—In accordance with a recent request, we, the World Government, have located the missing King of the non-affiliated nation of Mopuchi and his firstborn son.
—We, the World Government, are currently providing them with protection. In accordance with their wishes for repatriation and for Mopuchi to join the affiliated nations, they have consented to the marriage of the first princess of Mopuchi, Chantilly, and the Celestial Dragon, Saint Camael.
—Consequently, Mopuchi shall become a member nation of the World Government and its direct domain. The pirate crew 'Black Cat,' currently occupying the land illegally, is ordered to release the royalty they have captured and surrender.
"To think that the Navy, of all organizations, would resort to such a brazen and shameless act…"
"Protection? They were the ones who held them as slaves."
In the seas near Mopuchi, the same waters where they had once fought the smuggling ships of local mafia syndicates, the Black Cat Pirates, led by Vice-Director Daz Bones, deployed their fleet to face the Marine warships they had once fought alongside.
"And they dare speak of marriage to the princess. How dare they… After we spent half a year rebuilding the nation to the point where it could function, they intend to snatch the royalty and the country itself. Quite the pirate-like maneuver, is it not?"
"Oh? So even you are capable of such anger, Boa Hancock."
"And you are no different, Mihawk. Your sword's edge is sharper than usual today."
On the deck of the First Fleet's flagship, the two greatest warriors of the Black Cat Pirates stood, their eyes fixed on the enemy. They were the primary reason the crew had, in such a short time, become one of the most powerful forces not just in the West Blue, but in the world.
Boa Hancock, of the Kuja Pirates, a user of the Love-Love Fruit and a prodigy in the ways of Haki.
And Dracule Mihawk, the 'Marine Hunter,' a swordsman whose skill was among the best even in the New World, and who had contributed immensely to the training of the Black Cat soldiers, especially the Royal Guard.
"Though it may only be a hobby, that is still land I have personally tended to. It irks me to see them try and take it so brazenly."
"A hobby?"
"Indeed. The seedlings I planted in my spare time are growing well."
"Seedlings?"
"For Mopuchi and Canette. This time, I selected them from the seed stage. You can expect a better yield than last year."
"…The fact that I find that genuinely reassuring is a strange feeling in itself."
Hancock had much more to say, but knowing it was pointless now, she swallowed her words and turned her attention back to the enemy fleet spread before them.
"However, a Buster Call is supposed to be ten Headquarters warships and at least five Vice Admirals, was it not? They are a few ships short, with only eight…"
"Admiral Akainu is here, as is 'Black Arm' Zephyr. I know not what that Kuro has done, but he seems to have thoroughly terrified the Government."
"Hmph. Quite the conspicuous figureheads."
"Neutralize those two, and the battle is decided."
—Empress, movement from the enemy flagship!
"But first, we have work to do," Hancock declared.
"Yes, we do," Mihawk agreed.
◆ ◆ ◆
"Subjugation of Mopuchi, protection of the royal family, and the capture of Nico Robin and the other senior officers…"
"In short, the Government intends to use them as hostages against Kuro. How utterly…" Akainu trailed off, his voice tight with rage.
"Do not say it, Akainu. You are leading our soldiers."
"…There are an awful lot of unfamiliar faces among them."
The elite force meant to combat the powerful pirates of the New World had been diminished. While not halved, the number of veteran officers who had left the Navy was equivalent to the entire force of a branch base. In their place had come soldiers loyal to the Government.
"Let's see what these CP washouts can do…"
"Our opponents are the elites of the Black Cat crew. In group combat, they may be even more disciplined than the Navy. That is why the first strike is crucial."
"I know."
One of the most powerful men on this battlefield, an Admiral of Marine Headquarters who had eaten the Magma-Magma Fruit and gained one of the highest attack capabilities among all ability users, raised his arm. His right fist began to glow crimson, bubbling ominously. The soldiers who knew what this meant instinctively distanced themselves from Admiral Akainu.
And then, he unleashed his power.
"Ryusei Kazan!"
