Four Pirate Captains

"Only a third of them remain..."

Hearing this number, Aokiji's eyes flickered, though he didn't seem particularly surprised. "Hmm, to have so many still holding on under the pressure of a sudden, massive influx of pirate reinforcements—that is truly no small feat."

These were, after all, new recruits who had been in the Elite Training Camp for less than a year. Could it be said that they were worthy of being disciples personally taught by Zephyr?

As for where those two thousand-plus pirates had actually popped out from...

At first glance, it did seem rather bizarre.

But standing at Aokiji's level, he didn't even need to descend the mountain himself; he only needed to have his subordinates grab a few pirates for interrogation to easily arrive at the answer—

"A Door-Door Fruit user."

Facing the question posed by Noah, Shiryu crushed his cigarette and slowly exhaled this answer.

At this moment, the entire alley was littered with pirates lying in every direction.

Of the three who had taken them down, only Noah remained full of energy. Shiryu and Rosinante were both leaning against the wall, looking utterly exhausted, yet Shiryu still mustered the spirit to explain to Noah.

Two hours before meeting Noah, he had intercepted an officer in a western district. Before finishing him off, he had used some interrogation tactics to squeeze out quite a bit of useful intelligence.

Among it were the very questions that had been puzzling Noah.

According to that officer, all two thousand-plus pirates belonged to an organization called the West Blue Underground Alliance.

The organization comprised over a dozen pirate crews, and Capone Beate, who hailed from a criminal family, was one of the organization's key leaders.

Upon learning that his stronghold was under attack by the Navy, Beate was frantic and desperate to rush over himself, but he was currently tied up in a turf war with another criminal family and couldn't get away.

Left with no choice, he had paid a hefty price to dispatch these "allies," who were essentially half-allies at best, to rush over and provide support.

This reinforcement group of two thousand men was composed of four pirate crews, and all four captains were veteran pirates who had been knocking about the West Blue for years and had close ties to Beate.

Among them, the captain of the Black Brim Hat Pirates, known as "Big Black Hat" Roan, had a bounty of only 28 million Beli, the lowest of the four captains.

Yet, this guy was a rare ability user in the Four Blues, having consumed the Paramecia-type Door-Door Fruit over a decade ago.

As they neared Citrus Island, in order to avoid the eyes of the Navy at the port, this Mr. Roan had taken the initiative to suggest using his fruit ability to transfer all the pirates directly into the city, catching the Navy off guard.

This good idea was unanimously agreed upon by the other three captains, and subsequent events proved that this shock tactic was indeed quite effective.

Not only were the Elite Training Camp soldiers, who had previously held the upper hand, completely stunned, but even Aokiji, who was monitoring the entire island from the mountaintop, hadn't reacted in time.

Otherwise, he would never have allowed such an unexpected complication to occur.

"So, that unmanned ship I ran into at sea earlier actually belonged to these pirates?"

Noah shook the black pirate flag in his hand and clicked his tongue.

"Big Black Hat... come to think of it, that really was the ship of this Door-Door Fruit user, Captain Roan. How did it end up drifting so far away?"

"I suppose his subordinates made a mistake when they were anchoring and stopping the ship."

Shiryu puffed on his cigarette, exhaled a large cloud of smoke, and said indifferently, "You only ran into one unmanned ship; it seems the others must have arrived safely."

"Yeah, that must be it." Noah shrugged. "What a stroke of bad luck."

—It was unclear whether he was referring to Mr. Roan or the entire pirate reinforcement alliance.

Clearly, this Mr. Beate, despite having spent many years in the West Blue underworld, hadn't built a very effective intelligence network.

Otherwise.

If he had known that the Navy warships attacking his stronghold were filled with new recruits from the Headquarters taking an exam.

He would have been terrified into abandoning Citrus Island immediately and cutting off all contact to prevent being tracked down; why would he ever engage in such a losing business?

