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"What did you just say?! You dare insult a Celestial Dragon?! Kill him! Kill him right now!"
The butler was staring at Kaito with open disbelief. The idea that anyone would say something like that out loud had simply never crossed his mind as a possibility.
"No, wait! I want him as a slave! I want to make him suffer! You useless garbage, get over there and attack him, or I'll have you killed first!"
Smulet's face had gone a deep, ugly red, his jowls shaking as he screamed at the CP0 agent.
The CP0 agent kept his voice level. "Saint Smulet, for your safety, I strongly suggest we withdraw immediately. I will personally lead a team back to capture them once you are secure."
Slap.
His suggestion earned him a strike across the face.
"I told you to kill him! Are you deaf?! When we get back, I'm having you executed!"
Kaito watched the Celestial Dragon hit and scream at the one person still capable of protecting him, and felt something between pity and exasperation.
He had known this man was going to be different from the Celestial Dragons he had encountered among the God's Knights. But he genuinely hadn't expected this level of stupidity. Threatening your only remaining bodyguard with execution while standing in the middle of a situation like this was not a survival strategy.
"Hey, fat pig. I've watched enough of this little performance. Either someone makes a move, or I stop being patient."
The CP0 agent immediately stepped in front of Smulet, eyes locked on Kaito, every muscle tensed.
"Zegion."
Kaito didn't move. He just said the name, quietly.
"Yes."
Zegion gave a small nod, and was simply no longer there.
"What? Where did he go?!"
The CP0 agent's eyes went wide. He pushed his Observation Haki as hard as it would go and found nothing. No presence. No trace.
What he didn't know was that Zegion hadn't disappeared at all. He was walking toward him at a perfectly ordinary pace. He had simply used his [Mental Domination], flooding the CP0 agent's senses with illusions so complete that the man couldn't register what was right in front of him.
Puncture.
Zegion stopped, raised his right hand without any particular expression, and drove it straight through the CP0 agent's chest.
"Guh... pfft... when did you..."
The CP0 agent stared ahead, blood coming to his lips, genuine disbelief in his eyes. He managed to turn his head toward Smulet.
"Saint Smulet... run... you need to..."
Zegion withdrew his hand. He used a small application of magic to clean it, with the same indifference one might use to wipe a table.
Thud.
The CP0 agent hit the ground.
The butler had gone completely white. He took one step back, then another.
"You... you actually killed him... I..."
Puncture.
A hardened chitinous spike shot from Zegion's right shoulder before the butler could finish his sentence, and punched through his skull. He dropped without another sound.
Smulet stared at what was left of the butler. Something cold moved through him.
But he was a Celestial Dragon. These people wouldn't dare touch him. They couldn't. He was a god of this world.
"You lowly commoners." His voice came out less steady than usual. "You killed my butler. If you want to live, kneel and take your own lives right now, and I may consider sparing your families. If you refuse, I will see to it that everyone connected to you is wiped from existence."
Kaito heard this and found himself mentally running through the list of people connected to him.
'Rimuru... Veldora... Milim... Shizu... Kanae... Benimaru... Diablo...'
He exhaled.
'Yeah, we're fine.'
"Alright, I've heard enough. Shut your mouth."
He crossed the distance in an instant and drove his foot into Smulet, sending him sprawling across the ground.
"AHHH! That hurt! You actually hit me! You HIT me!"
Slap!
Bang!
Kaito's open hand connected with the glass dome of the helmet hard enough to shatter it. The broken pieces dragged across Smulet's face, and blood welled up immediately.
Kaito looked at the result, pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket, and put them on.
Then he got to work.
Slap! "You want someone to hit me, do you?"
Slap! "You want a personal slave, do you?"
Slap! "You think nobody dares touch you?"
Slap! Slap! Slap! "I just hit you. What exactly are you going to do about it?"
Slap! Slap! Slap! "Go ahead. Send someone to kill me. I'm waiting."
Slap! "I told you to send someone! Are you not listening?!"
"I am not an angry person by nature, but today you have genuinely managed it. Congratulations."
The hits kept coming, each one harder than the last, until Smulet was spitting blood and twitching on the ground. Only then did Kaito stop and step back, shaking out his hand.
"The Celestial Dragon is being beaten!"
"AHHHHH! Run! A Marine Admiral is going to show up!"
"Go, go, GO!"
The crowd had been frozen in stunned silence for exactly one moment. Then every single person turned and ran in a completely different direction, scattering like a burst of startled birds.
In what felt like no time at all, the entire street was empty except for Kaito's group and Smulet lying on the ground leaking blood.
"They cleared out fast. If that kind of speed made it to the World Athletics Championship, what would Bolt even do with himself?"
Kaito had been about to do something about Smulet's condition when he looked up and realized there was nobody left to spectate. Just a newspaper, tumbling through the empty street in the wind, announcing the new alliance between Alabasta and the Jura-Tempest Federation.
"Oh well. None of that matters. Let's keep going."
He pulled a bottle of low-concentration healing potion from somewhere and upended it over Smulet's body. The bleeding slowed, then stopped. The worst of the damage began to close.
"You there, get that suit off him. He's dressed like he's about to board a rocket. Does he think that outfit actually gets him into heaven?"
Several Security Force members descended on Smulet with considerable enthusiasm, and the spacesuit came off in short order. What remained was one pair of underwear and a great deal of pale, unimpressive dignity.
Kaito looked at this for a moment, then brought his boot down firmly between Smulet's legs.
"AHHHHH! Ugh... mm... mm... mm..."
The pain hit him somewhere below language. It traveled straight from the source to the back of his skull without stopping anywhere in between. Smulet curled into a ball, teeth clenched, shaking, cold sweat running freely. Every breath came out as a thin, wretched sound.
Kaito watched this with an expression of complete calm.
"Alright. I need a break. The rest of you carry on. Just don't finish him off."
"Yes, Kaito-sama! Leave it to us!"
"He insulted Sakuya-sama. We'll make sure he understands what that costs. Kekekeke..."
The Security Force members moved in with expressions of genuine professional satisfaction.
This man had insulted Izayoi Sakuya. That was not something any of them were inclined to let pass quietly. Sakuya was Kaito's personal maid, and she was not merely accomplished in the household arts. She commanded the Imperial Guard Corps. She was, along with one other, one of the only two people in the entire Jura-Tempest Federation capable of bringing the Idle Four to heel without breaking a sweat.
That combination had quietly made her one of the most beloved figures in the Federation, whether she was aware of it or not.
'AHHHHHH!!!'
At that same moment, in the Fleet Admiral's office.
Pere~pere, pere~pere~!
"...Moshi moshi. Sengoku speaking."
A pause.
"WHAT?!"