Chapter 9 — Watching the Execution
A moment later, Roger withdrew his gaze, calm as though he had just greeted an old friend. Then he turned his head and continued walking down the road that belonged to him alone.
As Roger stepped onto the execution platform and sat down cross-legged, a powerful aura swept across the entire plaza. He looked like a casual king preparing to chat with his subjects.
Then suddenly, someone below the stage shouted at the top of his lungs:
"Pirate King! Where did you hide all your treasure?! You got it, didn't you?! That legendary great treasure—ONE PIECE!!!"
Silence.
No one had expected anyone to openly question Roger about the location of the One Piece. But little by little, everyone present felt their blood heat up, their eyes burning as they stared at Roger.
Sengoku's heart lurched. He hurriedly shouted into the Den Den Mushi in his hand,
"Carry out the execution immediately!!!"
The blades beside Roger rose—
Yet Roger threw back his head and laughed.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! My treasure, huh?"
"If you want it, I can give it all to you."
"Go find it! I left everything there!!!"
Along with the sound of blades piercing flesh, that wild smile froze there forever.
At the same time, thunderous roars erupted across the plaza, as though celebrating the arrival of a brand-new era.
The faces of Sengoku, Garp, Zephyr, and the other Marines turned extremely ugly. That damned man—with just a few words before dying, he had directly ignited an era of rampage!!!
Grinding his teeth, Garp growled in a low voice,
"So this was why you chose to turn yourself in, Roger?! Bastard!!!"
Uchiha Madara also looked toward that fallen king with a complicated expression. Gion, still sitting on Madara's shoulders, was equally full of shock.
Though Gion was still young, that did not stop her from being deeply overwhelmed by the bearing of the man on the execution platform.
Madara noticed the shift in the little brat's aura on his shoulders. It seemed to be moving in the direction of admiration.
In the next instant, he erupted with his own presence, cutting off her reverie and forcefully dragging her back to reality.
"Though the fall of an era is worth losing yourself in, do not lose the ability to think, brat!"
Gion snapped back to herself immediately, her heart filled with shock.
So this is... the bearing of the Pirate King?
Then, thinking about how Madara had interrupted her awe with his outburst of pressure, she pouted.
"Stupid Master. You've got no sense of romance at all."
Madara was immediately rendered speechless. He grabbed Gion off his shoulders, set her on the ground, then turned and left.
A little brat talking about romance? If I don't keep ignoring you, you'll probably steal a ship and sail out to sea next.
After Madara left, Garp and Zephyr also departed with equally dark expressions. Gion's little head still could not understand why the mood had suddenly turned so heavy.
Wasn't the Pirate King already dead?
That afternoon, the cleanup work naturally wasn't something for people like Garp, Sengoku, and Zephyr to handle personally. Their group boarded a warship and began returning to Marineford.
The atmosphere along the way was utterly oppressive—
Except for two people: Uchiha Madara and the little brat Gion.
Madara simply didn't care. A ruthless man who had fought all the way from the Hashirama era to the peace of the ninja world—would he fear an era running wild? Fear people dying? Some men were eras unto themselves just by being alive.
As for Gion, her head was still full of filial piety, father-and-child affection, and the Will of Fire. Whether the era ran wild or not wasn't something a little brat like her needed to worry about.
Uchiha Madara, meanwhile, had clearly developed some interest in the sea. After fighting wars all his life, the number of naval battles he had fought could be counted on one hand. Scrapping in those tiny little puddles back home was nothing compared to this vast ocean. Madara had been in high spirits these past few days. Life drifting on the sea was unbearably dull, and he looked forward to enemies appearing.
"Admiral Sengoku! Pirate ship spotted ahead!"
Sengoku glanced at the listless crowd on deck, then called toward the cabin,
"Madara, enemies are here. Three million berries, dead or alive."
With a loud bang, Uchiha Madara burst straight through the door and stepped out, nodding coldly.
"Acceptable."
He casually tossed aside the doorknob in his hand, then jumped directly from the ship and ran across the surface of the sea toward the pirate vessel ahead.
