Chapter 13

That was fine too. They could each go their own way.

The sails filled with wind, and the ship began to heel, slicing between the waves in a smooth arc.

The thrust of acceleration rose through his feet. Doffy felt that force, and short, successive bursts of laughter rolled from deep in his throat.

At last, they had taken the first step.

No more dependence. No more running.

Rossi released the rope, leaving several pale red welts across his palm.

The air smelled of sea salt, damp wood, and a faint fishiness, cool as it filled his lungs.

Freedom? Perhaps.

He had stopped Doffy from sprinkling certain powders into the freshwater barrel earlier, but he had never let his guard down.

At night, he feigned sleep against the cargo crates, his ears catching every unusual sound-footsteps, whispers, the faint clink of metal.

Two children were, by their very nature, the most vulnerable prey on this sea.

Fortunately, the deterrent they had established earlier still held, and the Marine girl's subtle show of friendliness helped keep the voyage in a dangerous balance.

The ship cut through the deep blue sea like a knife, trailing a long white wake.

Behind them, the outlines of the harbor docks and several brightly colored Kingdom ships rapidly shrank into the background.

"The next place..."

Rossi unfolded a crumpled newspaper, its ink somewhat blurred, and pointed to a line. "We're going here."

Doffy glanced at the headline.

Those distorted letters described a place submerged in metal wreckage.

"Mountains of scrap iron."

Rossi put away the newspaper and looked toward the endless distance.

This world was pieced together from countless fragments. In some places, people still fished with wooden spears, cooking smoke rising from thatched roofs; elsewhere, towering chimneys belched black smoke into the sky, and steam engines roared day and night.

There were also the islands of rumor, where silent machines still operated on their own, flashing with lights no one understood.

The differences were so vast that it was as though fragments of different times and spaces had been forcibly fused together.

"Spandamruze."

Doffy repeated the name, turning the helm a fraction. "Sounds like a place that suits us."

The bow broke through the waves, heading straight toward their new coordinates.

Invisible boundaries divided the sea into countless fragments. Under the influence of those strange Devil Fruits, these waters presented all manner of bizarre sights.

In the northern waters, owing to the presence of a certain Family renowned for technology, factories bristling with chimneys spewed gray haze all day long. Even the newspapers carried rumors of attempts to build steel ships.

"The place we're going is called Spandamruze."

The blond boy tapped the unfolded nautical chart with a fingertip. "It's full of furnaces and workshops."

That city steadily produced metal components, interlocking gears, and tubular weapons capable of spewing flames.

"The hold is full of ore shipped along that route. It should fetch a good price there."

Doflamingo immediately grasped the implication. "We can also replenish our weapons and recruit people."

Rossi nodded, then shook his head.

"Not just that.

"We need to put down roots there and establish eyes and ears-ideally, we'd have a workshop of our own."

"Why?"

Faced with his companion's question, Rossi raised three fingers.

"I said I wouldn't become a pirate, but the people making a living on this sea fall into roughly three categories."

"The first are the purest kind of pirates."

"They find any old boat, hoist a skull flag, and dare to set sail.

"They circle the shipping routes like vultures, waiting for merchant ships to appear, or raid fishing villages along the coast..."

These were the most numerous, and the most foolish.

They stole whatever they saw, only to leave their loot slowly rotting in caves on deserted islands. Unable to exchange it for either money or supplies, they fled in all directions with the Marines on their heels.

Such gangs were not even stray dogs. At most, they were moths blundering about.

"The second are pirate crews secretly in league with the Kingdom's nobles, or even the Marines."

These gangs usually marked out their own "territory."

They did not strike within their territory. Instead, the forces they colluded with supplied detailed information on ships along prosperous shipping routes, allowing them to intercept their targets precisely.

Through their partners, they obtained supplies, intelligence, and medical support, and could readily turn stolen goods into cash.

Some even controlled several villages and towns, collecting money in the name of "protection fees,"

and becoming local despots.

Once they had accumulated enough, they could even whitewash their identities, don nobles' finery, and enjoy wealth and privilege.

"What about the third?"

Although the second category tempted Doflamingo somewhat, his instincts told him there was an even better choice to look forward to.

"The third establish their own kingdoms and become 'legal' pirates."

"Many pirate crews are infamous plunderers abroad, criminals who spread the flames of war. But when they return to their own countries, they become heroes greeted with cheers, their chests covered in medals. Some are even members of the ruling class themselves."

These "pirates"

had long since disdained petty raids. Their targets were entire cities, or even whole countries.

They became the "spears" their kingdoms thrust outward,

while their kingdoms became their strongest "shields."

Night shrouded Spandamruze's scrapyard.

Metal wreckage gleamed cold and hard beneath the moonlight, and the air was thick with the mingled smell of rust and machine oil.

From the distant docks came the creak of ropes rubbing, like some weary breathing.

The blond boy loosened his fingers and watched the figure curled on the ground.

The man was mumbling pleas for mercy, his voice laced with pain and confusion.

Only a short while earlier, this fellow had been making a racket with several companions beside a barbecue stall at the mouth of the alley, the smells of charcoal and liquor drifting through the night breeze.

They had surrounded a woman's silhouette and had only just begun shoving her-the next second, the ringleader's wrist had been seized.

"Your luck was terrible."

The boy shook out his wrist.

Back in his former world, he probably would only have taken out a communication device and pressed three digits.

