Attack

"Quite a search I had to make for you, Kid Buggy!"

At Shakky's Bar, Rayleigh downed a glass of wheat juice.

When the live broadcast signal had cut out earlier, he'd thought the Navy or the CP Organization had found Buggy.

The kid had been on his ship, after all. Rayleigh couldn't just stand by and do nothing.

He'd spent quite a while searching with Observation Haki.

He just hadn't expected to find Buggy riding around on a bicycle like he was out on a picnic.

It had made him furious.

"Do you even know what you just did?"

"Blew a Celestial Dragon's head off. Back when I was young—"

Rayleigh seemed to recall something, and his words trailed off.

Back at God Valley?

The place where Captain Roger defeated Rocks.

There had been a lot of Celestial Dragons there, too, as he remembered.

Buggy pondered this. By the time he'd joined the crew, the God Valley Incident had already happened.

"The age belongs to you young ones now."

Rayleigh smiled with narrowed eyes.

He had no desire to press Buggy about why he'd done it. After being retired for so many years, Rayleigh had already shown how much he cherished their old ties by going out to look for Buggy right away.

Buggy smiled but didn't respond.

His impression of this right hand of the Pirate King, the Roger Pirates' first mate, Pluto Rayleigh, was still of the dependable-looking middle-aged man he'd met all those years ago.

Now that he was old, he seemed a little more carefree.

"This one's on the house."

Shakky, the landlady with a cigarette between her lips, brought over a glass of amber-colored Wheat Wine.

"Long time no see, Sister Shakky."

Buggy greeted her as usual.

The Arkham Asylum doctors would've called it impossible to see him looking so mild and obedient.

Even Hachi, who'd been huddled at the edge of the bar with his body tucked inside a barrel, looked confused.

He wasn't anything like the person they'd just seen on the live broadcast.

Was he really the terrifying figure who'd plunged the entire island into chaos?

It wasn't all that impossible, really. A game that was at least somewhat enjoyable could soothe Buggy's parched heart for quite a while.

And he'd indeed achieved his goal.

Whether or not Marineford would be relocated after the Summit War, the chaos on the Sabaody Archipelago was already inevitable.

But amid the chaos, a new power was brewing.

"Oh, the signal's back again."

Shakky, who'd been leaning over the bar, gave a soft exclamation. The screen hanging opposite the bar lit up with color once more.

It showed a small, rather well-behaved reindeer standing on two legs.

At the Execution Plaza.

The battle had turned fierce from the very start. Marineford looked like a pile of toy blocks smashed by a giant hand, with Earth and stone blocks scattered everywhere and several terrible fissures splitting the Execution Plaza into pieces.

War.

The Straw Hat Pirates were seeing the cruelty of war for the first time.

The bay before them was painted with blood and the roar of cannon fire.

Chopper felt his hooves trembling, but he still resolutely set the Image Den Den Mushi on the Thousand Sunny's bow.

He still remembered Sister Shakky's request.

This was a war that had been spiraling out of control from the very beginning.

At the very front of the battlefield, Akainu and Whitebeard's fight kept tearing open the ground, while red-hot rocks rained down from the sky.

Chopper also saw a Marine he recognized step forward and stand at the front of the battlefield, weeping as he begged for the war to stop.

He roared, asking the people on the battlefield whether they could hear the cries of their dead comrades.

The desperate wails of the wounded?

He said he couldn't bear to hear those sounds anymore.

And then he never heard them again.

A golden Great Buddha stood in the middle of the battlefield. Its powerful Shockwave completely drowned out the Marine's voice.

The Great Buddha's only response was two words: "Attack!"

They needed a victory significant enough to overshadow the deaths of three Celestial Dragons.

They needed a great enough result to make up for the Navy's choice between the Celestial Dragons and the pirates.

So he wouldn't allow such cowardly words to shake the Navy's resolve now.

They'd only achieved the most basic of their strategic objectives.

The pirate Sengoku was personally executing.

Gol D. Ace.

The anguish on his old friend's face only strengthened Sengoku's resolve to fight a complete war of annihilation.

The Navy had never set its sights on just one Yonko!

Even if he was the most powerful of them.

They had always been targeting all the pirates of the New World.

Mercy had never belonged on the battlefield. That was doubly true for the Navy, which had started this war in the first place.

If they couldn't cripple the Whitebeard Pirates on their own home ground, then the New World's balance of power wouldn't change much. The turning point the Navy longed for would never come, and they'd remain trapped in the same old stalemate.

Whitebeard's wail made the heavens and earth overturn.

Trembling, Chopper and Usopp fought off the Marines attacking the Thousand Sunny one by one.

As long as Zoro and the others could bring back the gravely wounded Luffy,

they'd immediately escape this terrifying slaughterhouse.

The Thousand Sunny's Wind Dial could get them out of the battlefield, just as it had when they'd recklessly charged in.

"Looks like trouble's coming your way."

Outside the screen, Rayleigh spoke softly.

With Observation Haki, he sensed a large group of CP agents and Marines searching the surrounding area.

"I guess they didn't like the surprise I left behind," Buggy snickered.

He wondered how the first person to go in was feeling right now.

He looked forward to seeing the struggle on that person's face.

"Maybe we'll have to catch up next time, Brother Rayleigh."

The patchwork mask nearly bit through its wearer's molars.

The hatred he felt for that Joker swelled beyond all measure.

Two Celestial Dragons had died right in front of him!

One of them had even been a clan leader like Roswald.

But even after their men searched the entire surrounding area, they couldn't find a trace of the other party.

"Damn it! Weren't we told the News Agency's ship had been spotted here?!"

The masked man flew into another impotent rage, even summoning more CP agents from Mary Geoise.

He looked ready to dig up the entire island, every inch of it.

Beneath the azure sky,

a small ship that looked like a penguin in a suit skiing across the water cut a long White line across the blue sea.

Morgans gazed at the treasure crammed aboard his ship and thought of the world-shaking Big News he'd created with his own hands.

A sense of having lived a full life welled up inside him.

Maybe being held in someone's grip wasn't so bad after all.

All he had to do now was find somewhere to lie low, right?

Morgans glanced at Buggy with some trepidation, unable to tell what he was thinking.

His calm, expressionless face somehow made it seem as though madness lurked beneath the surface.

It made Morgans a little afraid.

Afraid of whatever crazy idea might come out of that man's mouth next.

Buggy stroked his chin. After a long pause, he finally spoke:

"Do you know the way to the Foggy Sea Area?"