A week had passed since the fall of King the Conflagration—a battle with no audience and no News Coo report.
The sun was high in the sky. Golden sunlight poured over the massive port construction site.
A construction site with thousands of workers should have been noisy. But right now, it was almost silent.
"Clink..."
A pirate laying bricks slipped. His trowel accidentally hit a piece of granite, making a small sharp sound.
However.
The moment the sound rang out, every pirate within fifty meters froze and turned toward him.
"Shh!!!!"
His coworkers went pale. Several of them rushed over, covered his mouth tightly, and pinned him to the ground. They did not even dare to breathe heavily.
A Marine supervisor saw this and immediately walked over.
He placed a finger to his lips, making a "quiet" gesture. Then, he pointed to the white office building on the distant hillside.
That was the direction of Aiden's quarters.
Right now, all of Hachinosu silently followed one rule:
No loud noises while Commander Aiden is resting.
To the Marines of the G-6 Branch, their commanding officer had fought several fierce battles recently. He was physically and mentally exhausted and needed a good rest. As his subordinates, protecting his sleep was naturally part of their job.
As for the pirate prisoners... they were afraid of something else entirely.
Aiden was a light sleeper and hated being woken up.
Rumor had it that a stupid pirate prisoner had yelled early one morning. As a result, a bolt of lightning dropped from the clear sky and struck him, turning him and his shovel into ash. Not even a trace was left.
There was actually another reason for that. That pirate enjoyed torturing and killing civilians. He had long been on Aiden's kill list.
But Aiden did not want the other pirates to realize that they would eventually be executed no matter how hard they worked. If they grew desperate and rioted, it would affect the construction progress. So, Aiden specifically used that excuse to kill him early.
Yet this unintentional warning worked surprisingly well.
From then on, as long as Aiden was not awake, the G-6 Branch construction site went into complete silence. It certainly made it easier for Aiden to sleep in.
On the top floor of the office building, inside the bedroom.
Heavy curtains blocked the harsh sunlight. A faint scent of incense lingered in the room.
Aiden sank into the soft bed. He rolled over and finally opened his eyes slowly.
"Phew..."
He let out a long breath and stared at the ceiling for a while. His body felt a little heavy.
"Is this retirement... wait, no, is this what base duty is like?"
Aiden rubbed his messy hair and sat up.
He had spent this past week being quite lazy.
He couldn't help it. His nerves had been too tense ever since he entered the New World.
First, right after leaving Fish-Man Island, he fought Harald, who had Ancient Giant blood. Immediately after that was the double threat on Hachinosu. He killed Ochoku and beheaded Silver Axe. Before he could even catch his breath, that reckless fool, King the Conflagration, showed up.
After this series of intense battles, even though his body could handle it, his mind needed a break.
Aiden grumbled, throwing off the covers and getting out of bed.
After washing up, the cold water woke him up.
Aiden walked to the wine cabinet and casually picked up a well-packaged bottle of red wine.
This had just arrived yesterday.
King had blown up the G-5 Branch supply ship. However, Commodore Gulliver, terrified that Aiden would blame him for it, somehow managed to gather another shipment and send it over in just a few days.
This time, the ship carried cannonballs, food, medicine, timber, tools, spare sails, steel plates, uniforms, and other materials needed to rebuild the port.
At the same time, Gulliver also sent a formal apology letter. His handwriting was crooked in several places, and every line sounded careful enough to show how badly he wanted to avoid giving Aiden another reason to come back to G-5.
"This guy..."
Aiden looked at the label on the bottle, a playful smile appearing on his lips.
"It looks like he's genuinely afraid I'll go back and kill him."
Gulliver was actually overthinking it. Aiden had almost forgotten about him.
But since someone was rushing to offer him luxuries, Aiden naturally would not refuse.
"Grrr..."
His stomach let out a timely protest.
"Time for brunch."
Aiden stretched and was about to change his clothes to go to the dining room and enjoy the North Blue chefs' cooking.
Suddenly.
His Observation Haki picked up a strong, unfamiliar presence near the port.
The person was not hiding. They were easy to sense, moving openly toward the port.
Aiden's hand paused while buttoning his shirt. He frowned.
"Does this never end?"
"Day after day, can't I just have some peace?"
"Which idiot is coming to die this time? Did Kaido come himself? No... this presence is strong, but it's still not on Kaido's level."