His fist exploded, launching a volley of magma bombs into the air. Fiery projectiles that could incinerate a ship in an instant rained down upon the Black Cat fleet.
◆ ◆ ◆
"I knew you would do that, Admiral Akainu."
Despite the seemingly hopeless situation, trapped on wooden ships with no escape but the sea that was fatal to Devil Fruit users, the Vice-Director of the Black Cat Pirates watched the approaching fireballs with unnerving calm.
"Vice-Director, pumps are operating normally. Compression is complete, just as in the drills."
"And the cooling?"
"It is below room temperature, but still too warm to be called cold water."
"No matter. It will be enough to blunt the initial attack. All hands, to your stations."
On the deck of his ship stood Nico Robin and Perona, using their respective abilities to gauge the enemy's attack. Even Perona, usually laughing her signature "Horohoro," was deadly serious, sharing the vision of a high-altitude observation ghost she had hidden among the swarm floating around her.
"Tch, this had better work! Five… four…"
"Daz, three seconds until they're in range of the front-line ships!" Robin called out.
"Good."
"Commence water barrage."
◆ ◆ ◆
"—Hah?"
The sudden action of the pirate ships forming the Black Cat's front line made Akainu's brow furrow in annoyance.
"Every ship has multiple hoses running from its deck into the sea. Are they… spraying seawater?" one of his men observed.
"Do they take me for a fool? As if a few water guns could extinguish my magma."
Indeed, the volley of magma, poised to incinerate the Black Cat fleet, seemed unaffected by the surprisingly powerful jets of water aimed at it. The water vaporized on contact, creating a series of small, popping explosions, but nothing more. If the magma reached the ships, they would inevitably catch fire and be engulfed in flames.
"Let's end this quickly and secure Nico Robin. The higher-ups want her for two reasons."
At his words, Zephyr, standing beside him, grimaced in distaste but said nothing, watching the steaming fireballs close in.
And then he witnessed them being suddenly sliced apart, losing their momentum and falling harmlessly into the sea.
◆ ◆ ◆
—When facing Admirals Akainu and Kizaru, the most efficient strategy is to intercept them at sea.
Back when Kuro was still commanding the reconstruction and defense of Mopuchi and Mogwa, he had discussed with his officers how to deal with the Navy should they become enemies.
—Akainu, especially, must be fought at sea. If he makes it to land, he can unleash the full extent of his firepower.
—On a ship, however, the destructive power he can use is limited, as the vessel itself is made of wood.
"Indeed, a long-range area attack with magma bombs seems effective against wooden ships at first glance."
The man who had participated in every one of those meetings, who had absorbed and analyzed every detail of those strategies, was Daz Bones. Since the Pirate Alliance incident began, he had been forced to make more and more decisions on his own, separate from the brilliant mind of Captain Kuro. In the past six months, the man known as 'Blade Steel' had not only honed his own combat skills but had also relentlessly polished his understanding of group tactics.
"But magma is simply molten rock. A single, concentrated blow like Galdino's might be unstoppable, but if it is divided into smaller fireballs for a wide-area attack, then we have a chance."
"Horohorohoro! Who knew those fire hoses and pumps we stole from Germa would come in handy like this!" Perona cackled.
The flagship and the other front-line vessels had been excessively outfitted with fire-suppression systems. They were custom-made by Germa, a nation that lived on ships and thus feared fire above all else, never skimping on preparations.
"Even if we cannot extinguish it completely, by lowering the temperature, we can cause it to harden slightly and take solid form, making it easier to deal with. For ordinary soldiers, it would be impossible, but we have the Royal Guard."
Beside the regular crewmen manning the hoses, the iconic three-person cells of the Black Cat Royal Guard had already drawn and sheathed their blades, entering a state of lingering awareness. It was the same deadly technique they had used to blow away the sandstorms created by the pirate Crocodile on Canette Island: a powerful, flying slash unleashed in perfect unison. Now, using a less taxing version of the technique that could be performed individually, they shattered the solidifying magma bombs, sending the fragments into the sea.
"Logia-type users are certainly terrifying. Especially an ability like yours, which is dangerous to even approach."
