In the span of moments he had risen from obscurity. That was not something an ordinary man could do.
"What Devil Fruit did he eat?" Whitebeard's brow stayed furrowed. The anger he had felt when Rakuya extorted him for Devil Fruits had cooled. What mattered now was a clear read on who this Rakuya was.
"Pops…" Diamond Jozu pressed a hand to his chest and stepped up.
Rakuya had sent him flying with a single kick. He was still badly hurt. Standing at all took grit.
"Jozu, how strong was Liuyun's kick?" Whitebeard was not mocking him. He wanted a measure of that strike.
"Strong. Ridiculously strong." Jozu's diamond fists tightened, a shiver of remembered dread running through him.
He was a Paramecia user who could turn his body to diamond, one of the world's toughest defenses. For a single kick to injure him at all was frightening.
"Pass it down. Gather intel. I want everything on Liuyun. From nobody to name on every tongue in a day means something is off."
It was the first time Whitebeard had heard the name. If not for Marco, he still would not have.
"How is Marco?" Whitebeard asked quietly.
"Unconscious for now. Even with his recovery, he was worn to the bone. I do not know what he went through," Jozu said, eyes red.
This battle would make history. In the New World, Whitebeard had tasted defeat, and at the hands of one man.
"Let's go." Weariness edged Whitebeard's face. He was no longer the man who feared nothing.
"Pops…" Jozu felt the slump in him and guilt pricked behind his nose.
"It is not on you, you fools," Whitebeard said, drawing them close. "I fought my whole life to be one of the three great pirates for one thing only, to protect you. Wealth, fame, prestige, they mean nothing to me. I wanted a family."
"Pops…" Jozu could not hold back anymore. Tears ran hot.
Thatch, Flower Sword Vista, Blamenco, and Rakuyo all looked away, shaken.
"My foolish sons." Whitebeard said no more. He wrapped one arm around all of them and held on in silence.
Far off in a pocket of the New World, Rakuya lay on a stone bed and woke only after a long while.
He opened his eyes, rubbed at the pins and needles in his head, and muttered, "System, how long did that update take? My arm is stiff."
[System Notification] Three hours, twenty seconds, fifty-seven.
"Three hours?"
Rakuya winced. Last time had been barely ten minutes. This time had eaten three full hours.
"System, be reasonable. My time is gold. You burned three hours. No compensation?" A wicked curve tugged at his mouth.
A bad premonition crawled through the System's voice. [System Notification] Upgrades optimize functions so you can show off properly. If we do not upgrade, we cannot keep up with your showboating. To match your pace, upgrades come first.
"Oh? You flatter now? One point for effort."
He kept pressing. "Time is money. People say an inch of gold cannot buy an inch of time. If I knew who said that I would slap him. It is not hard to buy. It is impossible."
"Time is funny. Use a little and there is a little less. Do you understand how valuable mine is? In a few minutes I squeezed forty Devil Fruits out of Whitebeard, then made him sign a note for sixty more. I made the Marines cough up twenty-five Fruits for points. Call it fifty thousand in points. Let's say thirty minutes for fifty thousand. You tell me if my time is valuable. You stole three hours. If you do not pay me hundreds of thousands of points, it does not add up."
He wore the look of a man lounging in the sun while haggling a merchant out of his last coin. Last time he had wrung a little oil from this old fox. How could he not do it again?
Silence.
At length the System sighed. [System Notification] What do you want.
"I, Rakuya, demand payment. No, points."
[System Notification] How many.
"Six figures."
[System Notification] No.
The System fumed. Rakuya had shaken down Whitebeard and the Marines because he had laid the groundwork. If you counted the whole span, those fifty thousand points had taken days of maneuvering. And he had the gall to only count the time it took to make the trade.
Shameless.
"Eighty thousand."
[System Notification] No.
The System's voice was weaker.
"Fine. Ten thousand. Final."
Silence again.
Ten thousand was blood loss. The kind that left you pale.
Most systems bled their hosts dry. How had this one ended up flipped, bled by the host until it wanted to weep.
[System Notification] Five thousand. Not a point more.
"Deal."
Rakuya nodded, satisfied. He knew his math was selective and the System knew it too. But a little gouge was still a gouge. Tens of thousands would have been overreach. Five thousand was what he had expected.
Do nothing for three hours and pocket five thousand points. Delightful.
He must have looked too pleased. The System sounded immediately regretful, but the door had been opened and could not be shut.
"Pay up," Rakuya barked like a debt collector.
[System Notification] Transferring.
His point panel ticked up in a blur, from 51,400 to 56,400.
"Good. Now to fetch that bald old man."
"Kamui."
The world in front of him wavered. Space warped. Rakuya's body stretched into a spiral and slipped from sight.
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