Chapter 298: A Friendly Spar??
"Fufufufu...Whitebeard's entertaining some very important guest, is he? Even my own intelligence network can't dig up anything useful. The eyes I sent over haven't reported back either—looks like they've already been made."
On a decent-sized island out in the New World, a man dressed like something between a flamingo and a fever dream sat with a chilling grin plastered across his face—though a thin trace of unease still lingered around his eyes.
He lifted a glass of red wine, took a slow sip, and murmured to himself, "The Whitebeard Pirates have been way more active than usual this past year. No idea what they're actually up to—I can't dig up a single solid lead. The only confirmed thing I've got is that Whitebeard beat Kaido a second time, three-plus months back."
Even Doflamingo himself, for all his reach, hadn't managed to pin down the actual details of that fight between Whitebeard and Kaido three months prior.
All he knew was that Kaido had ended up beaten half to death, then magnanimously spared by Whitebeard, after which his own Three Disasters had come scrambling in to haul his sorry, half-dead carcass back home.
Arguably the single most humiliating defeat Kaido had suffered since he first set sail. And it also quietly confirmed something else: age clearly hadn't slowed Whitebeard down one bit.
If anything, the man seemed to be getting stronger.
The Whitebeard Pirates usually kept a low profile—rarely stirred up trouble, never bothered raiding merchant ships.
But the faint edge they'd been giving off lately was something even Doflamingo, countless nautical miles away, could feel plain as day.
"Fufufufu...that's what real power gets you—that kind of overwhelming confidence. If I had strength like Whitebeard's, would I still be bowing and scraping to the Beast Pirates? What a waste! Someone like me, that old geezer Whitebeard probably wouldn't even bother sparing a glance for. Fufufufu...FUFUFUFU!!"
What Doflamingo didn't know, of course, was that Whitebeard actually brought up his name fairly often—seeing as he happened to be one of the Dimensional Chat Group's designated "combat benchmarks."
As one of the chat group's power-level reference points, Doflamingo was, in a sense, practically a household name within the group.
Sure, most members had no idea what he actually looked like.
But every single one of them knew his name, and knew exactly what he was: a thoroughly vile human trafficker and arms dealer.
Any industry with obscene profit margins, Doflamingo never passed up. Genuinely baffling that a pirate this rotten somehow still had people out there trying to whitewash his image.
Not that his luck would hold much longer. Between the shifting political winds, and Whitebeard now on friendly terms with a Fleet Admiral as unshackled as Sengoku, would the Seven Warlords system even still be around much longer?
The whole point of the Seven Warlords system had always been to keep other pirates in check—but did the world even still need that anymore?
And without the Seven Warlords system propping him up, it wasn't exactly hard to guess what fate awaited someone as thoroughly rotten as Doflamingo.
Of course, holed up safe in his own headquarters, Doflamingo felt no sense of danger whatsoever. He wasn't exactly clairvoyant.
After a few seconds of silence, swirling the wine glass in his hand, a flicker of wariness crossed his eyes as he muttered to himself, "A Yonkō, huh...operating out in the open, doing whatever the hell you want, and nobody's got the nerve to touch you. Must be nice."
And it wasn't just Kaido and "Joker" Doflamingo—two of the New World's most notorious names—keeping tabs on things. Forces like the Big Mom Pirates, Crocodile, the Germa 66, the Eight Treasures Fleet, and others were all watching the Whitebeard Pirates closely too.
In the One Piece world, when a nobody gets a terminal diagnosis, barely anyone bats an eye—but when a real heavyweight so much as steps outside, all eyes turn his way. And Whitebeard was, without question, a heavyweight.
Add to that the mystery surrounding the identity of Whitebeard's guests, and curiosity was running at an all-time high across the board.
And yet every spy and informant sent to investigate had come back with nothing.
The Whitebeard Pirates weren't pushovers, after all—rooting out those little bugs hiding in the shadows barely took any real effort on their part.
By now, it was the final day of the group event. Marco, First Division Captain of the Whitebeard Pirates, had gotten thoroughly familiar with Pops's mysterious circle of friends by this point.
Glancing over at Ryū, Yukari, and the others chatting a short distance away, Marco scratched at an itch on his scalp and muttered under his breath, "Pops keeps saying all these people are strong, but honestly, the only ones who actually look strong to me are that blonde girl, that black-haired kid, and the two Marines, Sengoku and Kizaru."
Frankly, aside from those four, Marco couldn't gauge much of anything about the rest of the strangers.
He figured Ryū and Yukari's strength had to be legit, since Pops had known them a while already.
But everyone else, he'd never crossed paths with before—so he genuinely had no way of telling whether they were actually strong, or whether Pops was just messing with him.
Then again, Pops wasn't exactly the type to joke around like this normally, was he?
"Gurararara! Marco, you think they're not strong, do you? If you're curious, why not ask one of them for a friendly spar? Might just teach you how big this world really is. Never underestimate anyone, my boy!"
Whitebeard's booming laugh rang out from behind him, catching Marco a little off guard.
Marco shook his head. "Nah, I'll pass, Pops. Plenty of teenagers in that group, even a few little kids—and I'm already past forty."
Whitebeard chuckled. "Don't go getting overconfident on me now, son. Take that black-haired girl over there, for instance—go at her with everything you've got, and you still wouldn't manage to so much as scratch her."
The "black-haired girl" Whitebeard meant was, unmistakably, Kaguya Shinomiya, currently chatting away with Umaru.
Whitebeard had joined the chat group at the same time as Kaguya, which was exactly why he had such a clear read on just how far her strength had actually developed.
Within the Dimensional Chat Group, Kaguya's power level probably trailed only slightly behind Sengoku's current standing.
She, too, had the kind of combat strength that could take down a New World Yonkō in a straight fight—present company excluded, of course, since Whitebeard obviously didn't count himself in that comparison.
With that, Whitebeard tagged Kaguya directly in the chat.
Edward Newgate: @Kaguya-sama, Gurararara! Kaguya, mind doing old me a favor? These sons of mine here don't quite believe how many genuinely powerful people are out there in this world, so, you know how it goes.
Kaguya-sama: Huh? Whitebeard-ojii-sama wants me to go knock some sense into your sons?
Kaguya-sama: Isn't that a little... not great?
Edward Newgate: No issue at all. Just don't kill them. Crippling them a little is totally fine.
Kaguya-sama: Pfft...alright then, in that case, I'll try to hold back a bit.
[...]
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