"Did we scare you guys?" Cain turned and asked the others.
"Nope." Uta shook her head and answered with a smile.
"YOU TOTALLY SCARED US! YOU TWO WERE TERRIFYING!" Nami shouted from behind them, and Chopper hurriedly nodded along.
"S-SUPER SCARY! THE PRESSURE JUST NOW WAS AWFUL!"
"But, Cain, Grandpa Rayleigh, why are you two here?" Uta tilted her head and looked at them.
"Uh, ahem… we were…"
'What do I even say? I can't exactly say we were selling ourselves—well, not that kind of selling ourselves, but still…'
Cain shot Rayleigh a glance from the corner of his eye, paused, then blurted out.
"Taking a walk. Yeah, just taking a walk."
Rayleigh stroked his beard, smiled lightly, and smoothly backed him up. "That's right. Just strolling around the island with nothing better to do."
Uta nodded and didn't press it further.
Just then—
"CAIN, LONG TIME NO SEE!" Luffy excitedly pushed through the crowd and ran over, slapping a hand onto Cain's shoulder as he rattled off in excitement.
"We even had a fight before over the Merry! In the end, everyone decided to leave the Merry to you! Our new ship is called the Thousand Sunny now! We already asked Iceburg to fix the Merry up properly and look after her! Oh, right, and the Merry, it… appeared… and agreed too… oh—and we've got new crewmates too!"
After hearing all that, Cain more or less understood.
What Luffy was talking about had to be the Merry's spirit.
Luffy had blurted out so much in one breath that he was practically panting, and before he could finish, Usopp leaned out from the doorway and shouted outside, cutting off the conversation at once.
"Hey, hey, hey! Quit chatting already! The Marines have completely surrounded this place! After causing such a huge mess, a Marine Admiral has definitely got to be on the way already!"
"This is bad!" Nami's face changed, and she grabbed her head in despair. "Now we're in real trouble! We actually drew an Admiral here!"
"Looks like we got dragged into this too," Law said calmly as he stood up with his arms folded.
Kid sneered, rolled his wrist, and grinned. "I don't feel like running into a Marine Admiral right now. What rotten luck. Fine, I'll help you out this once—but don't slow me down!"
Only then did Luffy really notice the two of them.
Earlier, he had already heard about their identities from Shakky.
Since they were fellow members of the Worst Generation, there was no way he would let himself be outdone.
He immediately turned to Cain, eyes blazing.
"Cain! Watch this carefully—this is the result of my training!"
The moment he said that, he turned and hurried after Law and Kid.
The three of them walked side by side toward the exit, still bickering with each other the whole way, though all of their minds were clearly set on dealing with the Marines.
"THEY'RE COMING OUT!"
"PREPARE FOR BATTLE!"
"THE THREE IN FRONT ARE ALL CAPTAINS… FROM THE RIGHT, THEIR BOUNTIES ARE THREE HUNDRED MILLION…"
The Marines surrounding the place shouted one after another, their voices sharp and urgent.
The tension instantly shot to the breaking point.
When cannon fire came flying in, Kid used his magnetism to stop the shells in midair, then hurled them right back.
"ROOM!"
Law spread out his sphere and cut the Marines cleanly in half, even replacing some of their heads with cannonballs.
Luffy first bit into his thumb and blew air into his bones, activating Gear Third and smashing a giant pistol into a whole swath of enemies.
Then he coated his other arm with Armament Haki, stretched it back, and shouted,
"GUM-GUM—FIRE FIST PISTOL!!"
Using Gear Second to speed up his blood flow and enhance his physical abilities, his Armament-hardened arm rubbed against the air and burst into flames, unleashing a blazing punch that tore straight through the enemy ranks.
Cain had only just stepped out with the others when he saw that and froze for a moment.
He hadn't expected that Luffy, who had only just started getting the hang of Armament Haki, would already develop a technique like that—one that carried Ace's will.
'No, wait, that wasn't right. Ace wasn't even dead yet, so how the hell had Luffy come up with that?'
The Marines' formation was thrown into total chaos by the combined assault of those three, and in an instant the battlefield dissolved into a complete melee.
Kid and Law each glanced at Luffy, then broke through in different directions.
Luffy, meanwhile, suddenly shrank back into a child because of Gear Third's side effects.
Cain reached out, picked little Luffy up, and held him in front of his face, giving him a little shake.
'Why is Luffy like this kind of adorable?'
