Baroque Works Ambush, Marine Admiral Kuzan

Boom!

Bang!

A humanoid object flew over at incredible speed, striking the sand mass Brando was riding in midair.

It then exploded in the air with a massive impact, flaring into cross-shaped firelight.

"Hit him!"

MR.3 looked delighted.

After all, he was the most cowardly one among them. He had no desire to face Brando head-on. If they could take Brando out with a dirty trick, he would be the happiest of them all.

MR.5 had launched himself like a cannonball, unleashing his greatest destructive power.

So MR.3 had to control the wax liquid to catch MR.5 as he fell from the sky.

"Huh?"

"Why is MR.5 split in half?"

MR.3, who was controlling the wax liquid to catch MR.5, suddenly froze. What he caught was two halves, not one person.

MR.5 had been cut in half at the waist and was already dead. That explosion had been his final ripple.

"Because that guy isn't dead!"

MR.1 answered.

At the same time, he stomped down and charged toward where Brando had just landed.

MR.1 could originally move even faster. He only needed to turn his feet into blades to move as swiftly as if he were wearing roller skates.

But this was the desert. If he turned them into blades, he would lose the necessary traction and be unable to stand on the sand.

"Dust Slash!"

All ten of MR.1's fingers transformed into blades. When he was about ten meters from Brando, he crossed his hands in an X and unleashed a dense barrage of slashes.

That attack was enough to dismember an entire building.

"Too slow."

But Brando vanished with a disdainful smile and appeared behind MR.1, a Rasengan spinning in his right hand.

The instant MR.1 turned his head, the Rasengan slammed directly into it.

Although, at the last moment, MR.1 had used the Dice-Dice Fruit's power to make his head as hard as metal.

The Rasengan's internal destructive force directly shattered MR.1's brain. As Brando released the Rasengan, MR.1 was blasted away.

"So this is what it feels like to crush weaklings!"

Brando wore a satisfied expression.

At that moment, MR.3 and Bon Kurei charged over with resolute expressions.

"Okama Kenpo!"

Bon Kurei's long, slender limbs struck at Brando again and again like spears.

But the Sharingan saw through every movement, and Brando easily dodged them all.

"One look at you tells me you're an okama. Why choose to be one instead of a man? Did the person you liked run away?"

Brando directly provoked him.

Bon Kurei's face darkened.

"How could someone like you understand the superiority of okama!"

"Stray from the path of men, stray from the path of women—as long as you do not stray from the path of humanity, you can bloom to your heart's content."

He attacked Brando with Okama Kenpo while loudly defending okama.

"Then I really don't understand!"

Brando did not want to understand, either.

This okama seemed a little hard to provoke. Many other okama had become that way due to later experiences, such as being betrayed by women or bullied by groups.

But this guy seemed to have been born wanting to be an okama, without any resistance whatsoever.

"The beauty of okama is something you can never experience. It's the best!"

Bon Kurei started enthusiastically selling Brando on it. Even his attacks slowed considerably. Clearly, the path of okama ranked higher for him than avenging his boss.

"I don't want to know..."

Brando felt like he had stepped in shit.

It reminded him of a serial killer who, upon discovering that his target was gay, had been so frightened that he did not dare make a move.

Brando was thinking the same thing now. If he provoked this guy, would the reward from the Will of the Overlord end up being related to okama?

At the thought, Brando's expression stiffened. After all, things granted through the village's recognition seemed impossible to take back.

When Bon Kurei wanted to say more, Brando had already run off, repeatedly using Soru to quickly widen the distance.

"?"

Bon Kurei froze, but his gaze remained locked on Brando as he continued chasing after him.

Then the one he caught up to was Brando's Shadow Clone.

"Phew... That was dangerous."

Brando let out a sigh of relief. This was the first time since arriving in this world that he had felt such pressure.

"Dangerous how?"

"You obviously could have protected me just now. Why did you let me get blown away?"

Shukaku complained about Brando's actions from within the mental space.

When that bomb man flew over, Brando ignored Haki Shukaku. Instead, he used an ordinary weapon to perform Iai: One Flash, cutting the bomb man in half at the waist. But the explosion still happened, and Haki Shukaku's tiny body was sent flying.

"I forgot."

Brando answered casually.

When playing gal games, you had to keep them guessing. You could not just blindly fawn over them.

Shukaku began cursing loudly in the mental space, but Brando ignored him and started cleaning up the loyal underlings of Baroque Works.

Besides the higher-ranking officers, there were many ordinary members hiding in underground pits throughout the desert. Brando showed them no mercy, using Magnet Release to extract iron sand from the desert and form it into shuriken, taking them out one at a time.

Brando would not show mercy to people who wanted to kill him.

"I'm going to die! Damn it, I said we shouldn't have come!"

MR.3 was hiding beneath the sand, using wax liquid to create a safe room for himself and praying that Brando would not find him.

He trembled as he watched Brando mow down the members of Baroque Works like grass. Even MR.1, the strongest among them, had been taken out in a single move.

Only MR.2, that okama, had disappeared somewhere.

He knew perfectly well that he was no match for Brando, so he could only hope Brando had not noticed him and that he could luckily escape this deadly ordeal.

"It's all MR.1 and MR.2's fault!"

At this point, MR.3 could only blame the others.

Suddenly, MR.3 jerked his head up. He felt his wax liquid being breached, then saw a rapidly spinning object burst open before him.

"Big Ball Rasengan!"

Brando blasted a Big Ball Rasengan into the sand below.

This was the result of his arduous training.

"Other than that okama, that should be about everyone. If anyone else is still alive, then he's just lucky."

Brando clapped his hands.

Crushing weaklings really was satisfying, but aside from a few Baroque Works officers, there was no need to provoke the others. There would be no rewards anyway.

Just as Brando was preparing to leave, his body suddenly tensed. Someone he did not want to see had appeared before him.

"Well, well, this young man sure is ruthless."

Marine Admiral Kuzan, codenamed Aokiji, stood off to the side watching him with a lazy expression.

It looked like he had been there for quite some time. Brando had not noticed him immediately, making Brando raise the priority of learning Observation Haki.