Buggy the Clown was a greedy, cowardly man—but that didn't mean he was nobody.
Weak? Sure. A 15 million Berry bounty, a figure that wouldn't count for much even in the early Grand Line, was no exaggeration. But strip all that away and one undeniable fact remained: he had once served as a cabin boy aboard Pirate King Gol D. Roger's ship, alongside the man who was now one of the Four Emperors—Red-Haired Shanks.
In other words, even if he'd mostly been carried along for the ride, Buggy had nearly traveled the entire length of the Grand Line. The cruel twist was that right when they were on the verge of reaching the final island and learning its secrets, he'd fallen terribly ill—and Shanks, refusing to abandon him, had stayed back too.
Because of his own penny-pinching habit, he'd accidentally swallowed a Devil Fruit that Shanks had unknowingly caused him to eat. He'd ended up with an ability he considered worthless and lost his ability to swim in the bargain. Buggy's hatred for Shanks ran deep—more precisely, there'd been a bitter falling out when they'd gone their separate ways after Roger's final voyage. But from Shanks' completely oblivious perspective, Buggy had always been something like a childhood friend.
So even just as a courtesy to Shanks, Mihawk wasn't about to let a little kitten beat the man to death. Partly for that reason, and partly because... nobody could quite explain it, but everyone gave Shanks a certain degree of respect. Mihawk was no different.
"We're leaving."
"Fank yoo fer yoor... kindness..." Buggy sent them off with a bruised, swollen face, eyes rolled back, words barely intelligible.
Sure, getting beaten up by a girl barely tall enough to reach a doorknob was humiliating. But reframe it: he'd only been defeated through underhanded means by the daughter of the World's Strongest Swordsman. That made the whole thing sound a lot better.
Mihawk picked up Ymi and slung her over his shoulder. Strangely, the little cat offered no resistance this time—not a hiss, not a swipe at the air.
Her eyes were fixed on the system panel.
Main Quest: Defeat Four Emperors (1/4) OR Three Admirals + Fleet Admiral (0/4). Choose one.
Yes. The Four Emperors counter had ticked up.
"...Mrow?"
Ymi had done her research through Dog-Eyes Mihawk. The Four Emperors were supposed to be Whitebeard, Red Hair, Big Mom, and Kaido of the Beasts.
Dangling from his shoulder, she counted on her fingers, tiny mouth falling open.
Someone's been impersonating an Emperor. That red-nosed guy IS one of the Four Emperors!
"Congratulations, Host. Achievement unlocked: [It's Common Sense That There Are Five Heavenly Kings]. Reward: Portal Ability +5%."
The cat reached up and tugged Mihawk's beard. "Dog-Eyes."
"..." Hawk-Eyes said nothing, setting her down on the small boat.
"Are the Four Emperors really that strong?"
"They're considered the four most powerful people in the world. Having second thoughts?" He stowed the food away, then produced a handful of strawberries and held them out to the cat.
The little one tilted her chin up with that signature look of disdain, clearly having thought of something peculiar again.
Mihawk pulled his hand back. "If you don't want them, just say so."
"I want them." Ymi grabbed at his sleeve.
While the two of them had the luxury of stopping to resupply, Don Krieg hadn't dared stop for a single moment. Or rather—his fleet had been sailing through a violent storm for days in a desperate flight for survival, without a scrap of food, and some of his men had already starved to death.
When they'd finally made it back to East Blue, they had tried begging local residents for food. But every man aboard, captain included, was so starved they barely had the strength to lift a gun and aim.
It wasn't that Mihawk had been pursuing them with particular ferocity. For these pirates—raw beginners by his estimation—the bizarre weather conditions on the far side of the Red Line were enough on their own to make them weep and curse the day they'd ever set out to sea. The flagship, which Mihawk hadn't even touched, had become a barely functional wreck in the span of a few days.
