[Cover Serial: Heart Pirates 5 - "The Birdcage is disappearing…"]
[As the two silent men stared at each other in total silence, the island beneath their feet trembled slightly. Looking back toward the Birdcage, they saw an enormous stone giant, imposing even from a distance, collapse with a thunderous crash.
Using the Ope Ope no Mi's ROOM along with the Nagi Nagi no Mi's silencing power, they quietly slipped away on a small reserve boat stolen from the battleship. But the moment they looked back up, they froze.
The colossal cage of strings covering the corner of the island was rapidly falling apart…]
---
"A thief?"
At the head of the Happo Navy stood a middle-aged man at least four meters tall, his face buried beneath a wild, unkempt beard.
Hearing the commotion, he glanced over at a short thief scrambling away from a shopkeeper. Panicking, the little man had somehow sprinted straight toward them.
"Aah!"
Realizing his mistake, the short thief let out a choked cry, stumbled to a dead halt, and immediately scrambled in the opposite direction.
"You stole something, and you still think you can run?"
Sai, grandson of Don Chinjao, the 12th leader of the Happo Navy, tightened his grip on his naginata and prepared to sprint after the thief. But before he could take a step, his father called him back.
"Hold on, Sai."
Sai stopped and turned around, confused. "What is it, Dad? I'm going to catch him!"
"He only stole some food. No need to make a big deal out of it." The four-meter-tall man with the messy beard was Tian, Chinjao's son and Sai's father. He shrugged casually. "If he wasn't starving, why would he risk stealing food from a shop?"
Sai clicked his tongue and planted the butt of his naginata onto the cobblestones with a heavy thud. "Dad, this is exactly why Grandpa refuses to hand the Happo Navy over to you."
Tian waved a hand dismissively. "Who cares about being the leader of some lousy navy…"
The shopkeeper, who had fallen flat on his backside after colliding with the thief when the man backtracked, had zero interest in their family squabble. "That doesn't mean you can just let him off! I'm the one who got robbed!"
"Oh, right…" Tian dug around in his clothes, pulled out a few wrinkled, greasy Belly notes, and tossed them to the merchant. "There. That should cover it, right?"
The shopkeeper picked up the money with a disgusted look, shook his head, and grunted as he walked away.
"Aah… uuh… hhh…"
The strange, muffled noises returned from nearby.
Tian, Sai, and the rest of the Happo Navy turned to look, almost all of them showing varying degrees of surprise.
They weren't seeing things, were they?
Weren't those Giorno Giovanna and Jolyne Cujoh of the JoJo Pirates, the crew plastering the newspapers lately? The very same duo recently appointed as two of the Seven Warlords of the Sea?
Giorno was currently holding the short thief aloft by his collar.
"Ah… uuh…" The thief clutched a wax-paper package tightly against his chest, emitting nothing but broken, muffled noises.
Liam pinched the old man's cheek, pulling his mouth open just enough to see that part of his tongue was missing.
"Aah… uuh…" The mute old man stared at him in sheer terror, trembling like a leaf.
One glance was enough for Liam to spot the countless old scars peeking out from beneath the man's ragged clothes. Apparently, he was terrible at being a thief and had been caught and beaten plenty of times.
"Does anyone here still have a problem with this thief?" Liam looked around, still holding the old man by his collar.
The surrounding townspeople quickly averted their eyes. None of them wanted any trouble with a Warlord, and within moments, the crowd scattered.
Liam didn't mind. He casually set the old man back on the ground.
'Thump.'
The mute old man hit the pavement on his backside, still eyeing Liam with deep dread. The wax-paper bundle slipped from his grip, loosening slightly to reveal a stack of fried cakes inside.
Only when the Happo Navy began walking over did the old man hurriedly scoop up his food and scramble away into an alley.
Robin watched him disappear before turning her attention to the Happo Navy members crossing the street.
Tian folded his arms, looking down at Giorno from his towering height. "What are Warlords doing all the way out here?"
Liam tilted his head. "Is that the only question you people know how to ask?"
"Huh?" Sai stood beside Tian with his naginata resting against his shoulder, a massive question mark practically floating over his head.
Liam looked at Sai with mild curiosity. "Young hero, may I ask how old you are?"
Perhaps the formal phrasing fit the local culture, because Sai actually answered without hesitation. "Fifteen."
Fifteen?!
'If you told me you were fifty, I'd believe you!'
Liam stared at Sai's prematurely aged face and let out a soft sigh. "You really got an early start…"
Sai's brow furrowed in instant annoyance. "What are you actually here for? Even if you're Warlords, "
Liam cut him off, ignoring him entirely to look up at Tian with a friendly grin. "I heard from a reliable source that the leader of the Happo Navy, Chinjao, is completely unrivaled in Hasshoken. So I came to experience it for myself!"
'Who the hell told you that?! You definitely heard the story wrong!' Sai and the surrounding men screamed internally.
The old man's truly unrivaled feature had obviously been his pointed, drill-shaped skull!
Unfortunately… ever since Marine Hero Garp flattened that legendary drill head with a single Haki-infused punch, "Chinjao the Drill" had been reduced to plain old Chinjao. The old man had been wallowing in deep depression ever since.
So Giorno had come all this way just to challenge their grandfather 'after' he'd already lost his former glory? Wasn't that just picking a fight for the sake of it?!
