Chapter 8

Though many people carried weapons, ordinary people's swords were mostly there to bolster their courage.

Expecting them to risk their lives in a fight was asking too much.

Not just anyone could become a warrior by picking up a weapon.

That required the resolve to face pain, or even death.

Tch, these people could do little more than make up the numbers.

The only ones who might actually be useful were those two.

"You two."

As he approached the bearded swordsman and the little girl in the pink hood, the boy lowered his voice. His clear words reached their ears precisely, while the surrounding clamor seemed shut out by an invisible barrier.

"This ship is about to descend into chaos.

I think we need to talk."

The cabin beneath the mast was dimly lit.

Battered oak barrels lay scattered in the corners, while a group of fierce-looking sailors stood or squatted in a circle.

The heavy stink of sweat mingled with cheap tobacco in the stuffy air.

"Boss, what do we do now?"

Someone asked in a hoarse voice.

Shadows fell across a corner of the deck, where the figure leaning against the mast was tapping his shiny scalp with his knuckles.

Taut fabric outlined his bulging shoulders and arms. Alec spat, a low growl slipping through his teeth.

"Those two pretentious bastards... must think **."

Behind his parted lips, his teeth were slightly sharper than most people's-the trace of a distant bloodline, too diluted to stir any waves, but enough to let his fists smash through wooden planks.

Those hands were clenched into hard lumps now.

"But it wasn't me!"

"Boss, it doesn't matter who did it anymore."

Someone beside him cleared his throat and spoke quietly. "What we need to think about now is-what do we do?"

Wherever people gathered, cracks would always form.

Even among children, someone would emerge to proclaim himself king; invisible lines had likewise been drawn within the ship.

Across the entire sea, only two or three ships could unite their whole crew as one.

This ship was not among them.

The groups belonging to the captain and the navigator had fallen one after another. Although Alec's people were still standing, the looks cast their way had changed.

Those gazes clung to their skin, prickling with suspicion and hostility on the verge of spilling over.

At this point, even the dullest could smell the danger.

Just as that man had said, who had done it no longer mattered.

What mattered was what came next. Huddle in corners and stare at one another? Or...

"Boss, why don't we-"

Another man raised a hand and swept his palm swiftly across his throat.

Since they couldn't find what lurked in the dark, they could clear away everyone out in the open.

Take down the other two groups, and this ship would have a new owner.

Even the stupidest sailor could work out the difference between splitting the money among dozens of men and splitting it among a dozen or so.

Besides, anything could happen on the boundless sea-they could just say they had run into pirates.

As for the passengers... best not leave any tongues to talk.

"Let's do it, boss!"

"Cut them all down! Then let's see who else can die!"

Alec had never been one to think his way forward, and most of the men around him moved their arms faster than their minds.

Surrounded by hostility and backed into a corner by an unseen threat, their savage tempers flared.

Kill.

Kill them all, and things would settle down.

"...Fine."

The bald man forced the word through his teeth.

He really couldn't think of a better way, so he stopped thinking.

The mop sank into the murky water. Rossi lowered his voice as he wrung out its cloth strips.

"Someone has lit a fire aboard this ship. Now the three groups-the ones at the helm, the ones watching the stars, and the ones handling the rigging-have drawn their knives."

He glanced at the bearded man and the girl in the pink hood.

"There's nowhere to run in this iron cage.

Once blood is spilled, everyone will turn into beasts."

Ripples swayed halfway around the bucket as he lifted it.

"I want to live.

So do you."

He picked up his tools and turned to leave. Only when the wooden door closed did the other passengers' conversations become clear again-as though that exchange had been wrapped in soundproof cotton.

The bearded man tapped his knee with his knuckles.

"Little Gion, what do you think?"

The girl's gaze still rested on the thin sliver of light coming through the gap in the door.

That small, skinny figure had disappeared, but a taut aftercurrent still lingered in the air.

The sounds around them had suddenly faded into a blurred background, as though someone had quietly drawn a curtain.

Her fingertips brushed the cold metal sword hilt inside her robe.

A child raised at Marine Headquarters knew fluctuations like these all too well-they were traces inadvertently leaked by a Devil Fruit user.

The muffled thuds beneath the deck last night and the bloodstains still wet on the cabin wall this morning might all have had something to do with him.

"We can join forces."

She released her sword hilt, the corners of her mouth curving beneath her hood's shadow. "No one aboard this ship can hurt us anyway."

Rossi had thought the killing would brew slowly, like an undercurrent.

Probing, buying people off, laying traps... surely there would be some calculated steps.

He had forgotten that on this sea, many people were accustomed to letting their blades do their thinking.

A tremendous crash suddenly erupted overhead!

The entire cabin level shook violently, sending wood shavings showering down.

Rossi braced himself against the leaking cabin wall, feeling the hum of steel ** through his palm.

The melee had come so quickly.

In a cabin toward the bow, a nautical chart spread across the table like a stretch of frozen deep blue.

The navigator, who had been reclining in a chair with his eyes closed, suddenly opened them.

Seven or eight fully equipped crewmen stood beside him, along with Doffy, who had never taken off his sunglasses.

"Time to move."

As the navigator rose, the slender rapier at his waist had already slipped free of its sheath.

The figures around him followed silently, a taut chill spreading ahead.

Almost simultaneously, the door to the captain's quarters at the stern exploded into a rain of wood under a heavy blow.

An enormous, dark ** axe cleaved downward, its head as broad as a millstone, its weight far beyond what ordinary arms could wield.

Yet it was held in just one hand-because the other still gripped a blade curved like blood.

"Blood Blade"

Alec.

On a merchant ship bold enough to carry cargo into the Grand Line, a head sailor without some ability would probably have had even his ship's frame torn apart long ago.

