Buru buru, buru buru.
The sudden, gurgling ring of a Den Den Mushi interrupted the tense, smog-filled atmosphere of the street.
Dominica, the pirate captain, paused his murderous advance as he was confused.
Raleigh, however, acted as if he'd noticed nothing at all.
He didn't even look at the 8-meter-tall bear-man in front of him. He simply reached into his coat and casually answered the call.
"Hello, Momonga? What's up?"
A slightly anxious male voice came through the snail.
"Raleigh, bad news! Bell-mère moved too fast, we lost contact. I just heard CP9's Steele is waiting for her under the Red Line!"
Hearing this, Raleigh's brow furrowed for a brief, almost imperceptible second before smoothing out.
He did a quick mental calculation.
That guy Doflamingo should be arriving in the East Blue soon, too.
As long as the "Heavenly Yaksha" could reach her, none of the CP9 members would be able to stop him.
"It's fine," Raleigh said, his voice calm. "I've already contacted someone else. He should be arriving soon."
Watching Raleigh nonchalantly making a phone call, Dominica grew visibly furious.
The ground trembled slightly as he seethed.
"Hey... you bastard, how dare you ignore me!" he roared.
"Raleigh, is everything alright on your end?" Momonga asked, hearing the commotion.
"Nothing," Raleigh replied, casually glancing at the giant, raging bear-man.
"Just some small fry."
After that casual glance, he went right back to his phone call.
Dominica clenched his massive, furred fists.
He had been in a fairly good mood earlier.
He thought this pencil-pushing Marines officer with no notable achievements would be an easy capture, a quick payday.
But now... now, he changed his mind.
He would use the cruelest methods to deal with this Marine, to wash away the absolute, burning disrespect he was being shown.
"You... you actually called me... small fry?!"
"You're dead, Marine! I'll torture you with the most brutal methods known to man!"
Raleigh raised his head and glanced at Dominica again, his eyes half-lidded.
"Oh how scaryyyy..." Then he yawned and said with complete, soul-crushing indifference.
"Then go ahead and try."
Hearing Raleigh's final, dismissive words, Dominica lost it.
But before he could move, groups of pirates emerged from their hiding places in the alleys and on the rooftops, all holding sharp blades, terrifying, bloodthirsty grins on their faces.
"Let me show you my true power!" Dominica roared.
His body rapidly enlarged.
Thick, coarse fur grew over his skin, and his muscles swelled to grotesque proportions.
Raleigh narrowed his eyes, a flicker of academic interest showing.
"Scared now, aren't you?" Dominica bellowed, his voice now a deep, animalistic growl.
"I'm a Bull-Eating Bear Ability User!"
'Zoan type.'
'Bear Bear Fruit, Ancient Species: Short-Faced Bear. An extremely powerful ancient-type Devil Fruit.'
'Though not as precious as a Mythical Zoan, it provides the user with absolutely tremendous strength and defense.'
'No wonder he managed to get a 100 million Belly bounty in the North Blue.'
However, in Raleigh's eyes, he was still... just small fry.
Transformed, Dominica now stood over eight meters tall, a true monster.
Raleigh, in comparison, looked like a tiny, fragile doll.
"Go to hell and repent!" Dominica charged, his momentum unstoppable.
Each step left a large, cracked footprint in the stone-paved road.
A massive bear paw, claws extended, slammed down toward Raleigh's upper body.
A flash of cruel satisfaction appeared in Dominica's eyes.
In his view, this person would definitely be crushed to death by this single paw.
No one dared to confront him head-on and block this attack.
Clang!
Things did not go as Dominica expected.
His giant, mountain-crushing paw met... a single, human-sized fist.
Under the stunned, disbelieving gazes of the surrounding pirates, Raleigh had actually blocked the attack.
Using only his own strength, he had stopped the charge of an Ancient Zoan user cold.
The exaggerated, almost comical difference in size between the two made everyone who witnessed this scene question reality.
"Impossible... how could he block Boss Dominica!" the pirate crew members refused to believe it.
Even Dominica Federation himself couldn't believe it.
"You... you're also a Devil Fruit Ability User?" he stammered, his arm trembling from the impact.
Beneath the giant paw, Raleigh's bored face became visible.
"Pirate, if this is all you've got... then your life ends here."
"Don't screw with me! I'm the Rampaging Bear, Dominica!"
The giant paw suddenly exerted more force, the ground beneath Raleigh cracking as it pushed his body backward.
"Die!"
