Opening

"How'd it go black?!"

On the Sabaody Archipelago, Kid sat cross-legged with his legs splayed, staring at the screen that had suddenly gone black in the distance. He scratched his head, bored.

What a rare spectacle, and the screen had gone black!

What a shame!

And where had Straw Hat Kid and that guy called Luo run off to?

Afterward, he suggested to his good friend Killer that they head to Marineford and join the excitement, only to be turned down without surprise.

Damn it!

I knew that Feathered Bird was up to no good.

Sengoku stared at the screen, which had suddenly lost its signal, several dark lines appearing on his forehead.

He'd only just finished talking about the Dark Bloodline. How could the feed cut out now?!

He'd barely gotten halfway up the moral high ground!

"The Whitebeard Pirates have appeared!"

"It's a huge fleet made up of pirate ships!"

In the vast stretch of white mist off the coast of Marineford, pirate ships appeared one after another.

More than a dozen had already emerged from the fog.

And beyond the white mist, more shadows were coming into view.

They were directly facing the warships gathered around Marine Headquarters.

"Find out where Whitebeard is, now!"

Sengoku paid no mind to the occasional sounds coming from the screen and shouted his order.

But a moment later, his question was answered.

"Something's coming up from underwater!"

"It's the Moby Dick! They're surfacing from below!"

"They used their coating to get through the outer defenses!"

The Moby Dick, with its hull shaped like a white whale, burst out of the water with a splash.

Its brown coating popped and burst as soon as it cleared the surface.

Colorful bubbles seemed to scatter across the entire Execution Plaza.

"Gurarara!"

The hearty laugh of the man known as the Strongest Man in the World rang across the entire bay.

"Ace!!"

"Just you wait!! I'm coming to save you!!"

White spheres appeared around Whitebeard's fists. A terrifying tremor spread from the depths of the sea all the way to the buildings at the harbor.

"Hey! Hey!"

"Is the picture back?"

"It's back, it's back!"

On the enormous screen beside the execution platform, a man's face suddenly appeared.

He looked panicked, too!

"Hey! You over there, don't shake my screen to pieces!"

"Oh?"

Whitebeard froze for a moment, but his attack didn't stop for an instant. At the same time, he answered as if suddenly realizing something:

"Gurarara, isn't that Buggy Kid from Roger's Ship? What are you doing over there?"

From Roger's Ship?!

The exclamations seemed to travel all the way from Marineford to the Sabaody Archipelago.

The screen still showed Buggy's face, but the audio clearly included the Execution Plaza, too.

It was a little noisy.

Still, the voice Buggy spoke into the microphone and Whitebeard's hearty laugh both came through crystal clear.

The former members of the Buggy Pirates in Area 35 all widened their eyes at once.

That was their captain?

Hadn't he been captured by the Navy? How had he gotten mixed up in the Marineford incident?

Alvida and the others had never connected the pirate Buggy, who'd recently received a bounty of 200 million Beli, with their own captain.

Buggy had held onto that 15-million-Beli bounty for ten years!

It was a shame he'd been captured.

That record had been broken, too.

Even Chief of Staff Kanjuro, who'd followed Buggy the longest, had long since given up hope of rescuing him.

In their eyes, if the captain's ability hadn't been discovered, he would've escaped while being transported.

If he hadn't escaped, then he was definitely done for.

As for Buggy's ability going undiscovered, yet still ending up in Impel Down—

Impossible!

Absolutely impossible!

Their captain wasn't the kind of pirate who liked looking for thrills!

The only other possibility was that Impel Down had somehow been careless enough to overlook a Devil Fruit User during its checks.

How could that be?

It was Impel Down, after all!

"That's right, that's our captain."

"That's the captain of our Buggy Pirates, Captain Buggy!"

Putting aside their doubts, Kanjuro hurried to introduce his pirate crew to the other people nearby.

Just look—wasn't this how you made a name for yourself?

"Phew. At least it's not broken."

Buggy let out a quiet breath. If he couldn't make the Navy witness what came next with their own eyes, he wouldn't be able to keep his game going.

"Now then..."

"Allow me to borrow this grand occasion to announce something momentous."

"The New Human Auction House is reopening!"

Pop!

Buggy pulled a party streamer for himself.

"A human auction? What's he trying to do?!"

Sengoku felt a sudden, inexplicable panic. He had a bad feeling.

"Connect me to the base commander at the District 66 Base on the Sabaody Archipelago!"

Following that premonition, he immediately called Sicily on his Den Den Mushi.

"What happened with the Arrow Execution?!"

"No problem. He's dead."

Sicily's answer came as no surprise.

But Sengoku still couldn't find the source of his bad feeling.

Even the order to cut the communication couldn't be carried out because of technical problems.

Was this connected to that Feathered Bird?!

What were they planning?

"The Human Auction House, as the name suggests, is naturally an employment agency that finds jobs for people who don't have one!"

Buggy seemed to have sensed his first question and answered it.

"Now then..."

In the image, Buggy seemed to be standing in a venue like the Human Auction House that had been burned to the ground.

Under the bright stage lights,

he wore a purple suit and looked generous and cheerful.

"Let's welcome this venue's first truly heavyweight auction item."

"Our beloved Saint Charlos!"

Buggy swept out his hand, and another bright spotlight shone down.

It revealed the shadow beside him.

A Celestial Dragon locked inside an iron cage.

Saint Charlos was still dressed in the clothes that marked him as a Celestial Dragon, though he had no resin bubble.

Inside the iron cage, he struggled desperately to tear off the

Slave Collar around his neck!

"..."

"..."

Silence.

The hundreds of thousands of Marines and pirates in the Execution Plaza fell into the same strange, unspoken silence.

Then came the sound of jaws dropping all at once.

"A friendly reminder: this venue has been generously sponsored by the Donquixote Family."

Buggy added this at the end.

This time, his voice came through especially clearly.

Over a million pairs of eyes turned toward Doflamingo, who stood at the first line of defense in front of the Execution Plaza.

Hawk Eyes, Moria, and the others silently moved away from the Shichibukai who'd provided the auction venue.

"Lies!"

"I didn't do anything!"

Doflamingo almost jumped. Now the focus of the entire battlefield, his face turned ashen in an instant.

"..."

"That man definitely isn't our captain."

"Right. Our captain must still be inside Impel Down."

On Inn Town, the members of the Buggy Pirates quickly came to an agreement.

They covered their mouths and noses at the same time, preparing to flee.

"Quick, seize them!"

CP Organization agents immediately appeared at the street corner.

"Seize them and find out where Saint Charlos is!"