The cat was deeply dissatisfied with Dog-Eyes' work ethic.
She tugged Mihawk's beard—a gesture only possible when he was seated and she could actually reach it. "Didn't you say you'd go after the Four Emperors?"
We're already halfway done and you've come back already?
After dispatching the fool who'd laughed at him and having his look at the straw-hatted boy who'd cost Shanks an arm, Mihawk had nothing left to do and naturally sailed back to the island with Ymi. It took several more days.
Mihawk swirled a glass of red wine and read the newspaper at his own pace. "I never said anything of the sort. If you want to fight the Four Emperors, get stronger on your own. There's no rush—wait until you've grown up."
Ymi pouted. "The Four Emperors are so weak. By the time I grow up, they'll all be dead."
"...Your pouting isn't going to change anything." Hawk-Eyes looked up and actually considered it.
She had a point. Whitebeard's health was already declining. Charlotte Linlin was nearly seventy, Kaido nearly sixty. The former seemed to enjoy continuously producing children. For the little one to grow into someone who could hold her own—ten years at minimum. To truly master Haki and develop into a true powerhouse like himself, probably another ten on top of that...
By then, a grown-up Ymi would probably be kicking away their walking canes.
"Dog-Eyes." Ymi reached for Mihawk's wine.
Mihawk moved it out of reach and found the section of the newspaper he'd been looking for.
"Shocking: World's Greatest Swordsman Dracule Mihawk Has a Daughter Old Enough to Run Errands. Why the Silence All This Time? What Woman Could Have Won His Affections? Based on Appearance, Hawk-Eyes' Daughter Has Perfectly Inherited His Black Hair Gene..."
Mihawk glanced down at the small wisp of black hair at Ymi's forehead.
Better-written than he'd expected. He'd thought Morgans would be worse.
The man did have a flair for sensationalism—directly hyping up rookie pirates in print to generate buzz, for instance—but he at least required some evidence before putting pen to paper.
That said, this photo had been taken before they'd set out to sea. Perhaps because it wasn't particularly explosive news, they'd held it until this week. More than that, Mihawk was thinking about what the News Coo at the sea restaurant had done with the photos it'd taken—there hadn't been any major story breaking at the time.
The cat stretched up on her toes and grabbed the Log Pose off the table. "Then I'll head out on my own. Take your ship."
These past weeks had given her full confidence in her nautical knowledge.
Mihawk didn't look up. "You have no food, no money, and the shoes on your feet were bought by me."
"Mm..."
The beginner's combat gear had come with clothes but no shoes.
Mihawk pressed his crossed hands to his forehead for a moment, then looked again at the close-up of Ymi's face in the paper, and the article claiming she was his daughter.
She was young—very young—but with that Devil Fruit ability alone, the number of people in the world who could actually hurt her was probably countable on one hand. And then there was this piece of gossip...
He watched the small girl who had already made up her mind and was heading for the door.
Mihawk tossed a coin purse in her direction. "There's a spare boat in the storage downstairs. If you can move it, it's yours."
After the cat left, time passed—how much was hard to say—on Kuraigana Island.
Considerably quieter. What to do with himself now?
Mihawk leaned against the railing of the castle balcony, swirling his wine in silence, staring out at nothing in particular. He remained that way until the next News Coo fluttered over, offering to sell him a paper.
He examined the bird carefully first—not the same one that had photographed them—then paid for it.
In the last issue, they'd occupied a small corner. In this one, the photo of himself and Ymi standing together was the front page.
Mihawk looked at it for a long time. The wine in his hand kept swirling and never reached his lips.
"This is going to be a problem..."
Morgans truly had no professional ethics whatsoever.
Headline: Hawk-Eyes Takes Long-Hidden Daughter to Sea—Purpose Unknown. A Reporter Risked Their Life to Eavesdrop on Their Conversation and Overheard Words to the Effect of "Finding the Four Emperors."
As the Seven Warlords of the Sea serve as a third force to balance the power of the Four Emperors, Mihawk's position within the Warlords merits examination—why has he suddenly brought his daughter along this time? Could it be that his daughter expressed a desire to find her mother, prompting him to reconsider his alignment? As the World's Strongest Swordsman, Mihawk would hardly have settled for an ordinary woman. Based on the child's facial features, there is also significant white hair present in her gene pool—naturally white hair being an exceptionally rare trait worldwide. And yet, one particular Emperor's daughter shares the same snow-white locks. Coincidence? This outlet will continue to follow developments...
Morgans.
Both the dark powers and the light powers generally didn't mess with the news organization. But this bird, in pursuit of a big story, was willing to make enemies of everyone. He was stubborn to the point of refusing to let anyone—including the World Government—arbitrarily alter the facts his paper reported. That said, he had a habit of taking those facts and inflating them considerably on his own.
This time he'd gone straight to implying Mihawk had ties to the Four Emperors.
Well. They had, in fact, used the words "Four Emperors" at the time.
Predictably, the Navy called him shortly after. The matter wasn't hard to explain in principle—but the most important thing about news wasn't the truth, it was how the public read it, and...
"Slander! This is slander!"
Big Mom Pirates. Charlotte Smoothie—the least conspicuous of the Four Sweet Commanders, the fourteenth daughter—tore the newspaper to shreds, staring at her mother in horror. "Mama, this is absolute nonsense. I don't know this Dracule Mihawk at all."
She was going to skin that bird Morgans at the next Tea Party.
"Mama mama mama..." One of the Four Emperors, Charlotte Linlin, let out her distinctive laugh. "This is good news, Smoothie."
"Mama, it's fake—" Before she could finish, Smoothie found herself pinned by the full pressure of her mother's gaze.
"I don't care whether it's real or not, Smoothie."
While Charlotte Linlin was beside herself with delight, the atmosphere at Onigashima was something else entirely.
Kaido of the Beasts, the self-styled Strongest Creature on Earth, was drinking alone in a foul mood. His relationship with alcohol was notoriously difficult—not loud or violent when drunk, but prone to spiraling into despair at bad news and making impulsive attempts on his own life.
Naturally, being the Strongest Creature on Earth, he couldn't die even if he dropped from ten thousand meters up without Haki to cushion the fall.
"What are you looking at?" The young woman chained before him asked, her tone unfriendly.
This was Kaido's "son" Yamato—in truth, his daughter, but because he'd wanted a son, and because Yamato wanted it too, everyone simply treated her as such regardless of her actual appearance, and addressed her as "young master."
Because Kaido kept her locked up—restricted from even appearing on the main stage for certain activities—whether the press even knew Yamato existed was a separate question. But whether they knew or not, it didn't stop a drunk Kaido from letting his imagination wander.
He looked at the newspaper. Then he looked at his "son."
Yamato had white hair that faded into blue.
He looked at the little girl in the photo, who had a pair of animal ears. Then back at Yamato, whose Devil Fruit was the Dog-Dog Fruit, Mythical Type, Model Okuchi-no-Makami—ears that, in fairness, didn't really match.
But the article was saying the child was Hawk-Eyes' daughter by some Emperor's daughter.
Kaido looked at the paper again. Kaido looked at Yamato again.
No matter how many times he called her his son, that didn't change the biological facts.
"..."
Kaido thud—slammed the gourd of sake on the floor, then slapped the newspaper onto Yamato's face.
His head was not in a clear place.