Dominica abruptly withdrew his paw and, in the same motion, thrust his massive head forward.
An enormous, bloody maw, lined with teeth like daggers, snapped shut, instantly biting off Raleigh's entire upper body.
CRUNCH.
After casually chewing a few times, Dominica spat the mangled, ruined torso onto the ground.
"Pathetic," he panted.
Dominica took great pride in this move.
Thanks to the short-faced bear's exaggerated bite force, he had defeated many opponents stronger than himself, climbing step by step to his current position.
"Boss... there's something wrong with his corpse," several highly experienced pirates suddenly spoke up, their voices shaking.
Dominica turned his head and saw it.
Raleigh's lower body was still standing upright.
"Where's... the blood?" Dominica's pupils suddenly dilated.
The opponent he had just defeated, the mangled torso he had spat out... hadn't shed a single drop of blood.
"You bastard," a voice said, "you actually launched a sneak attack."
The "upper body" on the ground dissolved into strands of turquoise wind, which swirled through the air and merged back with the lower body still standing in its original position.
In a second, Raleigh was whole again, not a scratch on him, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from his shoulder.
"A... A Logia-Type Devil Fruit Ability User?" Dominica's voice suddenly rose, cracking in terror.
He was no ignorant pirate.
Having spent many years in the North Blue, he naturally knew how troublesome, how impossible, Logia-Type Devil Fruits could be.
"I'll use you to test my newly developed technique," Raleigh said, his voice flat.
He drew the Mikazuki from his waist.
As the blade cleared the scabbard, pitch-black Armament Haki quickly climbed up the steel, turning it a deep, menacing black.
Then, something new happened.
Enhanced by the storm Fruit, the already razor-sharp blade gained a shimmering, invisible aura.
Numerous, incredibly sharp wind currents wrapped around the Haki-coated blade, turning it into something like a high-frequency cutting machine.
"Giant Bear Smash!" Dominica roared, desperation overriding his fear.
"One Sword Style: Troubled Wind."
Swish— Raleigh's figure vanished.
He reappeared instantly behind Dominica with a single drop of blood on his sword's tip
Dominica's two bear paws, which had been slamming down, missed completely, smashing into the ground and creating two enormous craters.
Raleigh executed an elegant, almost lazy sword flourish, shaking the single drop of blood off, before sheathing the Mikazuki Munechika with a soft click.
"Heh... I don't feel a thing," Dominica tried to boast, turning his massive head.
But just as he said it, he discovered a thin, almost invisible wound had appeared across his chest.
"What... what did you do, you bastard!" he screamed in terror.
The wound on his body... it kept expanding.
He tried to cover it with his hands, but before he could even move, his two massive bear paws, severed cleanly at the wrists, thudded to the ground.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
The agonized, inhuman scream echoed throughout the entire town, making everyone who heard it instinctively tremble with fear.
Other pirates, witnessing their 100-million-Belly Ancient Zoan captain be dismembered in a single second, didn't hesitate.
The smarter ones among them had already put away their weapons and were planning to slip away quietly, to vanish into the smog.
"Did I say..." Raleigh's cold voice seemed to come from everywhere at once.
"...you could leave?"
Within the range of his Observation Haki, amplified by the wind, every single pirate's position was clearly displayed in his mind.
He didn't want to reveal himself as a Logia-Type Devil Fruit Ability User just yet.
Therefore... all these pirates who witnessed his battle... had to die.
Because only the dead can keep secrets.
Soru.
Raleigh's figure blurred.
"Spare us, Navy sir!"
"We haven't done anything! We're willing to serve you!"
Not all pirates were strong-willed.
Many were experts at switching sides.
"Sea trash like you, deserve to die!" Raleigh's voice whispered, his figure flickering beside each pirate like a phantom.
Shing. Shing. Shing.
With light, dancing steps, his blood-slicked blade flickered beside each pirate.
One by one, they fell.
"Is that guy dead?" Rear Admiral Zakri asked with annoyance, checking his pocket watch.
A navy soldier, his face pale as a sheet, rushed in, stumbling over the doorway.
"Com... Commander!"
"What's all the panic? What happened?" Zakri snapped, though a bad feeling was suddenly twisting in his gut.
"Are you Zakri?" A new voice, calm and casual, spoke.
Behind the terrified messenger, who was now trembling violently, stood a tall navy officer.
What sent a chill of pure, unadulterated ice down Zakri's spine was that the man's pristine white Marines uniform... was soaked in blood.
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