Garp grinned.
"Since we've already found the prison, what are we waiting for? Let's move!"
"Chotto matte!"
Dragon grabbed Garp, tense and on edge.
"We only found where the prison is. We don't even know what it's like inside yet."
"We only get one shot at this. We can't rush in blindly."
He was rattled. What he feared most was exactly this: his old man charging in with fists swinging. If the rescue failed, the mission would be over. Worse, they might all pay for it with their lives.
This island was packed with pirates and nothing but pirates.
If word got out that the Marines were here, tens of thousands of pirates across the whole island would probably swarm them like sharks smelling blood.
Garp shot his son a sideways look, arms folding over his chest as he rumbled,
"I'll handle drawing the enemy away. You handle the rescue."
"No way!"
Nobody knew Garp better than Dragon did. This geezer would definitely try to hold off all the monsters alone, kick up a huge commotion, and use himself as bait to pull aggro.
Sure, that was his way of protecting them, but it would also throw Garp himself right into the jaws of death.
Dragon stared hard at him, eyes blazing.
"Old man, you are not doing something reckless!!"
He continued,
"This operation isn't just us Marines. The World Government's CP0 is here too. They're definitely doing their own recon on the island."
"Do what you want," Garp muttered, dropping into a chair and tearing open a bag of doughnuts, crunching away like he hadn't a care in the world.
Dragon, meanwhile, started questioning the soldier who'd scouted the place, combing through every detail they'd learned about the island.
Where the Rocks Pirates' officers usually moved around.
How the Rocks Pirates' crews were spread across the island.
Troop numbers.
Which division had which people.
All of it.
After going through the intel and thinking it over for a long moment, Dragon finally said,
"Old man, I'm planning to sneak into the prison myself tonight to get a proper look inside."
"At the same time, I'll see if I can come up with a plan to release the prisoners Rocks has locked up, and use them to stir up chaos. That might help us when it's time to rescue the Celestial Dragons."
He knew very well the Marines hadn't brought a large force.
And they couldn't bring a large force.
If they wanted to get the Celestial Dragons out alive, then they had to throw the island into chaos.
Only in chaos would the mission have a real chance.
Of course…
Dragon also knew what the true first priority was
Finding the Celestial Dragons.
"Go," Garp said, his expression finally turning serious.
"If you run into someone you can't handle, I'll back you up."
On the other side of the island…
With the flood of pirates pouring onto Hachinosu lately, an entire area had been divided off just for them to live and dock in. A bunch of rough stone houses had been thrown up in a hurry.
Inside one of those houses.
Several CP0 agents wearing white masks were gathered together. Their outfits, however, weren't their usual conspicuous uniforms, but plain clothes carefully chosen to blend in.
CP0 chief Claude, wielder of the Logia-type Cloud-Cloud Fruit, asked in a low voice,
"Have you finished gathering intel on Charlotte Linlin's children, and on Katakuri?"
A CP0 with a round, white mask answered,
"It's done. All of Charlotte Linlin's children are on a single pirate ship. Normally, almost no one watches them, because no one dares lay a hand on them on Rocks' turf."
"As long as we get our hands on those children, I'm certain that once Charlotte Linlin finds out, she'll fly into a rampage."
"On top of that, we've also learned that Bloodhand Ares is ridiculously protective of his own. A while back, a pirate named Zhi Yin Kun bullied Katakuri, and Ares flattened him with a single slap."
"I'm sure that if he finds out Katakuri's been kidnapped, he'll fly into a rage too."
"With two of Rocks' top officers, Ares and Linlin, both going berserk, Hachinosu will definitely descend into chaos."
"Besides that," he added,
"If things still don't go our way, we can even use the children as bargaining chips to trade for the Celestial Dragons."
Another CP0 agent said,
"According to our investigation, every day Ares either trains or heads to a particular smithy."
"And Katakuri doesn't live with Ares and Kaido in the Skull Castle. After training, he separates from Ares and Kaido."
"That will be the ideal time to make a move."
"As for Charlotte Linlin's kids… that's even simpler. At the end of the day, they're just a bunch of brats."
"Snatching them will be easy."