A group of wet-behind-the-ears Headquarters recruits was naturally nothing to fear.

But... if students were coming for an exam, there would certainly be "teachers" following along to protect and supervise them; that was something one could figure out with their toes.

Beate himself might have escaped disaster for now, but as for these allies who came to throw their lives away for him, their fate was clearly sealed.

"The Door-Door Fruit, huh..."

Noah tossed the pirate flag aside, his gaze thoughtful.

This was indeed somewhat beyond his expectations.

In fact, according to his original guess, if these suddenly appearing pirates were truly connected to that unmanned ghost ship.

Then it was likely a fat guy named Capone Bege who had snuck the reinforcements in using the Castle-Castle Fruit.

Thinking about it now, he had indeed been a bit biased.

Although they were both in the West Blue, this Capone Family wasn't necessarily related to Capone Bege.

And if one calculated carefully, that guy was only in his early twenties right now, still struggling on the path to becoming a mafia godfather; it wasn't even certain if he had eaten a fruit yet.

"What's the plan now?"

He finished organizing his thoughts and looked at Shiryu and Rosinante.

"I'm planning to try my luck and see if I can run into those few captains to boost my exam ranking. How about you two? Are you coming along?"

"Eh?"

Monica, who had been listening silently on the side, was startled and couldn't help but look up in astonishment:

"You've got to be kidding, Noah?"

Although in her eyes Noah was indeed very strong now, having improved significantly since the assessment over a month ago, setting his sights on those pirate captains was just too exaggerated, wasn't it?

These weren't the kind of guys that recruits who had been in the camp for less than a year could handle.

After all, among the four of them, even the one with the lowest bounty, Big Black Hat Roan, had a bounty of nearly thirty million Beli!

"Why are you spouting nonsense? Is that even a question? Let's go."

What surprised her even more was that Shiryu directly extinguished his cigarette butt and stood up.

And Rosinante, standing beside him, followed suit without the slightest hesitation.

The pace of the trio had always been astonishingly synchronized.

"Tch, boring."

Noah curled his lips, looking disappointed, "I thought you guys were so tired you couldn't even walk, and were planning to hog all the credit for yourselves."

"Hey, hey, what kind of nonsense are you dreaming about?"

Shiryu sneered, "Hog the credit? I'd probably lose half my life the moment I got surrounded. Even if I'm exhausted, I have to tag along. There are four captains, so you have to give me at least two, right?"

"I... I think I can take on two as well."

Rosinante was not to be outdone.

"You guys are just spouting nonsense; I can practically see cows flying in the sky."

Noah rolled his eyes and said irritably:

"Fine then, we'll see who's better when we get there. But let's get this straight: if you really can't hold on, don't force it. Just step aside and watch me perform..."

As the three spoke, they walked straight toward the alley entrance, bickering and competing along the way, their noisy voices drifting into the distance.

"It should be watching me perform, actually. I'm reflecting that statement right back at you, brother Noah."

"Reflection invalid!"

"Shut up! You two childish brats, you're so noisy!"

The girls left behind, who had been ignored, couldn't get a word in and could only stand there, watching the three figures walk away.

"Damn it, these guys didn't even plan on taking us with them..."

Monica stomped her feet in anger, "Hey, Shiya, what should we do? Should we follow them, or go after those smaller groups of pirates that split off?"

Having rested for so long, her stamina had recovered quite a bit, and she could barely manage to fight, but she still needed Shiya, the strongest of the three, to make the call.

However, she didn't hear a response for a long time, so she turned her head in confusion: "Shiya?"

The blue-haired girl, whose gaze had been quietly fixed on a certain figure, finally looked away.

"Hm?"

She turned her head toward Monica with an expressionless face and blinked, a rare trace of confusion finally appearing in her eyes, which were as clear as seawater:

"Were you saying something just now?"

I couldn't stay up last night, so this chapter counts as a make-up post; today's update will be in the evening.

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