Marine Pursuit

Rain slowly rose to his feet, his tattered black trench coat stirring despite the still air in the restaurant.

Facing the Whitebeard Pirates' Second Division Commander, a man with a bounty of several hundred million and a name renowned throughout the New World, the dark-red magma deep within Rain's right arm, wrapped in fireproof bandages, seemed to sense the provocation of a powerful foe. It began surging madly through his veins, letting out a faint, muffled roar like distant thunder.

The smile at Ace's lips deepened. He casually placed one hand behind his back and stamped his foot.

"Then let's..."

"Whoosh!"

Before he could finish, Ace's body instantly turned into a blazing orange-red streak, crossing more than ten meters without warning and appearing directly before Rain.

Without any flashy technique, Ace raised his right hand. What looked like a casual straight punch carried flames pure enough to melt steel in an instant as it slammed toward Rain's face.

"Heat Haze!"

Faced with the terrifying wave of fire rushing at him, Rain did not retreat. His scorching right arm shot up, and he threw a punch straight into Ace's fiery fist!

"Sizzle—!"

The fireproof bandages wrapped around Rain's right arm turned directly to ash the instant the two extreme temperatures collided! An [Flame Demon Arm] of dark-red liquid magma intertwined with a black, high-pressure obsidian framework was fully exposed to the air!

"Boom!"

One large and one small, one orange and one dark red—the two fists collided violently in midair above the restaurant.

There was no earth-shattering explosion. Both men were cautiously testing the other's limits.

Yet the heat compressed into that tiny space triggered a horrifying physical reaction!

"Crack, crack, crack..."

With the point where their fists met as its center, the bluestone floor tiles throughout the restaurant were instantly baked dry, cracked, and shattered. Within ten meters, the wooden tables, chairs, and even the wine bottles on the bar all dried out and burst apart beneath the terrifying heat!

Ace's pupils contracted slightly.

The instant their fists touched, a rare trace of astonishment flashed through his once-confident gaze.

He could feel that dark-red fluid on the other man's fist was no ordinary flame. It was a terrifying substance of astonishing mass and immense density, and its temperature even seemed to surpass the surface flames of his Flame-Flame Fruit!

What the hell is this... It can even ignite my fire? Ace was deeply shaken. Flames being ignited sounded absurd, but the viscous lava on Rain's arm really was devouring the flames on his fist in an overbearing fashion.

"Just liquid stone," Rain replied with a smile. The obsidian framework on his right arm let out a teeth-grinding screech as it tried to knock Ace's fist away.

Just as the two were about to increase their strength and turn this test into a true fight to the death—

"Bang!"

The restaurant's already-charred front door was kicked clean off its hinges by a violent force. The two wooden panels exploded into a storm of splinters and smashed toward the hall.

"Straw Hat Monkey D. Luffy! Fire Fist Ace! I've finally caught you!"

Amid thick, pungent white smoke, a silver-haired man wearing a Marine colonel's uniform charged in like a rabid dog. He had two cigars clenched between his teeth and wielded a jitte tipped with Seastone.

Marine Headquarters Colonel, "White Hunter" Smoker!

The moment Smoker rushed in, his gaze passed over Luffy, whose mouth was stuffed full of roasted meat, and locked onto the black-clad young man confronting Ace.

"That outfit... that rock arm radiating such heat..." Smoker yanked out the Seastone jitte from his back, his expression instantly turning fierce. "The vile criminal with a fifty-million-Beli bounty, the one who brutally massacred the governor in Golden Sands City—'Grayrock' Rain! You're here too!"

Straw Hat Luffy, Fire Fist Ace, White Hunter Smoker, and Rain, the bounty hunter who had just completed his rebirth. Four entirely different yet equally dangerous presences crashed together within the cramped restaurant.

"Ah! It's that smoky guy!"

Only then did Luffy react. With his cheeks bulging with food, he gave a muffled shout, skillfully grabbed the entire remaining roasted desert turkey from the table, turned his legs into blurs, smashed through the wooden wall at the back of the restaurant, and dashed out onto the street.

"Bastard! Don't think you can run! Tashigi, take the men and chase Straw Hat!" Smoker roared as he gave the order.

Watching Luffy flee, Ace helplessly pressed down his cowboy hat. Then he looked at Rain across from him, and a smile returned to his lips.

"Looks like our little side show ends here, magma guy. I've got a troublesome little brother to look after."

"Fire Net!"

Ace swung both arms sharply, and a vast, dazzling wall of blazing fire instantly rose inside the restaurant, cutting off the Marines' line of sight and pursuit route.

"Now's our chance. If fate allows, we'll meet again in the New World!" Ace laughed, turning into a mass of flame and chasing after Luffy through the hole in the wall.

Chaos erupted as flames blazed everywhere.

Rain paid no attention to the fleeing Ace and Luffy. He knew his own condition very well. Although his right arm had completed its magma transformation, the energy within him had yet to fully recover, and Crocodile was still his real target.

In this capital, where a massive battle involving tens of thousands could break out at any moment, fighting the Marines to the bitter end would be foolish.

He withdrew the flames from his right arm, and his body instantly "turned to rubble," becoming a concealed stream of gray-black stones. Hugging the ground, he silently slipped out through a gap in the restaurant's side window and disappeared into the labyrinthine alleys of Alubarna.

However, he had underestimated Smoker's obsession with "justice," as well as the traces left by his newly reconstructed body, which still could not perfectly contain its heat.

"Trying to run? You butcher, more dangerous than any pirate!"

Behind the wall of fire, Smoker's lower body instantly transformed into rolling white smoke, and he shot into the sky, vaulting over the fiery barrier Ace had left behind.

From midair, Smoker's sharp eyes swiftly locked onto Rain's escape route. He ignored Luffy, who had already fled far away, and instead fixed his gaze on a secluded alley stretching westward.

There, on the bluestone pavement, was a trail of footprints instantly dried by terrifying heat, even slightly charred black!

"Straw Hat is just a rookie pirate, but this Rain is a madman who dared to slaughter government officials in broad daylight. A ticking bomb this dangerous cannot be allowed to remain in Alubarna with unrest about to erupt!"

Smoker made his decision at once. He took a hard drag on his cigar, transformed into a massive white column of smoke, and shot after the scorching alley like a tenacious parasite.

Alubarna, western residential district, inside a dead-end alley.

Rain stopped.

He turned around and watched the white smoke flood into the alley entrance like a tide before swiftly condensing into a tall silver-haired man.

"Clinging to me like a rabid dog—is that Marine Headquarters' style?" Rain sighed, raising his right arm, which emitted a faint dark-red glow. "I haven't taken so much as a needle or thread from your Marines, Colonel Smoker."

"Shut up, you piece of trash!" Smoker slammed his Seastone jitte heavily into the ground, completely blocking the dead end's exit. "After killing people in Golden Sands City with such cruelty, do you think calling yourself a 'bounty hunter' washes away your crimes? Today, I'll bring you to justice!"

Rain looked at Smoker's face, filled with righteousness and fury, and a hint of helplessness and eagerness flashed through his black eyes.

On these seas, a Logia against a Logia had always been the cruelest and purest clash of elements.

"Want to lock me down?"

The dark-red magma on Rain's right arm began boiling violently, and the air around him instantly warped under the extreme heat. The bluestone slabs beneath his feet began to heave like waves.

"Then let me see whether your smoke can engulf me..."

Rain suddenly raised his head, like a Flame Demon breaking free from the chains of hell.

"Or whether I beat the hell out of you!"