A Gotham Story Offhandedly Told, and You Mastered the Dark Knight

Mount Colubo was quiet at night.

Only the fire in the cabin crackled.

Kahn sat cross-legged beside the fire.

Luffy lay sprawled across his lap, sleeping soundly.

The snot bubble at his nose grew and shrank with each breath.

Ace and Sabo stared wide-eyed as they listened to Kahn make things up.

Kahn was really just bored.

In a world without even a game console, he could only pass the time by recalling movies from his previous life.

He told them a story about a wealthy young master.

The young master's city was full of crime and corruption.

He had no Devil Fruit.

Nor did he possess freakish physical abilities.

He had merely trained himself to the limits of humanity.

Then, in the darkness of night, he put on a mask and a cape.

He used fear against the criminals who created it.

He considered that city his responsibility.

The story ended.

Ace curled his lip.

He thought that young master had something wrong with his head.

Instead of using his money to buy meat, he insisted on going out to get beaten up.

But Sabo's reaction was completely different.

Sabo's eyes shone frighteningly bright in the firelight.

He gripped the water pipe in his hand tightly.

He saw himself in that story.

He, too, had been born a noble.

He, too, hated the hypocrisy around him.

The Goa Kingdom was his Gotham.

The divide between inside and outside the high walls was crueler than any pirate's plunder.

Kahn saw through Sabo's thoughts.

He said nothing.

Everyone had their own path to walk.

He couldn't exactly force Sabo to take the Navy civil service exam in the future.

Several days later, late at night.

The inner city of the Goa Kingdom.

This was High Town, the Paradise where the nobles lived.

The streets were spotless.

The streetlamps gave off a soft glow.

But that light could not reach the darkness in people's hearts.

Viscount Charles was strolling through the streets with several guards.

Charles was a hereditary noble of the Goa Kingdom.

He had no bounty.

Yet in the slums, his name carried more weight than the pirates in East Blue with bounties of several million Beli.

His favorite thing was to seek amusement in the fringe districts.

Like right now.

A skinny boy cleaning the sewers lay sprawled on the ground.

The boy's basket had overturned.

Several chunks of foul-smelling sludge splashed onto Charles's leather shoes.

Charles's face twisted horribly.

He felt that his noble bloodline had been defiled.

"Filthy trash."

Charles drew the gold-inlaid rapier from his waist.

Its tip pointed at the boy's throat.

The guards sneered from the side.

No one thought there was anything wrong with this.

In this country, killing a commoner did not even require paying a fine.

The boy trembled from head to toe, unable to even beg for mercy.

Charles snorted coldly and flicked his wrist.

The sword tip plunged down.

Just then.

An extremely faint burst of sound came from the night sky overhead.

"Bang."

The sound was not loud.

But Charles heard it.

He had no time to look up.

A black shadow dropped from the sky.

It moved at an absurd speed.

It came with the howl of rushing wind.

A rough steel water pipe slammed heavily into the side of the rapier.

Clang!

The sharp ring of metal striking metal tore through the night.

Charles felt an overwhelming force travel through the hilt of his sword.

The web between his thumb and forefinger split open immediately.

Blood sprayed everywhere.

The gold-inlaid rapier spun away and embedded itself in the brick wall beside him.

Charles screamed and clutched his right hand.

He staggered back several steps before regaining his footing.

Only then did the guards react, drawing their muskets and longswords.

They shielded Charles behind them.

Everyone stared at the sudden attacker as if facing a great enemy.

It was a short figure.

He looked like an adolescent boy.

He wore an exaggerated top hat.

A piece of black rag covered his face, leaving only a pair of sharp eyes exposed.

A black bedsheet was draped flamboyantly over his back.

The bedsheet flapped loudly in the night wind.

If Ace had been there, he would have laughed himself rolling across the ground.

That outfit was unbelievably tacky.

But Sabo did not think so.

He thought he looked cool as hell right now.

This was the entrance he wanted.

Descending from the sky and shattering evil.

"Who are you?!"

Charles shouted furiously.

In this royal city, no one had ever dared lay a hand on him.

Sabo lowered the brim of his hat.

He changed his voice, trying to make it sound low and hoarse.

"I am the embodiment of the night."

"This city is sick."

"I have come to cure it."

Sabo copied Kahn's lines from the story word for word.

Charles laughed in anger.

"Where did this lunatic come from?"

"Shoot him dead!"

Several guards immediately raised their muskets.

They pulled the triggers.

Muzzle flames erupted.

Lead bullets wove a net through the night sky.

An ordinary eight-year-old would have been riddled with holes by now.

But Sabo was no ordinary child.

He was a monster-in-training whom Kahn had ground into the dirt for five years.

The muscles in Sabo's legs suddenly tensed.

Shave.

He silently recited it in his heart.

With a bang.

The stone slabs beneath his feet cracked with fine fractures.

Sabo vanished from where he stood.

Every bullet missed and embedded itself in the wall behind him.

The guards' eyes widened.

Where had he gone?

"Too slow."

Sabo's voice came from above their heads.

The guards looked up.

To their horror, the masked boy was standing in midair.

As though he were stepping on invisible stairs.

Navy Six Powers, Geppo.

Against royal guards who had never even set foot on the Grand Line.

This move was simply a crushing blow from a higher level.

Sabo flipped through the air.

Using the gravitational force of his descent.

He gripped the water pipe with both hands and swung it violently.

A faint layer of extremely weak black airflow coiled around the surface of the pipe.

It was the embryonic form of Armament Haki.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three muffled impacts rang out in succession.

Before the three guards could even scream, their collarbones were shattered.

They flew away like rag dolls.

They crashed heavily onto the ground and passed out at once.

The entire process took less than three seconds.

The arrogance on Charles's face froze completely.

His legs began to shake.

This was not human strength at all.

This was a monster.

Sabo landed on the ground.

The water pipe spun elegantly in his hand.

He walked toward Charles step by step.

With every step he took, Charles retreated one step.

"Y-You... don't come any closer!"

"I'm a noble of the Goa Kingdom!"

"If you dare touch me, the Navy will definitely come arrest you!"

Charles invoked the most powerful backing he could think of.

Sabo stopped in his tracks.

Nobles.

Those two words alone divided people into ranks.

He had grown up in that lavish, magnificent house.

He had heard enough disgusting remarks about bloodlines and nobility.

"Even noble blood runs red."

Sabo raised his pipe.

Without hesitation, he smashed it into Charles's knee.

The crisp crack of breaking bone was especially piercing on the silent street.

Charles let out a pig-slaughtering scream.

He dropped to his knees.

The searing pain left his face smeared with tears and snot.

There was not a trace of noble elegance left in him.

The rescued poor boy was still sprawled on the ground.

He stared blankly at everything unfolding before him.

In his eyes, this black-clad man in a top hat stood taller than any god.

Sabo took several gold coins from his pocket.

He had saved them from scavenging through junk.

He tossed the coins before the boy.

"Leave this place."

"Find somewhere you can survive."

The boy snatched up the coins and nodded frantically.

He scrambled to his feet and ran into the dark alley.

Sabo turned around and looked at Charles rolling on the ground.

He had not killed him.

Kahn had said that superheroes did not kill casually.

Even though this was the One Piece World.

Sabo still wanted to hold on to a small piece of his own bottom line.

Besides, breaking one leg—

for a pampered noble like him, was worse than death.