"Gulp…"
No one knew who it was that managed to swallow, but in the deathly silent plaza the sound was painfully clear.
After a brief stillness, the Pirates erupted.
"W-Who was that?!"
"He killed our guy!"
"Only two people? No— that big one looks really weird…"
"Bastard!!!" A shrill, furious roar crushed all the clamor. Buggy sprang up from his chair, and with rage, his red nose looked even redder. "What the hell are you?! You dare wreck Buggy-sama's Buggy Ball and kill my men! Want me to slice you into pieces?!"
Tabito's brows didn't move. He only repeated coldly, eyes locked on Buggy. "I'll ask again. That cannonball just now—was it fired by you?"
Buggy acted like he hadn't heard the question at all—more accurately, he "sensitively" caught some sort of "contempt" hidden in the other man's tone (something he made up in his head) and instantly went berserk. "Damn you! Who are you calling red-nose?! Buggy-sama hates people bringing that up the most!!"
Off to the side, Mohji wiped sweat from his forehead and whispered a reminder, "C-Captain… I think he was asking about the cannonball…"
Buggy ignored him completely. His anger had already gone to his head (or rather, he never really cared about details like that). "Split-Split—Clown Flying Knives!"
He violently detached an arm holding several throwing knives, splitting it off from his body. The arm shot forward like a cannonball straight at Tabito's face—knives gleaming with cold light!
Faced with the bizarre attack, Tabito merely rotated his wrist slightly. The shaft of his dark iron spear snapped sideways like an iron whip!
Smack!
With a sharp crack, Buggy's detached arm—knives and all—was blasted away by a brutal force. It spun through the air and slammed into nearby rubble, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Huh?" Buggy froze, then shook the joint—whoosh—the arm flew back and reattached. Only then did he properly size up Tabito's weapon. "A blunt weapon?"
The Split-Split Fruit let him split freely and ignore most slashes, but against pure blunt-force impacts and beatings, his defense dropped off a cliff. And this guy—of all things—was using a spear shaft to club him…
"Looks like you're not going to talk properly." Seeing the other side was completely impossible to communicate with, Tabito lost patience. With a thought, he ordered, "Treasure, clear out the fodder. Capture the ones who look like officers."
"Rrgh…" From the corpse puppet Treasure's throat came a low, inhuman growl. Chains erupted again like a nest of snakes, rattling as they shot toward the surrounding Pirates! At the same time, it lumbered forward with heavy strides, charging straight at Mohji, Cabaji, and the lion Richie beside them.
"Move! All of you, move! Kill them!" Buggy screeched.
The pirate grunts charged with swords and blades, forcing themselves onward—but in the face of chains whipping across the sky with crushing force, they were like straw. They were flung away, wrapped up, yanked tight… Screams and the sound of bones breaking rose one after another. Mohji directed Richie to pounce, only for the lion to be bound tight by chains; Cabaji, riding his unicycle, tried to dance around with agile swordplay, but more chains quickly blocked his path and wrapped him up into a neat bundle.
As for Tabito himself, he dragged the dark iron spear and walked toward Buggy step by step. The fight that followed, to someone used to cultivation-world mystic arts and life-or-death slaughter, was almost… boring and ridiculous.
Buggy roared as he threw out all kinds of split attacks. "Split-Split—Pancake!" "Split-Split—Circus!" His body parts flew all over the place, daggers and (smaller) cannonballs thrown everywhere, the scene blindingly chaotic.
But under Tabito's response—seemingly simple, yet supported by subtle footwork and astonishing dynamic vision—every flashy attack missed. Tabito didn't even use much True qi. Relying only on refined spear technique and combat experience far beyond this body's age, he repeatedly snapped the spear shaft with pinpoint accuracy into the body parts Buggy split off to attack… or simply slammed straight at Buggy's main body.
Bang!
"Ow!"
Smack!
"It hurts like hell, Buggy-sama!!"
Buggy was like a ball being swatted around nonstop, screaming again and again. His splitting ability lost most of its value against pure blunt strikes, and every hit from Tabito sent pain through him. He tried to run, but Tabito's footwork always sealed his retreat; he tried to use a special Buggy Ball, but never even got a chance to aim.
It was a completely unequal stomp—so lopsided it was practically mockery.
In just a few minutes, Buggy was battered black-and-blue, sore all over, his clown hat crooked. Finally, Tabito swept the spear shaft into the back of his knee. Buggy stumbled and crashed to the ground. Before he could split apart and escape, a cold spear tip was already pressing to the back of his neck—heavy pressure pinning him so he couldn't move.
Tabito planted one foot on Buggy's back and swept his gaze across the plaza. Beneath Treasure's feet lay Mohji, Cabaji, and the lion Richie, all trussed up tight in chains, along with a heap of pirate grunts groaning on the ground or unconscious. The Buggy Pirates were essentially dismantled.
Even with his foot on Buggy—still struggling and cursing—Tabito's eyes looked deep, and he didn't kill him right away.
He was weighing it.
Kill him now, seize his soul, refine him into a corpse puppet—he'd instantly have a corpse puppet with the "Split-Split" ability. It looked comical, but in certain situations it was absurdly useful. Especially the trait of not fearing slashes—paired with a corpse puppet's own toughness, it could produce an extremely annoying enemy.
But…
Fragments of memory churned. This red-nosed clown's background didn't seem simple. An apprentice on the Roger Pirates? He looked like a gag character, yet he could call "Red-Haired" Shanks a brother (in those memories, at least), and even knew the legendary "Pirate King's right hand," Silvers Rayleigh… The karmic entanglement there was a bit too big.
Shanks—one of the New World's Four Emperors, a top-tier Haki monster. Rayleigh—a retired legend, unfathomably deep. If Tabito killed Buggy now, there was no guarantee it wouldn't draw the attention of those two. Tabito didn't fear challenges, but he knew his current strength was far from restored. At the third layer of Qi Refining, he could probably run wild in the East Blue. In the latter half of the Grand Line—especially against true top-tier monsters—he was nowhere near enough. Unnecessary trouble was best avoided.
But if he let him go… it was a waste.
A Devil Fruit user delivered right to his doorstep—and all the souls on this ship of Pirates…
Just as Tabito fell into thought, Buggy under his foot kept shouting, "Bastard! Let Buggy-sama go! Do you know who Buggy-sama is?! Once I'm free, I'll blast you into the sky with a special Buggy Ball!"
Tabito lowered his head, looking at Buggy's ridiculous yet miserable face. Then he spoke, blandly tossing out a question:
"I heard you used to be a crewman on 'Pirate King' Gol D. Roger's ship."
"!!!"
(End of Chapter)
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