Not that anyone needed to feel sorry for these men. The reason Krieg had earned the title "East Blue Overlord" wasn't just the freakish strength that let him run roughshod over that weak little sea—it also had everything to do with his ruthless methods. The willingness to sacrifice his entire fleet without hesitation to shield the flagship's escape said it all. Among his other achievements: disguising his crew as Marines to kill people and steal their ships; using those stolen ships to attack towns and passenger vessels under the same false flag; waving a white flag to feign surrender, waiting until enemies lowered their guard, then opening fire at point-blank range.
Imagine it: a pirate crew infamous enough in East Blue that their name could silence a crying child, crawling toward civilians and begging for food because they were too weak to stand. Would anyone actually give it to them?
Apparently, yes.
Too ravenous to care whether the Hawk-Eyes who'd randomly carved up their fleet was still on their tail, they pulled up beside a floating restaurant at sea.
The owner and head chef were men who had known hunger themselves—and so, even faced with such dangerous, vicious pirates, they were willing to give them a proper meal.
Naturally, they got beaten up by their well-fed guests the moment the plates were cleared.
And since much of the fleet had been drifting without anyone fit enough to man the helm, Mihawk—sailing nothing but his small boat—had caught up to them easily enough.
"They've stopped." Ymi pointed ahead.
A thin mist had settled over the water, but it was no match for a cat's vision, sharpened through multiple upgrades.
"Mm."
Mihawk calmly moved Ymi off his seat and settled in.
Ymi looked confused.
He glanced at the burned-down green candle, then reached into the compartment below the seat and produced two fresh ones, handing them to Ymi along with a lighter. "Light them."
"?"
"Strawberries after."
Ymi crouched down and, imitating the way she'd watched Mihawk do it when they boarded, carefully lit the candles. She singed her finger in the process—but the instant the pain registered, she shunted it somewhere else. Specifically, to Admiral Akainu of the Navy Headquarters, possessor of the Mag-Mag Fruit, who had not felt anything of that nature in several decades.
Once the candles were lit, Mihawk drew his blade and, with a casual flick of his wrist, bisected Krieg's massive flagship—a ship dozens of meters long, split clean down the middle.
The people at the floating restaurant turned to look.
What they saw first were two deep, calm points of green light cutting through the mist. As the boat drew closer, the face of the man sitting cross-armed in the main seat gradually emerged from the shadows.
"Him?" A green-haired young man with three swords clenched his jaw, excitement crackling in his eyes, hand closing on a hilt.
"Who?" A scarred boy in a straw hat looked thoroughly confused.
"I've been looking for this man. Dracule Mihawk."
One of Krieg's crew, draped across the wreckage and barely conscious, let out a howl of despair. "What did we ever do to you?! You followed us all the way here!"
Mihawk certainly wasn't going to explain the real reason. "Just killing time."
But when his gaze settled on the people at the restaurant, his hidden eyebrow twitched—almost imperceptibly.
He'd sensed a large number of people here from the start. He'd assumed they were reinforcements the enemy had called in, since in his estimation everything within range was equally weak. But if they were bystanders, that was actually more troublesome. Petty as he was—petty enough to chase someone from the Calm Belt all the way to East Blue for laughing at him—he wasn't about to cut down civilians who had nothing to do with any of this.
Which created a problem. He'd just declared in front of everyone that he was only here to kill time. If he now made a beeline for the man who'd mocked him and cut him down in plain sight, wouldn't that be a rather obvious contradiction?
While he kept his expression perfectly still and his inner thoughts mildly tangled, someone jumped up and saved him the trouble.
The green-haired young man with three swords leapt aboard, an appreciative look on his face. "That's a soft sword."
Mihawk turned his gaze to him. "A sword that relies on strength alone has no real hardness."
"That sword's what cut that ship in half, isn't it... I came out to sea to find you." Roronoa Zoro fixed his eyes on Mihawk, battle-ready.
"What for?"
"To be the best." Zoro drew his blades. "You look like you have time. Come on."
The cat poked her head up. "He's not free at all, actually—he spent days chasing those guys, you know."
Mihawk gently pressed her back down.