"Why does Cain have to chase after Ace so badly?"
Luffy frowned, clearly unable to understand why Cain had acted so forcefully just now.
And it was not only him.
Everyone present was just as confused.
Uta did not know the reason either. All she knew was that, to Cain, this was a choice he absolutely could not afford to regret over it.
Remembering Cain's final request, no one tried to make things difficult for Uta anymore.
But even with Luffy standing at her side, she still felt strangely hollow inside, as if she did not quite belong in the atmosphere around her.
"Forget it. Let's not think about that for now, right now, we need to handle Vivi's situation first."
Luffy and the others could not simply stay where they were and wait for Cain to come back.
Helping Vivi calm the unrest in Alabasta was the urgent matter before them.
As everyone gathered together to discuss their next route, only Uta quietly turned around by herself.
She raised her head toward the sky, her gaze fixed on the distant sea of clouds.
…
"Don't come any closer!"
A shout wrapped in the howling wind exploded high in the sky. Flames burned all over Ace's body as he flew forward with everything he had.
"Then stop running!"
Cain shouted back.
His body had already fully transformed into his human-dragon form, and his speed suddenly soared.
Like a dark shadow cutting through the air, he rapidly closed in on the figure ahead of him.
"Wait! We're going to crash—!"
"That's exactly what I want! I'm definitely dragging you back!"
"That's not what I mean! Listen to me—!"
Just as the two were about to collide, Cain's Observation Haki suddenly rang with warning.
Only then did he realize that Ace's shout just now had not been because of him at all.
There were other people high up in the sky.
BANG—!
A deafening collision rang out as the two groups slammed violently into each other.
Ace immediately took the chance to turn into a mass of flames and slip away, but Cain's hand, wrapped in Armament Haki, clamped around his wrist like iron.
No matter how Ace struggled, he could not break free.
"Nooo—!"
Along with a startled cry, the two people who had just been knocked off balance were dragged into the chaos as well.
In an instant, all four figures began plummeting rapidly toward the ground.
"What the hell is going on?"
Cain looked down, and only then did he clearly see the two familiar figures.
One was Baby-5, dressed in a maid outfit and carrying the power of the Arms-Arms Fruit, which allowed her to turn any part of her body into a weapon.
The other was Buffalo, a sturdy man with a strange propeller-like hairstyle, who flew through the sky using the power of the Spin-Spin Fruit.
Both of them were subordinates of the Warlord, Donquixote Doflamingo.
Cain had no idea why the two of them had appeared here, but now was clearly not the time to dig into it.
He quickly created a small patch of flame clouds, only to realize that they were floating upward too slowly.
Or rather, it was not that the flame clouds were rising.
They were simply descending far too slowly to catch a group falling at such a terrifying speed.
In his current human-dragon form, Cain could not create a large amount of flame clouds in such a short time.
But fully transforming into the Azure Dragon right now was also impossible.
On top of that, he was diving headfirst and had no time to adjust his posture.
All he could do was grip Ace's wrist tightly while his own body swayed uncontrollably from side to side.
"Hey, Cain, stop moving around!"
Ace, who had already figured out the situation, quickly shouted.
But it was too late.
Buffalo had just corrected his posture and stretched out a hand to grab Baby-5, finally managing to stabilize his flight, when Cain—still swinging wildly above him—slammed into him again.
Their falling speed intensified at once, and the four of them shot straight toward the ground.
At the very bottom, Baby-5 had only just opened her eyes when she saw the ground rushing closer beneath her.
She struggled to twist her body in midair, then looked up and saw three grown men crammed together, crashing down toward her.
There was not the slightest trace of fear on her face.
In the blink of an eye, she transformed her entire body into a gigantic human-shaped missile, trying to use her own weight and form to stabilize their falling trajectory.
Buffalo, who was squeezed in the middle, saw Baby-5 charging toward him and nearly lost his soul from fright.
He hurriedly shouted, "Wait! It'll explode!"
Before he could even finish, the terrifying weight of three men falling at high speed perfectly triggered the impact fuse of the human-shaped missile.
At the critical moment, Cain forcibly adjusted his position and placed himself beneath Buffalo, while Ace was squeezed between the two of them.
Cain used the dragon scales covering his entire body in his human-dragon form to withstand the shockwave of the explosion by force.
