Golden Lion showed no surprise when Cain tore his way out of the Seastone net.
It only contained a relatively small amount of Seastone in the first place, so Shiki had never expected it to hold the brat for long.
He didn't waste any words. With a downward sweep of one hand, he brought Hachinosu's violent motion to an abrupt stop, then kicked off through the air and turned into a golden blur as he slashed straight at Cain.
Cain calmly slipped past the blade and dodged several more flying slashes that tore through the air, but his mind was already somewhere else.
He absolutely had to forge Shiki those swords.
Cain had personally promised Shanks he would do it. There was no way he could keep putting it off forever without giving the old man some kind of explanation.
The problem was—
where was he supposed to forge them?
Vegapunk's place was out of the question.
Using Egghead's equipment would certainly speed things up, but Kizaru could wake at any moment, Kuma was still under observation after surgery, and Cain couldn't exactly linger on the island indefinitely.
The last time he had managed to forge anything decent, he had relied heavily on the old workshop Shimotsuki Kozaburo left behind.
But he couldn't keep running back to Shimotsuki Village every time he needed a forge.
The nearest practical option now was Wano.
Unfortunately, on the way to Hachinosu, he and Uta had already discussed making Elbaf their next stop. They wanted to visit the land of giants together, and Cain still had that old promise to fulfill—
beating Shanks up.
He also wanted to take a look at Loki.
When Cain first arrived in this world, the information he knew about the future happened to stop immediately before Loki ate his Devil Fruit.
Because of that, Cain had never known what ability Loki eventually acquired.
Later, however, he happened to meet Shanks and his crew on an island in North Blue.
When they watched Cain transform into a colossal dragon whose body dwarfed the island itself, every one of them had been stunned. Someone even let slip that, aside from Loki, they had never seen anything remotely that enormous.
Cain immediately seized on their reaction and coaxed the truth out of them.
That was how he finally learned Loki's Devil Fruit ability—
the Dragon-Dragon Fruit, Mythical Zoan, Model: Nidhogg.
From that day onward, the desire to challenge Loki had taken firm root in Cain's mind.
As Kaido once said—
this world didn't need two dragons.
Even if the two creatures were fundamentally different, with Cain transforming into an Eastern loong while Loki embodied a Western dragon, the question of which kind of dragon was superior had inspired arguments for who knew how long.
Sooner or later, the two of them were destined to settle it themselves.
Cain rarely cared this much about the outcome of a single battle. Even more rarely did he actively seek someone out just to challenge them.
This competitive urge was almost a first for him.
Maybe it was something buried in his bones.
Or perhaps something even deeper, etched into his soul.
And now—
every one of his plans had collided at once.
It looked like Elbaf would have to wait.
Wano came first.
After all, nobody knew when the tension between Yamato and Kaido would finally ignite.
Yamato had repeatedly told Cain not to come, insisting she didn't want to drag him into her problems, but Cain still carried the name of the Beasts Pirates himself. If things genuinely reached the point where she needed help, he wanted to be there.
Besides, if Cain was being completely truthful—
compared with Elbaf's battles and all that wild Viking atmosphere, he was much more interested in seeing Uta wearing a yukata while the two of them wandered through a summer festival together.
He could already picture it.
Uta timidly hiding behind him during a nighttime courage test, pressing close as they walked while eating taiyaki and candied apples.
Once the mood was right, they could slip into a quiet grove and kiss until they forgot where they were.
Then they could soak together in a sulfur-scented hot spring before going back to a tatami room and thoroughly exhausting themselves.
Later, they could watch a fireworks festival together, and at the exact moment the sky exploded with color, Cain could confess his feelings—
even though he had already done that.
That kind of youthful summer romance, the sort of thing he had only ever watched through a screen in his previous life…
he wanted to experience it for himself this time.
BAM!!
"Ow."
A heavy fist smashed straight into his forehead.
Golden Lion's enraged roar followed immediately afterward.
