Clap… clap…
Applause echoed across the blood-stained street.
"Well said!"
Jin turned his head. At the end of the road, a massive figure stood like a steel tower, broad shoulders blotting out the light.
"Most people who call themselves kind are either fools or hypocrites," the man's deep voice rolled like thunder. "Good intentions often bring worse disaster."
Wilson's pupils shrank to pinpricks. His breath caught in his throat.
No way… Impossible!
His lips trembled as he spoke the name.
"One of the Seven Warlords of the Sea… the Lizard King, Hanafuda!"
The crowd reeled.
A Shichibukai? Here? Without the slightest whisper reaching them?
But then again—if a Warlord wanted to slip in unseen, how could Wilson or any petty informant have known? If he were capable of sniffing that out, his bounty would not still linger at a mere twenty million.
Hanafuda.
The one who had once fallen to Fire Fist Ace.
A close comrade of Kaido of the Beasts. A collector of Ancient Zoan Devil Fruits. A man who had roamed the world for years, seeking power.
Jin's eyes narrowed.
He had suspected. Those small-time cutthroats earlier—pirates worth only twenty, thirty million—wouldn't have dared turn on him without a greater hand pulling the strings. And now the shadow behind them showed its face.
"Shichibukai…" Shuraiya Bascud's breath caught, his face frozen in disbelief. Around them, the guards, pirates, even bystanders broke into sweat.
The chasm between weaklings and titans yawned like the sea itself.
The Seven Warlords—dogs of the World Government they might be—but each one was a pirate of renown, a force equal to a nation, a calamity in flesh.
For ordinary men, they were stars in a night sky too high to reach.
The street fell silent. The shrewder folk began edging backward, instinct telling them not to linger between colliding giants.
Jin's gaze was level. "So it was you stirring them up? Trying to take my throne?"
Hanafuda grinned, teeth flashing white.
"I just happened to be nearby," he said lazily. "When I heard about Hannabal, I was intrigued. Wanted to see if you were worth anything."
"Worth?" Jin asked.
"Yes," Hanafuda said. "Worthy of being my subordinate."
For an instant, Jin blinked—then laughter burst from his chest, sharp and bright.
"You've got it backward. You'll serve me. I am a king. You? You're just another Warlord."
"Warlord, huh." Hanafuda spat the title like ash.
He had once been Kaido's shadow hand, gathering Zoan fruits for the Beast Emperor before Doflamingo had risen to prominence. His Shichibukai status was nothing more than a convenient cloak, a tool. Defeated by Ace, he had been erased before his time, paving the way for Doflamingo to rise.
But here—here he saw opportunity.
The chaos of Hannabal, its rise as a haven for pirates—it reeked of potential. A staging ground for information, for Devil Fruit trafficking, for talent to be fed into the maw of the Beasts.
King?
What was a king to him?
Kaido himself had a country beneath his fist. And Kaido's men never lacked for audacity.
Hanafuda thought, Control Jin, and I control the island. No need to sit on the throne myself.
Jin caught the glint in his eyes and smiled thinly. "That depends. Do you even have the strength?"
Hanafuda swung his weapon up—a bizarre crescent-bladed scythe attached by chain to a spiked iron ball. His voice dripped disdain. "Arrogant little brat."
Jin's gaze flicked around. "Not here. You don't want this city smashed to rubble after it was just built, do you?"
Hanafuda chuckled. "True enough. After all, it'll be my territory soon. Wasteful to break it."
Jin leapt onto a rooftop, bounding lightly across the tiles before stamping down with such force the air itself detonated beneath his feet, propelling him forward in a blur.
Boom!
Hanafuda's brows lifted. "Marine Rokushiki… Moonwalk?"
That was not in his intelligence reports. Jin's whereabouts had been classified tightly, known only to a handful like Dalton or Wilson. The fact he had trained with Garp was a secret worth fortunes.
Hanafuda's grin widened. "Interesting. Don't disappoint me."
Confidence draped him like a cloak. How could he not be confident?
This was Paradise, not the New World. Monsters did not roam freely here. In his eyes, the chance of being overthrown in the first half of the Grand Line was close to zero—unless, perhaps, a Marine Admiral dropped from the sky.
"Fight a Warlord? Is he insane?"
"He doesn't know what kind of gap that is!"
Whispers rippled through the town.
Shuraiya's fists clenched. Even Wilson's face was pale. He had seen Jin's strange strength, had even known of his training—but against a Warlord?
Only Maya's eyes glowed with certainty.
She had trained too, risen to the level of a Headquarters officer. And if she had grown… how much more had he, under the Iron Fist of the Marines?
Her faith was unshakable.
Wilson caught her look. He didn't understand the source of that confidence, but it lent him a sliver of calm.
"Seal the port!" he barked. "No ship leaves, no ship enters!"
This assassination attempt wasn't over yet.
…
The northwest coast of Hannabal lay bare against the sea winds, a river spilling into the ocean across tidal flats and jagged reefs. This was the very mouth where the Death Tournament had once ended.
The air was harsh, unfit for homes, a natural no man's land.
There, upon the dry stone, Jin landed. Hanafuda followed.
They faced each other across twenty meters.
Hanafuda's bulk loomed—over five meters tall, draped in a black coat with metal bands crossing his chest. On each hand gleamed mechanical gauntlets. In his grip was the monstrous weapon: a crescent scythe bound by chain to a massive, spiked ball.
Savage. Unnatural.
Such weapons often killed their own masters. But in the right hands, their ferocity was unmatched.
"Come," Hanafuda growled. "Show me where your confidence comes from, daring to challenge a Warlord of the Sea."
He spun the scythe, chain rattling, and with a sudden whip sent the blade shrieking forth.
Jin shifted lightly, body blurring past.
Boom!
Behind him, a centuries-old rock outcropping shattered into shards under the scythe's impact.
Hanafuda tugged the chain, the blade recoiling to his grip, then snapped it back in a vicious arc, slicing across the air like a farmer cutting wheat.
Jin dipped low, the steel singing over his head.
Hanafuda's grin widened. "Oi, oi. Is dodging all you can do?"
Jin rolled his shoulders, eyes gleaming. "Looking at you… I'm reminded of a hero."
Hanafuda blinked. "Hero?"
Jin's grin sharpened. "Thresh. The Chain Warden."
Then he vanished.
One breath he was ten meters away. The next, he was right before Hanafuda, fist driving forward like a cannonball.
Thud!
The blow sank into Hanafuda's gut.
"Urk—!"
His massive body folded like a shrimp, the impact hurling him backward. He crashed into the rocks with a roar, stone exploding in a hail of rubble.
Boom!
The ground shook. Dust billowed.
Hanafuda staggered upright, clutching his abdomen, eyes wide with shock.
Impossible.
He could hardly comprehend it.
Here, in the first half of the Grand Line—where no true monsters should exist—he had been struck, injured, by a man he had thought a mere toy.
"How… how could this be?"
- - -
T/N: Thresh is a character from League of Legends