"Not at the moment!" Shin replied with a smile. After saying that, he ignored Garp and turned to walk into the distance.
"Wait!" Garp shouted, instinctively reaching out to stop him. Then something that astonished him happened—at such close range, his hand actually slid right past the other man.
Everything happened utterly naturally. The hem of the man's lightly swaying black robe even brushed Garp's fingers before he turned a corner and vanished.
Startled, Garp hurried after him. Yet with less than a second between them, the alley beyond the corner was already completely empty.
"Uh!" Garp stared at his own palm in bewilderment. Even he had no idea what had just happened.
Everything had seemed perfectly normal, but that was precisely why it felt abnormal. He believed that at that distance, not even Navy Fleet Admiral Void could have escaped his grab.
Could I have seen a ghost? With his imagination running wild, Garp thought of a possibility. He immediately shuddered and took a step back. Looking around and seeing people still passing by, he calmed down a little, then hurriedly fled without looking back.
Creak!
The door opened, and Shin, dressed in black, appeared inside the bar. Business seemed slow; there were no customers at all. Though the place itself was not large, that was still unusual for a bar.
The woman seated at the counter looked up without reacting, then lowered her head again to polish the wineglass in her hand.
Hearing him take a seat, she looked up and asked, "What would you like?"
Compared to more than twenty years later in the original story, Shakuyaku's appearance had not visibly changed. She still looked as though she were in her thirties. A woman's age truly was a mystery.
"I'm here to find Roger." Shin did not