Daz Bonez: "Tekkai!"

"Robin, what do you think of this one?"

On the bustling street, Baccarat stood in front of a stall selling dolls.

She picked up a cute doll and gave it a shake before the black-haired girl beside her. The doll was round and plump, with two buttons sewn on as eyes and a standard smile embroidered at the corners of its mouth with red thread.

Robin tilted her head and studied it for a while, then pointed toward another doll in the corner of the stall.

"It's fine, but I think that one is cuter."

Baccarat followed her finger, and the smile on her lips froze for a moment.

It was a monster stitched together from the remains of several different dolls. One arm belonged to a bear, the other to a rabbit; its head was a faded cat, while its body was a fat-headed fish.

Whoever had sewn it was clearly not very skilled. The stitches were crooked and winding, like centipedes crawling across the cloth.

It was hideous beyond belief, yet somehow... oddly cute.

Baccarat fell silent. This was the first time she had encountered someone with such unique taste.

The stall owner's eyes lit up. He had sewn that patchwork freak out of a pile of unsellable junk that had been gathering dust in his warehouse. He had put it on display merely because he had nothing better to do, never expecting someone to actually like it.

He hurriedly picked up the ugly-cute doll, held it out to Robin with both hands, and plastered a professionally fawning smile across his face.

"Miss, you truly have an eye for things! This is a one-of-a-kind original—the only one in the world!"

Robin accepted the patchwork monster, her fingers gently brushing over its crooked stitching. A faint, almost imperceptible smile appeared on her lovely face.

A hundred meters away, in a shadowy alley, a cloaked figure poked his head out from behind a wall.

He was heavily muscled, with thick lips and a striking character for "one" tattooed on his chest.

Daz Bonez's gaze passed through the crowd and settled on Baccarat's graceful back.

"Long red wavy hair. One of the targets confirmed."

The two women paid separately. Baccarat held the cute doll with the standard smile, while Robin cradled the patchwork monster with its vicious stitching. They walked side by side toward the town exit.

Daz Bonez slipped silently out from beneath his cloak. Ignoring the strange looks from nearby pedestrians, he followed them at an unhurried pace.

Before long, the two women passed through the crowd at the edge of town and reached a small plain separating the town from the docks. The area was open and deserted.

"Perfect opportunity!"

Daz Bonez transformed his feet into blades and slid across the flat ground as though wearing a pair of ice skates. The wind blew several small stones beneath his feet, and the blades effortlessly sliced them in half.

He rapidly closed in from behind Baccarat, skimming over the ground. His five right fingers came together, about to transform into blades—

A pale fist blasted through the air. The force of it swept up dust from the ground, exploding beside his ear like a cannonball.

Daz Bonez's heart tightened. He made an abrupt turn beneath his feet, and the fist grazed past his scalp.

The residual force sent him flying. He flipped several times through the air before landing unsteadily on the ground.

Baccarat withdrew her fist and turned around. The smile had vanished completely from her beautiful face, replaced by an icy scrutiny.

She looked down at the young assassin as he climbed up from the ground.

"Little brother, judging by the way you look, you're not a Marine. You're an assassin, right? Tell big sister, who hired you?"

So far, the only forces she had offended were the Marines and the underworld.

The boy before her was so young that he clearly was not a Marine. No matter how corrupt the Marines were, they could not be so utterly shameless as to send a child on an assassination mission.

That left only one possibility: an assassin hired by the underworld.

"Professional secret. No comment."

Daz Bonez rubbed his aching cheek with the back of his hand. His feet turned into blades once more, and he lunged forward again like an arrow released from a bow.

Robin crossed her hands over her chest and activated the Flower-Flower Fruit from afar.

Two pale adult female arms sprouted from Daz Bonez's shoulders.

The two arms spread their fingers, one on either side, and accurately clamped around his neck.

The expected crisp crack of his neck snapping never came. Robin's brows furrowed slightly. What she felt was not a human neck, but a solid iron block carved into a human shape.

After straining futilely, the two arms dissolved into petals and scattered through the air.

Daz Bonez was a blade man who had eaten the Supa-Supa Fruit.

His entire body possessed the hardness of blades, including his skin, muscles, and even his internal organs, all as hard as real steel.

"Robin."

"When dealing with an enemy like this, wait until you truly become my little sister."

"Soru!"

Baccarat said meaningfully as she flashed directly in front of Daz Bonez. Clenching her fist, she brought it down toward the crown of his head.

Daz Bonez planted his legs firmly in a horse stance, his entire body tensing.

"Zan-Hito."

Enhanced by the power of the Supa-Supa Fruit, his body hardened even further, becoming like an iron ingot cast into the ground.

Bang!

A dull thud rang out, and Daz Bonez's pupils suddenly contracted. An overwhelming force beyond his comprehension came crashing down upon his skull. The hardness he had always been proud of was like a thin sheet of iron before that power.

A sweetness rose in his throat, and he violently coughed up blood. Looking down at the blood in his palm, his face was filled with astonishment.

His head, as hard as steel, had actually failed to block that blow?

Before he could think any further, that overwhelming force poured down like a breached flood, smashing his torso into the earth with a single punch.

