The Clown Is Here

"Looks like we're in luck."

Buggy smiled as he watched the Celestial Dragon before him ranting furiously like a pig.

He was thrashing about like he was acting in a silent movie.

The soundproof barrier blocked sound from traveling outside.

"There's no moon tonight. You must be in a good mood, too."

He stepped forward.

A hand shot out and seized the Celestial Dragon by the throat.

The soundproof barrier didn't block sound from traveling within it.

Saint Charmark felt he ought to be angry. He ought to throw this filthy commoner who dared touch him into his underground water tank.

His little pets hadn't tasted blood in a long time.

But those thoughts quickly vanished.

He really did seem to be in a good mood. His vacant eyes glanced up at the night sky, where a lone crescent moon hung in the dark, like a smile.

A smile crept across his face, too.

Hmm, splitting someone's Mental World seems to have something to do with their will—or perhaps their resistance.

Buggy mused to himself. It was much easier to invade and split this Celestial Dragon's Mental World than Moria's.

It would be even better if blood filled the silence of this night.

Buggy's voice was gentle, like that of a kind therapist.

"Yes, blood to fill it. Just right."

A powerful urge to kill took root in Saint Charmark's heart.

His face had turned purple from the strain, yet he still managed to force a smile.

"I like killing people."

"I hate the air those commoners breathe. It pollutes the Holy Land. So I only let them breathe for ten minutes a day. If anyone goes over, I kill them."

"Saint Singa kills people at random all the time. I'm much kinder than he is."

In the long axis of his cognition, Buggy saw a vast expanse of corpses, their bodies a dark purplish red. Someone who didn't know better might have thought they'd crawled out of one of Hell's circles.

But the Devil was right here in the human world.

Buggy raised an eyebrow and continued to egg him on:

"Yes, but killing those people is beneath someone of your status."

In the Mental World, he cut away some of Saint Charmark's useless emotions, enlarging the glowing clusters that represented arrogance and vanity.

"Let the blood of Celestial Dragons fill the emptiness of the night."

"Yes. That's how it should be."

With his brain starved of oxygen, Saint Charmark was in no condition to think. He simply let his emotions control his actions.

"Their blood is worthy of me."

"By the way, could you do me a favor?"

"Of course. You're my father, after all." A trace of dependence appeared in Saint Charmark's vacant eyes.

Buggy's big hand trimmed away at his long axis of cognition.

Saint Charmark was in a particularly confused state now.

One moment he saw Buggy as his father, the next as his grandfather.

"Hmm. When you see the Marines, remember to use your own blood to write a few words for them."

"What words?"

"Heh heh heh." Buggy chuckled.

"The clown is here."

"Okay."

Buggy let go. Saint Charmark dropped to the ground with a thud, like a pig. He didn't even think to steady his ragged breathing. The intense emotions bursting from his Mental World whipped him like a lash, driving him to act on their insatiable desire.

Killing.

Killing his own kind.

"Don't forget these."

Smiling, Buggy handed him a Joker Mask, a hunting rifle, and a Molotov Cocktail.

The mask was stained with blood. He'd taken it from one of the Joker Gang.

"Fire will make it even more exciting," Buggy suggested.

Saint Charmark staggered out of his estate and charged straight into the dim night.

"."

"But won't this expose us, Captain Buggy?"

"I heard an Admiral is stationed in the Holy Land."

Jacques asked in a trembling voice. He felt he'd underestimated the Clown's madness.

"That's exactly why we have to do it."

Buggy's fingers tapped excitedly against each other.

He'd thought that a Marine Vice Admiral or even an Admiral would come looking for him on Sabaody Archipelago.

In that case, he'd have to set off his fireworks somewhere that was just barely short on guards—Marineford or Judicial Island, for example.

What a shame.

Neither the Marines nor CP0 had come to Sabaody Archipelago to play with him.

So he'd just have to go to them.

But that also reflected something.

They, the World Nobles,

were afraid of the rumors he'd been spreading.

Now that was interesting.

"If nothing happens, how's that Little Cutie supposed to sneak up here?"

"Brilliant fireworks are even more charming when they're sudden."

He blinked, as if he could already see the dazzling spectacle in the silent night sky.

Buggy didn't want Little Gecko to go to all the trouble of climbing up here, only to be stopped by the Marines before he could bloom across the skies of Mary Geoise.

Jacques didn't understand, but he was deeply shaken.

"What about that other guy?"

Swan pointed at Bear, who had been standing quietly nearby the whole time.

He was one of the Shichibukai, after all. It was hard to make sense of his vacant expression.

Buggy found it hard to understand, too.

He tried splitting the man's Mental World.

But Kuma's Mental World was completely blank. Void.

Perhaps that was why he was in this state?

He tried splitting his Devil Fruit ability next.

The Paw-Paw Fruit was an extremely convenient ability.

As expected, that failed, too.

He was like a blank, dull lump of metal.

What a headache.

Saint Charmark staggered onto the main street of Mary Geoise.

The street here was unusually wide, as though it hadn't been built for ordinary people.

"Hee hee hee, where did this idiot come from?"

A Female Celestial Dragon sat astride a Hammerhead Shark Fish-Man.

She held a Red Fan up to half-cover her face.

She looked down on the likes of Saint Charmark for walking on his own.

If he hadn't been dressed like a Celestial Dragon, she would have thought some brazen commoner had dared to set foot on the main street.

"Kill! Kill! Kill!"

Saint Charmark suddenly turned around, his face purple and bruised, with no mask on.

He raised the hunting rifle in his hands.

"Ah!!!"

"Protect Lady Liyam!"

The Marines standing guard some distance away were startled when they saw Saint Charmark's rifle.

They hadn't been fully on guard against a Celestial Dragon who'd suddenly decided to walk down the street by himself.

Or rather, they hadn't dared to be.

At that moment, Saint Charmark had only one thing on his mind: the overwhelming urge to kill.

Bang—bang—bang—

He aimed his hunting rifle at Liyam Palace and fired again and again.

"Grandfather said fire makes it more exciting."

Saint Charmark giggled and hurled the Molotov Cocktail, too.

Flames quickly leaped up across the enormous flagstones of the main street.

The Fish-Man being used as a mount didn't seem to notice at all. Specially trained as they were, they didn't even know to dodge.

"I killed them! I killed them! Hee hee hee!" Saint Charmark seemed to feel an immense satisfaction. His mind, violently tampered with, was a complete muddle.

All he saw was a Marine in a floral shirt flying toward him.

"And Grandpa's request. Father's request."

He stepped on the shards of the Molotov Cocktail. Flames climbed up his clothes, but Saint Charmark only fumbled for a relatively intact piece of glass.

He slashed open his wrist.

Blood gushed out like a fountain.

"Hee hee hee."

Facing the Marine in the floral shirt, he used his own blood to write, stroke by stroke, on a massive stone slab—

"The clown is here."

"Hee hee hee."

He kept giggling crazily at the Marine. The Joker Mask in his arms fell into the flames, where it was stained with his companion's blood.