Chapter 195: This Time, You

Gabra's face was full of confidence, as if he were riding a flying dragon and couldn't possibly lose.

The owl and Waiqu beside him felt the same.

After all, they were all elite members of CP9, masters of Six Powers, monsters capable of matching Devil Fruit users.

They believed that in Paradise, unless they encountered an extremely rare top-tier powerhouse, they could practically walk sideways.

"Leave it to us, Chababa~"

The zipper on the owl's mouth had been removed by himself at some point, and suddenly he felt as if countless secrets inside him were about to burst out of his mouth.

"After all, we are—!"

"Shut up!"

Gabra pressed his forehead with one hand and quickly pinned down the owl, instantly feeling utterly drained.

Sometimes he really wanted to switch teammates~

I can't handle them, I really can't handle them!

Lion Waiqu hurriedly grabbed the zipper on the owl's mouth, then wiped sweat from his forehead and said seriously:

"I—I—"

"I agree with Gabra!"

Ikalem couldn't help but smile slightly at the corner of his mouth.

After over a month of living together, he had long seen through it: although Gabra's three were somewhat strange in behavior, their strength was undeniably real.

Moreover, although the three weren't exactly open, they bore no ill will toward him or Vivi, and had even saved Vivi's life multiple times.

Just this much of a debt was worth trusting.

"Then thank you three."

As they spoke, Nami on the distant street gradually walked away.

Their conversation ended there; they all held their breath, quietly following behind.

……

Soon.

Vivi's group followed Nami and Chopper's footsteps to the dock where the Crow was moored.

Due to repairs to the propulsion system, the pirate flag on the Crow had been rolled up.

Gabra and the others felt the pirate ship before them was familiar, as if they had seen it somewhere before, but didn't think much of it.

There were too many pirate ships with similar designs; they assumed they had simply seen a similar vessel somewhere.

Along the way.

Vivi's attention was fixed on Chopper and Nami in the distance; watching the human and the deer laugh and chat, a flicker of pity passed through her eyes.

"They're just pirates."

"Pirates exactly like Crocodile."

"Their laughter is built upon countless corpses."

"For the sake of the Alabasta Kingdom, for its citizens, I must be prepared to kill my opponent."

With these words,

Vivi clenched the peacock dagger hidden in her sleeve, feeling its cold blade, and her gaze hardened at that moment.

Don't blame me!

I'm doing this for Alabasta!

She tightly pressed her lips and rushed toward Chopper and Nami, who were about to return to the ship.

Swish!

The peacock dagger unfurled in Vivi's hand and spun rapidly, creating a whistling rush of air.

It was a weapon she had specially crafted for herself; its tip was extremely sharp, and with the momentum from high-speed rotation, it could easily cut through earth, stone, even steel!

Cutting apart a human body would be effortless!

Vivi had already imagined Chopper and Nami's bodies being sliced open—when suddenly, the next instant, she crashed into a furry wall.

"Huh?"

Vivi raised her head in confusion and met Chopper's equally confused gaze.

She instinctively stepped back two paces, only then realizing the thing blocking her wasn't a furry wall at all, but a monstrous figure over four meters tall and massively built.

"Gorilla?!"

"It's a reindeer, you idiot!"

Chopper flew into a rage, staring at Vivi in front of him and Gabra and the others in the distance, utterly baffled:

"You—"

"Reindeer-san, sorry for the disturbance~"

Sweat beaded on Vivi's forehead as she forced a nervous smile, inwardly screaming that she'd seen a ghost.

If not for the pink hat on Chopper's head and the tiny cat he'd been earlier, she truly thought she was hallucinating.

Not…

Vivi raised her hand to compare Chopper's original height with the now-over-four-meter-tall, muscle-packed giant before her.

A dry, forced smile tugged at her lips.

If the Chopper she'd seen moments ago was a pet, the one she saw now was a monster.

It was just… hard to evaluate.

For a moment,

Vivi doubted her own life.

"Enemy attack!"

Nami was the first to react, letting out a warning cry.

Chopper raised a hand to shield Nami behind him, his face full of vigilance as he looked toward Vivi and the distant Jabra and the others.

As Nami's voice fell.

Jabra realized that his side's movements had already been exposed, so he simply abandoned his original plan and switched straight to a full-on assault.

But the moment he took a step forward, his figure froze in the very next instant.

All because, at the top of that pirate ship's mast, he saw a familiar white pigeon.

