Conrad was a man of the world.
The world was dangerous. At any moment, you could be killed by falling rebar, collapsing concrete, deep holes dug everywhere, or improperly secured scaffolding.
At this moment, before stepping into the Opera House, he felt a chill.
The instant he took a step, his ankle muscles froze mid-step for half a second. He backed up two paces, eyes wide.
Staring at the narrow passage leading into the Opera House, Conrad's innate Observation Haki told him there was something off inside.
He formed the hand seal for one of his two core techniques, the Imperial Classic of World Governance, and looked up at the stars in the night sky.
He read his fortune in the stars.
But the clouds in the night sky were hazy and indistinct.
A sudden, cold breeze swept by. Through the veil of gray-white clouds, a crescent moon appeared, with two tiny stars glimmering brightly to its southeast.
Conrad's pupils dilated, his pores opened, and he gripped the Bawang Spear tightly.
Ominous! Extremely ominous!
He had encountered danger of this degree only once before: one winter night, when he'd snuck out to skate on a lake. Fire dominated his birth chart, and that night, water was his bane—but he'd refused to believe it and insisted on defying fate.
The ice had broken, and he'd fallen into the water, nearly drowning. If he hadn't been wearing a new down jacket, which kept the little boy afloat through the night, he would have died.
"Conrad!" Shuzo demanded. "Do you know what you've done? We're all going to be dragged into this because of you!"
Conrad paid him no heed and continued reading the stars, but the clouds covered the sky again, obscuring it in darkness.
Shuzo went on. "You can knock them out for a while, but you can't keep them unconscious forever. Once they wake up, word will still get out! Come back to the warship with me now and report this to Vice Admiral Aokiji—"
"Then should I kill them all?" Conrad lowered his head, his face dark as soot.
Shuzo's eyes bulged like a bull's. He stood there with his mouth open for a long moment, unable to utter a word.
Conrad looked around. Every unconscious person seemed ready to spring to their feet. He moved slowly, adjusting his breathing.
He held the spear horizontally, ready to strike at any moment.
"Arrest him!" Shuzo ordered. He had to stop Conrad from doing as he pleased and making this even worse.
Bang!
"Well, well! So you're the first disaster star!"
The moment Shuzo gave the order, Conrad's killing intent surged. He leaped up and brought the spear shaft down on Shuzo's head.
With disaster looming, they were turning on each other! If he were restrained, how could he deal with the danger? He'd be nothing but a lamb waiting to be slaughtered!
Shuzo's massive body went rigid, then toppled backward. His Doriki Value was only a little over two hundred; he couldn't withstand Conrad's strength.
The marines looked at Conrad with growing unease and all backed away from him.
But a young woman silently walked toward him. Her sea-blue curls and rose-red eyes made her look like a serene blue rose beneath the neon lights.
"What are you trying to do?"
"What are you trying to do!" Conrad leveled his spear at Ain. "Stop!"
He absolutely could not become smaller. His body had the bone age of a twelve-year-and-eight-month-old. One slap could turn him into an eight-month-old baby.
Ain stood in front of the residents knocked unconscious by Overlord Lion Roar and said gravely, "The Navy can only kill pirates, not civilians."
She drew two guns from inside her cloak. They looked more like hand cannons, with barrels large enough to fit her forearms inside.
They were called Gebru-Shot, and her father had left them to her.
"I would never kill an innocent!" Conrad looked up at the stars again. The clouds drifted slowly. "I only kill those who deserve it!"
"Who deserves to die?" Ain slowly raised her guns. "Don't move until you explain."
"How am I supposed to explain it? I don't know! I just know I'll see for myself!" Conrad said, his gaze blazing. "My eyes never judge wrong! If I'm wrong, I'll pay with my life!"
He strode toward Ain. "Take this gun and point it at my head. If I kill the wrong person, shoot me."
Ain couldn't be sure, but she could sense that Conrad wasn't a bad person.
"Waaah~"
Suddenly, a heartrending cry rang out. It came from a little girl wearing a smooth yellow hat, perhaps a little over ten years old. She had woken up from her faint and was shaking the noblewoman beside her.
"Mom! What's wrong? Mom, wake up!"
The girl wore lemon-slice earrings, and her short skirt was covered in lemon patterns. She clutched an umbrella like a walking stick, looking both adorable and pitiful.
"Miss! Please, you have to save my mom!" She sobbed without stopping, softening the marines' expressions. They were afraid of frightening her further.
The girl glanced at Conrad and began crying even harder. "That man is so scary!"
As she spoke, she hid behind Ain, who was closest to her, and clung to the back of her leg.
Ain turned around and lowered her guns, afraid she might hurt the girl. "Don't be afraid. He won't hurt you..."
Just then, rapid footsteps pattered against the ground.
It was the prelude to Soru.
"Croak! You bastard! I could tell at a glance you were no good!"
Conrad suddenly appeared behind the girl, staring at her lemon earrings. He raised his spear like a lance and thrust viciously through her back.
"Don't think I can't recognize you just because you haven't grown up yet!"
Her delicate lemon-patterned skirt was split open in an instant. The spear pierced her abdomen and pinned her to the brick pavement.
The cruel sight left the marines dumbfounded. Conrad had just said he would never kill an innocent, and now he'd attacked a child.
Ain froze. She had been ready to receive the girl's embrace, but instead she saw Conrad brutally pin her to the ground.
"What are you doing?"
"Saving you! She's an assassin!" Conrad pulled out his spear, and the girl's body slumped.
Ain said sorrowfully, "How could such a little girl be an assassin? She doesn't even have a weapon! You're just—"
Thud!
The girl's body crashed to the ground with a heavy rumble, as if an earthquake had struck. The Lemon Umbrella in her hand plunged straight into the ground tip-first, like an iron rod stabbing into tofu.
"She's Ms. Valentine," Conrad said flatly. "Though she might go by a different codename now. She's a Kilo-Kilo Fruit user."
The girl turned her head toward Conrad and spat out a huge mouthful of blood. Her act had been flawless; she couldn't understand how he'd seen through it.
All she'd needed to do was finish the assassination, reduce her weight to that of a feather, then push off lightly and fly away with her umbrella.
But she could no longer speak. Her body convulsed in agony.
The last thing she saw was Ain's hand, wreathed in peach-red flames, and her pitying gaze.
Her slender hand lifted the oversized hat, brushed aside the lemon-colored strands of hair, and gently pressed against the girl's forehead.
"Such a little girl..." Ain activated the Return-Return Fruit.
The girl vanished. A flicker of light shone beneath the flames, and her entire body disappeared without a trace, as if she had never existed.
Only the blood on the ground, the lemon-patterned skirt and hat, and the earrings remained, proof of how much she must have loved lemons.
"Assassins don't have a moral code," Conrad added. "If I hadn't killed her, she would've killed you. One of us had to live. You helped me, so I chose you."
Ain picked up the earrings, the easiest thing to carry, wrapped them in a handkerchief, and slipped them into her pocket. "How did you figure it out?"
Conrad looked up at the sky. Above Song and Dance Street, the clouds had drifted almost completely away.
When a sudden gust blew the Navy's flag straight out and quickly swept the clouds aside, the countless stars finally came into view.
"I can read the sky and see people's fate."
In the moonlit sky, four ominous stars alternately brightened and dimmed beside the star representing his current position.
"Surrounded on all sides! Ha! I truly am an Overlord Heavenly Image!"
Conrad pointed his spear at the moon and laughed wildly.
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