The Den Den Mushi was tucked back into his clothes and hidden beneath the rock-colored cloak.
The thin, long figure did not spare another glance at the giant beasts in the sky.
He quietly blended into the cracks between the reefs and vanished without a trace.
At the same time, along a ruined stretch of coastline outside the main G-18 Branch perimeter, two figures were walking across the beach, their steps sinking unevenly into the sand.
They had arrived through a private News Coo airship route and landed beyond the Marine cordon, where the surviving Marines were too busy treating wounded and sealing Jack's remains to notice every gap along the coast.
On the left was a tall man with a bird's head.
He was none other than the president of the World Economy News Paper, "Big News" Morgans.
His pink suit and top hat looked completely out of place amid this battlefield-like ruin.
Every step he took made his pointed leather shoes sink into the wet sand, and he let out an irritated squawk.
"I say, Peclo, are you sure your source is reliable?" Morgans flicked sand off his pant leg with the tip of his wing. "Jack the Drought, one of the Beasts Pirates' All-Stars, killed by a Marine rising star? If news like that turns out to be fake, my paper will become the laughingstock of the entire world."
The man beside him was the complete opposite.
Drug Peclo, known as the Major Undertaker, was a famous corpse-disposal expert in the underworld.
He wore a perfectly buttoned black long coat, and the shadow of his wide-brimmed hat covered most of his face, revealing only a pale, thin chin.
He walked with perfect stability, each step precise, completely ignoring the messy beach beneath his feet.
"Whether the news is true or false is your concern, President Morgans," Peclo said in a hoarse, low voice. "I'm only interested in the material itself. Material worth one billion berries is worth a personal trip, even if it's only a rumor."
"Material? What a polite way to put it." Morgans curled his sharp beak. "If it's true, what are you planning to do with it? Turn him into a mammoth specimen and place him in that gloomy collection room of yours as the centerpiece?"
"A complete corpse of an Ancient Zoan ability user, and a commander under an Emperor at that. Its research value and black-market value..." Peclo ignored the mockery and continued analyzing to himself, his voice cold. "...are immeasurable. More importantly, it would make a perfect advertisement."
Morgans, of course, understood exactly what he meant by advertisement.
If even a client on Jack the Drought's level could be handled cleanly by the Major Undertaker, then whose funeral arrangements would he not dare to accept?
The two continued talking while warily surveying their surroundings.
The remains of the branch were still smoking.
The thick smell of blood in the air was almost impossible to disperse, silently telling of the brutality of the battle that had taken place not long ago.
Because of that, the rumor had become a little more believable.
Just then, the Den Den Mushi in Morgans's suit pocket suddenly rang.
Purupurupuru...
Morgans pulled out the Den Den Mushi with some impatience.
It was his private intelligence line.
"Talk!"
The Den Den Mushi imitated the terrified expression of the informant on the other end and spoke rapidly in a strained, sharp voice.
"President! Leave now! Kaido of the Beasts and King the Wildfire just passed through the outer Wano route! Judging by their direction... they're headed straight for G-18!"
The feathers on Morgans's face instantly fluffed up, and his shrewd eyes widened into circles.
Kaido... came personally?
That thought froze his entire bird body in place.
If the rumor were false, an existence on Kaido's level would never personally move for such a small matter.
So... the rumor was true?
Jack really was dead?
Almost at the same time, a suffocating pressure swept over from the sea behind them.
The sky darkened without warning.
Morgans and Peclo's feet seemed nailed to the beach. Mechanically, inch by inch, they turned around.
Far out on the horizon, a massive shadow was approaching at terrifying speed.
It was a man as burly as a mountain. Merely standing there made the sky itself seem lower.
Boom—!
With a thunderous crash, the man landed on a jagged reef shelf rising from the water not far in front of them, raising waves more than ten meters high that slammed toward the two of them.
Morgans and Peclo were knocked over miserably by the wave, drenched from head to toe.
When they coughed up seawater and lifted their heads, that man was already standing before them on the broken reef.
Kaido of the Beasts!
His golden eyes locked onto Peclo, as if he wanted to gouge the man's soul straight out of that thin body.
"Major Undertaker... Drug Peclo."
Kaido's voice was low, each word unbearably heavy.
"You hyena that comes sniffing after corpse-stench... are you here to get your hands on my subordinate's body?!"
"WOOOOOOAAAHHHH—!"
Before his words had fully fallen, Conqueror's Haki erupted.
Morgans felt his mind go blank, his legs weakening so badly that he nearly dropped to his knees.
Beside him, Peclo's face beneath the shadow of his hat had already lost every trace of blood, turning pale as paper.
They were facing the strongest creature in the world.
The strongest creature in the world who had just lost one of his own.
Just as Kaido raised his massive hand, ready to smash the two flies in front of him into meat paste, a black shadow wreathed in flame descended from the sky and landed steadily beside him.
"Kaido-san," King the Wildfire said, his voice calm as ever. "We have already confirmed the G-18 Branch. Jack's body is not there. According to the scouts, Gion ordered his remains sealed in a Sea Prism Stone-lined emergency transport hold and moved offshore before we arrived. The main Marine forces have pulled back from the outer coast to evacuate the wounded. Wasting time on them now will only give Zaraki more distance."