Aiden closed his eyes and sensed it carefully.
He did not sense anyone preparing to attack.
"Since they aren't here to fight..."
Aiden's stomach growled again in disappointment.
"Then they can't interrupt my meal."
Aiden pursed his lips, finished buttoning his shirt, and pushed the door open to leave.
Ten minutes later, in the base dining room.
The long dining table was filled with carefully prepared dishes. A pan-seared bone-in steak gave off a tempting smell.
Aiden had just cut a piece of meat and put it in his mouth when a communications soldier ran in, sweating.
"R-Reporting, Commander!!"
"A ship arrived outside the port! They asked to see you by name!"
"Who is it?" Aiden asked without looking up.
"It's... it's one of the Seven Warlords of the Sea!"
The soldier's voice trembled slightly, clearly frightened by the person's title.
"Gecko Moria!!"
"Cough... cough!"
Aiden nearly choked on the steak in his mouth. He looked up sharply, completely shocked.
"Who? Moria?!"
That guy who played with shadows?
The image of the bloated Moria from the original story instantly came to Aiden's mind. He remembered the huge, out-of-shape man who hid in Thriller Bark, played with shadows, and laughed "Kishishishi" all day.
What was he doing here?
Why was this guy running to the New World instead of hiding in Thriller Bark with his zombies?
Did he know a lot of pirates died on Hachinosu and come here to collect corpses?
"Let him in."
Aiden waved his hand, not taking it seriously.
Perfect. He needed some entertainment to go with his meal. Seeing what kind of Moria had come here was not a bad way to pass the time.
"Yes, sir!"
The soldier turned and ran out.
Not long after, heavy and rhythmic footsteps echoed in the hallway.
The dining room doors were pushed open.
Against the light, a very tall figure walked in.
Aiden's hands, holding his knife and fork, stopped in mid-air.
He stared at the man walking in for a moment.
Standing nearly seven meters tall, Moria did not have the bloated belly Aiden remembered. He also did not have those layers of greasy double chins.
Instead.
The current Moria stood tall, broad, and muscular. His broad chest and long limbs made it clear he still trained and fought.
He wore a well-tailored black Gothic trench coat with a high collar that spread open like bat wings. Underneath was a dark purple silk shirt. He wore slim orange-checkered pants and pointed leather boots.
His signature fiery, onion-like reddish-purple hair still stood out. Two sharp, demon-like horns grew from the sides of his forehead. His pale blue skin looked almost gray under the light.
Most noticeably, the fierce cross-stitched scar running down the center of his face to his neck made him look sharper and more dangerous.
His shadow fell across the dining table.
Aiden looked up casually, a freshly forked piece of beef still hanging from his mouth.
However.
The moment he clearly saw the figure at the door.
The piece of beef fell back onto his plate.
"Holy shit..."
Aiden's mind was screaming:
"Who are you?!"
"Is this really Moria?!"
"These looks... this body... what did time do to him? How could it turn this Gothic-looking monster of a man into the bloated Moria from the original story in just over a decade?!"
Aiden quickly put the timeline together.
This Moria was still young.
Not long had passed since his crushing defeat by Kaido in Wano Country, where his entire crew was wiped out.
Although he had suffered a massive blow, he had not fully given up yet. He had not yet turned into that loser who only relied on outside power and daydreamed about being the Pirate King all day.
He was still the man who dared to challenge Kaido in the New World. The man known as a great pirate!
This was Moria before he fully declined.
While Aiden studied Moria, Moria was also studying Aiden.
Aiden was even younger than he imagined.
As a Warlord of the Sea, Moria's information network was much better than ordinary people's.
This man named Aiden was like a comet that suddenly crashed into this sea. Every time he appeared, bloodshed followed.
Defeating Golden Lion Shiki, slaughtering his way through the Blacksteel Empire alone, furiously killing a Celestial Dragon, fighting two Admiral candidates by himself... every single one of these events proved just how dangerous this man was.
And most recently...
Moria thought of the corpse in the ice coffin on his ship. His hand tightened slightly.
Aiden's name had already spread.
Even while eating, Aiden made Moria tense.
Moria had faced danger before, but this was different. Even facing Kaido had not felt like this to him.
"Cough."
The two stared at each other for a full ten seconds. The atmosphere was a bit awkward.
Finally, Moria spoke first.
"I am..."
"Uh..."