Dirt and gravel flew in every direction. The ground was blasted into a crater several meters wide, his entire body embedded at the bottom with only his bald head sticking out.

The rocks thrown up by the aftermath pelted his face like a torrential rainstorm.

A passing seabird circled above his head once, then with a plop, dropped a steaming pile of bird droppings directly onto his bald head.

Robin took in the entire scene. A minute flicker of emotion appeared on her usually composed face.

Was this the benefit of being with that man?

That lecherous man with a vile personality, who used mind-reading to pry into the secrets hidden in other people's hearts?

If she had this kind of strength too...

An unnatural flush suddenly appeared on her cheeks, as though she were drunk.

Then she sharply shook her head, as if trying to throw something filthy out of her mind.

The moment the thought appeared, she ruthlessly suppressed it.

How naïve. That kind of thinking was far too naïve.

What if he was only playing around?

After spending so many years among criminal organizations, she had seen too many women use their bodies to attach themselves to powerful men in exchange for so-called "protection" and "affection."

The examples of women being discarded like worn-out rags after they had been played with remained vivid in her mind.

Every abandoned woman had once believed she would be the exception. Then every one of them discovered she was not.

Naturally, Baccarat had no idea that the companion behind her had just gone through such a violent inner struggle, or that Robin had even briefly entertained the idea of becoming her little sister.

She walked over to Daz Bonez, whose head was being pecked by a flock of birds, crouched down, and covered her nose and mouth with one hand.

"Little brother, can you talk now?"

Daz Bonez caught his breath through the haze, his face cold and silent.

Seeing that he would not yield, Baccarat immediately lost patience and decided to teach this little brat a lesson.

She instinctively reached toward her chest and fumbled around for a moment, then froze.

After a brief moment of embarrassment, she remembered that her current outfit did not have that sort of design.

She used to like clothing that exposed large areas of skin.

Low-cut, backless, slit up the side—whatever was sexiest.

Back then, she often tucked coins into her cleavage for easy access. Ever since getting together with someone, however, she had been forced to dress far more conservatively whenever she went out.

Nothing but her head and hands could be exposed.

Left with no choice, Baccarat took off her glove, extended a pale finger, and fought down her disgust as she poked toward Daz Bonez's bald head covered in bird droppings.

"He's suffered enough already. If he gets any unluckier, he'll die."

A familiar voice came from behind her, accompanied by the faint sound of clothing cutting through the air.

Baccarat's finger stopped in midair. She put her glove back on, stood up, and stepped back several paces.

Lucas descended from the air and dropped down onto the ground beside Daz Bonez.

He glanced at the bald head covered in bird droppings, the corner of his mouth twitching. The first words he spoke made Daz Bonez's expression truly crack for the first time.

"Do you think what you're doing now is what a hero should do?"

"Or do you think this is heroic behavior?"

A look of profound shock appeared on Daz Bonez's face. He had never told anyone his true dream.

How could this complete stranger possibly know?

Robin hugged the ugly patchwork doll and watched the scene expressionlessly, her eyes full of disdain.

Sure enough, he was a vile man.

He was using that vile mind-reading ability to tempt someone again.

How could she fail to see that Daz Bonez's reaction at that moment was exactly the same as her own not long ago?

After a long while, Daz Bonez finally recovered from his shock.

"I'm an assassin now. Completing the mission is my duty."

"What about your dream? Your dream or an assassin's duty—which do you choose?"

"Even if you don't tell me, I know you were hired by those gangsters."

"Do you think working for people like them makes you a hero? Selling your life to scum who survive through extortion, murder, and human trafficking—do you think that counts as heroic behavior?"

Faced with this barrage of questions, Daz Bonez fell silent.

Lucas could not truly read minds in the normal sense. However, those who had received his lifespan sharing could form active or passive telepathic connections with him.

Passive connection meant reading someone's thoughts without their knowledge, while active connection allowed both sides to speak directly within their minds.

This ability, combined with his knowledge from his previous life of the notable figures in these seas, was what made him appear capable of mind-reading.

Daz Bonez's heart was undergoing a fierce struggle.

Two beliefs tore at each other in his mind. On one side were the principles of an assassin, the iron law of the mission; on the other was the image of a little boy crouching in a corner, flipping through a tattered book of hero stories with light shining in his eyes.

In the end, his dream won out.

Dreams, on these seas, always possessed a power that was almost magical. They could make people cross seas of blades and mountains of fire, and they could also make people betray everything they had once believed in without question.

"It was the remaining four bosses. They hired me together."

Lucas nodded. He made a grasping motion toward the Daz Bonez who had confessed so readily, and invisible Electromagnetic Force surged in his palm.

Daz Bonez's body had been transformed into genuine steel by the Supa-Supa Fruit, giving him strong magnetism.

An unseen force pulled him out of the ground. Dirt pattered off him, and a trace of confusion appeared on his usually hard face.

Lucas looked at him and extended an olive branch.

"Do you want to work for me?"

"With me, you can become a true hero."

TO BE CONTINUED

(PS: The principle behind Daz Bonez's Zan-Hito move is similar to Tekkai—take a stance, reinforce your defense, and prepare to get beaten senseless.)