Shanks stood there, somewhat dazed.
He had clearly given it everything he had.
He had even gone against everything he claimed to stand for, ready to sacrifice his own captain's flesh and blood.
Yet in the end, it had all been for nothing.
Benn Beckman and the others looked at Shanks.
Their hearts sank in sympathy.
Their captain was supposed to be the most commanding man in the world.
Why did he suddenly seem like a worm?
Had they made the wrong choice?
But they were already aboard this pirate ship.
Shanks raised his head and looked at Randall with bloodshot eyes.
"How exactly did you do it?
Why would the Five Elders do this for you?"
Shanks's voice was very calm.
But anyone could hear the madness hidden beneath that calm.
Randall spread his hands and said,
"Who knows?
Maybe those five old men have something wrong with their heads."
Everyone else: ...
They would be the ones with something wrong with their heads if they believed him.
Shanks gave a bitter, broken laugh.
He had never expected this after sailing so smoothly all the way here.
He had never run into any major trouble.
Yet he had taken a devastating fall at Randall's hands.
A fall so hard that everything he had built up was gone.
He could tell that his companions' moods had already begun to shift.
Instinctively, he looked at Ace.
Only to meet a pair of eyes filled with disgust.
That sight stirred the violence in Shanks's heart once more.
He abruptly vanished.
And the target of his attack was not Randall.
It was Ace.
He had no confidence he could get through Randall's defenses.
But against Ace, with his Observation Haki Killer at work...
Ace would die without even knowing what had killed him.