Marco nodded, immediately channeling his Phoenix Flames to accelerate Hitetsu's cellular recovery. The diagnostic scan revealed a total of five distinct gunshot wounds puncturing the old man's frame. Moving with precise execution, Marco systematically sealed the punctures, initiating a rapid structural restoration.
"A unit of the Beast Pirates comprising approximately thirty-some combatants is currently charting a course toward our exact sector. Based on their velocity metrics, they will breach our perimeter in roughly thirty minutes," Bell noted calmly, keeping his eyes closed as his cognitive tracking finalized the readout.
Had anyone else voiced a claim about a thirty-minute tracking margin, the surrounding fighters would have written it off as absolute fiction. For an advance party to require a full half-hour to reach a coordinate, exactly how immense was the spatial interval separating them? Ten miles? Twenty miles?
Yet, not a single soul among the vanguard harbored even a fraction of a percent of doubt. Because the asset delivering the data was Bell.
Having witnessed the terrifying, near-omniscient reach of Bell's Observation Haki during their shared transit, they secretly suspected he had explicitly chosen to hold the report until the thirty-minute threshold manifested. Otherwise, delivering the intelligence too early carried its own strategic deficits; a thirty-minute window provided the optimal timeline to configure their defensive parameters.
"Let's secure a sheltered position first to let Hitetsu rest. Our primary deployment in this country initiates from this exact coordinate!" Ace said, shifting his weight to scoop Hitetsu's limp frame into his arms. He began stepping slowly toward the desolate, ghost-town expanse of Amigasa Village.
The structural grid of this environment had once been intimately logged within his memory tracks, but staring at the collapsed infrastructure, pulverized stone, and scorched timber everywhere, the landscape felt completely foreign. His brain simply couldn't map the bleak reality before his eyes onto the warm snapshots of the past. It felt as if these coordinates represented two entirely separate worlds.
Yet, as his heavy boots pressed further into the ruins, a few familiar structural landmarks began to manifest.
Before long, his tracking locked onto a hollowed-out tree infrastructure—or rather, a crude treehouse. Although the interior was heavily dilapidated, the surfaces were meticulously maintained and free of debris, indicating a live asset was actively occupying the domicile.
A sudden wave of realization processed in his mind: Tama and Hitetsu had likely been nesting within this exact treehouse, keeping a continuous watch on the horizon for the precise millisecond of his return.
As his thoughts drifted back across the years, Ace reflected on the timeline of their separation. He was well aware that every single rotation of the calendar had been nothing short of a waking nightmare for Tama and her guardian under the current regime. Yet, previously, his individual power metrics had lacked the systemic leverage to shatter their chains and rewrite the country's equations.
But today, his variables were re-calibrated!
Tama... what exact coordinates do you occupy right now?
"Captain Ace," Bell spoke up, a knowing smirk playing on his lips. "The specific asset your system is tracking... it maps to a young girl, correct?"
The prompt instantly drew the collective attention of the entire vanguard.
"Your predictive Haki... what exact snapshot did it capture?" Ace asked, his composure flickering with brief astonishment before he forcibly re-stabilized his pulse.
"Heh, rest easy. The data indicates that the young lady will be intersecting our coordinates within a highly limited timeframe," Bell grinned broadly.
The surrounding fighters exchanged a series of knowing glances, their lips curling into silent smiles. This absolute, near-instantaneous visualization of the distant future was the ultimate, arrogant privilege of a high-tier destiny calculator. He didn't even grant Ace the clearance to indulge in a moment of tragic reflection, choosing instead to deliver a blunt verification of their impending reunion.
"The advance party is entering the perimeter. Headcount: exactly thirty-two targets. Excluding the vanguard commander whose attributes are moderately respectable, the remaining assets are low-tier infantry. I calculate that my individual output is more than sufficient to purge this sector solo," Bell noted, casting a sharp glance out the treehouse framework as his lips curved into a dangerous arc.
"Negative. I shall handle the deployment personally," Ace countered, shaking his head firmly.
This time, his own hands would execute the cleansing flames destined to systematically dismantle Wano's dark, suffocating hell. The curtains of this grand campaign would rise on this exact encounter.
A few moments later, a detachment of Beast Pirates infantry, mounted atop reptilian, dinosaur-like lizard beasts, breached the perimeter of Amigasa Village.
Ace stepped out from the treehouse, his strides slow and deliberate as he walked straight toward their formation. Behind him, the Drake officers and Marco drew themselves up, tracking the event from the threshold of the treehouse with quiet focus.
"Have any of your units crossed paths with a young girl possessing purple hair?" Ace demanded, his voice flat.
"What basic trash dares block our path!? Are your cognitive loops blind to the fact that the Beast Pirates are executing an official imperial operation here? Clear the sector immediately or face execution!" the vanguard commander bellowed from the front of the line, his tone dripping with unearned arrogance.
Ace completely filtered out the acoustic disruption, his sharp gaze bypassing the speaker to lock onto a specific mount situated near the rear of their formation. Secured against the lizard's saddle was a thick, pitch-black textile sack that entirely obscured its contents from external vision.
