A bizarre silence settled over the sea, blanketed in thick fog. Even Don Krieg, who only moments ago had been raging as if he would swallow the restaurant whole with his shouts, had gone pale and stiff.
Only the soft lapping of waves remained.
And the creak of oars from a small boat cut through the stillness. A blue will-o’-the-wisp burned atop its cross-shaped mast. A lone man in a black coat sat with his legs crossed aboard the tiny boat fashioned after a coffin. A massive, cross-shaped black blade was strapped to his back. Beneath the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat, his two eyes gleamed like those of a bird of prey watching for its quarry’s throat.
"Hawk Eyes" Dracule Mihawk.
The world’s strongest swordsman, and a government-sanctioned great pirate—one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea.
"H-heek...!"
Don Krieg, collapsed on the floor, trembled all over as he scrambled backward.
"You...! What the hell did we ever do to you for you to chase us all the way out to these distant seas?!"
At the defeated man’s desperate shriek, Mihawk rested his chin on his hand and answered with utter indifference.
"...To pass the time."
"P-pass the tiiime?!"
Foam gathered at Don Krieg’s mouth, but Mihawk no longer spared him so much as a glance.
The man’s cold gaze calmly swept across the wreckage of the enormous ship sinking into the sea.
"It seems someone had already hunted my prey."
Mihawk’s words were brief and low.
"That was a blade unbefitting East Blue."
His voice was stripped of all excess, yet the weight behind it scraped a chill down my spine. Leaning at an angle against one of the restaurant’s pillars, I chewed absently on my unlit cigar.
The presence pouring from that man’s blade was on an altogether different level, even compared to most of the monsters on the Grand Line or high-ranking Marine officers. There was no reason to make eye contact with a human butcher like that and get dragged into something troublesome.
The best course was simply to let him pass in peace. But these seas were crawling with lunatics who had erased any semblance of common sense from their brains.
Clang!
A sharp metallic ring shattered the silence. A green-haired man kicked off Baratie’s railing.
With a white-hilted sword clenched between his teeth and blades drawn in both hands, Zoro strode across the broken wreckage.
"I set out to sea to meet you."
Zoro pointed the tips of his three swords at Mihawk and growled low.
"I came to claim the title of the world’s strongest, Hawk Eyes!!"
Seeing Zoro’s Three-Sword Style, Mihawk let out a quiet sigh.
"A frog in a well."
Then, instead of the massive black blade on his back, he drew the finger-length cross-shaped dagger hanging from his necklace.
A duel begun with a toy knife. Its outcome was brutal.
Zoro’s fierce sword dance, powerful enough to split boulders, was blocked in its entirety by Mihawk’s tiny blade as if it were child’s play.
Even when Mihawk’s little knife pierced Zoro’s chest, Zoro did not take a single step back.
"Why do you not retreat?"
"Because if I take even one step back here... it feels like every vow I’ve made until now will shatter!"
"That is called defeat."
"Then that’s all the more reason I can’t retreat!"
Mihawk smiled faintly when he saw the resolve in the man’s eyes.
He sheathed the dagger and drew the black blade, [Yoru], from his back.
"As a swordsman, I shall pay you my respect."
Three-Sword Style Secret Technique, [Three Thousand Worlds].
An instant of crossing blades.
Kabwaaang!!
Two of Zoro’s swords shattered in midair.
Leaving his broken blades behind, Zoro slowly turned around and spread both arms wide. He faced Mihawk with his chest exposed.
"A wound on the back... is a swordsman’s shame."
"Splendid."
Shraaaak!!
The enormous black blade carved deeply and diagonally across Zoro’s chest.
As a spray of blood shot into the air, Zoro crumpled into the sea, and Luffy’s anguished scream tore through the sky.
But Mihawk did not end the man’s life. Etching Zoro’s name into his heart, he left him with the words that he would wait at the summit.
Hauled from the sea, Zoro raised his bloodstained sword high into the sky and roared.
