"Hey, hey, am I seeing this right? That flag. Could it mean they've come back?"
"No mistake about it. That's the dragon banner of the Grey Kingdom. Look, standing at the bow is the Grey Kingdom's first mate, Katakuri who sees the future!"
"Coming to Sabaody with this much fanfare, could it be the Dragon King has appeared? That they're coming back at last?"
At the same time, some of the longtime residents of the Nightless City and Sabaody, people who'd been there since ten years ago, caught sight of that brazen dragon banner on the pirate ship and broke into looks of disbelief and wild joy.
Anywhere else, after ten years of the World Government burying the news, people might gradually have let the Grey Kingdom fade from memory. But not the people of the Sabaody Archipelago. The Grey Kingdom had ruled the Nightless City for three years, and in that time it had brought enormous changes to both the Nightless City and Sabaody. These were people who had lived in the archipelago more than ten years ago, or who had moved to the Nightless City to settle there back then. They remembered clearly how, when the Nightless City was newly built, life there had been easy and carefree, every amenity close at hand. In those days the Nightless City had been nothing less than a paradise on this earth.
But ten years ago, when the Grey Kingdom fell to pieces and the Dragon King Rosinante vanished (the World Government declared him dead, though many still refused to believe it), the Nightless City had passed into the World Government's hands. From then on it had grown foul and choked, its once-comfortable atmosphere gone, and with the exploitation of the World Government and the Celestial Dragons piled on top, life there had grown harder and harder to bear.
Were it not for an Emperor's public declaration of protection, and for the fact that Celestial Dragons lived there so that ordinary pirates wouldn't dare stir up trouble, let alone launch an attack, the place would barely have counted as safe at all once you set aside the Celestial Dragons' exploitation, and its residents would have fled long ago. Even so, plenty of the less wealthy had already left the Nightless City. For while the city was spared the predations of pirates, it had something far worse than pirates: the Celestial Dragons.
On top of that, living in the Nightless City meant paying heavy taxes, which sent prices soaring beyond what ordinary people could afford. Beautiful women least of all dared live there, for once a Celestial Dragon laid eyes on one, married or not, she would be carried off in broad daylight without a shred of shame. They were more pirate than the pirates themselves.
So a great many people looked back fondly on those early days of the Nightless City. True, there had been rules upon rules back then, but every one of them existed to make the city more beautiful and more comfortable, and once you grew used to them, you found the whole place had only become more pleasant and lovely. Set against the Nightless City of today, the Nightless City of ten years ago was practically heaven.
Now, seeing that ten-year-old dragon banner flying once more over the Sabaody Archipelago, many of the people who had lived there a decade earlier cried out in joy.
"No wonder the World Government pulled out most of its people a month ago and scrapped all those taxes. It's because the Dragon King has come back!"
"At last the Nightless City is under the Grey Kingdom's rule again. I've waited so long for this day."
Watching that dragon banner stream in the wind, many were moved to tears, and more still cheered without restraint, leaving those who didn't understand what was happening to look on in confusion.
Ordinarily, the people of this world wouldn't stir to much emotion even when the World Government bled them dry, even when the Celestial Dragons trampled them. They had long since grown used to it. It wasn't that no one in history had ever tried to resist. It was that everyone who tried had died, so those who remained had gradually gone numb. Unable to fight back, they could only learn to live by this world's rules of survival.
But once you've tasted something sweet, how do you go back to swallowing bitterness without end? Had they never known the Nightless City of ten years ago, that place out of a fairy tale, perhaps they would have endured the exploitation still. But having lived through the order the Nightless City once held, every one of them now loathed what it had become.
The pity was that they were only common folk, with no way to resist, because the World Government kept its eyes fixed on the place. Or rather, the World Government would have been delighted if you resisted, for then it would have a pretext to swallow you whole, flesh and bone, with perfect justification. After all, the World Government was not the same as the Celestial Dragons. The Celestial Dragons were the gods who had made this world, free to do whatever they pleased, while the World Government was, in name at least, an organization of justice, and couldn't simply seize everything it fancied the way they did. So in the Sabaody Archipelago and in the Nightless City, there were many who supported the Grey Kingdom, longing for the day it might rule the Nightless City once more.
The moment Katakuri and his people set foot on the Sabaody Archipelago, they felt a great many ill-meaning stares fixed on them, which made them frown despite themselves. But Katakuri and the rest were each highly skilled and bold to match, and they paid those hostile looks no mind, walking onto the archipelago with perfect composure. They surveyed their surroundings with pride, as though they were the masters of this place. And in truth, in a sense, they were.
After stepping onto Sabaody, Katakuri and his group made straight for the Nightless City. Then, all at once, Katakuri's brow furrowed. In the very moment it did, a group of people appeared and blocked their path.
"Gahahaha, hey, hey, hey, you a pirate crew? Are you their captain? That flag of yours really is a funny one. Let me ask you something. Who gave you lot the nerve to fly a flag like that?" The pirate captain at the head of the group stepped forward and spoke down at Katakuri and his people with open arrogance.
"That's Wack's lot. They're this year's rising stars. Their captain is Swift Blade Wack, with an eighty-three-million bounty on his head from the Marines. Now this'll be worth watching," said some of the pirates who'd gathered for the spectacle, grinning.
"Let Wack and his crew feel out where this bunch came from. If even Wack can't handle them, they're not worth my stepping in." A pirate captain with a very high opinion of his own strength sneered as he said it.
"A school of small fry who don't know death from life. You've got one minute. Deal with them, then plant the dragon banner atop the Sky-Veiling Palace and declare this place the Grey Kingdom's once again." Katakuri lifted his head and spoke without inflection.
"One minute? First mate, you're giving them far too much credit. A pack of small fry fresh out of Paradise. If we can't be done with them inside ten seconds, then we ought to go back and train from the ground up all over again." The members of the Oathblood Guard wore cold smiles, every one of them.
They had seen all too many small fry like this who didn't know death from life. Each one proud and full of himself, thinking that because he could swagger through the first half of the Grand Line he could lord it over the New World too, with no idea at all of how merciless the New World truly was. The New World earned its name precisely for the sake of these pirates from the first half of the Grand Line, because to them it was a wholly different world, and if you looked at the New World through the eyes you'd brought from Paradise, then when the time came you'd die without ever understanding how.
"You're all far too long-winded. Since that's how it is, leave them to me." Just then one figure shot out, and in an instant there was chaos. The crew that had been so arrogant a moment before were all sent flying high into the air.
"Looks like the deal we'd all but closed got snatched away."
"It's all your fault, with your endless yammering. My hands were itching for it." Watching him go, the other members of the Oathblood Guard said it with resignation.
The one who'd rushed out was Bulat. He had no patience for chatter, and the moment he was provoked he hit straight back. He'd had the urge to act well before Katakuri ever opened his mouth. Under the dumbstruck gazes of every crew watching from around them, in less than ten seconds the newly risen Star Pirates had been wiped out to the last.
"Just who in the world are these people?" the pirates said, refusing to believe their own eyes.