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It was like being handed a pillow just as drowsiness set in, as though the man in the black feather coat before her had calculated all of this long ago.
"If even this step was within your expectations,"
Tsuru's voice deepened a fraction, "then you truly are a dangerous man."
"Don't be nervous."
Rossi smiled, his teeth distinctly white in the dim light.
"We aren't enemies."
The smoke of battle had yet to clear, and the sea breeze carried the scent of dust.
He stood by the railing, his gaze sweeping over the unrecognizable outline of land behind him. Somewhere in his heart, a ripple stirred that bordered on self-mockery.
By some measure, perhaps he could be counted on the side of "good,"
after all.
Ending a dreary, disorderly era that had lasted eight hundred years-such an achievement went far beyond goodness. It could almost be called a miracle.
Since he was destined to stand against the entire world, what was wrong with draping himself in a sufficiently splendid mantle? It served two purposes at once.
"Rossi."
The voice came from the ruins.
The Marine's greatest fighting force, the man responsible for the clouds of dust filling the sky, had stopped moving.
Sengoku watched the figure about to depart. His clothes had been shredded in the fierce battle-a rare side effect of his Devil Fruit ability.
"In you, I see the outline of another man.
That man's name was-"
The name went unspoken, but both knew whom he meant.
Rocks D. Zebek.
The name itself was like an obliterated legend, carrying the scent of iron and blood.
"The fighting... stopped?"
"Approach cautiously. Stay on guard-"
The deafening thunder finally fell completely silent, replaced by a haze of dust so thick it blanketed half of Carnival Island.
Had the