The Rain Falls

Inside the Underground Burial Temple, the churning lake of magma gave off a suffocating stench of sulfur.

Crocodile lay sprawled beside the Poneglyph's pedestal like a lump of mud, his breastbone shattered across a wide area, his damaged Pure Gold Poison Hook hanging limply against the ground. The once-invincible King of the Desert was now left with only faint breaths.

Rain slowly approached him. The Obsidian Armor on his right arm gradually receded, turning back into a sharp gray-white granite blade that pointed directly at Crocodile's throat.

The cold stone blade rose high into the air. Rain was ready to sever the Shichibukai's head once and for all.

At that critical moment—

"Rumble—bang!"

The Burial Temple's sturdy dome was suddenly smashed through from outside by an overwhelmingly brutal force! Countless chunks of rubble crashed down amid clouds of dust, plunging into the scorching magma lake.

"Sand Crocodile, you bastard! I'm here to send you flying!"

Accompanied by a furious roar that echoed through the underground, a black-haired boy in a straw hat, covered in blood, crashed down through the hole in the dome like a red cannonball. His arms were stretched to their limit behind him, clearly ready to unleash his strongest attack the instant he landed.

Yet when Luffy landed steadily amid the dust, took up a fighting stance, and widened his eyes to search for that detestable Shichibukai, the sight before him left him completely stunned.

There was no expected sandstorm, nor was there any condescending mockery.

Sand Crocodile was lying half-dead on the ground, while a young man dressed in black and wearing a dark gray cloak stood beside him with a stone blade raised, looking at Luffy as though he were an idiot.

Silence.

The atmosphere inside the vast Burial Temple suddenly became incredibly strange.

Luffy stared blankly at Rain, then lowered his gaze to Crocodile, who lay on the ground like a lump of mud. His previously taut rubber arms snapped back with a whoosh. He raised a sand-covered finger at Rain, his eyes instantly widening like bells.

"Huh? It's you! That scorching guy who stole my grilled meat at the restaurant!"

Rain looked at the Straw Hat who always managed to shatter any tense atmosphere and rubbed his brow with a headache. With a casual motion, he dismissed the stone blade in his right hand.

"If you came to fight him, you're late." Rain pointed at Old Sand on the ground, his tone calm.

"Damn it! It took me forever to find this place!" Luffy puffed out his cheeks and stepped forward to kick Crocodile. After confirming that the man had truly passed out completely, he scratched his straw hat in frustration. "You beat me to it! Who the hell are you?"

"Just a bounty hunter who couldn't stand by and watch."

Rain ignored Luffy's complaints. Since the main culprit had already been defeated, he had no interest in staying longer in this underground tomb that could collapse at any moment. He turned toward King Cobra, who had long since been stunned speechless, and Nico Robin, whose expression was complicated.

"If you've seen enough, leave. The war above still needs His Majesty the King to put an end to it."

Rain stepped forward and roughly grabbed the back collar of Crocodile's expensive black fur coat, dragging the Shichibukai with an eighty-one-million-Beli bounty like a dead dog.

Luffy looked at Rain, then at Cobra and Robin, before grinning. "Hehe, even though I didn't get to fight, it's finally over! Let's go up too!"

A cold hunter dragging a Shichibukai, a carefree Straw Hat pirate, a king who had survived disaster, and a silent Robin climbed the stairs back to the surface in a strange yet harmonious group.

Meanwhile, on the surface, at the Alubarna Royal Palace Plaza, the brutal war had reached its climax.

Bellemere, vice-captain of the kingdom's guard, was carrying a heavy stone cannonball toward an altitude of ten thousand meters, yet the cannonball still had not exploded. The countdown had clearly already hit zero, but Bellemere did not dare stop and could only keep flying farther away.

Princess Vivi sat collapsed inside the Clock Tower, clutching a bloodstained half of a bounty poster tightly in her hand. Tears streamed from her eyes, but they were tears of joy after surviving the disaster.

"The cannonball... was dealt with... It wasn't detonated, it turned into stone..." Vivi sobbed as she handed the note to the other Straw Hat Pirates who had arrived. She had wanted to call Bellemere back, but that birdman had eaten the Zoan Bird-Bird Fruit, Falcon Form Devil Fruit. He flew so quickly that Princess Vivi could no longer see him before she even had time to shout.

