Kaidou powered up his legs, leaping into mid-air, then activated his ability to transform into his Human-Beast Form.
"Descent of Three Worlds·Hiku Naraku!"
He swung the iron club down from the sky, but his target was not the pirates, but the building within the Navy Base. Though the pirates appeared fierce and fearless, they were too weak to stop Kaidou.
Consequently, Kaidou completely ignored those guys, directly smashing the building down and creating a hole in the ground.
Beneath that was the Navy Base's basement. Sitting cross-legged there was a person who was carving a mask in his hands, showing an expression of incomprehensible shock as Kaidou appeared before him.
"Found you. Your aura among this bunch of small fry is as obvious as a torch in the dark night."
Everyone's aura is slightly different. Fujitora, with his vast perception, can discover those subtle differences. Even though he can't see everyone's appearance, he's able to differentiate each person even while blind.
Kaidou's Observation Haki didn't develop in this direction, but sensing the strength of individuals is one of the basic abilities of Observation Haki; once developed, it can make a rough assessment of the enemy's strength.
While there were multiple auras in the building, in a group of weak pirate small fries, a relatively strong aura stood out, and Kaidou could certainly sense it.
"Knowing so much, yet ignorant of such basic common sense, where exactly did you come from? I'll ask one last time: Where is John? The blade marks outside are clearly John's work, so he must have been here. Where did he go afterward?"
The man did not speak. Instead, he lifted the mask in his hand and placed it on his face. The mask bore a pair of demon horns, and while abstract at some points, it was still recognizable as Kaidou.
"Hehehe, I'm someone who ate the Paramecia-type Act-Act Fruit. Eventually, the power of people like you will be mine!"
With the mask on, his shape suddenly changed into Kaidou's, but not into the Human-Beast Form, rather a Human Form.
The Act-Act Fruit grants its user theatrical abilities. The earlier unconscious pirates that resembled zombies were influenced by his fruit ability — Puppet Show.
Within his stage's scope, he could manipulate others as puppets for theatrical performance. However, the stronger the individual, the harder to control them. Even someone as strong as Queen couldn't be easily manipulated.
The Puppet Show focuses more on quantity, and he initially planned to cause chaos among the Navy upon their arrival due to internal conflict, but ended up using it on the group of pirates first.
Kaidou indirectly helped him in a way; if those people hadn't been unconscious, it would have been practically impossible for him to control such a number of puppets.
Moreover, control over puppets could only be conducted within the stage's scope. He hadn't left here for days, having turned this base into his stage with his abilities.
John in the center was his theatrical doppelgänger. Using the carved mask as a medium, he could create and control doppelgängers resembling the person depicted on the mask, though this required some of the imitator's blood or body part to achieve similarity.
The mask he now wore on his face demonstrated another use of the ability — drama embodiment.
The theatrical doppelgänger can sense the enemy's strength, and the main body can create a mask based on the feedback from the doppelgänger. When the main body wears the mask, he gains the power sensed by the doppelgänger, but it must be power sensed within a few hours to craft the mask.
Additionally, he could only gain physical strength. If the enemy were an ability user, he couldn't obtain their ability.
In other words, he's using the mask to imitate Kaidou's strength to fight against Kaidou.
"Prop."
As he uttered these words, a Wolf Fang Club identical to Kaidou's appeared in his hand. On his stage, he could obtain the props needed for his 'performance,' including weapons.
Kaidou's actions surprised him as well. Seeing he couldn't replicate fruit abilities, Kaidou surprisingly reverted from his Human-Beast Form.
"Disguise, is it? No wonder you can impersonate John. Show me how much a counterfeit like you can imitate."
He not only disguised himself as John but also seemed somewhat knowledgeable about some things only John should know, like being aware of the intern but oblivious to the relationship between John and Kaidou.
This indicated he had met John. Kaidou wanted to pry open his mouth for information on John, and he also wanted to experience what it's like to fight someone like himself.
After a brief confrontation, the smile on Kaidou's face faded, replaced by a sense of disappointment.
"What? Are you only mimicking the force when hit? How disappointing!"
The fake Kaidou could also wield Thundering Hakken, but the force was the same level as when Kaidou attacked the fake John earlier, with no enhancement regardless of what he did. After several exchanges, he quickly understood the situation.
Most critically, this person's Haki was poorly trained, and the superficial Armament Haki did no justice to his Thundering Hakken, which should merely be called Thunder Hakken.
The ability seemed bizarre, but the main body's combat strength was very weak, which was Kaidou's assessment. Ultimately, Kaidou lost interest in this boring drama.
"Feel what real Thundering Hakken is!"
A giant human-shaped indentation was left on the ruins of the base building, and the remaining pirates collapsed again. When the ability user loses consciousness, their powers also fail, and the drama created by the Act-Act Fruit's user concludes with his fainting.
"Is this guy dead?"
"No, I held back. He surely knows where John is." Kaidou had an exceptionally rich experience in pushing people to the brink of death; it was second nature to him.
Arceus and his group didn't linger in the base. Instead, they took the unconscious man and left Branch 277, taking a patrol ship with them and leaving a field full of unconscious pirates behind.
The pirates who fled earlier had long since left in their ships. Having gathered for profit, running when the situation worsens was only natural.
As dusk fell, Queen set sail across the vast sea. Although this ship wasn't as large as those headquarters Vice Admirals' warships which carried over 800 people, it was more spacious than Queen's previous small ship.
The ship was manageable, operable with just two or three people.
Even if they were given a massive warship, they wouldn't have enough crew to operate it.
There was also a prison within the patrol ship for holding pirates. The man was cuffed with Seastone Handcuffs inside it, gradually regaining consciousness due to Kaidou's leniency.