Rogers Darren—the World Government and Marine Headquarters are truly fortunate to have such an "exceptional" executive like you.
You've done an absolutely superb job recruiting members for the Shichibukai.
Dragon's lips twitched hard. For a long moment, he couldn't even find the right words to start tearing into him.
He knew Darren was brazen. He'd heard plenty back when Darren still wore a Marine coat—rumors about deceiving superiors, pulling strings from the shadows, running his own operations like a private kingdom. But Dragon had never imagined he would take it to a level this absurd.
It was… genuinely educational.
Is Marine Headquarters your family's private business or something?
Donquixote Doflamingo is your godson.
"Sand Crocodile" Crocodile and "Moonlight" Gecko Moria are so terrified of you they don't even dare voice their anger.
"hawk-Eyes" Dracule Mihawk treats you like the summit of swordsmanship—calling you Sensei.
Douglas Bullet, the "Demon Heir," has this bizarre relationship with you—hostile, yet somehow not.
On the surface, every one of them seemed to carry a grudge against Darren. Underneath, they were all—one way or another—held in his grip.
And Dragon had noticed something else. Something that made a chill creep up his spine.
Barring Doflamingo, every Shichibukai he'd listed had lost an arm at Darren's hands.
Coincidence?
Or deliberate?
A cold shiver ran down Dragon's right arm as his gaze lingered on Darren, suspicion sharpening.
And then there was the last one.
"…Fisher Tiger didn't lose an arm," Dragon said weakly. "Don't tell me he's one of yours too?"
Darren smiled blandly. "Fisher Tiger is a hero of Fish-Man Island. A pioneer and leader of the worldwide slave liberation movement. Why would I ever harm him?"
Dragon stared at him in silence.
Fine. I should've known.
After all, Fisher Tiger's raid on Mary Geoise to free slaves had lined up far too neatly with the North Blue Fleet's assault on the Holy Land. It didn't take even a second to connect the dots.
If anything, Fisher Tiger's infiltration had probably been Darren's play as well—maybe even something he'd personally arranged.
Dragon exhaled sharply and dragged a hand through his already messy hair.
So the entire Shichibukai roster is basically your puppets.
And, against all reason, a flash of pity surfaced—for the Gorosei, for Sengoku.
Dragon couldn't even imagine the look on their faces when they finally realized that every member of the Shichibukai system—the system they themselves had championed—was, in practice, working for their mortal enemy.
"Shichibukai, my ass," he muttered. "They're just the King of the North Blue's private Shichibukai…"
He shot Darren a resentful glare. "So what else have you been hiding from me? We're allies now, aren't we? What if I'd run into one of them and accidentally started a fight?"
"Even if you had to keep it secret, you could've left some sort of code!" Dragon snapped. "We're all on the same side here!"
Darren chuckled softly. "Don't worry. Now that the whole world knows we're allied, those guys wouldn't dare cause trouble for you here."
"Aaaargh—that's not what I meant!"
Darren's calm, infuriating composure only fed the heat rising in Dragon's chest. He clenched his teeth and forced the words out. "What I mean is—since we're allies, you should be sharing intelligence with me about what's happening inside our alliance!"
Darren blinked in sudden realization. "Oh. That's what you meant. You're right. That makes sense."
He paused, as if genuinely reflecting, then added, "To be honest, that's pretty much everyone. My capabilities are limited, after all."
Dragon rolled his eyes. He didn't believe that for a second. His gaze flicked around before he asked, voice carrying a strange edge, "You haven't planted any spies in the Freedom Fighters too, have you?"
Darren looked at him and shook his head. "Don't you trust me by now?"
Dragon considered it, then nodded.
No matter what anyone said, Darren had poured real effort into supporting the Freedom Fighters—money, manpower, resources.
Funding. Weapons and ammunition. Structure and logistics. Training. Without Darren's backing, it would've taken them years to reach their current scale.
"…Besides," Darren added with a quiet shake of his head, "I never had much faith in your ragtag bunch in the first place. No money, no manpower. You didn't impress me."
Dragon: "…"
Did you really have to say that out loud?
He pressed a hand to his chest and, for the first time, truly understood why he'd seen Admiral Sengoku make that exact gesture so often.
So this is what it feels like to be infuriated.
"…How's your recovery?" Dragon asked grimly, changing the subject by force.
Two days had passed since that sparring match—the "one punch to wake Kaido" incident. Darren had already removed most of the bandages that had wrapped his body.
Fresh flesh was knitting over the scars on his exposed skin—some shallow, some deep.
"I'm fine," Darren said. "The external wounds are mostly healed. But trauma to internal organs and bones takes time…"
He gave a cautious estimate.
"…With injuries like that, at least a week or so, right?"
Dragon had given up arguing entirely.
Sometimes he genuinely wondered how Darren could say things so maddening with such effortless calm.
"…What about the Magnetic Field Rotation experiment?" Dragon asked. "Any progress?"
Ever since that preliminary assessment from Overalls Fatso, Dragon's curiosity had been gnawing at him. If Magnetic Field Rotation could be incorporated into routine training, just how far could Darren push his strength?
Dragon wanted to see it.
But Darren still wasn't fully recovered. There was no way he could try it so soon.
"Oh, that thing," Darren said—and then he grinned. "It actually feels pretty good."
Dragon froze.
Under his stunned gaze, a thin thread of purple-blue electricity crackled beneath Darren's skin, flickering between flesh and bone with an eerie, quiet menace.
It was faint—barely there—yet to Dragon's eyes it looked like something fundamentally terrifying. His body reacted before his mind could, and he stumbled back two steps.
"Y-you—you…"
He stared at the black-haired youth, throat tight, swallowing hard as he instinctively shifted into a guarded stance, Dragon Claw raised.
"…You've already entered the 'Magnetic Field Rotation' state?!"
To be continued...