For several seconds after Zaraki finished speaking, no one moved.
The three CP0 agents stood at the edge of the reinforced assessment ground with the official visual Den Den Mushi trained upon them.
Dorry and Brogy remained aboard their longship at the outer anchorage, their enormous silhouettes rising above the repaired prow, while Marine officers and recording crews waited beyond the marked combat boundary.
Monkey's mask concealed his expression, but the pause before he answered revealed that the giants' condition had landed exactly where Zaraki intended.
"The demand concerning Oimo and Kashii has been entered into the official record," he said at last.
"It will be forwarded to the Five Elders with the final assessment. No agent present possesses the authority to promise their release."
Dorry's grip tightened around the hilt of his new sword.
"Then do not pretend we agreed to serve before they answer."
"We are here to determine whether you are even worth an answer," Monkey replied. "The political condition does not suspend the combat assessment."
Brogy rested the haft of his axe across one shoulder.
"Gababababa! That is what we came to prove. Tell us the rules."
The answer was direct enough to remove Monkey's easiest excuse for provoking a chaotic fight.
He turned toward the recording units and raised one hand.
"Preliminary combat assessment, first stage. The candidates will face the three designated examiners inside the reinforced ground. The purpose is to test close-range defense, reactions, Haki, and the ability to distinguish controlled combat from indiscriminate destruction."
His mask tilted toward the enormous mangrove roots surrounding Grove 1.
"Damage outside the marked area will count against both candidates. Attacks aimed at observers, ships, or recording equipment will result in immediate disqualification."
Zaraki gave a quiet laugh.
"You remembered to mention control after spending the last hour trying to start a brawl. Good for you."
Monkey ignored him.
A giant-sized gangway descended from the longship and settled against the reinforced shore with a deep wooden groan.
The assessment ground was not the ordinary coating dock where Zaraki had disembarked.
Beyond the outer berth, the Government had prepared a broad platform of stone, packed earth, and salvaged steel supports between two mangrove roots, large enough for giant movement without placing the harbor directly beneath their feet.
Dorry stepped onto it first.
The platform sank by several inches beneath his weight but held. Brogy followed with his new axe, and the old metal braces beneath the ground creaked without splitting.
Gion watched the two legendary captains enter the marked area.
Up close, the details left out of ancient bounty posters became impossible to ignore.
Their armor was repaired rather than ornamental, their restored arms showed no sign of weakness, and the weapons built during the journey had been shaped for war rather than display.
Pale Island Eater bone formed the cores beneath ironwood and salvaged metal, leaving both weapons rough but brutally practical.
CP0 had known their names.
What Saint Nusjuro's briefing had not explained was why two men isolated for a century looked ready to return to the sea at full strength.
Yamakaji stepped toward the Marine line.
"All personnel behind the second marker. Recording crews remain beneath the reinforced shelters. No one enters the combat ground unless the assessment is stopped."
The Marines obeyed quickly. Zaraki did not.
He walked to the edge of the first marker, took the flask one of his crew had handed him, and sat on a low section of reinforced stone as though he had come to watch an ordinary training match.
Gion looked at him.
"You are remaining that close?"
"They were told not to break anything outside the line."
"That does not mean they will succeed."
"If they miss, I'll move."
"You say that with far too much confidence."
Zaraki raised the flask.
"I've seen them swing before."
Inside the assessment ground, Monkey took the central position while Dog and Bear spread toward opposite sides.
Bear's cracked forearms had been wrapped beneath his sleeves after the earlier standoff, while Monkey still favored the finger Dorry had nearly bent during their first exchange of hostility.
Their injuries were not severe enough to prevent combat, but none of them entered the test fresh.
Dorry noticed.
"You were already hurt before the assessment began."
Monkey's voice sharpened.
"Concern yourself with your own condition."
"Gegyagyagyagya! I was only making certain you would not complain afterward."
Brogy's booming laugh followed.
"Gababababa! They will complain either way, Dorry. Little men with masks always do."
Monkey lowered his center of gravity.
"The first stage begins now."
All three agents vanished with Soru.
They did not move blindly.
Monkey drove toward Dorry's forward knee, while Dog accelerated across the opposite angle and Bear headed directly for Brogy's planted leg.
Their targets were obvious but sensible. Giants possessed enormous reach and strength; damaging a supporting joint was the fastest way to deprive them of both.
Dorry and Brogy did not attempt to follow every white blur with their eyes.
For a century, they had fought one opponent whose habits they knew better than their own.
During the three days on Little Garden and the voyage afterward, Zaraki and the Heart Pirates had attacked them from unfamiliar directions, swapped positions without warning, and forced them to stop relying on old rhythm.
They had not become faster than Soru. They had learned to notice where an attacker intended to arrive.
Dorry's Observation Haki caught Monkey's killing intent gathering near his knee.
He shifted his leg half a step.
Monkey's Shigan struck the reinforced edge of Dorry's greave instead of the joint.
The steel plate buckled inward, and the extended finger continued toward the skin beneath it—only to meet a concentrated patch of Armament Haki no larger than a shield.
Clang—!
The impact sent a vibration through Dorry's leg, but the finger did not pierce him.
Monkey twisted away before the giant could close a hand around him.
Dog appeared behind Dorry at the same instant and swept one leg through the air.
"Rankyaku!"