—Resume water spray! Hurry!
—Tanks one and two are fine! Tank three is at thirty percent capacity!
—Bring in the spare hoses! Don't worry about cooling! Just replenish and compress the seawater!
Around the seawater cannons—no, the water-spraying equipment—the Black Cat soldiers, under the command of the Royal Guard, scrambled to prepare for Admiral Akainu's next volley.
"But at the same time, you cannot escape the properties of the natural phenomenon your power is based on. Not even with Haki."
These were soldiers who had drilled relentlessly in the waters near Mopuchi, far from the Navy's eyes. Some, facing their first major battle, were clumsy, their faces pale with fear. But the veteran soldiers, those who had been with the Black Cats since before the conquest of Mopuchi, expertly guided them, and there was almost no disorder in their movements.
"Daz, the First Fleet is asking for permission to advance!" Robin shouted. Perona, who had been spotting the incoming fireballs and using her explosions to deflect any stray magma, had handed off the duty of tracking fleet movements to her.
Daz understood immediately. Hancock and Mihawk had sensed a disruption in the enemy's formation.
"Permission granted! We will provide cover fire! All cannons, target the ships in front of the First Fleet!"
"Sir! All guns, prepare to fire! Target: ships in front of the First Fleet!" At the command of Amis, who served as his aide, the gunnery crews of the entire Black Cat main fleet took aim. Their cannons, upgraded to a new model developed by the military powerhouse Mogwa, boasted a significant increase in both range and power.
"Therefore, in a firefight, we, the Black Cats, have the advantage."
"My ghosts are at full power and have a clear view! No problems here, Daz! Go!" Perona confirmed.
"Commence attack."
"All ships, fiiiire!"
With a deafening roar, their cannons unleashed a volley toward the Marine warships. Their shells lacked the fiery power and uniqueness of Akainu's attack. But they were honed by countless hours of live-fire training, and the flawless, coordinated barrage of the Black Cats began to steadily chip away at the armor of the enemy ships.
◆ ◆ ◆
"So, these are not marines after all? Fools. To face us, the Black Cats, with a makeshift fleet… They take this three-clawed sigil far too lightly."
Her opening move, what should have been a decisive blow of fiery magma, had been sliced apart and rendered useless. She had expected an immediate, wide-range cannon barrage in response, but the enemy was clearly disorganized.
"Hancock, go! We'll cover you from here!"
The voice of their operator, Robin, came through her earpiece. Even though they had defended against the enemy's most troublesome attack, they couldn't withstand it indefinitely. A charge by their most elite forces to attack or at least pin down the enemy's main strength was essential, and only Hancock's First Fleet could carry it out.
"My thanks, main fleet! Let's go, First Fleet! We're charging in!"
Almost simultaneously with her order to advance, the main fleet unleashed a salvo. The skill of their gunners, honed through countless drills based on Perona's high-altitude reconnaissance and refined through repeated calculations and experiments, was far beyond that of any ordinary marine. Even though it was their first ranging shot, half the shells were already bracketing the targets, and another third, with a bit of luck, struck the enemy armor, the explosions creating an opening in their formation.
Seizing the opportunity, Hancock's six pirate ships steered hard, catching the wind in their sails to slam into the left flank of the Marine fleet.
The three-clawed cat. On the Black Cat Pirates' symbolic flag, a serpent had been added. It coiled protectively around the cat, its form a perfect circle as it devoured its own tail. This was the flag of the Black Cat Pirates' First Fleet, and it now fluttered proudly in the winds of the West Blue.
"The wind is good, both in direction and strength. With this… All cannons, load grapeshot!"
"Sir! Repeating, all cannons load grapeshot!"
When Hancock had first become a fleet commander, she had worried about the casualties her soldiers, who were uneasy with close-quarters combat, might suffer. She had sought a cheap, effective way to reduce their losses without more training, and had arrived at a method to shatter the enemy's morale before a battle even began. Instead of attacking the ship itself, she would inflict a devastating blow upon the crew on its deck. The grapeshot was the result of that research, developed in consultation with Kuro and the other officers.
