined the future they would have faced if that young pirate boy had never attacked the fake smuggling ship.
That was why they trained even harder with Mihawk and Rayleigh.
Those who returned after the regional headquarters sea battle swung their swords and trained their fists desperately to catch up.
They believed that only by clearing the path the Captain was cutting—the path of never stepping back against the Government—could they live as humans.
She aimed her rifle at her former classmate.
He was blocking the frontline, and she, praised by the Captain as the best in mid-range support, could not stay stuck fighting one enemy.
"You're in the way, marine."
She placed her finger on the trigger—
"Ca… Cazar—"
The moment she pulled the trigger, the man was blown sideways along with the bullet.
"Sorry, Cazarie! I used too much force and sent him flying! Are you hurt!?"
"…Toya."
Using the water in the air, the straight punch came from Toya—one of the Guards and the ship's helmsman, known as one of the best fish-man karate users among them. He gave Cazarie a small apologetic bow, then focused back on the battlefield.
"Your job is to break the enemy line fast. Go further ahead," Cazarie said.
"Yes! Sorry!"
"…No… I'm sorry too. And thank you."
--
"What incredible Haki. I've rarely felt haki stronger than Mihawk's," Daz Bones said.
"And you can take it head-on, Steel Blade! You Black Cats are terrifying to the very end!" Zephyr roared, charging again.
—It's normal for Devil Fruit users to be scary, but be extra careful with fighters who use refined Haki. Look at Rayleigh. Enemies who can handle high-level Haki aren't something you can deal with easily.
Remembering what Captain Kuro once told him during training squeezed in between daily duties, Daz took the blow from the Black Arm's punch with his own fist.
His build alone makes every hit heavy. Without training with Mihawk and Toya, maybe I could take the damage, but I would have been blown away. And on top of that—
Daz blocked the hit, then jumped back lightly to create distance because he couldn't find a safe opening to attack.
Zephyr stepped in to chase him—But a shadow slipped silently into his guard.
"Amisu!"
"Strike!"
The captain of the Guards. With top-class sword skill and sharp judgement, Amisu drove her blade straight into Zephyr's unprotected side.
"…Tch! It won't go in!" she hissed.
"A good strike," Zephyr grunted, stopping the blade with concentrated Haki. "The girl who once trembled even holding a sword or gun… and now, in half a year, you're better trained than many Vice Admirals."
A moment later, another shadow appeared behind him.
A woman with hair cut shorter than Amisu's—another Guard—swung her blade down at Zephyr's neck.
"And Airi. You were good with guns and cannons, but terrible at close combat… and now you've learned Haki too."
But before the blade touched his neck, Zephyr knocked her away with a backhand.
Airi took the shock and twisted in the air like a cat, landing softly on the ground.
But the battle is going in the favor of the Black Cats.
Daz could feel the hesitation and conflict in Zephyr's attacks.
Up front, Toya and Cazarie were knocking down enemies one after another.
Black Cat soldiers who boarded later swarmed in, making it impossible for the Navy to keep their line.
Elsewhere, a Guard duo—a swordsman and a fish-man karate user—held off skilled marines trying to assist Zephyr, sometimes cutting them down and weakening the elite.
Most of the regular marines were already knocked out by the Negative Hollow from the flagship.
The sea battle is going well too. I thought we didn't have enough ships, but those two always find a way, Daz thought.
Kika and Troy.
Among the Guards who often take the frontline in key battles, those two had become the ones who used their natural leadership to handle fleet combat. They were holding the enemy fleet in place.
He's hesitating… unsure if he should pull back to save his men or keep pushing to take down me, Amisu, and the others.
The pressure from Zephyr's Haki rivaled Rayleigh's.
The only reason they could keep up was the training so far—and the coordination of Amisu and Airi.
"…Killer," Zephyr said suddenly.
"Hm?"
"That was the nickname you were supposed to get once you started as a bounty hunter. Daz Bones."
Those words made him remember a time not long past.
One year ago.
The days before he met Captain Kuro.
"You hunted quite a lot of bounty heads. The regional base talked about it," Zephyr noted.
"…They were all cheap ones," Daz replied.
"But enough to live on, right? Why did you become a pirate?"
"…All the money went to my mother."
"At your age, that's normal."
"She spent it all on men and alcohol."
Zephyr's quiet shock reached him.
"My first bounty was a drunk mountain bandit," Daz continued, his voice flat. "Ten thousand Berries. I strangled him with a rope. I took the body to the exchange office and got the reward. I thought… even a mother who only shouts and hits me would be happy."
He remembered how terrified he was when he tied the man's hands, then his feet, then looped the rope around his neck.
"I took the body to the exchange office and got the reward. Ten thousand Beli. The first big money I ever saw. I thought… even a mother who only shouts and hits me would be happy."
The fight continued.
Daz blocked Zephyr's blackened fist with his own hardened fist, then turned his fingers into blades and slashed.