A pale vacuum blade cut toward the back of Dorry's ankle.
Dorry turned the broad side of his new sword downward.
Armament Haki darkened the section of the blade that met the attack, and the Rankyaku burst against it in a spray of sparks.
The ironwood reinforcement groaned but held.
On the other side of the platform, Bear used Tekkai to turn his entire body into a living projectile and drove both shoulders toward Brogy's knee.
Brogy did not coat half his body in Haki or stand still to prove he could endure the collision.
He rotated the haft of his axe, caught Bear across the chest with its broad wooden section, and redirected the attack into the ground.
Bear struck the stone hard enough to crack it.
Brogy lifted the axe again before the CP0 agent could recover.
Dog used Geppo to rise above Dorry's sword and changed targets in midair, diving toward Brogy's shoulder with another Rankyaku. Brogy sensed the attack and ducked.
The vacuum blade passed over his helmet and carved through one of the horn tips instead.
The broken fragment spun across the platform.
Brogy slowly looked at it.
The laughter left his face.
"That was new."
Dog kicked against the air and retreated.
Brogy's mouth spread into a dangerous grin.
"I liked that horn."
He planted one foot and swung the axe—not at Dog's body, but across the route his Observation Haki predicted the agent would use next.
Dog activated Soru the instant he landed.
He emerged directly in front of the axe's flat.
The impact folded him around the haft and launched him across the assessment ground.
He struck one of the padded steel barriers built into the boundary and dropped to the ground inside the marked area, conscious but unable to rise immediately.
Yamakaji's eyes narrowed.
"He did not outspeed Soru."
Gion followed the path with her hand still resting near Konpira.
"He read the landing point."
"After only a few days of unfamiliar training."
"No," Zaraki said from beside them. "After a century of learning how to read one opponent. We only reminded them that other people move differently."
Monkey heard the comment and attacked harder.
He ran up Dorry's lowered sword with Soru, crossed the distance to the giant's torso, and drove a hardened fist toward the gap beneath the armor.
Dorry's free hand came across.
Monkey changed direction with Geppo before the palm reached him, but the movement forced him toward the position Brogy had already chosen.
The Red Ogre stepped across the platform and used the end of his axe to block the escape route without striking.
Monkey was caught between the two giants.
He tried to drop beneath them.
Dorry turned his sword vertically and planted its broad face in the ground before him, closing that path.
Brogy lowered one hand from above, not fast enough to disappear from sight but large enough that Monkey had nowhere left to accelerate.
The CP0 agent crossed both arms and used Tekkai.
Dorry's palm struck him.
The impact was controlled. Instead of flattening the platform or sending Monkey through a mangrove, it drove him into the padded barrier beside Dog.
Steel supports bent, dust rolled across the marked ground, and Monkey remained embedded there with both arms numb beneath his torn sleeves.
Bear roared and tore himself from the crater Brogy had made.
He charged the Red Ogre with Armament Haki covering both fists, choosing direct power now that coordinated speed had failed.
Brogy met him with the flat of his axe.
The first strike knocked Bear sideways.
The second caught him before he could use Soru and sent him skidding across the stone until he stopped beside the other agents.
The entire first stage lasted less than a minute.
Dorry lifted his sword from the ground and rested it against his shoulder.
"Is that enough?"
Monkey forced himself out of the bent barrier. His mask had cracked near the jaw, and his breathing came heavily through it.
"The first stage is complete."
Brogy looked toward the recording Den Den Mushi.
"Did we pass?"
"The examiners determine the result after all stages."
"That means yes," Zaraki said.
Monkey's head snapped toward him.
"It means the assessment continues."
At the far edge of the secured harbor, armored shutters began opening along the side of a gray Government transport ship that had remained silent since morning.
The vessel had been moored beyond the Marine observation line before Zaraki arrived, its cargo compartments sealed beneath Cipher Pol authority.
Mechanical footsteps sounded from within.
Gion's expression tightened.
"You brought SSG weapons to an evaluation involving giant pirates."
Monkey steadied himself and looked toward the opening compartment.
"The second stage was approved before the candidates reached Sabaody."
Eight enormous figures marched into the light.
They shared Bartholomew Kuma's broad frame and bear-like features, but none carried a Bible or displayed the subtle signs of an independent mind.
Identification numbers had been stamped across their chests from PX-01 to PX-08, and red lenses glowed behind their expressionless eyes.
They were a limited Pacifista test batch rather than a full production army, each one delivered to CP0 under strict SSG security.
Brogy looked from the machines to Dorry.
"They all have the same face."
Dorry nodded solemnly.
"That seems inconvenient."
Law's voice crackled faintly through the relay snail hidden inside Zaraki's coat.
"Those are prototypes. Their internal systems are active, and every one of them has an energy source modeled around the Government's laser research."
Zaraki tilted his head toward the snail.
"You sound interested."
"I am interested in why eight experimental weapons were brought to a supposedly routine assessment."
Monkey heard only Zaraki's side of the conversation.
"The Pacifistas will test large-target response, sustained defense, and the candidates' ability to adapt to coordinated ranged attacks."
Zaraki looked toward the transport ship, then back at Monkey.
"You lost the first round and brought out machines to improve your mood."
"The machines were always part of the assessment."
"Then try not to break them by getting angry."
Monkey said nothing.
The red lenses of all eight Pacifistas brightened together.
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