It was a special type of ammunition: a sturdy canvas bag filled with iron balls of a moderate size. When fired, it unleashed a rain of shrapnel that was sure to injure anyone it hit. The cluster of smaller projectiles inside the bag resembled a bunch of grapes, and so the provisional name Mihawk had given it, 'grapeshot,' had stuck. For some reason, when he heard that the name had become official, Director Kuro had made a rather conflicted face.
"On closest approach, aim for the enemy decks and fire a full salvo! Break their formation and open a path for Mihawk's boarding party!"
"Sir!"
"Archery squad, half of you equip hook shots! As soon as we are in range, target the enemy masts and rigging to impede their movement!"
"Understood! All hands, hold your fire! Shoot after we pass through the heavy rocking on approach! Keep your eyes on your targets and brace for the impact!"
Tied to their arrows were sturdy ropes with sharpened hooks. When fired, the hooks would catch on the enemy's rigging, easily slicing through it and disabling the ship. It was equipment that could only be wielded by the elite archers Hancock had personally trained and approved, and they now stood ready to pounce on the Navy.
"Royal Guard, to the front! We will handle any dangerous cannon fire!"
With a wind strong enough to maximize the performance of their sails, the First Fleet's ships approached their target at top speed, weaving through the blind spots of the enemy cannons. The enemy, realizing their intent, tried to turn their bows toward the First Fleet, but they were hampered by the second salvo from the main fleet, and their response was sluggish. Other Marine ships tried to intercept the approaching pirates with their cannons, but their shots all fell short. Even when they had a clear, direct shot at the rapidly closing ships, the cannonballs were neutralized one after another by flying slashes and precise sniper fire. The skill of the Royal Guard and the other elite soldiers was in no way inferior to that of the Navy's own finest.
"Empress! We are in range!"
"Good! Fiiiire!"
◆ ◆ ◆
"Tch… They're so fast!"
The Marine warship was crewed primarily by soldiers dispatched from the Government. Unlike the West Blue marines who had fought alongside them, these men had never seen the Black Cats with their own eyes. They were not careless, by any means. In fact, one might say they were even more dedicated to capturing the Black Cats than the marines were.
But they were not marines.
The enemy cannons were pointed at them. The moment they opened fire, they had immediately fired back. They may not have made it into CP, but they were still rigorously trained men. They had confidence in their skills.
With a deafening roar, the expected cannonballs never arrived. Instead, the men who had been waiting to repel boarders began to fall, one after another.
He couldn't understand it. If they had been hit by a cannonball, the explosion should have been much more spectacular. Men and ship alike, blown to pieces. But what came flying at them were not cannonballs, but a swarm of iron spheres, small but more than enough to inflict fatal wounds. The barrage of iron balls continued, quieter than cannon fire, but steadily whittling down their numbers.
"Damn it! Hey, if the shot is this small, their range must be short! Keep firing the cannons and put some distance between us!"
The man shouting was not the captain of the ship. The captain was a colonel who had served in the West Blue for many years but had never personally encountered the Black Cats. The man shouting should have been his subordinate, but no one paid it any mind.
Because—
"I see. Individually, you have some skill, but you are fatally unsuited for group combat. Galdino's prediction was correct. The ships surrounding the enemy flagship are even easier to fight on than Germa's vessels were."
Before he knew it, they had all been cut down. He didn't even see her board, but the moment the silver-haired beauty swung her sword, all of his comrades around him fell.
"Don't let your guard down, Kris. At this range, Admiral Sakazuki or Teacher Zephyr could board at any moment."
His men, scrambling to fight back, were held in check by a woman with long black hair tied back in a butterfly knot, wielding two short swords. One of them charged recklessly, saber raised, but before he could swing, the tip of his blade was caught by her right-hand sword, and in the next instant, her left sword slit his throat, and he collapsed to the deck. Her movements were so fast that the twin-bladed woman was not spattered with a single drop of his blood.
"No, it would be easier if they did board," a third voice said.
