"Are you alright, Miss Robin?"
Dragon asked seriously, his eyes fixed on the black-haired woman before him.
Though Kaido was a battle maniac, once the truce had been proposed, he did not continue the fight.
Together, the two men boarded the wrecked warship and freed Nico Robin, who was still bound.
"I'm fine. Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Dragon. And also…"
Robin gave her thanks while studying the two men before her. "Mr. Kaido."
Compared to Dragon, who was of normal height, Kaido was simply impossible to ignore.
Standing there, he was like a towering mountain.
Robin had never seen a human being of such massive size.
If she hadn't already met real giants, she might have believed that the man before her was one of the legendary Giant Tribe.
"Wororororo! So, you're the last descendant of Ohara, little girl?"
Kaido lowered his head, looking Robin up and down. "I wonder what that brat Ian wants with you."
"Hm?"
Dragon froze when he heard Kaido's words.
What did he mean by that?
Wasn't the reason obvious?
Of course, it was because of her ability to read ancient scripts.
If Ian wanted to become the Pirate King, he could never do it without Robin's help.
"Let's go. You're coming back to Wano with me!"
Kaido instantly transformed into his enormous azure dragon form. Clouds of flame spilled down, sweeping Dragon and Robin up into the sky.
Robin's face immediately went pale. This was her first time experiencing something like this.
Being carried straight into the heavens—this was far too overwhelming.
And yet, after the first wave of panic, a flicker of excitement spread in her chest.
No matter what had happened, despite all the twists and turns, the outcome was nothing short of a dramatic reversal.
She was truly going to the Beasts Pirates, just as she had once imagined.
"You don't need to worry, Miss Robin," Dragon said, completely unaware of what was going through her mind. He simply tried to reassure her. "Ian is nothing like the World Government claims him to be."
"On the contrary, he's a gentle man, easy to get along with."
To him, this young woman, who had never once left the West Blue, was surely feeling fear at the thought of being taken into the Beasts Pirates.
Robin simply nodded lightly, her beautiful eyes gazing forward.
What she saw at this moment was the endless stretch of deep blue sea below, and the swiftly drifting clouds flowing past around her.
Everything before her was so vast, so unrestrained, so free.
Was she now truly on the path toward freedom?
Wano Country.
Ian had already received word from Kaido.
Not only had they successfully brought back Nico Robin, but what surprised Ian even more was that Kaido had actually brought Dragon along as well.
Kaido said Dragon had something he wanted to discuss with him.
Ian didn't really mind. Talk was talk. At the very least, for now, Dragon wasn't an enemy.
The cooperation between the Revolutionary Army and the Beasts Pirates was going quite smoothly, after all.
But what Ian hadn't expected was that, before Kaido even returned with Robin and Dragon, someone else appeared first.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!"
This was happening in the seas near Wano. A chain of explosions erupted across the surface of the ocean.
Several fighter planes belonging to the Beasts Pirates circled high above, continuously dropping bombs of tremendous power.
Down below, a man was furiously pedaling his bicycle across the waves, twisting and turning to avoid the falling bombs.
"Ah-la-la! Didn't I already say? I'm here to find Ian!"
Kuzan dodged awkwardly as more bombs rained down, shouting up at the planes overhead. "Is this how you treat a guest? That's way too disappointing! I only came because Ian invited me!"
Unfortunately, his voice was completely drowned out by the deafening blasts. None of the pilots above heard a word he said.
Instead, their conversation crackled through the fighter's communication system.
"Don't give him any chance to breathe! That guy's a former Marine Admiral!"
"Exactly! He's far too dangerous. We just need to stall until the officers arrive!!"
With that, the pilots kept bombing relentlessly, turning the entire stretch of sea into a boiling inferno.
"Tch… this is getting ridiculous."
Kuzan sighed, "This is completely different from what I imagined. Shouldn't they be welcoming me warmly?"
It was certainly enthusiastic… but not in this way.
Kuzan had no choice but to accelerate on his bike, constantly generating a shield of ice above his head to block the falling bombs.
The bombers in the sky were flying too high; ordinary attacks couldn't reach them, and he certainly couldn't destroy all the planes.
After all, he hadn't come here to challenge the Beasts Pirates directly.
Luckily, with his strength, these ordinary bombings truly couldn't harm him.
Gradually, he was approaching Wano Country.
The moment he neared the island, Kuzan lifted his bike and jumped.
His Moon Walk technique had long since reached perfection; stepping on air, he jumped in seconds onto the towering cliffs surrounding Wano.
"Phew—though I'd heard about it, seeing it with my own eyes really shows how unique this country's terrain is!"
He marveled as he lightly landed above the inner sea.
But before he could catch his breath, the pursuing aircraft dived down.
Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!
The cannons mounted on the wings of the planes roared to life.
Bullet after bullet rained down on Kuzan like a torrential storm.
"I didn't hear that the Beasts Pirates' planes were armed with guns!"
Kuzan simply began sprinting across the sea with his bike.
The water boiled beneath the metallic storm.
Unbeknownst to Kuzan, the Beasts Pirates' aircraft had begun upgrading.
Now, pursuing him weren't just bombers—several new fighter planes joined the chase.
"This guy is fast!"
"Use the new weapons!"
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
A sharp explosion sounded from the sky as several rockets shot down from beneath the fighter planes.
Equipped with targeting systems, these rockets couldn't auto-track, but their accuracy was still extremely high.
But if Kuzan himself was the target, then things were a bit different.
Before they even had a chance to fall, the rockets were completely frozen by the ice, ultimately plummeting helplessly into the sea.
"A new type of fighter? Machine guns and rockets… could it be designed to counter the World Government's aircraft?"
Kuzan sprinted forward as if flying, yet he could calmly turn back and scrutinize the new-style fighters in the sky.
Equipment he had never seen before.
**********
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