"The Pirate King, huh... Not crossing swords with him is truly a regret."
Mihawk folded his arms and murmured to himself.
"Fuffuffuffu... This trip was absolutely worth it. Even the final act was enough to shake the soul."
Doflamingo covered his face and burst into laughter.
Beside him, Crocodile found the whole thing embarrassing and turned to leave at once.
"Hey!!! Crocodile, where the hell are you going?!"
"What I do is none of your business..."
After finally making it out of Impel Down, of course she intended to enjoy her freedom properly. And after that, she needed to think long and hard about how to realize her ambitions in the future after her defeat in Alabasta.
Ozz was unreliable.
She had fully understood that the second time she was thrown into Impel Down and he never showed up.
And aside from Crocodile, who cast Ozz a glance before leaving straight away, the other Warlords all headed toward Ozz.
"See you around, Buggy. Shanks."
Ozz smiled and waved goodbye.
Even if Shanks had gotten a little full of himself and earned a kick from him, they had still known each other for too many years to become enemies so easily.
Still...
No matter how Ozz looked at it, Shanks clearly seemed to have some kind of issue with him.
"Until next time, Ozz..."
"I hope we won't have to cross blades again."
Shanks' gaze was dead serious, as if he had not been the one coughing up blood from Ozz's kick just moments ago.
Then he led the Red Hair Pirates away.
As they departed, the crew of the Red Hair Pirates all wore complicated expressions. They seemed as though they wanted to say something. In the end, they only gave Ozz and the Warlords a few long looks before following Shanks out.
Buggy, on the other hand, was far more reluctant to leave.
After all, he had only just reunited with Ozz, Captain Roger, and Vice Captain Rayleigh, and even run into Shanks. To part ways again so soon left him genuinely miserable.
"Stop crying, Buggy. You're a big shot now, you know."
"The whole world knows your name now!!!"
Ozz patted Buggy on the shoulder, then watched him leave with Mr. 3 and the group of subordinates he had brought out from Impel Down.
As for Redfield, no one knew where he had gone.
He had probably lost interest and left the moment the war ended.
At this point, the war had truly reached its closing act. Even the remnants of the Whitebeard Pirates had already left in tears with Whitebeard's body.
Still, Ozz felt as if he had forgotten something.
What was it...
...
"Zehahahahaha!!!"
"While the Roger Pirates were busy catching up, and the Marines and pirates alike were cleaning up the battlefield chaos, we made our escape decisively. Just as expected, it worked!!!"
A warship had already sailed away from Marineford.
Blackbeard casually killed the Marines aboard and tossed their bodies into the sea.
Though he looked miserable and had lost a few more teeth, the outcome was ultimately a good one.
Hades... no, that bastard Ozz, the old schemer who had hidden himself aboard their ship, had finally disembarked. And Tich himself had gained the power of the Tremor-Tremor Fruit.
Looked at from another angle, it wasn't a bad result at all.
"That monster... I can't even imagine how anyone is supposed to survive against someone like that!!!"
Avalo Pizarro still had lingering fear in his eyes.
"No one in all of Level 6 could compare to a man like that."
Catarina Devon forced out a smile.
As for Vasco Shot, that useless drunk had taken one kick from Ozz and still had not woken up.
Van Augur, however, still had his doubts.
"Captain... are we really safe now?"
"Of course we are. Because we're about to..."
Before Tich could even finish speaking,
Teleport Butchery.
"..."
In the next instant, the entire Blackbeard crew, even the enormous Sanjuan Wolf, suddenly reappeared in the plaza of Marineford.
Cold sweat poured down every face in the Blackbeard crew.
"You've got to be... kidding...!!!"
Blackbeard looked up from the shattered ground he was sitting on and saw a figure crouching down in front of him, smiling brightly.
"Yo, Tich. You ran pretty fast."
"O... Ozz!!!"
Blackbeard's mouth fell open as his pupils trembled.
"You didn't forget, did you? We still haven't properly settled the score over how you deceived me."
Truth be told, while playing his little undercover role, Ozz had already vented quite a bit of his frustration on Blackbeard by causing him endless trouble and drawing all kinds of hatred toward him.
So deep down, he had already cooled off.
And because of certain special circumstances tied to his participation in the God Valley incident long ago, his killing intent toward Tich had never been that strong to begin with.
Still, some sort of gesture had to be made.
"Y... what do you want to do?!!!"
"Please, don't kill me!!!"
What even Ozz had not expected was that, right there in front of the entire Blackbeard crew and the Seven Warlords,
Tich dropped to his knees.
That heavy body slammed down to the ground, begging in the least dignified manner imaginable for a so-called powerhouse.
Ozz froze for a second, then narrowed his eyes and crouched down.
"Tich... do you realize that someone as good at enduring humiliation as you only makes anyone with half a brain want to kill you even more?"
Thinking about it carefully, it actually made perfect sense.
A pirate like Blackbeard, truly sinister and profit-driven to the core, acting like a ruthless overlord even in this moment... it was completely in character.
Ozz's gaze remained dark and unreadable, with no sign whatsoever of softening.
"We're all grown pirates here. Say something real, Tich."
Sometimes Ozz could get fired up. Sometimes he cared about feelings and loyalty.
But for someone like Tich, none of that applied.
At those words, the lowered Blackbeard ground his teeth so hard they almost cracked.
His heart turned vicious.
Slash.
"Aaaaahhh!!!!"
One of his legs was severed clean off at the knee.
The agony was so intense that someone as sensitive to pain as Blackbeard nearly passed out on the spot.
Ozz raised a brow.
Ruthless.
As expected of a man who had endured for decades just to obtain the Dark-Dark Fruit.
If Ozz had only been at the level of an Emperor or a King right now, he probably would have killed Blackbeard the instant he saw him rolling around in pain.
A man like that was far too dangerous.
But to an Ozz who had already become invincible, it was simply interesting.
After all, no human fears a clever little ant whose life is already in their hands.
A venomous creature like this would surely put on an even more wonderful show in the future.
Wouldn't he?
In the end, Ozz let them go.
He even stopped Mihawk, who had been about to unleash a Conqueror's Haki slash after them.
"Why?"
Mihawk did not understand. In his view, it would have been best to kill them here.
"If I really had the mindset of killing anyone who might one day become a threat, then by now all the monsters in this world would already be dead."
"But wouldn't that be terribly boring?"
Ozz gazed at the raft fleeing madly into the distance and smiled with obvious delight.
"I'm not afraid of death."
"But I am afraid of living a dull and lifeless existence."
"The stage for the new era has already been built."
"How can I kill off the actors before the play begins?"
"Ahahahahaha!!
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