A pure-white-feathered pigeon wearing a necktie.

"It can't really be this much of a coincidence, can it?"

The next instant, as if answering Jabra's question, Roubo Luqi's voice, tinged with a teasing lilt, drilled straight into his ear.

"Ara~ it's you?"

"Come to think of it, I'd rather have run into that guy Kaku~"

Jabra's gaze shifted downward, and he saw Roubo Luqi, dressed in work clothes, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth.

For a moment he even forgot to trade barbs with the old opponent in front of him, all because on Roubo Luqi he saw something he had never seen before.

It was like... it was like... sunlight!

Yes, sunlight!

This man, who had once been utterly gloomy, his whole body radiating a cold, dark aura, now had floating around him a warmth like that of sunlight.

"Shouldn't you be on a mission in Water Seven?! Why are you here?! Why are you on a pirate ship?!"

Countless questions burst from Jabra's mouth, and the Fukurou and Kumadori beside him stared at their comrade with equally stunned faces, waiting for his answer too.

Roubo Luqi smiled faintly and said:

"Who knows?"

"But have you really thought it through — you want to make a move on us?"

"Us?"

Jabra blinked in slight confusion, and in the very next instant he saw the sail behind Roubo Luqi slide down with a sudden rush, and a familiar pirate flag appeared before everyone's eyes.

That flag — a round shield as its base, imprinted with a skull emblem — at this moment seemed to pierce straight into Jabra's heart like a sharp blade.

As an agent of the World Government, he naturally knew what that flag signified.

"Hey hey hey~"

"For real?!"

Cold sweat soaked through the back of Jabra's shirt in an instant.

"Mr. Jabra, what's wrong?!"

Vivi, who had hurriedly retreated back from a distance, looked at the scene in confusion.

Everything he had once gone through together with Jabra gave him a nearly blind confidence in that man's strength.

At this moment he simply could not understand at all what Jabra had seen to make him react this way.

"Vivi... this time you've hit the jackpot!"

The corner of Jabra's mouth kept twitching; looking at the bewildered girl before him, a trace of sympathy even surfaced in his eyes:

"You've picked an opponent I can't handle."

"No, not just me — even that Crocodile probably can't handle this man."

Jabra swallowed hard, his voice trembling:

"A man who, like Crocodile, is one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea, a man who climbed to his position by stepping on the shoulders of the former Admiral 'Black Arm' Zephyr."

"Former bounty of 248 million Berries — the Knight — Gao Wen!"

The voice fell.

Several figures with fierce, intimidating auras abruptly appeared on the deck.

A thin layer of fine bone armor materialized over Ah Jin's entire body, the white-bone cannon on his shoulder poised to fire; the mere aura leaking out was enough to make Igaram, who stood in front of Vivi, break out in a cold sweat.

Zoro drew all three of his swords, sharp sword Qi spilling out, razor-keen to the extreme.

Sanji had both hands stuffed in his pockets, the cigarette at the corner of his mouth sending up white wisps of smoke, his whole body brimming with the air of a powerhouse, calm and unhurried.

Van Auger raised Senri, and Miss Kalifa had a smile at the corner of her mouth.

Everyone looked down at Vivi and Jabra below with great interest.

"Ara ara~"

"Has the sun risen in the west? Someone actually dares to make a move on us?"

"Just this few opponents? How do we split them up? How about I take them all by myself?"

"Today is once again the day that decides your fate~"

……

Several equally bone-chilling gazes pressed down directly on Vivi and the others, so much so that for a moment they all forgot to breathe; the overwhelming pressure even made Vivi's body begin to tremble uncontrollably.

"No way?! I..."

She opened her mouth, looked at the Peacock Slasher in her hand, then looked again at the host of mighty figures eyeing them hungrily on the pirate ship.

Even relying on instinct alone, she could tell that those people's strength was no less than Jabra's trio, and the pressure brought by that man covered in white bone had already far surpassed Jabra's.

These were absolutely not opponents she could handle.

Or rather, if I already had the ability to defeat this group of monsters, why would I fear Crocodile?

In just an instant, Vivi's back was soaked through with cold sweat, and the corner of her mouth forced out a dry, strained smile:

"Um..."

"If I say this is a misunderstanding, will you let me go?"

Roubo Luqi said coldly:

"What do you think?!"

Weiwei's heart turned cold.