"But she yelled at me. She said the reward would've been higher if I had kept him alive."
"That's true. That's how the system works," Zephyr acknowledged grimly.
The Government needed public executions to scare the increasing criminals.
Just like the Pirate King Gold Roger, many bounty heads were executed in front of crowds every day.
That was why alive criminals paid extra.
"I tried next time… but I couldn't. I was too scared to keep them alive. So I killed them. Again, and again."
The Navy had even tried to recruit him when he brought in his third bounty head.
They probably knew the details.
"…When I found the Devil Fruit, I thought my life was changing. I thought I could finally become strong. Strong enough to earn money… to make my mother proud…"
They were poor.
He barely earned enough for stale bread and wilted cabbage, while his mother wasted everything on alcohol.
But killing gave him big money.
He kept killing weak targets—Drunks, traps, arrows from afar, anything to make it easy.
"Then I bit the fruit and got this body. A steel body swords and bullets couldn't hurt. I thought… I thought I could finally become a hero like Sora, a warrior of the sea."
But—
"But I couldn't."
— What about your parents?
He remembered meeting the pirate he tried to hunt—the man who is now his captain.
Back then, he hesitated.
He hesitated—and lied to his captain.
— …The Family killed them. I don't know what they did, but they said it was payback.
"With this steel body, I finally caught someone alive. I was scared, but even with knives and bullets hitting me, I held down a pretty high-ranking mafia guy, took him to the Navy, got a lot of money, and went home. But…"
— Idiot! Why did you go after the mafia!?
— Go kneel to them and beg now!
— With that freak body, they'll find a use for you!
— …What's that look for… hey.
— Don't come any closer!!
— You monster!!
"In the end… I… my mother…"
"Mom—"
--
Weak words slipped from Steel Blade's mouth.
But even so, his Haki did not shake.
If anything, it grew a little stronger.
The Guards on his left and right, who heard his story just as Zephyr did, felt it too.
"With this steel body, I helped my mother, killed bad people… even then, I couldn't become the hero I admired."
"Daz Bones…" Zephyr murmured, sensing the pain behind the words.
"My mother was weak. The bounty heads I killed… weak ones die first. Weak ones get killed, and I thought I was the strong one because I was the one doing the killing. I believed that, but…"
Steel Blade's face, which almost never changed, softened just a little.
"After I met the man who tries to make unbelievable stories real… I started to see things differently," Daz declared, his eyes hardening.
A blackened roundhouse kick came flying at him.
It was easy to predict because of the large movement, but the moment he blocked it, the kick turned into a slicing attack.
He could block it—But even so, the slash broke through his Haki just a little and cut his skin.
"A man who is a pirate but avoids pillaging… who keeps calling himself a villain, yet tries to rule and protect the people. Staying under him makes me realize how small my world used to be."
Amisu attacked at once, sending a chain of slashes at the small opening Zephyr made when he shifted into defense.
"I was the weak one. So I made mistakes. Even if my life was in the gutter, I kept looking away from the right path that might have been there."
He blocked the unavoidable slashes with Haki, but they still pierced through slightly.
Drops of his blood scattered, slowly dyeing his marine uniform red.
"I don't have Captain's speed to appear anywhere in an instant. I don't have his brains. I'm just a Devil Fruit pirate who failed to become a hero…"
Something settled inside Daz Bones.
Zephyr felt the same presence he sensed in soldiers who would grow into great warriors—coming from this pirate.
"…I've decided."
"When I chose to become a pirate, I never imagined days like this. But even so… no, because of that—"
"I will fight for someone, somewhere."
He remembered when he was a boy, in a port town where the Navy often docked, playing with a ragged cloth as a cape, copying Warrior of the Sea Sora.
"What I wanted was something simple, a happy life with my family. Wanting that wasn't wrong."
He was still young.
He had defeated many bounty heads, and now many strong foes as a pirate.
He carried many sins.
"Even so, what I wanted was too far away. Even now, I don't know how I could've reached the right answer."
And with all those sins still on him, he stood tall before a Marine Headquarters admiral.
"I looked away from my dream. I looked away from the right path," Daz stated firmly. "I chased quick bounty money and fell into killing others. That was a sin. A sin I must carry forever."
"Too heavy to wash away. But… because of that—"
"Because of that, even as a pirate, I cannot look away again from the right path that stands before me."
–
Zephyr gritted his teeth. He must defeat him.
If he didn't capture Steel Blade here and secure the Guards, the Government would take them and destroy the lives of people who did nothing wrong.
But—
"Let me ask you, Marines," Daz called out, his voice echoing over the deck. "If you defeat us and take Mopuchi Country… will that bring peace to the people?"
Zephyr did not answer.
"The marriage between the prince and the Celestial Dragon is too one-sided. Who is it for? Will it make the prince… or the people of Mopuchi happy?"
There was no answer.
They all knew what would happen if the Black Cats were defeated and forced out.