Baby-5, who had been blown apart and reassembled herself, was also caught firmly by Buffalo in that instant.
When Buffalo saw the endless desert below them, his expression changed completely, and he roared at everyone, "Brace yourselves! We're hitting the ground—!"
BOOM!
A tremendous crash shook heaven and earth.
A huge pit was smashed into the flat desert, and the sand at the bottom of the crater melted under the heat before condensing into sheets of scorching glass crystals.
Cain lay at the very bottom, having forcibly endured most of the impact.
Ace was in an even more miserable state.
He had been caught between Cain and the bulky Buffalo, squeezed so hard that he was forced to turn elemental.
Although Cain was still holding his arm with Armament Haki, Ace could still use his Devil Fruit ability.
That was the only reason he had not been crushed into a serious injury between the two of them.
"What on earth is going on here?"
Baby-5 climbed off Buffalo and patted the dust from the skirt of her maid uniform.
After seeing that no one was seriously hurt, she glared angrily at Ace and Cain.
"I mean, what are you two even doing, flying around randomly in the sky?! You nearly dragged us down with you!"
Buffalo also hurriedly got up, shaking his head to fling off the sand covering it.
He reached out and pulled Cain and Ace out of the sand pile, then patted the dirt from his body and chimed in with his muffled voice.
"Exactly! We were traveling through the sky perfectly fine, and then you two came out of nowhere and knocked us down. Talk about rotten luck!"
"Ah, I'm very sorry. Please forgive me and my brother recklessness."
Ace quickly stood up, turned around to pick up his luggage, then bowed to the two of them in apology.
But when he lifted his eyes, he happened to meet Buffalo's gaze.
The iconic Whitebeard skull flag tattoo on Ace's back was particularly eye-catching.
At the same time, the Donquixote Pirates' emblem carved into Buffalo's large front teeth was just as glaring.
The two sides locked eyes, and caution appeared in both their gazes at almost the same moment.
Although they were all pirates, one side belonged to a force recognized by the World Government, while the other belonged to one of the Four Emperors.
Neither side could allow a strange accident like this to turn into an unnecessary conflict.
Only then did Cain slowly withdraw from his human-dragon form.
Even so, his hand was still clamped tightly around Ace's wrist, with no intention of letting go whatsoever.
He stood up and swept a heavy gaze over Baby-5 and Buffalo, his expression grave.
He knew very well that their master had an inseparable web of interests tying him to Kaido.
But when Baby-5 and Buffalo saw Cain's human form clearly, they seemed to recognize something, and their eyes lit up instantly.
Baby-5 reacted extremely quickly.
With a sharp swish, her arms transformed into two black twin guns, and the muzzles aimed straight at Cain.
Her voice turned shrill.
"You're a Marine, aren't you?!"
"Wait, Baby-5!"
Buffalo was startled and hurriedly reached out to stop her gun barrels.
"Let's figure out the situation first! Don't attack randomly!"
After all, if someone could be called "little brother" by a member of the Whitebeard Pirates, then he presumably had some connection to Whitebeard as well.
Buffalo had no choice but to be cautious.
"How could he be?!"
The moment Ace heard that, he immediately grew anxious.
Stiffening his neck, he argued back while fumbling around inside his clothes to pull out a wanted poster.
"He's not a Marine! Look, my little brother is a proper, honest-to-goodness pirate!"
Baby-5 and Buffalo lowered their heads to look at the wanted poster
After seeing Cain's portrait and the bounty printed clearly beneath it, the tension in their bodies finally eased.
The two exchanged a glance, hurriedly put away their weapons, and bowed repeatedly to Cain in apology.
"Sorry, sorry! We mistook you for someone else. We're really sorry!"
Cain raised an eyebrow and said nothing.
He only looked at Ace with a face full of gratified pride, clearly pleased that Ace had defended him so seriously!
As for the Marine thing…
Could it be that Dofflamingo had already investigated him?
Just as the tense atmosphere finally eased a little, Baby-5 suddenly seemed to remember something.
Her face changed, and she anxiously grabbed Buffalo's arm, shaking it nonstop.
"Hey, Buffalo! Where's our luggage? Where did our luggage go? Without the Log Pose, we can't get back at all!"