Sai opened his mouth to reject him, but Tian casually interjected, "I see. Follow us, then. We'll take you to the old man."
"Dad!" Sai protested.
Tian scratched at his scruffy beard. "It'll be fine. Giorno and Jolyne have nothing to do with that Marine Hero Garp. The old man won't fly into a rage."
'Marine Hero Garp?'
Robin found the name strangely familiar in this context.
Liam couldn't help but cast a quick side-eye at Robin. She was the Princess of Amazon Lily, while Luffy, the son of the previous Kuja Empress, was Garp's direct grandson. Could you really say there was 'no' connection?
Still, they silently followed the Happo Navy toward their stronghold.
It was a mountain fortress tucked deep inside a valley outside of town. Old-fashioned wooden buildings blanketed the slopes, many carved directly into the cliff faces.
Just as expected, the architecture bore a striking resemblance to Amazon Lily. Robin needed only a single glance to feel as though she had returned to the Kuja homeland.
---
By the time Tian and Sai brought Liam and Robin to see Chinjao, the old man was sitting alone in his quarters, staring mournfully into a hand mirror.
A few days ago, he had returned to the secret cavern where his family's wealth was stored. Beneath a thick sheet of solid ice lay mountains of gold, jewels, and ancient treasures accumulated over generations by the leaders of the Happo Navy.
But ever since he lost the pointed drill that served as his "key," Chinjao had no way to shatter the ice and reach it. The treasure was right there beneath his feet, so close he could practically touch it…
"WAAAAAAAH!!!"
A thunderous, earth-shattering wail erupted from inside the room.
Robin flinched. "Why is he crying?"
Sai's face turned bright red with embarrassment. 'Grandpa, seriously?! Was he staring in the mirror and touching his head again?! Why did he have to start bawling right in front of guests?!'
Tian didn't care in the slightest. He strode up and knocked heavily on the sliding door. "Old man! You've got visitors!"
The loud sobbing stopped instantly.
A second later, the door swung open, revealing a burly figure standing over five meters tall. The bald old man with his thick white beard showed no trace of tears, looking entirely unlike someone who had just been weeping moments prior.
He looked down, spotted Liam and Robin, and grunted in surprise. "What are Warlords doing here?"
"Delivered them. I'm out." Tian turned on his heel and walked off without waiting for an answer.
Seeing his son shirk his duties again, Chinjao's veins bulged as he glared down at Sai. "What did your useless father do today?!"
Sai reluctantly recounted how Tian had just paid off a merchant for food stolen by a local thief.
The moment Chinjao heard it, his temper exploded. "A thief?! 'Another' thief?! That damned fool! Is he trying to anger this old man to death?! If it hadn't been for what happened back then, "
Realizing outsiders were watching, Chinjao abruptly choked back his words. Still fuming, he redirected his fierce glare at Liam and Robin. "You two came all this way to see me. What do you want?"
'What the hell did Dad do back then…?' Sai glanced in the direction Tian had disappeared before focusing back on the conversation. "Giorno says he came here to fight you, Grandpa."
"Fight me?" Chinjao looked caught off guard.
Liam didn't bother beating around the bush. "I heard from Rayleigh that your Hasshoken is incredible. He even mentioned that training it can draw out Conqueror's Haki, so I came to see it for myself."
"Draw out Conqueror's Haki?!" Chinjao stared at him in utter disbelief before letting out a miserable, outraged groan.
"How could Rayleigh spread such a ridiculous rumor?!"
---
Meanwhile, elsewhere in Kano Country.
Deep inside a hidden cave carved into a barren, desolate mountain range, the short mute old man arrived carrying his wax-paper bundle of food.
"Aah… ah-ba, ah-ba…" He set the package down on a flat rock, pointing at his mouth and mimicking an eating motion.
The interior of the cave reeked heavily of fresh blood. In the dim light, several corpses clad in the armor of the Dragon Flag Army lay scattered across the stone floor.
A young man dressed in rough clothes stepped forward, grabbed the food, and turned toward the back of the cavern. "Sister, eat something."
A hoarse female voice echoed from the shadows. "You ran away so fast, I thought you'd abandoned us and weren't coming back."
"Aah! Aah!" The mute old man frantically shook his head and waved his arms, making desperate gestures while emitting garbled noises.
Unfortunately, no one could understand what he was trying to say.
He scurried deeper into the cave, where a masked woman had removed her dark outer tunic to tighten the bandages wrapped around her torso. Fresh blood was already seeping through the cloth.
Seeing her state, the old man nodded repeatedly. "Aah, aah, aah!"
The masked woman, Sienna, glanced back at him, her voice cold as ice. "Don't forget to dispose of the bodies."
"Aah! Aah!"
The mute old man nodded eagerly and began rummaging through the dozens of small bottles and jars hidden inside his robes. After searching for a moment, he pulled out a dark glass vial and popped the stopper.
He carefully sprinkled a fine grayish powder over the corpses of the Dragon Flag Army soldiers.
'Ssssss…'
More than a dozen bodies suddenly began emitting intense heat. Foul-smelling clouds of chemical smoke billowed upward as the corpses rapidly shriveled and dissolved into liquid. Before long, nothing remained except piles of smoldering clothing and scorched armor.
Sienna watched the mute old man work, her eyes flashing with undisguised hatred from behind her mask.
(End of Chapter)
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