Backwater from the East Blue

"Alright, the boss should be here any minute now."

"I keep feeling like someone's watching us. I've got a bad feeling about this."

After putting away the Den Den Mushi, Mr. 13 kept feeling an itch at the back of his neck.

"That guy has been in my sight the whole time. Nothing has happened."

Miss Friday transformed into a vulture and stood atop a roof, watching Brando shop below.

He felt that this red-eyed guy did not seem all that dangerous. A bounty of five hundred million Beli felt a little inflated.

"Could there have been some mistake? Is the BOSS coming to punish me?"

Mr. 13 scratched his head.

"When did you get the impression that the person you're watching is actually me?"

A suddenly sinister voice rang out beside their ears.

In an instant, the two Zoan Devil Fruit users bristled. As intelligence agents, someone had infiltrated so close to them without them noticing. That was the most dangerous situation possible.

Miss Friday immediately spread her wings, intending to take off and flee with Mr. 13 on her back.

Iai: One Flash!

Brando used the ordinary longsword he had bought for one hundred thousand Beli to unleash the only sword technique he knew.

Miss Friday spread her wings and shot into the air.

"That guy found us? So that was the source of the bad feeling!"

"The BOSS is definitely going to punish us. What rotten luck."

Watching himself rise higher and higher, Mr. 13 breathed a sigh of relief, though he was also worried about how his boss would punish him later.

Baroque Works had extremely harsh punishments.

When he turned to take one last look at Brando below, he discovered that his head suddenly would not obey him. At the same time, Miss Friday's long vulture head seemed to have tilted sideways.

"That move was pretty fast."

Brando watched two heads fall from the air—one an otter's, the other a vulture's.

Yet before they hit the ground, they gradually changed back into human heads. Their bodies fell afterward, crashing directly into the crowd and causing a commotion.

"Since the prey is coming to me, I can start preparing too."

Brando stretched his body a little.

This was the first time he would face a true powerhouse head-on.

From today onward, he would never run from the strong again!

Brando made this vow with the same conviction as gamers who swore they would never spend money in a game again.

Crocodile traveled from Rainbase, the city under his control, to Erumalu in less than an hour. He had not stopped once along the way.

To earn favor with the World Government, he was taking this matter very seriously.

He soon arrived at Newshore Town, the city Mr. 13 had mentioned. He exited his elemental form, returned to normal, landed on a rooftop, and took out his Den Den Mushi to contact Mr. 13.

"Burururu..."

As the Den Den Mushi rang unanswered, Crocodile's expression darkened.

He knew his subordinates would not dare fool him. If Mr. 13 was not answering, there was only one possibility: something had happened to him.

Of course, if nothing had happened to him, Crocodile would make sure something did in a moment.

The impatience in his heart made Crocodile want to swallow the entire town before him with quicksand.

Whoosh!

A stone flew in from somewhere in an arc and struck him squarely in the head, leaving a hole in it.

It did not hurt due to his elemental form, but Crocodile was furious. This was a provocation!

Then Crocodile saw his target.

Brando, standing on another rooftop and giving him the middle finger.

"So it really was this guy!"

The moment Crocodile saw Brando, he knew that the Mr. 13 pair had likely met their end at Brando's hands.

His killing intent toward Brando intensified.

If he were not still building his reputation in Alabasta, he would have attacked immediately without caring whether the surrounding civilians lived or died.

Seeing that Crocodile had noticed him, Brando made a gesture for him to follow, then left first.

"Interesting."

"Looks like you prepared some special gift for me."

"But I'll show you what despair truly is!"

Crocodile was no fool.

He understood that Brando had clearly prepared for this and might even have known Crocodile was targeting him.

But Crocodile remained unafraid.

What could some country bumpkin from the East Blue possibly do?

His lower body directly transformed into a sandstorm, allowing Crocodile to fly. He followed after Brando, eager to see what tricks the other man could pull.

The two soon left town and reached the deserted desert outside.

In this environment, Crocodile could attack without harming civilians. Yet he did not, because he wanted this guy to understand that all his preparations were useless. He wanted Brando to die in despair.

"Not running anymore?"

Brando soon came to a stop.

Crocodile descended unhurriedly as well, his lower body reverting from sandstorm to normal. He looked at Brando and asked in a mocking tone, like a hunter with everything under control.

During this time, he even took out a cigar, lit it with a match, and began smoking.

"Running?"

"I should be asking you that."

Brando sneered as if he had heard a joke.

When these confident powerhouses acted all high and mighty, it felt the best. Just imagining their faces flushing red, unable to say anything in rebuttal and only able to rage helplessly, made Brando excited.

"Hahaha!"

"Your reliance wouldn't happen to be that river beside you, would it? You know my power is the Logia Sand-Sand Fruit, so you want to use the water to limit my strength."

Crocodile laughed mockingly at the blond kid before him.

He had spotted the small river from the air earlier. The only thing here that could affect him was that river.

"Oh?"

"So you saw through it."

Despite saying that, Brando's grinning response irritated Crocodile. It was nothing like the shocked reaction he had wanted to see.

He could not understand how the Celestial Dragons had fallen to someone like this. Perhaps the Celestial Dragons were trash to begin with, which was why they had been humiliated by such trash.

Once he obtained Pluton, one of the three great ancient weapons, and dealt with Whitebeard, he would take over this world!

"A river of this size only needs me to get slightly serious for it to dry up!"

Crocodile raised a hand as if it were nothing.

The sand beneath his feet immediately began to flow, surging toward the roughly two-meter-wide river like ocean waves. In an instant, it swallowed the river and turned it into part of the desert, continuing to spread and consume the water still flowing downstream.