"King? What a weird title..."
Zoro hugged his swords, struck right in the heart by Norton's unabashedly overdramatic air.
"Anyway, that's what you're calling me!" Norton declared.
The others could only humor him.
"Okay, King."
Norton nodded in satisfaction. "Good! That's all for now! Meeting adjourned!"
He needed to decide what their pirate flag would look like as soon as possible. As the symbol of their crew's spirit, it had to be distinctive enough!
The Beasts Pirates' flag, for instance, used Kaido's demonic horns as its identifying feature.
Red-Hair's was a skull marked with three scars.
"Funing, stay a moment. Help me come up with some ideas."
"Then I'll get back to work! I still haven't watered the tree we transplanted from the Orange Grove!" Nami brushed off her backside and stood up.
"I'm going to train."
"Me too."
Sanosuke and Zoro spoke in turn.
Ever since Zoro had boarded the ship, the two had been at loggerheads. Zoro had tried to challenge Norton several times, only to be stopped by Sanosuke.
Sanosuke maintained that Zoro had no right to challenge Norton until he defeated him first.
They had dueled many times, neither willing to concede, yet neither able to secure a win.
Sanosuke's fighting style was far too cautious, so cautious it was downright underhanded. Zoro could never find an opening to finish the fight and usually ended up exhausting himself.
Soon, only Norton and Funing remained in the meeting room. After an in-depth discussion, they came up with several designs.
The first was a skull flag designed around Norton's distinctive silver hair.
Unfortunately, Norton rejected it on the grounds that "drawing hair on a skull is way too edgy."
The second was a skull with a fist beneath it.
Too plain. That one was rejected too.
The third took inspiration from chess, using a king-piece emblem as the base, with a horizontal scepter forming a cross. A silver skull representing Norton would sit atop that cross.
Norton loved this design and settled on it immediately.
The actual painting of the flag had nothing to do with Norton. He left it entirely to Miss Funing, their shipwright.
After giving his instructions, Norton returned to the captain's cabin to rest.
Meanwhile, in a stretch of sea not far from the White Pearl...
Boom!
Cannon fire thundered as a pirate ship flying a cat-skull flag attacked a branch warship.
Morgan clutched his injured forehead and staggered to his feet. The axe in his hand had never felt so heavy!
Blood clouded his vision. Through the blur, he saw the face of a refined-looking man wearing gold-rimmed glasses.
"Still standing?" The man pushed his slipping glasses up with his palm and said, sounding somewhat troubled, "Jango, you're up. Hypnotize him!"
"Yes, Captain Kuro!" replied a man wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and a bucket hat.
As two rings dangled and swayed before Morgan's eyes, he gradually grew drowsy.
"Listen, you've captured Captain Kuro of the Black Cat Pirates... you've captured Captain Kuro of the Black Cat Pirates..."
Jango guided the hypnotized Morgan over to a man tied to a post, the scapegoat Kuro had prepared in advance.
"He's Captain Kuro! Once we've left, kill him and tell the World Government that Captain Kuro is dead!"
The real Kuro watched quietly from the side and nodded in satisfaction.
He, Kuro, captain of the Black Cat Pirates, had long since grown tired of a life of fighting and killing!
Ever since a bounty had been placed on his head, the Marines had pursued him relentlessly. Kill one group, and another appeared. It was maddening.
Kuro was sick of that life. He planned to use this staged death to disappear from the Marines' radar completely and escape their endless pursuit.
He wanted a quiet, wealthy retirement!
For that, he needed a new identity.
He also needed a fortune from a legitimate source, one that would arouse no suspicion.
Kuro already knew what to do. All he needed was to keep carrying out his plan!
Faking his death at Morgan's hands was the first step.
As he pondered this, Kuro wiped the blood from his claw blades with a handkerchief.
Suddenly, he saw a white three-masted sailing ship slowly approaching across the distant sea.
"Hmm?" Kuro adjusted his glasses and took a closer look.
It was an enormous ship, around a hundred meters long, with a low hull and a figurehead of a maiden holding a bird.
"Someone's spotted us," Kuro sighed regretfully. "Looks like we'll have to silence them."
If anyone discovered his plan, his dream would never come true.
Besides, a ship that large looked valuable.
Kuro didn't mind making one last haul before retiring from piracy.
"Buchi! Sham! Bring the ship alongside them!"
"Understood, Captain!"
Looking out from the crow's nest, Nami spotted a pirate ship flying a cat-skull flag approaching the White Pearl from nearby.
"Hey! Zoro! A ship's coming toward us!" Nami shook Zoro awake as he slept beside her.
"Huh? Really?"
Zoro pulled off his eye mask and leaned toward the telescope.
"It really is! That looks like the Black Cat Pirates' ship! Their captain, Kuro of the 'Hundred Plans,' has a bounty of sixteen million Beli!"
As a bounty hunter, Zoro knew this information well. To him, a head like that was worth a hefty sum and could pay for plenty of drinking sessions.
"They're even coming right to us? That's great! Looks like we aren't so unlucky after all." Zoro grinned when he realized the Black Cat Pirates were approaching of their own accord.
"You call this great? We've run into pirates!" Nami couldn't help retorting. "How is that anything but bad luck? Even if we're pirates too."
"Norton was looking for them, and now they've come right to us. How is that not great?" Zoro said with a grin.
"I'll go tell Norton!" Nami moved to climb down from the crow's nest.
"Wait!" Zoro stopped her. "Don't call him! Let me handle them!"
He finally had a chance to get some practice in, and he wasn't going to waste it. Fighting Sanosuke these past few days had frustrated him to no end.
He desperately needed a punching bag to vent on!
Aboard the Black Cat Pirates' ship...
"Captain Kuro! Something's wrong! Someone seems to have jumped over from that ship!" Sham said.
"Not one person! Two! One's a Ninja!" Buchi said.
Two figures landed on the deck of the Black Cat Pirates' ship, one after the other.
"Why'd you follow me over here, you cold-blooded Ninja?" Zoro glanced at Sanosuke.
Sanosuke didn't look at Zoro. He merely swept his icy gaze over the faces of the pirates on deck.
"Don't kill them. My lord... King said to subdue these pirates so they can serve us." Sanosuke drew a Kunai.
"If we hit them too hard, they'll be no use to us."
Zoro drew his swords and snorted. "Don't tell me what to do! You're not qualified!"
Their exchange enraged the Black Cat Pirates, particularly Buchi and Sham.
"Don't underestimate us! We're the Nyaban Brothers!"
Kuro adjusted his glasses. "It seems there are some overconfident people aboard that ship... Nyaban Brothers, kill them! When I return, I expect to see two corpses!"
With that, Kuro vanished from where he stood.
"So fast!" Zoro looked up and saw the afterimage Kuro had left in the air.
Sanosuke's pupils contracted. He tried to chase after Kuro and return to the White Pearl!
But Sham blocked his path.
"Don't even think about escaping, you damned Ninja!"