Still, from what he had just seen, Luffy's techniques were nowhere near mature yet.
Leaving aside the side effects of Gear Second and Gear Third, his Armament Haki wasn't refined enough, and it wasn't strong enough either.
The fire he created had even burned his own body.
Cain looked at the red marks on Luffy's arm and thought about that, then gave little Luffy another shake.
"CAIN, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
"I just wanted to ask—what was that move you used just now?"
"That one? Well, since you and Ace can both use fire, I wanted to try too! Then somehow, it just worked!"
The moment Luffy finished saying that, his body returned to normal.
Cain's expression instantly fell.
A second ago, the tiny soft little version of him had been so cute that Cain had wanted to knead him for a while.
Now that he was back to normal, Cain instead had the sudden urge to beat some of that kingly swagger out of him.
"QUIT FOOLING AROUND ALREADY AND BREAK THROUGH!"
Zoro and Sanji were already fighting Marines off on the other side.
"Oh, don't worry about that! I guarantee you guys get out safely!"
With that, Cain unleashed his Conqueror's Haki, deliberately holding back most of its force, and strutted forward with the others.
Not a single Marine dared step in their way, and anyone who tried collapsed on the spot.
"Looks like you've gotten even stronger since the last time we met! Oh right, I still haven't introduced him—this is our shipwright, Franky!"
As they walked, Luffy hurriedly dragged Franky over to him.
"Yeah, he definitely looks like a pervert," Cain said after sweeping Franky with a glance.
"THANKS FOR THE COMPLIMENT! SUPEEEEEEEEEEEER!!" Franky shouted in his trademark pose, pressing the backs of his hands together.
"And this is Brook! He's super fun—he's our musician. When he met Uta before, the two of them really hit it off."
"Greetings." Brook, who hadn't had a chance to speak until now and whose appearance stood out in the extreme, took off his hat and greeted him.
Cain immediately remembered Brook's favorite line and leaned in with a heavy tone.
"You haven't said anything weird to Uta, have you?"
"You mean panties?" Brook asked back with complete seriousness.
"You bastard!!" Cain grabbed Brook by the neck vertebrae, attempting to suffocate a skeleton to death.
"That is not what you think, yohoho! I hadn't even had the chance to ask yet!" Brook hurriedly defended himself.
"You were planning to?! You bastard! Don't run!!"
Cain chased Brook around in circles through the group.
"Hahahaha, these young people really are full of life," Rayleigh said with a laugh.
Everyone beside him instantly fell silent.
Cain was one thing, but no matter how you looked at it, Brook absolutely did not count as young.
...
Laughing and shouting the whole way, the group soon made it back to Shakky's bar.
"WHAT?! THE VICE-CAPTAIN OF THE PIRATE KING'S CREW?!" everyone cried out in shock.
"Mm. I'm Silvers Rayleigh. Nice to meet you," Rayleigh said calmly.
"What, didn't Hactchan tell you?" Shakky asked in confusion.
"Oh… I just wanted to help them get their ship coated, so I didn't say much," Hachi scratched his head and explained.
"What's there to make such a fuss about?" Cain said flatly. "Luffy, Buggy the Clown, who we ran into before, and Shanks, who gave you that straw hat, were both on the Pirate King's ship too. There's no need to be that shocked."
"HUH?! EVEN BUGGY WAS?" Nami's eyes widened, completely incredulous.
"You guys really didn't know that? Well, then again, I guess that's not exactly common knowledge," Cain said, shaking his head.
Then he looked back at Luffy.
"Speaking of which, did you see Grandpa?"
"Grandpa? Nope." Luffy shook his head.
"I see."
Inside, Cain thought to himself that Ace's capture this time had happened because of him and Garp.
Garp must have felt guilty, which was why he hadn't shown up in Water 7 to see Luffy.
'Grandpa… is that how it is?'
"Gol D. Roger, huh? I feel like maybe there was once a rookie like that, and maybe there wasn't," Brook said lightly as he munched on beans, then immediately drifted over toward Uta.
"Uta-san, may I—"
Before Brook could finish, Cain clamped a hand down over his skull.
With his fingertips rubbing over Brook's head bone, Cain breathed out slowly and spoke in a low voice.
"Luffy and the others told me you died and came back to life, so I'm guessing you forgot all kinds of things. I've got something very fun right here that can help you remember."
As soon as the words fell, crackling lightning had already begun gathering in Cain's mouth.
Crackle crackle!!
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