"You've got the nerve to daydream in the middle of a fight?! Pay attention, you bastard!"
Shiki's face twisted with fury.
"Are you seriously looking down on me that much?! This half-assed attitude of yours is even more irritating than Roger and Garp used to be!"
"Sorry, sorry. I never really intended to fight you in the first place."
Cain casually answered by throwing one of Garp's trademark Fist Bone punches directly into Shiki's head and knocking him backward.
Naturally, Cain held back.
At present, Golden Lion and Blackbeard were keeping each other in check. Both factions had gathered large numbers of pirates around themselves, and their constant hostility actually prevented either side from casually roaming the New World and causing trouble elsewhere.
If Golden Lion disappeared, the current chaos in the New World would probably double at minimum.
Cain could certainly sink the entire island if he wanted.
But just imagining the chain reaction afterward gave him a headache.
More importantly, he hadn't come here to fight Shiki in the first place.
He had only caused all this noise because he wanted to pick out a few strong pirates and collect their bounties.
Now that he remembered the gold mine, though—
digging for gold sounded much easier.
Cain moved the instant he made up his mind.
He vanished.
Golden Lion roared and chased after him.
Only after the two disappeared into the clouds did Pizarro finally use the Island-Island Fruit to stabilize Hachinosu and prepare to report what had happened to Blackbeard.
Then—
a pillar of scorching flame erupted straight through the underside of the island.
"AAAAH! MY ASS!!!"
The intense heat burned directly through Pizarro's senses.
The Island-Island Fruit allowed him to merge with the island itself, but any damage inflicted on Hachinosu was still transferred back to his real body.
The instant Cain transformed into his pink dragon form, he had fired a Bolo Breath directly into the island's underside.
The blast was powerful enough to erase an entire mountain.
And it struck Pizarro's merged body in exactly the wrong place.
The pain violently expelled him from the island.
Pizarro collapsed to his knees, breathing in ragged gasps while blood poured from his backside.
…
Below Hachinosu, Cain looked up at the enormous stream of molten gold his Bolo Breath had exposed.
There had to be several tons of it.
He immediately created Flame Clouds beneath the molten metal and lifted the entire mass.
Then he paused.
His stomach suddenly churned.
He had heard Pizarro's scream very clearly.
Which meant this gold had technically come from…
that particular part of the island.
Cain stared at it.
'So this is literally… ass gold.'
The more he thought about it, the worse it became.
Before he could torment himself any further, Golden Lion caught up.
"You little bastard!"
Shiki pointed furiously at the floating gold.
"So that's why you came screwing around on my island in the middle of the night! You were after my gold mine!"
"Hand it over!"
Cain looked completely baffled.
"I genuinely don't understand you people."
"Aren't pirates supposed to live by robbing and pillaging? Why do you even need this much gold?"
"If you want something, just go steal it."
Golden Lion exploded.
"You've been a pirate this long and learned absolutely nothing!"
"Pirates still conduct business!"
Shiki jabbed a finger at him.
"You think robbery and threats can solve every damn problem?!"
That actually made Cain pause.
"…Fair point."
He didn't need anywhere near this much gold anyway.
So Cain kept only a small portion for himself and casually threw the rest toward Shiki.
That immediately put Golden Lion in a difficult position.
His Float-Float Fruit required physical contact to affect an object.
But the gold Cain had just thrown at him was still molten.
Extremely molten.
For a moment, Shiki couldn't decide whether he should catch it or dodge.
And that single moment of hesitation was all Cain needed.
He accelerated away at full speed, heading directly toward Bella and Uta, who were waiting in the distance.
Once he had put enough space between them, Cain looked back and shouted,
"I'll make your swords later!"
"We're sticking to the original deadline—Sabaody Archipelago in a few months!"
"As for those two I already gave you…"
"You can keep them as freebies!"
"You bastard! Get back here—!"
Shiki suddenly screamed.
"HOT! HOT! HOT! HOT!!!"