Participate

The Marine Base in District 66 had never been this lively.

Beneath the drab concrete walls, a huge crowd had gathered from every part of the Sabaody Archipelago. They waved the day's newspaper, published by the World Economic News, and celebrated as if they were enjoying some grand festival.

Of course, to them, it was no different.

To Sicily, the sound of their rejoicing was even more grating than the cries of pirates.

The Marines could never respond this way!

He couldn't let the news keep spreading!

His expression grew colder by the moment.

Compassion was the sort of emotion that only clouded a soldier's judgment on the battlefield.

But a written order from Marineford had also prompted him to make this decision.

Expecting a giant machine that had been running for eight hundred years to overcome its own immense inertia was pure fantasy.

"Diouf, use the high-pressure water cannons to disperse the crowd!"

Sicily had no intention of putting himself forward for something that would make him a target of public outrage.

"What about the newspapers?" Lizard Head asked.

"Someone will take care of them."

"Oh, and bring in your crews from the Lawless Zone, too. Have them stir up some trouble around the perimeter."

Sicily stroked his pointed goatee, his tone growing more sinister.

Now he had to fight to hold on to his position.

Whoosh—

The water cannons mounted on the gray-white walls blasted the jubilant crowd below.

A deluge of cold water drenched them from head to toe.

"Isn't that a little cruel to them?"

To Buggy's surprise, it wasn't Swan, who had only just escaped slavery, who felt sympathy. It was Jacques.

The Sergeant, who was clearly a bit of a flatterer but tried hard to maintain his dignity.

What kind of cruelty?

Giving people a beautiful, false hope, then crushing it.

"Don't be gentle in a cruel world, Sergeant," Buggy advised him kindly.

He had changed into a purple suit with a slightly fitted cut.

Jacques and the others had changed into similar civilian clothes.

Their white Marine uniforms would have made them stand out too much among the crowd.

"That's a survival rule I learned in an interesting city."

His voice carried a hint of nostalgia.

Gotham City was just as full of crime, but at least it hadn't retained something as backward as slavery.

There was another difference, too.

The citizens of Gotham City had learned to accept crime as a fact of life.

Why, even an old woman who had just shakily carried her laundry basket out of the laundromat that morning might suddenly pull an AK out of it and start firing.

"But an old friend also taught me an interesting fact."

"A fact?" Swan turned to him, curiosity in her bright eyes.

Ever since she'd left the iron cage, despair had no longer filled those eyes. She'd begun looking around at the world with eagerness.

As for whether it was cruel—

Swan felt that everything Buggy did was right.

She also secretly looked down on the Marine Higher-ups for being so short-sighted.

"Human nature is like a spring. The harder you pull, the more violently it snaps back."

Buggy's gaze seemed to settle on someone in the crowd.

Then someone cried out, "Someone's been attacked! It's those Slave Catchers!"

The crowd, which had never been particularly united, began to scatter in all directions amid the chaos.

As the crush of people thinned, certain figures became easier to make out.

"Wouldn't you agree?" Buggy's gaze fixed on one particular person.

"Trafalgar Law."

"A pirate!"

Jacques and the others tensed at once, their gazes locking onto the man in the white woolly hat.

Among the scattering crowd, the man standing still became conspicuous at once.

Law lifted the brim of his White Winter Hat slightly, his eyes hidden in its shadow flashing with surprise.

"ROOM."

Without warning, a white Wind Ball appeared in his palm. The typhoon-like vortex spinning within it expanded in an instant to the size of a room.

It encompassed Buggy, too.

In response, a somewhat incongruous smile appeared, along with several cracks across Buggy's body, as if he'd been mosaicked and then put back together.

This was all wrong!

Law's eyes were full of disbelief.

It was the first time he'd encountered someone who could resist the Op-Op Fruit's severing effect inside his Room Domain.

Even more unbelievable was the other man's body—

How could he have so much gunpowder and so many knives inside his chest?!

And how could he still be alive when his organs were being crushed into such a state?

Even a corpse in a morgue wasn't this twisted!

Inside his Room Domain, Law could clearly sense any object within it and rearrange them however he pleased.

Just as he thought!

When Law looked at Buggy's face, half of his inner doubts were resolved.

The muscles in the other man's face were just as mismatched.

Or rather, perhaps that very mismatch was what propped up the even more mismatched skin on the outside.

As for the way he'd resisted Law's ability—

Was it another kind of Devil Fruit ability?

Law couldn't be sure.

"Staring any longer would be rude."

The calm voice sounded in Law's ear, sending a shock through him.

The other man was fast!

Inside his Room Domain, that speed was even more apparent.

A knife was pointed at his heart.

But—

The shock in Law's eyes soon turned to speechlessness.

According to his senses, the Marine Major who'd just appeared in the newspaper had merely sent his own mouth and the hand holding the knife over to Law's side.

Damn it, how could someone's mouth fly so fast?!

And that knife!

It was a Retractable Knife!

Inside the Room Domain, Law could clearly sense the knife's simple inner workings.

That didn't stop three black lines from appearing on his forehead.

"My crewman said he'd made a good friend."

The domain that had swept through like a gale vanished as silently as it had appeared.

Maintaining the domain itself cost him stamina.

"That bear? My reporter told me plenty of amusing stories about them."

Buggy's mouth returned to his body.

Unfortunately, Law didn't play along by acting startled, leaving the clown rather disappointed.

As for why the other man was here—

It wasn't surprising.

Buggy immediately recalled Law's feud with Doflamingo.

He'd burned one of Doflamingo's auctions, so it wasn't strange for Law to come and take a look.

What's more, Arne, Friend of Animals, was here, too.

The World Economic News hadn't hidden where the photos came from.

And there was also Law's sudden leap in combat power during the Wano Country arc.

All in all, he was a pretty useful Tool Person.

"There's a joyful game I'd like to invite you to join. Interested, Death Surgeon?"

"Hmph." Law gave a cold laugh. "You'd better mean what you say."