Another figure stood among them. A tall man in a black leather hat, a plain white-sheathed sword at his hip, stood with an air of absolute command. He scanned his surroundings with hawk-like eyes. "If you kill too many, he might just try to burn us along with the ship. I can handle that if it comes to it, but it would be a nuisance. Don't overdo it, you two."
"…Well, um…"
"Those are our words, Teacher."
At the words of the women who had boarded with him, he gave a small smile and said, "Is that so?" But in the next instant, his smile turned sharp and predatory.
"Then, let's go. My apologies, all of you."
"The Black Cat is crossing your path. You'd best be on your guard."
◆ ◆ ◆
"Fuhahahaha! Well now, I was worried when I heard Headquarters forces were coming, but to be stationed here, where it's easy to escape in a pinch, the Empress has her good points, doesn't she?"
Mogwa, once a symbol of the West Blue's revival, a major base where the Navy under Kuzan and the pirates under Kuro had fought side-by-side against poverty and other pirate crews. Its king had been killed, the queen and princesses were missing, and only a few concubines and maids had been rescued by the Black Cats during the battle to conquer the former Pirate Alliance stronghold. The effectively leaderless country was now occupied by a detachment of the Black Cat Pirates' First Fleet.
"Galdino, if you try to abandon my sister and run, I will not forgive you."
"I am aware, Lady Sandersonia. I have no intention of willingly incurring the wrath of you and your sister, who are both ability users and Haki wielders. That said, having a little breathing room is important," Galdino replied calmly.
Before the battle began, the members of the newly formed Marine garrison that had been in charge of Mogwa had been rounded up and packed tightly into the castle courtyard. Some were bound with ropes, some shackled with Seastone, some turned to stone, and most had their limbs encased in wax.
"With this, we have secured the marines who were in a precarious position. All that's left is to wait for Gang Bege's reinforcements to arrive before moving on to the next phase of the plan…"
"But that's only if the main fleet wins, right? Headquarters forces are here. Will Daz and my sister be alright?"
"At the very least, they will not be defeated one-sidedly. Even if they were to lose, it would not be a total annihilation. They should have enough leeway to retreat." The fleet's chief of staff refuted the anxious words of the green-haired girl, Boa Hancock's younger sister and the vice-captain of the First Fleet, a user of the Snake-Snake Fruit, Model: Anaconda.
"Even when I was under the Pirate Alliance, I heard whispers of a pirate crew cooperating with the Navy. I was often on the move, so I didn't get the full story, but I did hear that they were already on par with Headquarters' forces."
"But an Admiral is here."
"Even so. Or perhaps, because of that."
The detachment's mission was to neutralize the forces in Mogwa that might attack Mopuchi once the battle began. It should have been a major undertaking, but thanks to Boa Hancock, who had neutralized the enemy fleet in an instant as she passed by, it had become little more than a mop-up operation. In a strange twist of fate, the mundane task of transporting the captured marines to a safe location, which he had done to secure them as future bargaining chips, had become the most laborious part of the job.
"I am familiar with the training and operations of the First Fleet. With the Marine Hunter and the Empress there, even an Admiral will not be able to break them easily."
"And if they do?"
"An undamaged Marine fleet would have arrived here or at Mopuchi long ago."
Galdino adjusted his thick-rimmed glasses with a theatrical flair and grinned.
"There is no doubt that our forces are evenly matched. However, we have established a clear chain of command and have drilled our fleet maneuvers relentlessly. Our opponents, on the other hand, typically deal with pirates on a ship-by-ship basis and are in the midst of a major reorganization. No matter how strong they are individually, with so many destabilizing factors, we have more than a fighting chance."
"I see…"
The man had a way with words. Sandersonia, though experienced for her age, was half-convinced.
—Messenger! Messenger!
—Marine fleet approaching from the western sea! Four ships!
"…"
"…"
"…Hmph."
"Well?"
"One moment, please." Galdino's composure finally cracked. "A four-ship fleet from the west is something even I did not expect!"
"Someone please throw this three-eyed buffoon into the sea."
***
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