Kaido slowly lowered his hand, but the violent killing intent around him only grew heavier.
He turned toward the ruins of the G-18 Branch and roared savagely, "Can't find it? Then we'll attack Marine Headquarters! Tell them to hand over that brat called Zaraki! Otherwise, I'll sink Marineford into the sea today!"
The entire coast buzzed under his roar.
"If we go to Marine Headquarters now, we'll only give them time to hide him." King analyzed the situation calmly.
His masked face turned toward Morgans and Peclo, who were still trembling on the ground. "Our target is to intercept and kill him before he returns to Headquarters."
Kaido's gaze shifted as well, his eyes treating the two of them like usable tools.
King's emotionless voice entered Morgans and Peclo's ears clearly.
"The World Economy News Paper controls the fastest intelligence network in the world. And you, Major Undertaker—your business reaches every dark corner."
King took one step forward and looked down at them from above.
"Find him. Find the location of the Marine who killed Jack and give it to us."
Morgans and Peclo immediately understood.
They were in serious trouble now.
They had walked straight into the line of fire.
And this trouble now concerned whether they would survive the day.
Under Kaido's pressure, strong enough to collapse mountains and raise tsunamis, Morgans felt his bones groaning under the strain.
His entire body was almost being crushed into a puddle of meat.
Yet the Major Undertaker beside him could still move.
Peclo pressed one hand against the ground and forced himself upright with an unbelievably slow yet steady rhythm.
His movements were elegant, but the faint tremor in his fingers betrayed how much pressure he was enduring.
Click.
After standing upright, he flicked a grain of sand from the collar of his coat with his fingertip, the gesture controlled enough to look deliberate.
That gesture instantly pierced the frozen atmosphere.
Kaido's golden eyes narrowed slightly, and a cold scrutiny entered his eyes.
This bastard... still dared put on airs in this situation?
Peclo ignored the gaze that was enough to kill him ten thousand times over. He slightly lifted the face hidden beneath his hat brim, and his hoarse voice rang out without emotion.
"Kaido-sama, you have found the wrong person."
"I am merely a businessman who handles materials. I am not skilled at finding living people."
As he spoke, the face hidden in shadow turned almost imperceptibly toward Morgans, who was on the verge of collapsing beside him.
"But when it comes to intelligence, no one on this sea can compare to the president of the World Economy News Paper."
In an instant, every feather on Morgans's body stood on end.
That damned Peclo!
That corpse-eating bastard!
He was actually trying to dump this entire disaster onto Morgans's head!
Ten thousand curses flashed through Morgans's mind, but his survival instinct overpowered everything.
He could feel Kaido's mountain-like gaze shifting onto him, and the pressure nearly made him faint on the spot.
He knew that if even one word of his answer failed to satisfy the other party, then in the next second, he would become a blurry pink smear of flesh that would never make the front page.
He had to think of something.
He had to come up with a method Kaido could not refuse, while also pulling himself out of the fire.
In that flash of crisis, Morgans's brain began operating at unprecedented speed.
"N-No, that's not entirely true!"
He practically shrieked as he sprang up from the ground, wiping seawater and cold sweat from his face with his wings. Then he forced out a smile uglier than crying.
"Kaido-san! Please listen to me! Mr. Peclo's intelligence network runs deep through the underworld. In certain respects, it may even be better informed than mine!"
First, he dragged Peclo down with him without hesitation.
He had to make sure they were both on the same sinking ship.
"But!"
Morgans suddenly shifted the direction of his words, and a gleam flashed in his bird eyes.
"Simple intelligence is far too inefficient when it comes to locating the Marine monster who is deliberately hiding his tracks! The sea is too big. By the time we find him, he may already have returned to Marineford!"
Kaido did not speak, but his violent killing intent seemed to pause for an instant.
Behind his mask, King the Wildfire's gaze also fell on Morgans with a trace of inquiry.
There was a chance!
Morgans knew he had bet in the right direction.
He understood the way these pirates did things.
They wanted the fastest, most direct result.
"Our two intelligence networks can be shared, but to lock onto a target quickly and precisely, we still need a specialist." Morgans's voice trembled slightly, but he forced himself to finish. "I... I can borrow someone for you. Someone who is the greatest expert on this sea at finding people. A woman whose network is not built on newspapers, but on favors, debts, and shadows!"
The moment those words were spoken, the air seemed to solidify.
Kaido's massive body stilled slightly, and even the surging black clouds behind him, filled with Conqueror's Haki, seemed to pause for an instant.
For the first time, a clear fluctuation appeared in King's ever-still eyes.
Borrow someone?
They had considered threats, torture, and even crushing these two to death before thinking of another method, but they had not expected this.
The president of the World Economy News Paper wanted to borrow someone for the Beasts Pirates to hunt down a Marine special envoy?
It sounded absurd, like a joke.
But looking at the seriousness written all over Morgans's bird face, both Kaido and King fell silent.
The killing intent that had nearly crushed the entire coast slowly receded, replaced by something deeper and more dangerous.
Morgans's heart pounded wildly in his chest.
He did not know whether this mad proposal would bring survival or destruction.
All he knew was that, for now, he had survived.
Temporarily.