"Fire Style: Majestic Dragon Flame Technique!"
In the blink of an eye, he was already in front of the pirate ship. Forming hand seals with both hands, he spat out a massive fire dragon toward it, then leapt high into the air and came crashing down onto the vessel like a meteor.
The fire dragon slammed into the side of the ship and exploded violently, knocking the vessel askew. Immediately afterward, Uchiha Madara smashed down onto the deck, and the resulting shockwave blasted nearly half the crew into the air.
A bearded man who appeared to be the pirate captain pointed at Uchiha Madara with one hand.
"I am—"
Before he could finish, there was a bang.
The captain's head was crushed outright by Susanoo in its initial form, leaving behind a headless corpse. Blood sprayed everywhere, and one of the crewmen beside him was impaled clean through by the captain's flying skull.
Madara leapt up onto the bow and swept his gaze across the ship, only to find that this tiny band of pirates had already been scared out of their minds. That made the pent-up Madara feel rather deflated.
A three-million-berry pirate only had this much spirit?
"Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence."
Massive roots burst out from the ship's body, coiling around the pirate vessel like giant serpents. Then they tightened—
And the entire pirate ship burst like an overripe orange, juice flying everywhere, before slowly sinking into the sea.
Madara then looked toward Garp, who was eating senbei aboard the warship. Ripples spread across Madara's eyes, and in an instant he appeared beside Garp. Back where he had originally stood, a half-finished bag of senbei slowly fell to the ground.
Using ocular power as a marker to create an effect similar to Flying Thunder God... unexpectedly useful.
Ignoring the Marines on deck whose jaws had practically dropped to the floor, Madara returned to the cabin while thinking about ways to improve the technique, leaving only Garp, that sleepy old fossil, wandering all over the deck searching for his missing half-bag of senbei.
Garp, meanwhile, snatched Sengoku's donut and stuffed it into his mouth while mumbling,
"Seen my senbei?"
Sengoku shot Garp a glance as he played dumb, then rolled his eyes.
"Stop pretending. If you've got the strength to snatch food, why won't you spar with Madara when he asks?"
Garp scratched his head.
"That guy's close combat isn't actually all that impressive, but his abilities are way too weird. Fighting him is just constant defense while getting tossed around all over the place. No fun."
After returning to the cabin, Uchiha Madara did not go back to his own room. Instead, he walked straight to Zephyr's room and knocked.
"Mr. Madara? Is something the matter?"
Zephyr was still the polite sort, which was exactly why Madara always came to him whenever he had questions. Sengoku was busy to death, and Garp—that old bastard—spent all day either spreading rumors or mocking people.
"I want to understand this thing called Haki."
Zephyr froze for a moment, then smiled and agreed.
"Haki? From the way you use Haoshoku Haki, I thought you were already quite skilled with it. I didn't expect you not to know it. No problem—I'll give you my notes on Haki in a bit."
Madara nodded.
As expected, Zephyr was reliable. During these past few days at sea, no matter how random or strange Madara's questions were, Zephyr always answered them one by one.
"That is not what you people call Haoshoku. It is merely a method of applying one's aura through the use of chakra."
Zephyr, in turn, was extremely curious about Madara's combat style. He was not a Devil Fruit user, yet possessed all sorts of strange and varied abilities across an absurdly broad range, almost as though he were omnipotent. Madara had even tried teaching him how to extract chakra, but Zephyr couldn't sense anything at all, let alone cultivate it.
Madara did not bother explaining further. He simply took the notes Zephyr handed him and returned to his room.
Originally, Madara had planned to only lightly study Haki after arriving at Marine Headquarters.
But there was no helping it.
That little brat kept coming over to pester him every single day. If he didn't tell her anything, she would just keep staring at him pitifully.
Of course, Madara could have completely ignored the little brat's feelings.
But he couldn't endure what came next—whenever the brat left angry after being frustrated by him, Garp would immediately start spreading nonsense everywhere, saying Madara was a bastard who wouldn't even care for his own daughter.
So Madara decided to learn a little, just enough to shut the brat up.
And also—the little brat was neither his disciple nor his daughter!!!