A line of guards. Five prison officers. One carrying a bowl of food. One holding a bowl. Two pushing carts. One standing watch, gun in hand, eyes sharp.
Pirate Yujin sized them up in an instant and picked out the strongest among the five — the one with the gun. He activated his Sharingan's Hypnosis ability.
Snap!
The gun in the guard's arms clattered to the floor. The food-carrying guard turned his head to look.
Squelch!
A thick tail slipped through the bars and stabbed into the food-guard's shoulder. The tail pierced through the shoulder blade. Its hooked tip aimed straight at the guard's temple.
"Don't move!" Yujin shouted. "Open the cell door now! Or this guy dies here!"
The scene moved so fast that the two pirates in the cell, each with ten-million bounties, were left stunned. They had talked about breaking out, but this was execution-level resolve.
"Don't do anything rash! Don't move!" someone shouted.
"I said open the door! Or he dies!" Yujin repeated.
The guards shifted their eyes to the gunman, the strongest among them. When they saw the gun-bearing guard rolling his eyes and staring blankly, everyone froze in confusion.
"Three!"
"Two!"
"Wait!"
One guard hurriedly fumbled a large bunch of keys out of his belt. "Here!" he said.
"Don't try any tricks." Yujin glared. "You open it."
The guard holding the keys hesitated. The prison's cell locks were complicated.
If the wrong key was used twice in a row, the lock would jam. Without a higher-authority backup key, the door could not be opened.
The guard thought Yujin looked young and clueless. But he had no idea that the man in front of him was an old veteran of Impel Down.
Seven years in this prison — longer than most guards had even worked here.
Trying to fool him? Not a chance.
While the guard holding the keys hesitated, a scream tore through the Starvation Hell floor.
Yujin sank his teeth into the neck of the guard he was holding hostage. He drank in the man's "life force," his eyes fierce as he glared at the others. "He'll be dead in ten seconds."
Ten seconds wasn't short, but it wasn't long either. The hostage soon rolled his eyes back, pale and weak from blood loss.
Seeing this, the guard with the keys glanced back at his superior — still dazed under the spell of the Sharingan.
Realizing he was on his own, he made his decision and pushed a key into the lock.
Clack—
The cell door swung wide open.
Except for the hypnotized chief and the collapsed guard on the ground, the rest of the guards stood in full alert, staring at Yujin like he was a monster.
Their strength was nothing special.
Even though Impel Down was full of criminals worth over thirty million berries just on Level Three alone, the guards themselves were mostly rejects from the Navy — leftovers who couldn't make the cut.
Their strength varied wildly and was far below Marines stationed at Marineford.
The World Government wasn't stupid. Sending the strongest to guard a prison and the weakest to chase pirates would turn the world upside down.
Impel Down was hard to escape from not because of its guards, but because of Magellan, Seastone, the Calm Belt, Navy warships, and the Sea Kings that lurked outside.
Someone like Yujin? Against normal guards, he could practically walk around sideways.
Just when the guards thought he was about to slaughter them all, Yujin simply stepped out of the cell and shoved a giant wooden barrel — the kind that usually needed three guards to move — inside.
The two skeletons inside sniffed the "fragrance" coming from the barrel, swallowing hungrily as their eyes lit up with expectation.
"Teachers, please eat. It's on me."
After finishing everything, he turned back inside the cell and smiled at the prison guards. "What are you standing there for? Lock the door."
Only then did the guard with the keys snap back to reality. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and muttered, "Damn! He just grabbed the Hiramisi! I thought he was trying to break out… scared me to death."
At this moment, the guard officer with the gun finally woke up from the illusion. He looked around in confusion and hurriedly picked up his weapon. "W-What happened?"
"We were attacked! That guy stole Hiramisi!"
"Th-Thank goodness." The officer wiped the sweat streaming down his face with his sleeve. "Go. Report this immediately."
"You brat! Just wait! You dared attack prison guards! You're done for later~!"
Meanwhile, inside the cell, Yujin sat there like he'd turned into a fool. He hugged the barrel of Hiramisi tightly and didn't move at all.
When a whole group of furious prison guards arrived at the cell door holding steel whips, poison needles, and branding irons… everyone froze.
Inside the cell, aside from two useless prisoners whose stomachs were round and swollen like balloons, the black-haired brat was completely gone!
Where did he go?
He was wearing Sea-Stone handcuffs. How did he disappear right under their noses?
"Burp~" Carlson hiccuped. "I-I have no idea."
Ugo Bennett held his near-exploding stomach. "We d-didn't eat anything! It was… it was all that guy!"
Half an hour later.
After watching the surveillance footage, Sadi, Saldeath, Hannyabal, Magellan, Domino, and the others were all filled with shock.
"Sea-Stone doesn't affect him?"
"This shouldn't be a Devil Fruit ability. It's more like those ninjas from Wano and their illusion tricks. But how he did it… I have no clue."
The poison man Magellan slammed the table. "Damn it! We let that brat escape again!"
Everyone quickly backed away from the darkened table, when an annoying voice suddenly echoed.
"Starvation Hell is one of the levels Chief Warden Magellan is responsible for. If Chief Warden Magellan gets demoted, I can become the Chief Warden. Hehehe! Ah! Why did I say that out loud?"
No one was surprised anymore by Hannyabal's shameless personality.
Magellan suddenly froze as if remembering something. "Where is that guy, Shiryu?"
Saldeath reminded him. "He headed to Starvation Hell early this morning."
Magellan slapped his thigh. "Damn it! Shiryu must be planning to kill someone! I need to stop him!"
Just as he finished, he stepped toward the door, and a poisonous fart exploded through the crowd.
Everyone covered their noses, faces turning red from holding their breath, yet some poisonous gas still slipped into their lungs.
"This is bad, really bad." Hannyabal fell to the ground in despair. "So cunning. This is the strategy of a Chief Warden? I… I can't compete with him for achievements."
Meanwhile, Magellan clutched his stomach tightly. "Someone! Give them the antidote shot! I… I need to go to the restroom."
His urgent footsteps echoed through the dry corridor.
The size of Impel Down was beyond what Pirate Yujin had imagined.
He even suspected this prison was created by some unknown Devil Fruit power.
It was unbelievably vast. With every few steps he ran, a completely new scene shattered his previous expectations.
Fortunately, with the help of Observation Haki, he no longer ran around Starvation Hell like a headless fly.
Turning into an unremarkable side passage, Yujin found a staircase leading into an unknown area.
Feeling the hot wind drifting up from the seemingly bottomless stairs, Pirate Yujin took a deep breath and jumped down.
****
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