Chapter 295: The Bugs Hiding in the Shadows
"Big news...this is BIG news! Here I was wondering what massive event the Whitebeard Pirates had been putting together for the past couple days, and turns out it's some kind of enormous feast. But that's not even the real story—the real story is that tall, skinny guy over there is definitely Marine Admiral Kizaru, and that guy with the explosion of hair is one hundred percent the Fleet Admiral himself!"
Not far from the feast grounds, tucked away inside a thick patch of shrubbery, a man crouched low, gripping an oddly-shaped camera, his face lit up with barely-contained excitement.
His hands were trembling with excitement—because this was, without a shred of doubt, news that could shake the entire world.
A Marine Admiral and the Fleet Admiral, tangled up in some bizarre alliance with the Whitebeard Pirates? The news alone was so outrageous that barely anyone would believe it even if he told them straight out.
One side was the Navy, the other pirates—sure, some rank-and-file Marines might get cozy with pirates on occasion, but this was an Admiral and the Fleet Admiral themselves!
If he actually published this... no—wait, absolutely not, he could never publish this. Openly antagonizing beings of this caliber would get a two-bit newspaper reporter like him killed in the ugliest way imaginable.
But he could definitely leverage this information—squeeze a fat payday out of the right people, or maybe even a cushy little position somewhere. Way better than chasing some worthless byline.
"No idea who any of the others are, but anyone who can trade laughs with Whitebeard himself is no ordinary person. This is huge. Genuinely huge. This might be the biggest story since the Pirate King Roger's execution."
His lips were trembling with excitement, bad enough that it looked like he might keel over from a heart attack at any moment.
After snapping off several dozen photos—some crisp, some blurry—he decided it was time to make himself scarce.
These were major players on the high seas, after all. If even one of them noticed him spying, he was as good as dead.
Thankfully, none of them seemed to have picked up on the commotion over here—all of them seemed thoroughly absorbed in the feast.
But the moment he crawled his way back out of the shrubbery, a faint whiff of soda hit his nose, and his throat—already parched from going half a day without water—tightened up on instinct.
Then, a split second later, it hit him properly, and his eyes went wide. Why would there be the smell of a drink anywhere near him out here?
He was absolutely certain there was no one else anywhere near him. No one had gotten close to him at any point either—his eyes couldn't have been playing tricks on him.
So where, exactly, was this smell of soda coming from, right behind him?
Could someone have snuck up on him, completely undetected?
Impossible—surely. He'd been keeping his guard up this entire time; if anyone had gotten close, he'd have noticed for sure!
Right as his thoughts spiraled in a mad scramble, a mocking voice drawled from behind him: "Yo yo yo, look what old me found here. A cute little reporter, sneaking around playing spy. Guess Whitebeard's boys really do need some proper training—hothouse flowers never grow up strong, you know."
The teasing, mocking tone froze the reporter's whole body solid. His expression locked in place, the excited grin on his face slowly curdling into pure terror and blank shock.
He swallowed hard, cold sweat beading up on his forehead and trailing down his cheeks, dripping to the ground. He could swear he actually heard the droplets hit the dirt—though maybe that was just his fear playing tricks on his senses.
Stiffly, he forced his head to turn, and felt his heart practically stop dead. Standing right behind him... was Marine Admiral Kizaru himself!
No—that couldn't be right!
Hadn't Admiral Kizaru just been over at the feast a moment ago?
How had he gotten over here so fast?
Oh—right!
This Admiral had eaten a Logia-type Devil Fruit, the Glint-Glint Fruit—giving him the fastest speed on the seas, a speed most people couldn't even register.
But the feast grounds were nearly a kilometer away from here. Even the reporter himself had only managed to see that far thanks to an expensive, specialized Den Den Mushi camera.
From nearly a kilometer out—how had he even been spotted in the first place?
Could it be... the legendary Observation Haki?
Out here in the New World, Observation Haki wasn't anything particularly rare. Run into just about any random pirate, and there was a good chance they'd have both Observation and Armament Haki.
As a reporter, he knew about Observation Haki well enough—it wasn't strange at all that an Admiral would have it. If anything, it would've been strange if he didn't.
Just as shock and terror had him frozen stiff, Kizaru's voice rang out again. "Well... Sengoku-san mentioned earlier that even though he personally doesn't care what the World Government thinks, now's really not the time to be burning bridges. So, how about handing that camera over to old me? Give it up, and I won't lay a finger on you—old me's not exactly a monster, you know."
The reporter's mind screamed in protest. He absolutely did not want to hand over the Den Den Mushi camera—but not handing it over now clearly meant something far worse was coming his way.
In the end, he surrendered the camera anyway, forcing out a strained, awkward smile, and asked timidly, "So...um...can I go now? I—I really didn't mean anything by it, taking those photos..."
Kizaru took a slow sip of his drink, smacked his lips, and shook his head. "Nah, nah. Sure, you handed over the camera, but you're still going to go blab about it to someone. So old me figures you'd better stick around on this island for a while."
"Don't worry, it won't be more than half a year. You'll be confined to this one island—someone from the Whitebeard Pirates will be tailing you the whole time, so don't even think about running. Behave yourself for those six months, and nothing bad's gonna happen to you at all."
Patting the reporter's shoulder, Kizaru weighed the Den Den Mushi camera in his hand and muttered to himself, "Guess there's more eyes on this place than I thought. That makes three of them now."
The Whitebeard Pirates hadn't exactly been subtle these past few days, what with all the gathering of specialties and everything—naturally, it had drawn plenty of unwanted attention, hence all this.
Of course, for the Dimensional Chat Group's members, rooting out the little bugs hiding in the shadows, spying on things, was practically no challenge whatsoever.
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