The people would be eaten alive.
The rescued royalty, the people they protected, the town they rebuilt—Beautiful girls would be used even if they were princesses.
Men would be turned into farm slaves.
Old people and children who couldn't work would be killed or used as targets in murder games.
Just like a country occupied by pirates.
"…I see. You can't answer," Daz noted coldly. "Then we cannot retreat. We cannot lose."
As if agreeing with his words, Amisu and Airi attacked from both sides at once, their heavy slashes filled with even stronger will.
A will to protect.
To protect the weak, the people without strength, the country.
A will that should belong to the shoulders of a Marine admiral—yet now it was carried by pirates.
Zephyr instinctively leapt back before blocking.
He felt danger.
He felt he couldn't stop those attacks.
He retreated and faced Steel Blade and the two former students beside him.
"As long as the right path is here, we cannot flee or lose."
This boy did not have the aura of a king like Kuro.
He did not have that overwhelming pressure.
But—
"Black Cat Pirates, Vice-Captain. Daz Bones."
The way he declared his title carried the dignity of a true leader.
It reminded Zephyr strongly of the hero he once wanted to be.
"State your name, Marine."
—You'll pay for this! Just you wait!!
He remembered standing up to a bully who picked on a little girl in his hometown.
— Hah! Come at me anytime!!
With a leftover cloth cape from his mother and his father's big sunglasses, the child he once was said—
"I am…"
— My name is!!
— A hero of justice!!
"Marine Headquarters… Special Admiral…"
— ZEEEEEEET!!
"I am ZEPHYR!!"
He would defeat him.
He must defeat him.
As a Marine Headquarters Special Admiral, he had to defeat—
Who?
Evil.
Pirates.
Sea pirates, the symbol of evil.
With Haki filling his arms, he charged forward.
His former students moved first.
Airi threw two knives filled with Haki.
One barely missed, the other stabbed into his left shoulder.
Dodging or blocking would slow him.
He had to push forward, injury or not.
"Sensei!"
"Prepare yourself!!"
Amisu and Airi stood ready ahead, blades drawn, points aimed at him.
They both thrust at once.
Zephyr stepped in hard, shifting the impact point. Their strikes couldn't break his full Haki, but they completely stopped his charge.
In that instant, they vanished—And behind him stood Steel Blade.
With his weakened Haki still burning, Zephyr punched forward.
BOOM.
Steel Blade did the same—And the shock shook the entire ship.
--
The shock was so strong that anyone standing close would have been blown away.
The blast stopped the entire battlefield—a fight that had been swinging heavily toward the Black Cats.
A small body lay on the ground, far from the point of impact.
Daz Bones—Steel Blade—had collapsed.
Zephyr—Black Arm—had dropped to one knee on the deck.
"M-…"
Seeing the unconscious Daz, Zephyr smiled.
He smiled—and cried.
Tears fell as he said,
"You did well."
He looked down at his own chest, now stained bright red.
When their fists collided, the impact became a slash at the same moment.
He had seen that trick many times, and yet he couldn't fully stop it. Out of the four slashes, he erased one. The other three—
"…Hero…" Zephyr whispered.
The Marine Headquarters Admiral, marked with three deep three-claw marks across his chest, also fell.
On the deck of the Navy warship, cheers from the pirates rose high.
--
It was a dream.
Daz Bones saw the impossible, completely white scene, and understood right away.
Even if this was the afterlife, he knew for sure he had wounded Zephyr deeply.
He stood up in the white space. Something immediately caught his eye.
Himself.
A younger version of himself crouched on the ground, crying.
"…I always wanted to leave you behind," his own weak voice echoed as he quietly spoke—to himself. "If I could cut you off… leave you behind… I thought I could become an adult."
He stepped closer to the version of himself who hid away, crying because he had nobody to rely on.
"I thought eating the Devil Fruit was a turning point…I thought becoming a pirate with Captain's big talk was a turning point too…"
The crouching back was almost the same size as he was now—just a little smaller, a lot younger.
"But… yeah. I'm sorry. I really am," Daz whispered. "There's no such thing as a 'turning point.'"
He spoke honestly to the child who connected to who he was now.
"You only notice big changes when you look back later… and only after everything has already happened."
Ever since meeting that boy pirate with glasses, not one day had gone as he imagined. Unexpected days, unexpected battles… and yet he never felt he had changed much.
Ever since the day he stopped crying, he thought he'd stayed the same.
"You don't change because a turning point comes. You don't suddenly grow… And you don't disappear just because I wanted you gone."
But he could feel what he had built on top of those crying days.
"The me I am now is clearly connected to you…"
After spending time with others—something he had never dared to do before—Daz Bones could finally face the crying child he had been.
"…I'm sorry. I tried to leave you behind. Pretend you never existed. And I should have known better than anyone—you would've hated that the most."
The child looked up. "…Yeah."
Daz smiled gently. "Let's go. Together."
--