Vrumm!
Incandescent flames erupted from his heels, providing an instantaneous surge of propulsion. Ace vanished from his coordinates in a flash, and within the span of a single heartbeat, the black textile sack had been cleanly extracted from the rider's grip, resting securely in Ace's hands.
This blinding display of raw execution velocity sent a massive shockwave of pure panic through the ranks of the Beast Pirates. Before their cognitive functions could process the spatial displacement, Ace calmly unfastened the throat of the sack.
A weak, trembling voice drifted out from the interior dark:
"Please... don't take me away... I swear my memory banks contain zero actionable data. This sector holds absolutely nothing of value to your empire..."
Curled into a tight, defensive mass inside the black fabric was a tiny frame. A small head slowly poked out from the opening, her big eyes blinking as she tentatively scanned the external parameters.
"Tama..." Ace murmured softly.
The exact microsecond that familiar cadence registered in her auditory processors, Tama's entire physical frame went completely rigid, her small brow twitching violently. She desperately wanted to focus her eyes to verify the visual data, yet a deep, instinctual terror kept her eyelids trembling, terrified that reality would reject her hope.
Ultimately, summoning every ounce of childhood courage, Tama forced her eyes wide open. The moment her vision locked onto those unmistakable freckles mapping across his face, the tears she had suppressed for years broke through her baseline containment, pooling in her eyes.
"A true kunoichi... must view tears as an absolute disgrace..." she whimpered, her tiny jaw tightening as she forcefully bit back her sobs, trying to swallow the moisture down through sheer force of will.
Ace gently gathered her into his embrace, a profound, heavy silence descending over his immediate perimeter. He understood with absolute mathematical certainty that the metric of suffering this child had endured over the last few years was astronomical. Verbal explanations were entirely redundant at this juncture; since he had successfully mapped back to her coordinates, he would ensure the parameters of their ancient vow were fulfilled down to the last decimal.
"Ace..." Tama choked out, her tiny arms locking around his neck with a vice-like hold. Pressing her lips into a tight line, she buried her face deep against his chest infrastructure, choosing to let all verbal communication cease as she clung to his warmth.
"Huh!?" The surrounding infantry of the Beast Pirates processed the interaction, their irritation spikes scaling rapidly.
"Hey! You brat, do your calculations omit who that asset belongs to? Return her to our custody this instant!"
"Oh? What exact value does she hold within your parameters?" Ace asked, his tone dropping to a chilling, detached pitch.
"Hmph! She is a high-priority target marked for immediate confinement by the Beast Pirates! Furthermore, where the hell is that old blacksmith bastard hiding? Command him to step out and surrender his coordinates! If you surrender the artifacts we require, our command might evaluate a scenario where we permit you to exit the sector alive. Though as for this little brat..." The commander paused, turning a crude grin toward his subordinates as he barked, "What do you guys calculate? Should we permit her a release vector?"
"Negative!" "Hahaha!" "This little brat is already shaping up to be quite the exquisite beauty, heh..."
As the crude, vulgar commentary from the surrounding infantry grew increasingly foul, Ace's features darkened into a mask of absolute, unadulterated venom.
His initial strategic blueprint had been to simply rough up these low-tier scouts and leave them with enough operational capacity to map back to their high command to deliver a warning. After all, within his macro-calculations, once Kaido's primary combat variables were permanently deleted from the grid, this entire dark, tortured nation would naturally witness its long-awaited dawn.
But these trash assets had chosen to violently disrupt his timeline, actively attempting to pluck hairs from a sleeping apex predator.
While Ace possessed an exceptionally gentle baseline demeanor, that coverage was strictly reserved for allies. An enraged Ace was an entity whose destructive output completely transcended the definition of a nightmare.
"Tama, close your eyes."
"Eh?" Though a wave of confusion rippled through her thoughts, Tama complied instantly with his directive, tightly sealing her eyelids.
The exact microsecond her vision cut to black, Ace initiated his deployment. Extending a single hand with his index and middle fingers compressed into a rigid blade, he unleashed a succession of high-intensity thermal laser lines that sliced through the gathering like a hot wire through butter, systematically segmenting their structures into neat blocks.
To shield Tama's psychological parameters from any sensory trauma, Ace scaled the localized thermal output to its absolute maximum threshold. The exact microsecond the cutting lines partitioned the targets, the extreme temperature instantaneously vaporized every single drop of biological fluid.
The physical plaza was left entirely devoid of a single smear of crimson; the only remaining evidence of the thirty-some infantrymen was a collection of neatly carbonized, unidentifiable charcoal blocks resting on the sand.
The entire aggressive advance party had been permanently erased from the grid, save for a solitary vanguard officer left standing in his tracks.
"The newly ascended Yonko... Fire Emperor Ace!" the survivor stammered, his knees shaking violently.
"Oh? Your database actually contains my profile? It appears the information channels feeding into Wano Country aren't completely offline after all." Ace noted, a cold, dangerous glint dancing in his eyes as his gaze locked onto the lone survivor.