After listening to the reports from the two operatives, Claude nodded.
"The Marine special forces should also be on Hachinosu by now. If we trigger chaos, I believe they'll act accordingly too."
"We'll execute this plan tomorrow."
"At the same time, think up as many back-up plans as possible over the next day. The more we have, the higher our chances of success."
He paused, then asked again,
"Any word on the Celestial Dragon family, the Egberts?"
"None yet," one CP0 replied.
"So far we haven't found where the Egberts are being held. The pirates on the island don't seem to know their situation either."
"We'll need more time to investigate."
"We're planning to move in through Xia Qi. She doesn't just oversee the cooks for Rocks Pirates she also runs their intelligence network. She might know where the Egbert family is imprisoned."
Claude nodded.
"Then you'll handle Xia Qi. Get word on the Egbert family as soon as possible."
"This is critical to our rescue operation."
"There's no room for carelessness."
After that, they began hammering out the details of their kidnapping plan
And making arrangements and countermeasures in advance for all the possible variables that might come afterward.
Compared to the Marines, CP0 who lived and breathed espionage, covert ops, and assassination worked at a much higher tempo.
And their methods looked, on paper, extremely effective.
The Marines and the World Government's CP organization were both neck-deep in their plotting.
Both sides had already started quietly setting their rescue plans into motion.
Meanwhile.
Back in his room, Tengetsu Ares was mulling over the forging techniques Shimotsuki Kozaburo had explained while he'd watched him work that day.
When he was a child…
He had only ever silently watched his father forge weapons. His father had never talked to his young son about the purpose of each step, or what each technique achieved.
Because of that, all of Ares' previous "training" had basically been the brute-force route. No system, no structure. Just beating the hell out of his body over and over again.
Ares raised his arm and slowly turned it, looking at it from every angle.
In his eyes right now
His arm was nothing less than a weapon.
Staring at that thick, solid limb, he muttered,
"How do I 'forge' this to make my body even harder?"
He switched back and forth between Tekkai, his blood-colored Armament, and the Eight-Impact Fist.
"Tekkai forces the muscles to bulge and harden in an instant."
"When the muscles relax, the hardness drops."
Just like a person's muscles: under full exertion they swell and harden, but when you're not flexing, they soften.
With enough training, though, you can raise your baseline harder, larger muscles that are tougher than an average person even at rest.
More solid. More durable.
Ares continued to talk to himself,
"Swords have resilience. Muscles have resilience too…"
"My skin, after being burned again and again in that fire training, is already comparable to steel. My muscles, after all that pounding and recovery, have become thicker and tougher."
"So what's still missing between this and a famed blade… just hardness?"
He felt that when he used his various techniques, there were already swords in the world that couldn't even scratch him.
Which left Ares with a headache. For the moment, he really couldn't think of a better, more efficient way forward.
But he was the sort who never gave up.
He just kept grinding away at the question of how to "forge" his body further.
Elsewhere.
Night fell over Hachinosu, but the island was still blazing hot with life.
Lights burned bright.
Every tavern was packed to bursting, the entire island swallowed by pirate revelry.
"Only after coming to Hachinosu did I realize what 'there's always someone stronger out there' really means. This is the first time I've seen this many pirates. Guys with bounties over a hundred million are keeping their heads down here."
"Right? After that scare Kaido gave them, all those pirates suddenly got real honest."
"In another week, they'll be executing the Celestial Dragons. It's already been days since they were kidnapped, but not a single Marine admiral has shown up. I bet they're too scared to make a move!"
"After seeing Ares, I finally understand there are real monsters in this world. Just his presence alone makes it hard to breathe."
"There are too many freaks on this island…"
"I heard one of Rocks' officers, Linlin, has hooked up with several famous pirates over the last few days and put them through hell."
"Tsk tsk tsk… I'm actually kinda jealous. Linlin's gorgeous. That skin of hers looks so smooth and tender you could wring water out of it."
"…"
The pirates' tongues were loose anything juicy was fair game.
While they drank and bragged, laughed and cursed…
The Marines.
Silently slipped closer and closer to the prison on Hachinosu.
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