"'No need to thank me too much. —Grayrock'?" Zoro's brow shot up as he looked at the signature on the note, recalling the terrifying rumor from the desert. "Is that the bounty hunter who caused such a huge commotion in Golden Sands City?"

"Bang!"

A battered body with its chest nearly caved in was casually tossed onto the center of the plaza. The distinctive Pure Gold Poison Hook, though half-melted, and the tattered black fur coat immediately let everyone in Alabasta recognize him.

"It's Crocodile!"

"That mastermind has been defeated!"

Rain walked over first. Behind him, Luffy, King Cobra, and Robin arrived at the plaza one after another.

"Luffy!" The Straw Hat Pirates excitedly gathered around him.

"Father!" Princess Vivi cried as she threw herself into Cobra's arms, weeping with joy.

Zoro had originally sighed in relief over Luffy's safety, but when his gaze inadvertently swept over the man standing alone at the edge of the plaza in a dark gray cloak, his eyes instantly sharpened.

As a top-tier swordsman, Zoro's instincts were incredibly keen. From that man, he sensed a terrifying smell of blood.

Danger! An extremely dangerous monster!

"Shing—"

Zoro instinctively pushed Wado Ichimonji partway out of its sheath with his thumb. The muscles throughout his body tightened in an instant, and like a beast locking onto prey, he fixed Rain with a vigilant stare.

Seeing Zoro's movement, Sanji immediately sensed that something was wrong with the atmosphere. He silently lit a cigarette and shifted into the opening stance of a kicking technique.

"Hey, hey, Zoro, Sanji, don't be so tense!"

Luffy casually brushed the dust from himself and stretched out an arm to block Zoro, pointing at Rain with a grin. "This guy's got a terrible temper, and he stole my grilled meat at the restaurant, but he's a good guy! He just beat Sand Crocodile flat underground too!"

Hearing Luffy say that, the wariness in Zoro's eyes eased slightly. Frowning, he clicked his sword back into its sheath. "If you knew him, say so earlier, idiot."

Luffy chuckled and turned to Rain. "Hey, Big Furnace! You said earlier that you were a... uh, what kind of hunter again?"

Rain stopped walking. His pitch-black eyes, hidden in the shadows, glanced at Luffy. His hoarse voice carried no discernible emotion. "A bounty hunter."

"Oh, right, right! A bounty hunter!" Luffy tilted his head, his face radiating pure stupidity, then turned toward Nami and Usopp. "What's that?"

The air suddenly went silent for a second.

The next instant, Nami and Usopp transformed into furious, sharp-toothed monsters. They grabbed Luffy by the neck from either side and shook him wildly, tears spraying from their eyes.

"A good guy, my ass! Bounty hunters are people who specialize in catching pirates for rewards, you idiot captain!"

Luffy rolled his eyes from being shaken and stood frozen for a full three seconds.

"...Huh?!"

Luffy's jaw practically hit the ground, his eyeballs nearly popping out. He leaped three meters back and pointed at Rain in horror. "Are you going to catch me for money? I'm the man who'll become the Pirate King! I'll never let you catch me!"

Watching this group still fool around so heedlessly after narrowly surviving a life-and-death battle, some of Rain's murderous aura and coldness somehow faded.

He did not respond to Luffy. He merely pulled up the dark gray hood, covering most of his face.

"Idiots like you, what kind of pirates are you supposed to be?" Rain turned away, his voice drifting faintly across the empty plaza.

Even after Rain had gone far away, Luffy was still asking Nami, "Was he insulting us?"

"Drip."

A drop of cool liquid suddenly landed on Rain's cheek.

Rain stopped and looked up.

In the sky, the drought-stricken heavens that had once been cloudless had somehow gathered thick, heavy clouds. With Crocodile's downfall and the dissipation of his Devil Fruit power, the rainless curse that had shrouded Alabasta for three years was finally completely broken.

"Whoosh—"

A torrential downpour, like a gift from the heavens, poured down and hammered fiercely upon this desert kingdom that had been parched for far too long.

The rain washed away the bloodstains and smoke of the royal capital. The rebel army and the King's Army stood stunned in the rain for a moment, then threw down their weapons and fell to their knees, embracing one another in tears. Luffy and his companions formed a circle in the rain and laughed without restraint.

Rain did not turn back to look at their celebration. He completely hid his right arm, faintly glowing with dark red firelight, beneath his cloak. Dragging the still-unconscious Crocodile with his left hand, he silently walked through the rainwater toward the outskirts of the city.

This farce in the desert was over.