"Follow me-"

Having decided to clear away the obstacles, the bald boatswain naturally set his sights on the "captain."

...No, once he dealt with that old bastard Krahorn, the position would be his!

The instant the door shattered, just as the men were poised to charge, Alec abruptly stopped.

Inside the captain's quarters, more than ten sailors had already formed a simple formation: the front rank knelt, the rear rank stood, and every flintlock pistol pointed at the doorway.

The top hat behind them shifted slightly.

"Fire."

The sharp clicks of triggers rang together as more than ten lead balls tore through the air toward the doorway!

A growl rolled from Alec's throat, and the millstone-sized axe swept up in front of him.

Sparks scattered with a clatter as most of the shots ricocheted off the axe head.

A few still bit into his bulging muscles, branding dark, radiating indentations into his skin.

Scalding metal pressed against his flesh. The burning pain and impact filled the boatswain's eyes with bloodshot veins, yet he roared and stepped forward again-

Though flintlock pistols could fire repeatedly, the pauses for reloading were enough to let someone close in.

The door was broken, and only a few steps remained. If he just charged again-

Another volley suddenly rang out behind him, mingled with familiar screams.

The boatswain whipped his head around.

One glance nearly made his eyes burst from their sockets.

A cabin door flew open.

A group of figures in navigator uniforms poured onto the deck.

The crack of metal firing erupted from behind, and ** tore through the air into the crowd with their backs to the cabin door.

Some staggered forward, some turned and raised their guns to return fire, and others froze where they stood, their knuckles whitening around their swords.

"Forward!"

The bald man's roar drowned out every other sound.

Like puppets tugged by strings, his men turned together and charged toward the captain's quarters-since enemies stood both ahead and behind, they would break through the nearest door.

First crush the resistance beyond the door, then use the cramped interior to turn and deal with the attack behind them.

This was no carefully considered plan, but an instinct bursting from his very marrow, savage yet direct and effective.

The pupils of the men inside contracted sharply as they saw that burly body bearing down on them.

The floor shook beneath his boots, the ** of wooden planks mingling with the clash of metal.

The man at the very front swallowed, drew his blade, and swung it in a gleaming arc.

The flat of the axe swept across.

It was not a chop, but an outpouring of sheer force.

The blade snapped with a crack like shattering ice, and its wielder flew backward, bowling over three or four men behind him.

The dull crunch of breaking bones vanished beneath startled cries, and a mist of blood hung briefly in the air.

The bald man's other hand had already swung out.

His oversized curved sword traced a silvery arc, its tip passing across the necks of three guards.

The lines of blood were at first as fine as hairs, then erupted into three scarlet fountains.

The remaining men began backing away in disarray, some tripping over their companions.

The noble captain's face drained of color.

He had expected a disparity, but not utter domination.

The axe blade split chests, and the curved sword sheared off arms.

The dual-wielding figure spun through the narrow passage, every swing drawing fresh screams.

Severed fingers and scraps of flesh stuck to the walls, and warm liquid flowed through the gaps between the floorboards.

Had this scene been recorded, it might have earned him the title of "valiant general"

but here, it was merely slaughter aboard a merchant ship.

"Krahorn-"

The roar struck the cabin walls.

The bald man surged forward, knocking aside the last man in his way with the axe haft, his gaze fixed on the figure hiding behind the crowd.

Sir Krahorn retreated. The instant his back hit the wall, the wooden panel slid silently aside, revealing a hidden doorway.

He slipped sideways through it. Before the iron door closed, his lips moved soundlessly.

Outside the door, the burly man was charging forward.

Without warning, a chill seized him, shooting from his soles to the crown of his head. Instinct honed by years on the edge of life and death screamed-Run!

He kicked hard against the deck, his massive body actually shooting backward and knocking over several of his men.

They tumbled into a heap, and before they could curse, a tremendous blast swallowed every sound.

Rossi's fingers dug into a wooden seam outside the ship's rail.

He had been watching all along: first, the bald man had led his men charging toward the stern cabins, his brute force like a bull smashing through a fence; then the forward cabin had opened, and the bespectacled navigator had led his men up from behind, trapping the crowd assaulting the cabin between them.

Faced with a desperate situation, the bald man had charged even harder.

Although Rossi couldn't see inside the cabin, the screams, cracking bones, and ** of twisting metal that came one after another were enough to piece together the carnage within.

A thought had even flashed through his mind: Would that monstrous brute ** everyone on the ship single-handedly?

Then everything suddenly changed.

At the doorway, that towering body flew backward, as though the room had spat him out.

Immediately afterward, crimson tongues of flame and visible ripples of shock waves came snapping after him, and the entire stern cabin suddenly burst apart like an overripe fruit.

Boom-

The blast swept across the deck, carrying everything with it.

Wooden splinters, iron fragments, and shattered porcelain all became deadly projectiles, whistling as they sprayed in every direction.

Drifting blood mist and mangled limbs mingled with them, adding the most vivid colors to the scene.

A sharp crack sounded right beside him.

Rossi jerked his head to the side. A fresh split in the sturdy bulwark beside him bristled with wooden splinters.

A twisted piece of sheet metal was embedded at the edge of the split, still trembling faintly.

His Adam's apple bobbed.

If that thing had been a few inches off...

This power was practically on par with those steel creations he remembered.

Rossi had not known that the ship's smuggled cargo contained those screaming stones.

When the piercing shriek suddenly erupted, it felt as though needles had punctured his eardrums.

Fortunately, his silence ability activated before he was even conscious of it, and the sound waves shattered into soundless ripples before touching his skin.

The others on deck had not been so lucky.

Where was Doffy?

He turned sideways and glanced ahead.