When she looked again at Gabra and Ikalem, her apology was nearly impossible to hide:

"Mr. Gabra, Ikalem, I'll buy you some time—escape from the rear…"

Hiss!

A burst of sound came from behind Weiwei; she turned to see Xiang Keluo, tall and thin, with a gloomy aura.

Xiang Keluo's claw-knife merely brushed the ground, leaving a cut several meters long that severed her escape route.

Weiwei suddenly realized that the killing intent radiating from this man was the strongest among them all.

This guy is the strongest here… no!

Weiwei whirled around and only then noticed that a figure had appeared on the deck, unseen until now.

The man was tall and elegant, his face strikingly handsome; the first thing that came to Weiwei's mind was the prince from a fairy tale.

He radiated an aura that made people inexplicably want to draw near.

If he appeared at a banquet, he would naturally draw the attention of women, many of whom would offer themselves to him.

But appearing among a group of people as monstrous as these, even subtly regarded as their leader, could mean only one thing:

He was an even greater monster!

Strong enough to suppress all his killing intent!

A name Weiwei had just heard flashed through her mind:

"Knight—Gao Wen?!"

Gao Wen glanced at the girl before him and didn't recognize her until he saw Ikalem standing in front of Weiwei, then realized her identity:

"Ikalem, captain of the Alabasta Kingdom's guard, Princess Weiwei, and…"

Roubo Luqi said calmly:

"Elite members of CP9, a spy organization under the World Government."

"Gabra, Owl, and Kuma."

Gao Wen nodded, studying them with interest, and said:

"You came looking for me this late—what do you want?!"

"Never mind. Since you're here, you won't be leaving so easily."

Gabra's pupils shrank sharply; in an instant, he reeled back.

The overwhelming sense of danger made every pore on his body sting.

If he had still believed he could escape from Luqi and the others, the moment Gao Wen appeared, he felt death looming right before him.

Fighting that guy… I'll die!

"Run!"

"That guy is an unbeatable monster—we—!"

Before Gabra finished speaking, he felt a hand rest on his shoulder.

Every movement of his froze in that instant.

"Mr. Gabra, calling someone a monster outright is impolite, you know~"

"I…"

Gabra saw only Gao Wen's palm growing larger before his eyes, like an iron band clamping around his skull, then slamming down hard—

Boom!

The dock's floor sank half a meter; spiderweb cracks raced to Weiwei's feet, and Gabra collapsed unconscious.

Far away, Owl and Kuma, rushing to save their comrades, were pinned to the ground by Jin, struggling desperately but unable to move an inch.

Only then did they realize:

No Six Powers, no CP9 elite—before absolute power, they had no chance to fight back, as weak as the enemies they had once crushed.

This time, the prey had become them.

Ikalem, far off, was frozen in shock by the sudden turn of events; every cell in his body screamed fear, all his thoughts converging into one single will:

Run!

Run!

Run!

Against these inhuman monsters, I have no chance of victory!

But some things can overcome instinct.

He shoved Weiwei hard behind him, his eyes filled with resolve to die:

"Princess Weiwei, go!"

Before he could move, Luqi kicked him hard, sending him crashing through stone slabs far away—he collapsed unconscious.

Luqi glanced at the unconscious Gabra and the others, realizing Gao Wen and Jin had deliberately held back; a warmth stirred in his chest:

"Thanks."

"Ah~"

Jin replied calmly.

Gao Wen turned directly to Weiwei; seeing her eyes brimming with tears, as if she'd suffered a great injustice, he felt a pang of helplessness:

"Why do I feel like the villain? Didn't you attack me first?!"

What truly gave Gao Wen a headache was instead how to deal with the matter of Vivi.

She was the Princess of Alabasta.

With Cobra, the current King of Alabasta, having no other heirs, it was almost certain that she would be Alabasta's future Queen.

And Alabasta's status was extremely special even among the member nations of the World Government.

In the history of the World Government, Alabasta was one of the twenty kingdoms that created the world.

The Nefertari family was furthermore the only royal house that did not leave its own country to enter Mary Geoise at the founding of the World Government.

In other words, the bloodline flowing within Vivi was, in a certain sense, equivalent to that of the Celestial Dragons.

"Forget it; I'll just kidnap her and demand a symbolic ransom from Cobra."

Gao Wen murmured, yet a voice carrying a hint of stubbornness reached his ears from Vivi:

"If you are seeking wealth, perhaps we can strike a deal!"

(End of Chapter)