The name hung in the air, heavy and sharp as a guillotine's blade: Dracule Mihawk.
Inside the Baratie, a stunned silence fell. The fighting cooks, who feared nothing, now looked at Gin with a mixture of disbelief and terror. Usopp had turned a deathly shade of pale.
But Zeff just nodded slowly, his expression grim. "Eyes like a hawk…" he muttered, stroking his braided mustache. "So that's the man he's become." The name alone was not a surprise, but the fact that this man had single-handedly destroyed an entire pirate armada… that was more than enough proof.
"Never heard of him," Luffy said.
"Some drunk who looked like him must have passed through here once," one of the chefs commented.
Zoro, however, was still frozen, his hand gripping the hilt of Wado Ichimonji so tightly his knuckles were white. The puzzled look on his face was now one of dawning, horrified clarity. "So that's it…" he whispered. He had been chasing a ghost, a legend. Johnny's information, which had placed his lifelong goal so tantalizingly close, in the weakest of the four seas, had been wrong.'Johnny probably got his stories mixed up while he was in his cups.'
"Did your crew have some kind of grudge against him?" Sanji asked Gin, trying to find a logical reason for such overwhelming destruction.
Gin just shook his head, still trembling. "No. Nothing. We did nothing to him. He just… hunted us. For sport, maybe. Or perhaps…"
"Maybe you disturbed his afternoon nap," Zeff finished, his voice laced with a grim, world-weary humor. Gin's head snapped up, enraged at the thought that his entire crew was annihilated for such a trivial reason.
"Don't get so upset, boy," Zeff said calmly. "Such things are common on the Grand Line. It's a sea where the impossibly powerful do as they please. Logic has no place there."
Zeff's words, meant as a terrifying warning, had the opposite effect on Luffy. His eyes lit up with a wild, adventurous fire.
"Awesome! A sea where you can meet guys that strong?! We have to go!"
Zoro, snapping out of his shock, nodded in agreement, his gaze now filled with a renewed, burning purpose. "My goal… is undoubtedly on the Grand Line."
Sanji stared at them as if they were insane. "Are you two idiots? You hear a story like that and your first instinct is to rush towards your own deaths?"
"Maybe," Zoro said, his one eye turning to fix on Sanji. His voice was quiet, but it carried an incredible weight. "But don't you dare call me an idiot for it."
He continued, his words directed not just at Sanji, but at the very concept of his own life. "The day I decided to become the World's Greatest Swordsman, I threw my own life away. I accepted death. The only one in this world who has the right to call me an idiot for chasing that dream… is me."
Luffy grinned, chiming in in perfect agreement. "Yup! Same here!"
Sanji was speechless. He looked at these two men, who spoke of death and dreams with such casual, absolute conviction. It stirred something deep inside him, a feeling he had long suppressed. Zeff, watching from the side, allowed a small, knowing smile to touch his lips.
The moment was broken by Patty, who came running back into the dining hall. "Hey! Quit philosophizing! Don Krieg's fleet is still parked right outside!"
On the deck of the wrecked Dreadnaught Sabre, the mood had shifted. The food from the Baratie had worked a miracle. The starving, wounded pirates were recovering, their strength returning. A wave of relief and joy washed over them.
"We're alive! We're really alive!"
"We made it back from that hell! We survived the Grand Line!"
Don Krieg, his own strength restored, stood over them, his golden armor gleaming. "That's right. You've survived. You've tasted the food of the East Blue."
He then raised his voice in a grand declaration. "And now that you have recovered, we will take that ship, seize that logbook… and return to the Grand Line!"
A horrified silence fell over the crew. Return? Return to that graveyard of ships and dreams?
One pirate, braver or perhaps more foolish than the rest, stood up. "Never, Captain!" he shouted. "I'd rather die here in the East Blue than go back to that monster's sea!"
BANG.
Krieg calmly lowered a smoking pistol. The dissenting pirate collapsed to the deck, a hole in his chest. Krieg looked out at the terrified faces of his remaining men.
"Any other objections?" he asked, his voice deceptively soft.
The crew immediately scrambled to their feet, raising their fists in a show of terrified loyalty. "WE WILL FOLLOW YOU, GREAT DON KRIEG!"
"Excellent," he sneered. "Now… ATTACK! Take that restaurant for me!"
The Krieg Pirates let out a battle cry and began to swarm towards the Baratie.
But their charge was cut short by a sound that defied all logic.
SWIIIIISH.
It was a sound like the world itself being torn in half.
A massive, clean, impossibly long slash appeared across the hull of the Dreadnaught Sabre. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, with a deep, groaning shriek of tortured metal and wood, the colossal galleon began to split apart, its two halves sliding slowly into the sea.
The men on board screamed in disbelief as the waves rocked the sinking wreck. Krieg himself stared, dumbfounded. "Who… who could cut a ship of this size?!"
Back on the Baratie, the Straw Hats watched in horror.
"The Merry!" Usopp screamed. "Our ship was right next to theirs!"
They all rushed to the side of the restaurant, peering into the churning water and wreckage, desperately searching for their beloved ship.
But the Going Merry was gone.
In its place, two familiar figures were floundering in the water, clinging to a piece of driftwood. It was Johnny and Yosaku.
"Luffy-aniki! Zoro-aniki!" they wailed, tears streaming down their faces.
They were pulled aboard, coughing up seawater.
"What happened?! Where's the Merry?!" Luffy demanded.
Johnny looked at him, his face a mask of shame and betrayal.
"She… she tricked us!" he sobbed. "Nami-aneki… she told us she was just moving the boats to a safer spot… but then she just… she took the Going Merry… and all the treasure… and just sailed away!"
The words hit Luffy like a physical blow. Betrayal. Nami, their navigator, had abandoned them.
But before anyone could even process this second, more personal disaster, Zeff's voice cut through the chaos, his tone filled with a dread that was even greater than before.
"Look…" he whispered, his eyes fixed on the open sea.
Drifting calmly through the wreckage, as if on a peaceful stroll, was a small, strange, coffin-shaped boat. Two green flames burned eerily at its bow. And sitting on it was a single man.
He wore ornate, black and red robes, a crucifix around his neck, and a wide-brimmed hat. A colossal, black sword was strapped to his back. As the boat drew closer, they could see his face. And his eyes.
They were golden, piercing, and held an ancient, predatory focus. They were the eyes of a hawk.
Dracule Mihawk, one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea and the World's Strongest Swordsman,