Barry, after being ordered to leave by Mayor Iceberg, walked alone into the General Manager's office.
He said nothing.
With a cigar hanging from his mouth, he quietly pulled aside the rug under the office desk and revealed the hidden safe.
"The password is…"
Click.
Click.
As the combination lock turned, two figures drifted silently into the room behind him, their movements eerie and weightless, like ghosts.
Creak.
Barry opened the safe and lifted the scroll of blueprints from within. A faint smile appeared on his lips.
"So, this is what you want?"
Whoosh.
A dark silhouette materialized behind him, its cold gaze fixed on Barry's neck.
"Hand it over and We will spare your life. Refuse and you die."
"So it really was this."
Barry crushed the blueprints in his hand and turned sharply, glaring at the two masked intruders. One wore a long-horned bull mask, the other a giant skull. Both were cloaked in heavy garments that hid their forms.
"This is what you've been after, hiding among us for so long!"
The skull mask paused for a brief moment, then resumed its calm posture.
"That is correct. Our target is what you're holding."
The long-horned bull mask stared at Barry with cold, animal-like eyes.
"Give it to Me. Trash like you is not worthy of knowing its value."
"You already attacked the other shipwrights, didn't you?"
Barry's eyes fixed onto the blood staining the bull-masked agent's hand. His breathing grew heavy, his anger rising as he looked at the two figures.
"You really did it. After five years of working together, you still struck them down without hesitation. Doesn't it hurt at all?"
Silence fell.
The skull mask stared blankly, as if something in Barry's words had struck deeper than expected.
"So you found out more than We thought."
The bull mask twisted its neck, expression unreadable beneath the mask.
"We are members of the World Government's secret unit CP-9. To Us, you were never anything more than strangers. Now hand it over."
His voice became ice.
"Then die quietly."
Barry's eyes narrowed, cigar smoke rising.
"Hmph. You think you can kill me? Try."
"Barry, you cannot defeat Us."
The bull mask spoke coldly.
Before the last word left his mouth, he vanished.
"Soru."
When he reappeared, he was already behind Barry.
"Finger Pistol."
His finger, hardened like steel, shot forward. Concentrated into a single deadly point, the thrust carried enough force to pierce flesh as easily as a bullet.
Under normal circumstances, Barry would lose all ability to resist after that strike.
But something was wrong.
The masked agent's expression shifted sharply.
His finger wasn't penetrating anything. It was caught and bound by something thin, invisible, and impossibly strong.
Barry slowly turned his head, eyes filled with scorn.
"So you were hiding quite well, Lucci."
The bull mask froze. Barry had spoken his true name.
Before Lucci could react, the skull mask moved.
"Rankyaku!"
Using Soru, he flashed behind Barry and unleashed a slicing kick.
Pfft.
The compressed air blade struck Barry and sent him crashing into the distant wall.
Bang.
The wall cracked from the force, and Barry collapsed, seemingly unconscious.
"He…"
The skull masked agent hesitated.
"Kill him."
Lucci bent down to retrieve the crumpled blueprints from the floor.
The skull mask moved reluctantly toward Barry.
"Barry, forgive me."
Behind the mask, Kaku closed his eyes. He lifted his leg and brought down a heavy Rankyaku.
A tearing sound echoed.
But it was not Barry who was struck.
It was Kaku.
Lucci's eyes narrowed behind the bull mask. The "Barry" lying on the ground had unraveled into a mass of razor-thin threads.
"…"
The threads shot outward, piercing walls, bookcases, and flooring like needles.
Kaku, standing closest, was struck several times despite activating Tekkai. Thin trickles of blood dripped from the wounds.
"A Devil Fruit?"
He could hardly believe it. Barry, who bragged constantly and couldn't keep a secret, had been hiding this ability.
"Surprised, Lucci? Hard to accept that the chronic gambler who owed half the city money had a card up his sleeve?"
A mocking voice echoed from above.
Lucci looked up sharply.
Another Barry stood on a web of strings suspended in the air.
Boom.
The real Barry jumped down from the ceiling, landing with a thud. He glared at Lucci and Kaku with cold fury.
"You think spies and assassins are the only ones allowed to hide their strength?"
Lucci straightened, recovering instantly from his shock.
"Strange. Intelligence never recorded you as a Devil Fruit user."
He analyzed the situation rapidly.
"And you've escaped creditors by jumping into the sea before. That means you were not a Devil Fruit user at the time. So you obtained your power recently."
Nearby, Kaku yanked out the embedded threads and pressed pressure points to stop the bleeding.
"Kaku, you really went for my life?"
"This is my duty."
His calm tone only fueled Barry's rage.
"Duty? So every moment over these years was just an act from you liars?"
Memories of their camaraderie flashed in Barry's mind. The times they helped him, paid his debts, gave advice about saving money and settling down. All of it had been fake.
"How pathetic, Kaku."
Barry clenched his hands. The string construct on the ground wriggled, reshaping itself into another Barry.
The two Barrys glared coldly at the two CP-9 agents.
"You won't get what you came for today. CP-9, you're fired from Galley-La Company. You're not worthy of being part of it anymore."
"You don't have the authority to dismiss a foreman, Barry."
Lucci's voice was low. He stared at the faint threads drifting around Barry's fingers and muttered,
"String-String Fruit. Strange. Isn't that the Devil Fruit of the Shichibukai, the Heavenly Yaksha?"
---