Coincidentally, Aiden also spoke at the exact same time.
Their voices overlapped.
Aiden paused, then waved a hand and pointed to the seat across from him.
"You're here? Have you eaten? Why don't you sit down and we can talk while we eat?"
Moria frowned deeply.
He had prepared a whole speech of serious opening remarks. This casual attitude threw his rhythm off.
"But with your height..."
Aiden looked at Moria's nearly seven-meter frame, then looked at the chairs in the dining room meant for normal humans. He felt a bit stuck.
"Kane! Go get..."
Aiden instinctively tried to call his adjutant to bring Moria a bigger chair, but he stopped mid-sentence.
"Tch, I forgot that guy is still in the infirmary."
Aiden shook his head regretfully and casually called over a nearby messenger soldier.
"Go to the warehouse and bring a reinforced wooden crate used for cannonballs. Get the biggest one! Use it as a stool for Mr. Moria!"
After some rushing around, a grand Warlord of the Sea was sitting awkwardly on a massive wooden crate, his knees almost reaching his chin.
Aiden cut a piece of steak and asked casually while chewing:
"Speak. What is the famous Gecko Moria doing here?"
"Even though you are a Warlord, I just killed one of you guys a few days ago. Coming here alone takes quite a bit of guts."
Hearing this, Moria's eye twitched.
Is this a threat? This is definitely a threat!
Aiden did not threaten him directly. But that faint sense of danger made all of Moria's muscles tense up.
"Kishishishi..."
Moria let out his signature strange laugh, trying to cover the tension in his body.
"It seems the rumors outside were actually holding back."
"You are much stronger than I imagined."
Moria first offered a compliment, then dropped his smile. He stared hard at Aiden.
"I came to find you because we share a common enemy."
"A few days ago, while I was sailing in nearby waters, a corpse fell from the sky and crashed onto my deck."
Moria paused, watching Aiden's face.
"It was King the Conflagration of the Beasts Pirates."
"I was shocked. Who could kill that monster? So I searched the nearby waters..."
Moria took a deep breath.
"In this sea, other than you, Reaper Aiden, I cannot think of a second person who could do that."
Aiden's hands did not stop cutting his meat. He didn't even look up as he nodded noncommittally.
"Yeah, I killed him."
"He had zero manners. He was spitting fire everywhere and trying to destroy my base. With so many people watching, how would I look if I just let him go?"
"As expected..."
Moria's expression changed.
"You should know how important King is to Kaido. He is Kaido's right-hand man."
"Since you killed King, you and Kaido are mortal enemies now."
Moria stood up sharply. Because his movement was so big, the wooden crate beneath him made a sharp scraping sound against the floor. His face twisted, and the scar on his neck seemed to ache faintly.
"So am I!!"
"All my crewmates... all my friends in the New World... they all died at the hands of that damned bastard!!"
"Kaido took everything from me!!"
In that moment, Moria shook with anger.
Aiden stopped moving his knife and fork. He quietly watched the man shaking in front of him.
To Aiden, Moria was a contradiction.
He was lazy, arrogant, quick-tempered, and sometimes quite stupid. But he wasn't like most pirates who only cared about profit and treated their crews as disposable. Instead, he deeply valued loyalty and treated his crewmates like family.
On Thriller Bark, he took on almost all the fights himself. Although he was usually too lazy to move, he was always the first to charge forward when things went wrong. His subordinates were more like family kept safe in his territory.
Even in the original timeline, after the War, when he heard his subordinate Absalom had been taken by Blackbeard, Moria still charged into Hachinosu alone. He clearly knew it was an Emperor's lair and that going there meant death, yet he still did it.
That action brought him no advantage. It was purely driven by emotion.
Aiden did not dislike this kind of personality, someone willing to risk their life for their friends.
At least it was much better than those who preached morality but stabbed people in the back.
"So?"
Aiden picked up a napkin and wiped his mouth. His tone was as flat as before.
"What do you want me to do? Get revenge for you?"
"Form an alliance!!"
Moria said loudly, leaning forward.
"Ally with me! Aiden! I know you want to take on Kaido, but I know full well how terrifying he is! It will be too hard for you to face the entire Beasts Pirates alone!"
"I know the terrain of Wano Country! I know how to get inside that isolated fortress! I can be your ally, and we can fight Kaido together!!"
