The harbor looked unnervingly calm. No one came out to oppose them.
That over-quiet feeling made the back of one's neck prickle. From taverns to the lighthouse, nearly every house was crammed with people. Muskets were already cocked; cold, hostile gazes waited only for the strong enemy to appear.
Given Sharn's past deeds he should have carried a much higher bounty. If not for his special status — the fact that so many Celestial Dragons were killed at God Valley and that the Five Elders suppressed the facts — the world would have remembered and condemned him far more loudly. Morgans was still a junior reporter then and lacked the power to make the God Valley incident public. If the same thing had happened thirty-eight years later, the price on Sharn's head would have easily skyrocketed into the billions.
Instead, the Five Elders kept sending CP9 and CP0 after him repeatedly. To them Sharn was a small, negligible threat — any Fleet Admiral could annihilate Sharn's crew head on. That was the arrogance of the strong: there are always Demon Kings who underestimate the supposedly brave young heroes. They forget how the Demon King himself once clawed his way up from nothing.
Sharn was being despised from a strength perspective, but that didn't mean they wouldn't try to kill him. Hence the present desperate plan: the two top intelligence agencies joined forces and brought substantial judicial-island naval power — all to encircle and kill one pirate. Their scheme was simple gambling: would this rising Grand Line pirate dare to come for the bait? The gamble paid off — Sharn came, and he came prepared to seize.
"Are the rats all hiding inside, afraid to show their faces? Idiots!" Kaido tightened his weapon and stomped onto the deck. "Prepare to land, you lot!"
Compared with Kaido's fury, Sharn was actually in a good mood.
"No need — I can handle it alone!" he said.
Whoosh — Kaido's body shifted and the giant dragon screamed skyward. "Flame breath!" he roared, and a pillar of fire smashed through the sky. The naval soldiers sheltering in houses realized too late: the thing bearing down on them was a dragon out of myth.
On the other side, the Chameleon's expressionless mask did not flinch. Three CP0 agents in snow-white suits hurled themselves into the fray. One of them struck first — punching open a heavy wooden door with a single blow. That man was the previous Door-Door Fruit user — Mondo.
The Door-Door Fruit can create personal pocket spaces and open portals that range from a doorway to island-spanning transit fields; with development it can even turn bodies into doors. Mondo opened a void, and Kaido's flame breath passed through — only to be redirected and return behind the archaeology ship.
"You really underestimated us. Do you think we are privileged to stand beside the Gods?" Mondo sneered as the flame threatened to consume the archaeology vessel. The heat vaporized the sea surface; the crew braced for the worst.
Sharn had already reacted in a blur, appearing at the stern with a Paw fruit pulse in his palm. The air cannon erupted like a hurricane.
Boom — flame and air collided and neutralized each other. Sharn laughed out loud. "Hahaha — the Door Fruit? This haul keeps getting better!"
Only then did the crew fully appreciate the danger: CP0 had arrived in force. Figures in white streamed from the tavern like phantoms — all proven Devil Fruit users, many of them ancient-type fruits. No wonder CP0 and CP9 of this era were fearsome: they weren't mere bureaucrats but genuine peak combatants. Their ranks included people who had clashed to death with Whitebeard's captains, survivors of deadly battles on the Island of the Dead, and those who had once countered Kaido. Lucci was the spearhead of CP0 — a generational freak of talent whose fruits had awakened; beside him stood powerful lieutenants like Kaku and the Vampire-form Buckin.
"Don't underestimate those guys, or we'll pay for it," Sharn said, then vanished like a struck chord. The archaeology ship surged toward the shore; crew members were slapped onto the quay, one by one. At the same moment, fifteen judicial-island warships and CP0 vessels blocked the harbor from behind — the net was closed.
War was inevitable.
On the tavern bar the Chameleon deposited a chest containing the Ice Fruit and glanced contemptuously toward the harbor. "A bunch of presumptuous brats — you really think you can stand against the world's real strong?" he said. "We don't know what you did, but whatever it was, you angered the Five Elders. Even the judicial island would be summoned to stop you. This one's for the Gods."
He wiped the blood from his mouth and strode out without pause. "Fight! Don't fail the Five Elders. Fight for the Gods!"
Grabbing his Den Den Mushi, the Chameleon relayed orders. CP0 commanders sat at the very top of the power structure — practically equivalent to a vanguard of Admirals and prison wardens of Impel Down. In rank they could speak to the Fleet Admiral.
They left the tavern and iron flames swallowed the port. The place filled with sailors and soldiers — a line of figures stood surrounded in their midst: Sharn and Kaido, side by side, untroubled.
"Don't forget the techniques I taught you or you'll die," Sharn quipped. He and Kaido stepped forward together.
Before them stood the entirety of CP0, led by the Chameleon, the air thick with menacing Haki. Behind CP0 were fifteen judicial warships and the strongest CP9 captain, Kurin the Lion-Tiger.
Sharn curled his fingers into a fist and smiled. His Conqueror's Haki flared outward.
"Bring all the reinforcements you like — I go alone if I must!" he declared.
Then he eyed the gathered opponents and asked, with cold amusement, "You — you actually think you can block my way?"
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