Rumble…
Suspended in the air, Kahn slowly lifted his right hand, blue radiance flowing from it.
The ruins before him began to quake.
Stones large and small rose, each wrapped in a blue sheen, breaking free of gravity and floating up.
Moments later, several men, their bodies shielded by a blue aura, drifted out of the rubble.
When their feet touched the ground, the glowing veils faded.
Among the suited men were Capone Bege, his godson, and his personal guards.
"Boss."
Bowing from beneath, Capone Bege greeted the floating Kahn with respect.
"Good work, Bege."
Hands in his pockets, Kahn said to him, "Those three old foxes are dead. Their families will be leaderless. This is the best time to strike—and the last test I'm giving you."
"I'm leaving the West Blue shortly. When I return, I expect the West Blue's underworld unified."
"…I won't let you down, Boss," Bege said, looking up at Kahn with fever-bright eyes.
"Mm."
Kahn nodded, tossed him an envelope, and went on. "No one knows our connection. On the territories flying my flag there are plenty of plants. Some are CP agents from one of the World Government's three major organs. They can't slip onto my ship, so they pose as nobodies on those lands and gather intel during protection-fee runs."
"In that envelope is a list—their names and covers."
"I'll be announcing our push into the Grand Line. After you lead the Capone Family to swallow the Cross Family's flagless territories, if any of these rats are still around, take note."
"Do your best not to expose our relationship. If you hit a problem you can't solve, call me on a Den Den Mushi."
Capone Bege gave a grave nod. "Understood, Boss."
"Be careful. Don't die."
With that final reminder, blue light flared from Kahn's body.
A streak of azure shot to the heavens as Kahn left the island.
Capone Bege—one of the Worst Generation in the original timeline—had been recruited by Kahn when Kahn was six.
It was Sea Circle Calendar 1494; Bege himself was fourteen.
Planning for the day he left the West Blue, Kahn decided to cultivate Capone Bege in secret so someone could protect his parents in this life.
After his parents were killed, Kahn did not stop cultivating Bege.
But the purpose changed.
Before, he'd meant Bege to be their bodyguard.
After, he meant Bege to be a money machine.
Only Kahn's personal maid, Bege's godson, and two bodyguards knew of their bond.
Able to read hearts, Kahn knew Bege and those few could be trusted.
And if Bege's loyalty ever soured, removing him would be as easy as a breath.
Since his parents' deaths, Kahn felt no attachment to this sea.
Once he reached the Grand Line, he would raise the Cross Family far beyond the Donquixote Family's level.
Dozens of nautical miles out from Tewaroyili Island, Kahn spotted a sailing ship and dropped down.
Blue and white hull, a blue dragon head at the prow, and a banner bearing the Heavenly Dragon—she was a medium two-masted brig.
This was the Cross Family's flagship, the Grantaine.
It was also their headquarters.
After his parents died, Kahn left the island where he'd grown up and began his flag-planting voyage.
With only two people aboard, the agents who wanted to embed themselves in the Cross Family could never get onto the Grantaine.
That was why five warships were wiped out last year.
Unable to infiltrate Kahn's side, they resorted to brute force.
"Master, is everything handled over there?"
As Kahn touched down on deck, a pleasant voice reached his ears.
Under a parasol near the starboard rail, a girl set down her book and came over.
Petite, looking eleven or twelve, with shoulder-length black hair, blue-black eyes, and a black-and-white maid uniform.
Kahn had taken her in two years ago. She was now his personal maid—Nico Robin, the Devil's Child, who had a seventy-nine-million-Beli bounty at the age of eight.
Robin was eleven this year and met Kahn at nine.
After a year of betrayals and being hunted, she had been wary of everyone, Kahn included.
But being taken in and kept by his side, catching a glimpse of his power and immense wealth, the not-yet-hardened Robin gradually let her guard down.
After Kahn annihilated five warships last year for her sake, Robin, like Monet at Doflamingo's side, devoted herself to Kahn.
She believed Kahn was the one Saul had spoken of—the partner who would protect her, her master.
"Yeah… it's all settled."
Kahn smiled. "Now make the call and tell those rats I'm about to leave the West Blue."
"I understand."
Robin dipped her chin, took out a Den Den Mushi, and passed word to a certain West Blue newspaper: the Cross Family was entering the Grand Line, and those territories could lower their flags.
By tomorrow, the West Blue—and even parts of the Grand Line watching Kahn's rise—would know that the three-hundred-million-Beli super rookie was on his way into the Grand Line.
The Cross Family looked massive, ruling two hundred and seventy-five towns—more than Bartolomeo's one hundred and fifty in the original timeline.
Just the protection fees from those towns filled Kahn's coffers every year.
Sheltered by the Overlord of the West Blue, more and more towns—some under World Government member nations, some not—came forward to pay him of their own accord.
But in truth, the family's yearly income was only protection fees.
Among the five great families, the Cross Family alone did not traffic arms.
At least, that was what the world believed.
In fact, after his parents died, Kahn handed the old base to the family elders and destroyed the arms facility—but only after having Capone Bege quietly empty it.
Destroying the base merely duped the embedded agents.
Because Capone took over the arms business, the Capone Family, backed by Kahn in secret, swiftly rose into the West Blue's five great families.
Kahn had long since moved everything of real value to the Capone Family.
The cash sat in the Grantaine's vault.
After Kahn left the West Blue, the towns under his protection would take down his flag on their own.
Aside from losing a torrent of protection money each year, he would lose nothing.
Once the Capone Family unified the West Blue underworld and raised the flag again, what Kahn had lost would return to his hands.
In short, Kahn felt no nostalgia for the West Blue.
He meant to enter the Grand Line and become one of that great sea's overlords.
While Robin made the call, blue light blazed from Kahn once more.
He lifted his hands, and a telekinetic barrier wrapped the entire Grantaine. The ship ignored gravity, rose into the sky, and flew toward the West Blue's gateway to the Grand Line.
To speed the journey, Kahn bent the wind with telekinesis, driving the brig faster.
As a transmigrator, Kahn knew Sea Circle Calendar 1503 was a year of great significance.
If he could make the timing work, he might recruit his future right hand within the year.
To be an overlord in the Grand Line, he needed more than top-tier personal power. He needed a top-tier organization.
Only the fusion of a supreme individual and a supreme force makes an overlord.
To push the Cross Family far beyond the Donquixote Family's level, he would have to recruit heavily and gather many subordinate groups like the Capone Family.
Only then, in the strongest sea of the New World, could he wrest a slice of the cake from those three monsters.
To keep his future deputy from being poached, Kahn had to race the clock.