"Don't push it too far, Shiryu, you brat!"
Lonely Red was furious, "Though I'm old now, my ears work just fine. You guys clearly said you were looking for those unpardonable criminals just now!"
"Why, can't you be counted among them?"
Shiryu bit down on his cigar and glanced at him, "You old geezer, you're worth a whole 3.9 billion Belly in bounty. In terms of bounty, you're undoubtedly the number one in the entire 6th Floor! To have such a bounty, back in the day, you must have massacred quite a few towns for treasures, right? Pretending to be all noble now?"
"Bullshit!"
Lonely Red sneered, dismissively saying:
"I may have robbed, but I never stooped to slaughtering civilians! As for the high bounty, that's purely the World Government fearing my supreme strength, throwing dirt on me! Your files are wrong!"
That actually sounded like the truth.
Thanks to Shiryu putting this guy on the list, Shano paid attention to him, curiously scrutinizing the man.
Lonely Red.
A true legend of the old era.
A man true to his name, never forming a Pirate Gang or seeking companions in all his life.
Alone he stood, alongside the likes of Golden Lion, Roger, Whitebeard.
Once in a duel, he defeated the former Navy Marshal, now Commander-in-Chief of the Three Armies, Steel Bone Kong.
But when fighting the arriving Garp afterward, he lasted only a day before succumbing to exhaustion and being captured, thus ending up in Impel Down.
"Kid."
Lonely Red noticed the gaze, glanced sideways, "Judging by your look, you've heard of my name, huh? What, interested? Want to recruit me as your subordinate?"
"My Observation is capable of seeing the essence of people, and your aura, I've only seen on that Rocks, a truly remarkable character!"
He tidied his hair, proudly raising his head, "Too bad, I'm used to being lonely all my life, there's absol—" He suddenly noticed the other had already turned away, heading to the next cell.
Instantly wide-eyed, his beard trembling with anger, "Hey! You brat! It's so rude, an old man is talking to you!"
Shano waved his hand, not looking back, only a faint voice drifting over:
"You're old now, stay here and enjoy your retirement, I'm not interested in recruiting antiques."
Some people, seeing them once is enough.
As for recruiting, he'd never even considered it.
Wasting effort on an old man nicknamed "Lonely" was just a waste of time.
Moreover, he recalled this guy needed to find the Vamp-Vamp Fruit, regain youth, to have any semblance of his former self.
Otherwise, this body decrepit to the extreme couldn't even beat the Straw Hat Pirates from their Pang Island period.
Heh, you brat!
Lonely Red glared at the two fading backs, suddenly grinning.
Even Roger had once knelt, pleading, snot and tears, begging him to join, yet today, he'd been disdained by a junior!
Speaking of which, this guy actually killed a Heavenly Celestial Dragon...
That means the face-off with the World Government was completely torn, determined to fight to the end? This dream and ambition seem to surpass his own.
Can he succeed?
It's hard, really hard...
He slowly sat back in the corner, dull eyes staring at the cobweb-laden ceiling, muttering:
"Go for it, just don't become the next Rocks, you arrogant brat..."
————
In the southeast direction.
The purple-haired little girl in the cell raised her head, revealing a pale, exquisite face, timidly asking, "B-Big Brother... Are you going to kill me?"
Her eyes brimmed red, speaking pitifully, "I... I was wronged too, the bad deeds Shiryu mentioned were done by others impersonating me, sobbing, I just..."
Swoosh!
The flash of a blade, the little girl's head fell to the ground, letting out a piercing scream, "Why! Why don't you believe me!"
The next moment, completely silent.
"Nineteenth, Human-Human Fruit Lolita form Ability User, Vire."
Shiryu recorded while adding:
"Might look only eight or nine, but she's actually a fifty-sixty-year-old crone, if Lonely Red might have been wronged, then this woman absolutely not, those believing her pitiful act and dying at her hands in Impel were at least a dozen prison guards."
"I could tell."
Shano said casually, flicking the blood off his blade.
No need for Shiryu's explanation, in his Observation, the aura of violence, malice, resentment on this woman was exceedingly dense, like a vengeful spirit walked out of a horror film, utterly unhideable.
"Only ten left, sir."
Shiryu turned to the other side, "The remaining ones won't be as troublesome, they're mostly contained in this area, the twentieth, it's..."
"Enough!"
A roar interrupted Shiryu's words.
From the opposite cell, a one-eyed man bound in chains suddenly slammed into the bars, shouting out in fear and anger:
"I've had enough! Hey, you two bastards, what do you take us for? And what do you take yourselves for!"
"How vile!"
In another cell, a tall, dark-skinned man stood, sneering:
"Even the World Government didn't take our lives! Since when did Pirates act as justice enforcers?"
"That's right!"
The surrounding atmosphere suddenly turned tense, the remaining Demon Fruit Ability User prisoners stood up, shaking the bars, clamoring in protest.