"I’ll never lose again—!! Got a problem with that, King of the Pirates—?!"
"Hehe... Nope—!!"
Luffy laughed through his tears, while Zoro stood drenched in blood.
Everyone in the restaurant was spellbound by that breathtaking romance.
I lightly tapped my bottle of rum against the railing and clicked my tongue inwardly.
‘Idiots...’
In any case, the bloody show was over.
Mihawk slid the black blade onto his back and slowly turned toward his coffin boat.
His business was done, so it seemed that human butcher was finally clocking out.
Just as I breathed a sigh of relief and reached for my glass of rum at the counter—
Swish.
Mihawk, who had been about to step onto his boat, abruptly stopped.
Then the fierce golden eyes beneath his wide-brimmed hat—
turned in a straight line toward me, standing at Baratie’s railing.
"...Huh?"
Mihawk’s gaze settled on the old cutlass at my waist.
"That is the blade that cleaved that ship apart."
A short, plain statement.
Yet the instant his voice struck my ears, every hair on my body stood on end, and the back of my neck stiffened solid.
Mihawk did not draw his black blade.
Instead, he casually gripped the finger-length cross-shaped dagger he had used against Zoro moments earlier.
"...Take this."
The moment the words left his mouth,
Mihawk flicked his wrist through the air at a speed too fast to see.
Shwaaaak!!
A shrieking burst that swallowed even the roar of the impact.
From the tip of that tiny dagger came an emerald slash, cutting sharply through the surface of the sea as it surged toward me.
Pure sword energy, compressed with such ominous density that it was impossible to believe it had been fired from a toy knife.
‘...Fuck!’
There was no time to dodge.
Its trajectory was too fast and too sharp. If I twisted aside to evade it, one of my shoulders or arms would be sent flying clean off.
Ssssss—!!
I clenched my teeth and drew every ounce of concentration from the depths of my chest to my fingertips.
The heavy force flowing down my wrist swallowed the blade of my old cutlass without leaving a single gap.
Black hardening, squeezed out far beyond anything I had ever used to cut rock or logs.
Gripping the hilt with both hands, I swung my blade upward with all my strength at the emerald sword energy rushing straight at me.
Kwaaaaaang!!!!
"Ghhhk...?!”
The instant my blade collided with the slash,
an overwhelming mass—not a mere gust of wind, but as though an entire mountain of colossal iron had come crashing down—surged through my wrist, threatening to break every bone in my body.
Craaack!
The solid oak deck beneath my feet screamed and splintered apart.
Unable to withstand the impact, my feet tore through the deck as I was mercilessly shoved back three or four steps.
Wood splinters flew in every direction, and agony so sharp it felt as though my grip were being torn apart surged to the crown of my head.
‘That was from a toy knife... and it’s this strong?!’
A thick stream of cold sweat ran down my forehead and dripped from my chin.
Since coming to sea, I had never once felt such an overwhelming gap in power—a disparity cold enough to seep into my bones.
My arrogant calculations that I could put up a fair fight even against monsters on the level of Marine Vice Admirals were shattered to pieces by that man’s casual flick of his wrist.
"Haa... haa...!"
Gasping harshly, I poured every shred of attention into my blade’s tip.
At last, the emerald sword energy that I had forcibly twisted off course bounced off my blade and flew diagonally into the sky.
Kwaaaang!!
The slash soaring skyward split the clouds above Baratie and exploded into a towering waterspout over the distant sea.
Ssssss...
Silence descended through the thick smoke and wood dust.
Suppressing my trembling wrist, I barely readjusted my hold on the cutlass with fingers cramping into claws.
It felt as if every bit of strength had drained from my body, but outwardly, I gritted my teeth and forced a smile.
"...Ha. That’s rather a heavy tip, wouldn’t you say, Hawk Eyes?"
A bead of sweat running down my chin dropped into the rising smoke.
Beyond the smoke, Mihawk’s golden eyes, as he stood alone on his coffin boat—
quietly sank while he held the toy knife.
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