Facing Moria's offer, Aiden simply took his time putting the last piece of steak into his mouth. He chewed slowly before picking up his napkin to wipe his mouth.
"An alliance?"
Aiden chuckled. He leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers gently against the table. The tapping sounded clear in the quiet dining room.
"Moria, are you misunderstanding something?"
"Do I look like I need helpers?"
"You..."
Moria's face froze. His previously straight back slouched slightly.
He hadn't expected this man to be arrogant enough to look down on the strength of a Warlord of the Sea. But he had to admit that Aiden had the right to be arrogant.
Moria searched for another argument, and sweat appeared on his forehead. He knew that if he couldn't convince Aiden today, he might never get revenge on Kaido.
He took a deep breath, as if making a massive decision. He looked up sharply and gritted his teeth.
"Do you know why the World Government created the Seven Warlords of the Sea? Was it just to balance the pirates in the New World?"
"No! You are smart. You should be able to guess!"
Moria lowered his voice. His argument became sharper.
"Those old men in Mary Geoise set up this system to balance the Marines too! Or rather... to target powerful but 'uncontrolled' Marines like you!"
"You need eyes! Eyes inside the World Government's system!"
"I am willing to be your source inside the Warlords! No matter what moves the World Government makes against you, I can tell you right away!"
Hearing this, Aiden raised an eyebrow. He looked at the tall man properly for the first time.
Interesting.
It seemed this guy hadn't just grown in size. He was thinking farther ahead than Silver Axe, who only knew how to swing an axe. Seeing through this kind of political balance and using it as a bargaining chip meant he was truly useful.
"You want me to help you kill Kaido?" Aiden asked.
"Exactly!"
Moria gritted his teeth, his face full of spite.
"As long as he can be killed... as long as I can see that monster die! I'll do anything!!"
Honestly, even if Moria hadn't said anything, he was going to kill Kaido anyway.
From the moment he killed King, he and the Beasts Pirates became mortal enemies. With Kaido's personality, there was absolutely no way he would just let it go.
The only reason he hadn't gone to kill him right away was because he didn't feel the need to rush. Kaido was in Wano and wasn't going anywhere. Also, he had just finished several tough battles and wanted time to rest.
More importantly, it was about Transcendent-level Armament Haki.
His Armament Haki had been stuck at SSS for a long time. To break through to the Transcendent level, he needed another Armament Haki at the same level or higher.
Looking at the whole sea, Kaido was the best opponent for that breakthrough.
In the original story's Wano arc, aside from Kozuki Oden—whose foolishness irritated him the most—the person Aiden respected less the more he thought about him was Kaido.
He was originally one of the Four Emperors, known as the strongest creature in a one-on-one fight. Aiden thought he would be the kind of grand pirate who crushed everything head-on.
Yet what had Kaido done?
To deal with Oden, he relied on deception and sneak attacks. He even agreed to Oden's foolish deal, tricked him into dancing for five years, and then went back on his word and boiled the man at the end.
For a great pirate with Conqueror's Haki, killing Oden head-on would have matched his character. But instead, he used such cheap tricks.
After seeing the Wano arc, besides finding Oden extremely annoying, Aiden could no longer respect Kaido the same way.
Aiden sneered inside.
Since Kaido was an enemy he would have to kill anyway, turning a Warlord into a useful subordinate along the way was a pretty good choice.
Thinking of this, Aiden snapped out of his thoughts. He looked at Moria, who was waiting for his answer.
"Your offer is tempting, and I do actually plan on killing Kaido."
Aiden shook his head and stood up. Even Moria, despite his height, stopped looking relaxed.
"But, Moria..."
"Just being an inside man is not enough to pay for Kaido's head."
"That is one of the most expensive heads in the world."
Moria's expression changed, and he said urgently, "Then what do you want?! This is all I have! Even if you want my shadow..."
"No, you have more."
Aiden interrupted him. He smiled as he walked up to Moria and patted his broad shoulder.
"Pledge your loyalty to me, Moria."
"Not just as an ally. I want you to be my blade in the dark."
"Some of the dirty and tiring work that isn't convenient for me to handle... you will take care of it perfectly."
Aiden looked into Moria's slitted eyes.
"I'm a good judge of character. Even though your temper is terrible, you are loyal to your friends. Compared to other two-faced pirates, I can actually trust the kind of person you are."
"Well? Are we making this deal or not?"