Boom!
Rain's figure crashed down onto the shattered deck of the Diamond Queen like a meteor, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Bastard! You dare do that to the captain—!"
"Kill him! Avenge the Duke!!"
The twenty or thirty elite pirates who'd been watching from the deck—cold and unmoved—now saw Victor's fate unknown. Their eyes turned bloodshot. They drew weapons and roared as they swarmed Rain.
Rain's expression didn't change. He lifted a hand and casually flicked—
"Zzzt—!"
A blinding lightning spear condensed in his palm and shot out with a shriek.
Pff! Pff!
The two pirates in front didn't even have time to dodge. Like skewered candied fruit, they were pierced straight through the chest. The current instantly charred their organs; they fell dead without a scream.
+570 points
+910 points
The system chimes rang in Rain's mind.
Rain's forward step halted.
"…What?"
He frowned slightly, a flicker of confusion in his eyes.
A few hundred points?
That was absurdly low.
Instinctively, Rain pulled up the system details, wondering if those two were just deckhands who'd spent their lives sweeping floors.
But the ratings made him even more puzzled.
Both were listed as: Overall Rank: SR3.
"SR…"
The dissonance intensified.
From experience, SR-level pirates were usually seasoned veterans. Even the "clean" ones had blood on their hands—tens of lives at minimum. Their evil scores typically ranged from 5,000 to 20,000.
But these two—elite strength—barely totaled a little over a thousand.
Less than a thug boss in some East Blue town who bullied civilians.
"Strong like this… but hardly any evil?"
As Rain's mind churned, rubble shifted ahead.
"Cough… cough—!"
Victor Hugo, drenched in blood and looking utterly ruined, crawled out from the wreckage of the lower deck.
His fine white suit was in tatters, his proud crystal armor shattered, and his right arm hung at a grotesque angle.
He didn't even look at Rain—he screamed at his subordinates who were about to rush in and die.
"Stop! All of you, stop!!"
"Run! Get to the lifeboats—leave now!!"
Victor's voice was hoarse with urgency. "You're not his match! You can't all die here! Don't forget—there's still something we must do!"
"Captain…" The pirates froze, faces twisted with agonized conflict.
"Get the hell out! That's an order!!" Victor roared.
"How touching."
Rain's cold voice cut through their farewell.
He watched them. The oddly cheap evil scores still nagged him—but his hands didn't hesitate.
Whatever your excuse was, you were pirates. That meant enemy. Even if your evil score was only a few hundred, it still earned the death penalty.
"Too bad."
Rain's tone was flat.
"None of you… are leaving."
"Lightning Hunt · White Tiger!"
"ROAR!!"
With thunder roaring, five massive lightning tigers formed behind Rain at once. Fangs bared, they became five streaks of light, pouncing on the pirates trying to retreat.
Victor's eyes went wide with fury. He tried to force his Devil Fruit power into action despite his injuries—
Clang!
A cold flash of steel.
Rain was suddenly in front of him, long blade coated in dense black Armament Haki, cleaving downward.
Crack!
Victor's crystal cane—the symbol of his status—was cut cleanly in two.
Before Victor could react, Rain's whip-like kick slammed into him.
Bam!
Victor flew backward again, smashing into the broken bulkhead, spraying blood—his attempt to activate his ability interrupted completely.
At the same time, screams erupted across the deck.
Against five lightning tigers, the pirate elites had no chance. Some had their throats ripped out. Some were cooked into charcoal by high voltage.
In barely ten seconds…
Only Rain and Victor were still standing.
+620
+880
+1450
…
Rain stared at the scrolling system notifications, his brow tightening further.
A ship with twenty-plus elite pirates… and it didn't even add up to 20,000 evil points?
It was insane.
"How did you people get this big…?"
The wrongness crawled under his skin.
He walked toward Victor, who lay slumped against the wall.
Victor's chest heaved. Blood pooled beneath him. He looked at the bodies scattered around, the light in his eyes extinguished.
Elegance. Pride. Arrogance—gone.
Only exhaustion and regret remained.
"Cough…" Victor gave a bitter laugh. "Victors write history… nothing else to say."
He forced himself up slightly and stared at the blue sky above, eyes unfocused.
"Just… a pity… My plan was so close… just a little more, and it would've succeeded."
