The outcome of the scuffle was as absolute as an anvil meeting glass.
Even without Yamato or Nightmare, Ornn could have cleared the docks by himself using his enhanced constitution and brute force. With the three of them charging together, the clash was less of a battle and more of a harvest.
Yamato swung her heavy iron club with controlled force, sending thugs flying through the air with bruised ribs and shattered pride. Ornn's hammer strikes were deliberate, heavy, and final—anyone caught in his path was instantly neutralized.
Nightmare fought empty-handed. While she didn't possess the destructive AOE power of her companions, her mastery of Soru made her movements a blur of effortless grace. Syndicate gunmen couldn't even track her position before finding themselves disarmed and unconscious.
Barely three minutes ticked by before the entire phalanx of thugs was scattered across the stone wharf like discarded driftwood.
Garner stared at his motionless subordinates, the last vestiges of his sophisticated facade crumbling into abject terror.
"Y-You... don't come any closer!" Garner stammered, scrambling backward on the cobblestones. "I am a high-ranking officer of the Fire Tank Syndicate! If you lay a hand on me, our Godfather will hunt you to the ends of the earth!"
Ornn paused, resting his hammer against his shoulder, and offered a cold, mocking smirk.
"Not so composed now, are you?" Ornn replied. "You didn't have this tone when you were trying to auction us off or extort our ship."
"A misunderstanding! It was all a misunderstanding!" Realizing Ornn wasn't instantly going to cave his skull in, Garner clutched at any straw within reach. He pointed a trembling, cowardly finger at the paralyzed navigator huddled behind him.
"It was him! He kept pushing me to avenge Ruba, blinding me with greed! Spare my life, and I'll introduce you to our Godfather. He loves recruiting powerhouses. If you join us, we can make a fortune together!"
"Honestly? I'd advise you to spare him," Nightmare chimed in, stepping forward. Her expression was serious. "The Fire Tank Syndicate has expanded rapidly over the past two years. They share control of Bellis's underworld with the Junkrat Gang—the outfit running the arena I fight in. Garner holds real weight here. If you kill him, this island won't be big enough to hide you."
Thud.
The hammer swung in a short, brutal arc.
Garner never even finished his sentence. Ornn's mallet connected with terrifying precision, putting the syndicate executive into an immediate, dreamless sleep from which he would never wake up.
Nightmare froze, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief. She glared at Ornn, her tone sharp and exasperated. "Did you even listen to a word I just said?!"
Ornn looked at her, his expression unbothered. "You said he holds heavy weight here. That's precisely why I couldn't keep him alive."
"What does that even mean?" Nightmare demanded.
Ornn looked at her with a faint, amused glint in his eye. When they first met, he had pegged her as a sharp street-smart operator. But watching her reaction now, she was clearly a naive, fighting-obsessed powerhouse—the classic "brawl-first, think-never" older sister archetype.
Before Ornn could answer, Yamato chimed in, crossing her arms. "A scum like him talks about brotherhood and revenge, but all he really wanted was his dead 'friend's' money and an excuse to rob us. You can't trust a single word out of his mouth. If we let him walk, he wouldn't make friends with us—he'd just bring an army back tomorrow."
It wasn't that Yamato was a master strategist; she had simply spent years dealing with Kurozumi Orochi's endless treachery. She recognized a predatory leach instantly.
Ornn nodded in agreement, adding a crucial layer to her logic. "And besides, we're doing you a favor. You said this guy is tight with the bosses of your wrestling arena, right? If Garner went crying to them because of what happened tonight, do you honestly think your gym owners would protect a freelance fighter over their primary business partners?"
There was a third, unstated reason Ornn acted so decisively: the mention of the Fire Tank Syndicate had jogged his memory. In the wider world, the mafia crew led by Capone "Gang" Bege—one of the Worst Generation Supernovas possessing the Castle-Castle Fruit—went by that exact name.
Becky's rise to power began by seizing control of the West Blue's underground underworld. That meant the "Godfather" Garner kept referencing was none other than a younger Capone Bege.
Ornn didn't fear Bege, and the prospect of eventually acquiring a combat-tier paramecia fruit like the Castle-Castle fruit for his forge made future conflict inevitable anyway. But there was no reason to broadcast that to a stranger.
Meanwhile, Nightmare processed Ornn's warning, her initial anger fading into uneasy uncertainty. She slowly shook her head. "I... I don't think they'd turn on me. I'm the cash cow of the Junkrat Gang right now. The boss has been trying to recruit me for months."
Ornn looked at her, fighting the urge to sigh. Confirmed. Total battle-brained simpleton.
"You're only a cash cow right now because you're on the verge of ninety-nine wins," Ornn pointed out gently. "Once you hit that hundredth victory, the novelty wears off. People move on. And even if your gym boss likes you, loyalty in the underworld evaporates the second real money or dangerous enemies get involved."
Nightmare's confidence faltered. She wasn't stupid—she was just inexperienced in political maneuvering. She realized that while she could tear through a ring of fighters, she couldn't fight an entire criminal syndicate operating from the shadows if they decided she was a liability.
"So..." She bit her lower lip, her bravado finally cracking. "What am I supposed to do now?"
Ornn leaned in closer, dropping his voice into a quiet, deliberate murmur as he laid out a path forward.
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