Just as Sanji and Jinbe joined forces with Kaku and Stussy of CP0,
fending off the Seraphim's fierce attacks while desperately searching for a way to shut them down or put them back to sleep,
the laboratory's thick alloy doors, along with their emergency security shutters,
were blasted clean off from outside by an utterly brutal force, amid a teeth-grating screech of twisting metal!
The mangled shutters hurtled into the room like cannonballs, crushing several precision instruments before embedding themselves deep in the far wall with a deafening crash.
Amid the billowing dust, a rough voice rang out first, its covetousness undisguised.
"Zehahahaha... so these are the... war machines Vegapunk cooked up? They do look pretty interesting!"
"Who's there?!"
Kaku reacted fastest.
Already on high alert, he caught the dangerous presence at the entrance immediately with the heightened senses of his awakened form.
He spun around at once, his leg muscles bulging beneath a coating of Armament Haki, his long neck raised as he assumed a fighting stance.
But just as Kaku was about to demand an answer...
Bang!
A shot rang out. A man fell!
Without warning, a tiny hole appeared between Kaku's eyebrows.
No blood sprayed out. Only a thin wisp of smoke curled upward.
His expression froze somewhere between alarm and vigilance. His pupils rapidly lost focus, and his raised arms fell limply.
Then his towering body swayed, as though every bit of support had been stripped away,
and he toppled straight backward, slamming heavily into the floor with a dull thud. He never made another sound.
Kaku, an elite of the World Government's intelligence agency CP0, an awakened Zoan user, and Rob Lucci's deputy,
had been shot through the head before he could even get a proper look at his enemy!
"Kaku!!" Stussy cried out, all