"Plan?" Rain sneered down at him, eyes devoid of pity. "You mean your plan to trade innocent lives for a shot at becoming a Warlord?"
Victor froze as if he wanted to explain. His lips moved.
In the end, he only shook his head, closed his eyes, and wore an expression of release.
"Say what you like…"
Rain had no interest in exploring a dead man's inner world. Whatever tragedy or justification lay behind it, choosing to turn living people into statues was unforgivable.
"Take your regrets to hell."
Slash.
Rain's blade fell.
A head rolled away.
The great pirate—Crystal-Diamond Duke Victor Hugo—was dead.
Rain sheathed his sword and vanished in a streak of electricity toward the docks.
…
On the other side of the harbor—
The moment Rain blasted Victor away, the two masked CP0 agents behind Victor had already decided.
The tide was lost.
"That Marine called Rain is a monster!"
"Mission failed! Withdraw immediately—report to the top!"
Cold-blooded as they were, they didn't hesitate, and they had no intention of dying for Victor.
They blurred into motion, two afterimages splitting left and right as they fled toward open sea.
If they escaped and brought back intelligence—'a Marine privately assassinated a Warlord candidate and CP0'—then those Marines would be finished.
But—
"Since you came," a clear, cool voice said suddenly in their ears, "stay and witness the ending."
The two whirled in horror.
A pink figure stood in their path, appearing without warning.
Gion's Justice coat snapped in the wind. Her famed blade Konpira slid from its sheath.
"Rear Admiral Gion! Have you lost your mind?!" one CP0 agent screamed. "We're World Government direct agents! If you attack us, that's betrayal—!"
"There's no CP0 here," Gion said, calm as still water, eyes without the slightest ripple.
"And there is no Rear Admiral of Marine Headquarters."
From the moment she chose to work with Rain, she had already made her decision. Between procedural justice… and the boy beside her, she chose the latter.
"There are only pirates who attacked a military base and got what they deserved."
Slash—!
Gion vanished. A brilliant pink arc of sword light cut across the sky like a blooming sea of spider lilies, swallowing the two agents midair where they had no footing.
"Iron Body!"
They tried to resist—but against a slash approaching true swordsman territory, their bodies were as fragile as paper.
Shhk!
Blood sprayed.
Two masters of the Six Powers were severed cleanly—masks and all—and fell into the raging sea below.
Gion sheathed Konpira and exhaled softly, staring at the bodies swallowed by waves.
She had personally cut off her own retreat.
And become Rain's most unwavering ally.
"Zzzt—"
Lightning flashed. Rain landed beside Gion.
"Done?" Gion glanced at him.
"Yeah." Rain nodded, then turned his gaze toward a nearby sandbag barricade.
There, a fat figure had his ass in the air, trying to play dead.
"Rear Admiral Nelson," Rain called coldly.
The fat body jerked—then shoved its head even lower.
"Stop pretending."
Rain raised his right hand, lightning gathering in his palm, and walked over.
"No!! Don't kill me!!"
Nelson knew the act was over. He sprang up, crying and drooling as he dropped to his knees and kowtowed.
"I'm a rear admiral! A rear admiral appointed by Headquarters! I demand a court-martial! You can't execute me privately!!"
"I have money! Hundreds of millions of beri! It's all in the basement! I'll give it all to you—please, spare me!!"
Rain looked at the pathetic pig and felt his disgust overflow.
"Court-martial? Too much trouble."
He pointed lightly.
Zzzt—PFF!
A blazing lightning spear punched through Nelson's chest, pinning his bloated body to the ground like a specimen.
+48,500 points
Seeing that number, Rain almost laughed from anger.
"Heh…"
"How ironic."
He stared at Nelson's smoking corpse, then looked back toward the Diamond Queen.
Victor's whole ship of "notorious" pirate elites—excluding Victor—had barely amounted to under 20,000 evil points.
Yet this Marine rear admiral, draped in a Justice coat and preaching morality, was worth 48,500 by himself.
More than double an entire ship of pirates.
"This sea…"
"…is truly rotten to the core."
With Nelson dead, the Marines around them finally broke.
Clang—
Hundreds of soldiers dropped to their knees, hands on their heads, trembling as they surrendered to the few Headquarters officers who looked like gods of slaughter.
~~~
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