More often, people could not even be bothered to press those three digits.

Identifying someone meant showing your face, and showing your face meant it might be remembered.

If the other party had connections and followed the clues to your home... that was real trouble.

But things were different here.

With power in hand, the standards by which one judged naturally shifted.

He recalled their conversation in the cabin that day.

His older brother, wearing sunglasses, turned the helm, his eyes blazing like lamps behind the lenses.

The newspaper rustled between his fingers, carrying news from distant seas: the great powers entrenched in their own domains had long since become more than a handful of ships and powerful fighters.

They controlled ports, towns, shifting populations, and fixed tracts of land.

Even if they lost men and ships in battle, they could retreat to their own territory to catch their breath and recover, lick their wounds, and await their next expansion.

And what of certain other ships flying skull flags? They neither plundered nor harassed anyone. Not so much as a needle went missing from the islands they visited, and they even paid Beli for food.

What kind of maritime thugs were those? They pursued their fellow pirates, and their battle record put regular armies to shame.

Even among the Four Emperors of the Sea, whom the Marines had been unable to shake for years, two had fallen to that ship.

Could that count as piracy?

They had simply been led astray by a certain red-haired master actor.

Otherwise, that boy should have put on a different uniform long ago.

"So, you understand."

He had pressed the newspaper against the table then, staining his fingertips with ink. "We need somewhere like Spandamruze.

"Not just a port for a temporary stop, but a base where we can put down roots.

"We'll build our strength here while honing ourselves.

"Come to think of it, if I'd obtained the kind of Devil Fruit power that could consume and restructure matter..."

If he could transform metal directly, one person would be a mobile workshop.

If he could then synthesize that legendary, indestructible special alloy, perhaps he could qualify to enter the battles of the New World in an instant.

"Good."

His brother's palm pressed against the helm, his knuckles whitening slightly. "Then this is where we begin."

The Family's name would begin to spread from this dock piled high with scrap iron.

Now, the boy kicked aside a twisted sheet of metal at his feet, the noise startling rats in the darkness.

The man on the ground was still **, but the boy had already turned and walked deeper into the shadows.

A distant factory whistle suddenly shrieked, tearing through the silence of the night.

Tomorrow, this scrapyard would awaken, and sailors, porters, and their families would begin another round of labor amid the rusting maze.

And certain changes had already seeped silently into the town's bones, like rust.

He remembered the upward curve of his brother's lips as he spoke.

He also remembered the thought that had flashed through his own mind then: The Munch-Munch Fruit.

With that ability, perhaps even these mountains of waste could become the foundation of their rise.

But reality offered no what-ifs.

All they had were two pairs of hands that had yet to fully grow, and a determination to put down roots here.

The night wind swept up dust from the ground, stinging his face faintly.

The boy pulled up his collar, shutting out the smells of blood and rust alike.

Running footsteps sounded faintly from the alley's entrance-had those companions finally reacted and come to investigate? Or had the patrolling guards been alerted?

He quickened his pace, his figure blending into the enormous shadow cast by a factory building.

Overhead, the incomplete moon slowly passed over the mountains of metal wreckage like an indifferent eye.

The door closed behind him with a dull thud.

The boy turned, his gaze sweeping over the frightened maid, the bespectacled merchant's ashen face, and the young face that flashed briefly at the turn of the stairs.

He gave a slight nod.

"Please forgive this ill-timed visit."

His voice was soft, yet it made the thin young man sprawled on the entryway tiles tremble even harder.

The merchant Wesker's gaze was fixed on the iron object in the boy's hand.

It was an old-fashioned **, its muzzle still carrying a faint smell of gunpowder-a few seconds earlier, it had blasted a deafening roar at the ceiling, sending plaster fragments fluttering down like fine snow.

"What do you want to discuss?"

Wesker forced the words through his teeth.

The boy did not answer at once.

He dragged over a high-backed chair and sat down, its legs scraping shrilly across the wooden floor.

Then he raised a hand, signaling for the other man to sit as well.

Silence spread through the spacious living room.

The gilded clock on the mantel ticked, each sound striking against the maid's stifled sobs.

The young man sprawled on the floor-everyone in town called him Tony-was trying to shrink into the patterns of the carpet.

Three minutes passed, and fine beads of sweat appeared at Wesker's temples.

"I need you to help me find someone."

The boy finally spoke, the ** resting across his knees. "A child who recently disappeared near the waste disposal area."

Wesker's eyelid twitched. "I don't understand..."

"You do."

The boy interrupted him, turning his gaze toward the stairs. "The one who poked his head out just now was your son, wasn't he? About my age."

He paused, suddenly tilting his head to listen.

The distant cries of seagulls drifted faintly over, mingled with the ceaseless, dull pounding from the factory district below the hill.

The windows here were tightly shut, yet a trace of the salty, fishy air from the harbor still reached them.

"Upper Town is so quiet."

The boy seemed to be talking to himself. "You can even hear the dust settling."

Wesker's hand crept toward the inner pocket of his suit.

"Don't move."

The boy's voice remained calm, even tinged with weariness. "Didn't your son take that revolver ** from your drawer to play with last night? It should be under the third folder in your study now."

The merchant froze.

"How did you-"

"Tony told me."

The boy nudged the trembling human shape on the floor with his toe. "After our 'in-depth conversation,' of course."