"Roar, this really doesn't look like a human fight!"
Inside a shrine perched on Mount Kuri in Wano Country, a woman with oddly colored hair and growing horns lit a cigar.
Wearing sunglasses, she somehow, despite being thousands of miles apart, across mountains, rivers, and forests, could still spy on the pink-haired girl scolding Shiki by the river at the border of Udon and Kuri.
"Stop playing around. Get to work!"
A deep voice came from a distant place, sounding directly in the woman's ear.
"Sigh, that guy is just as cold as Commander-sama. And I was the one who snatched him back at God Valley."
The horned woman lying on the ground stretched. The black military uniform bound by a belt tightened around her open lapels. The pulled-straight leather clothes outlined a fruitful silhouette.
Behind her, two people in white suits and hats were drawing a giant pentagram symbol on the ground.
After writing the mystical symbols, the two came before the woman and respectfully knelt before her. "Maffey, the things you need are ready!"
"Mm, well done, CP5!"
Satchels Maffey flicked the ash from her slender fingers with a cigarette. She stood up, striding her long, straight legs past the two CP5's agents.
The next instant, the heads of the two hat-wearing CP agents rolled messily on the ground, while their faces still retained the joy of possible promotion.
"Sorry, but our appearance in Wano cannot be leaked. And I made sure to cut off your heads when you were happiest, so you probably didn't feel any pain, right?" Her mouth spoke words of apology, but Maffey's turned head showed no trace of apology.
She slowly walked to the center of the pentagram magic circle, reached out and pressed down on it. Some unseen energy gathered toward the center.
Boom!
Black thunder split the sky, violently striking the shrine's torii gate. Ominous dark flames burned above the pentagram, scorching two gradually clear figures.
"Are the loose ends cleaned up?"
The man in a long-sleeved, ornate military uniform with a ceremonial scarf at his collar, his red hair in long braids, had barely taken two steps when his black leather boots trod directly into the crimson blood.
The splattering blood droplets stained his sword sheath and the bandages on the legs of the blue-haired girl walking out beside him.
Seeing the stains on their noble treasures spreading, the two focused their 'calm' gazes on the summoner.
"Maffey, it's not my fault. Commander ordered me to handle the loose ends!" Sensing the tense atmosphere, Maffey immediately waved her hand to explain.
"Less nonsense. Is that mad dog here?"
Figarland Shamrock, the current commander of the God's Knights, raised his hand to interrupt Maffey. He pressed his long sword expressionlessly.
"Rest assured. I witnessed with my own eyes that she was on that blasphemer's ship."
Maffey, now serious, held her cigar between two fingers and made an OK gesture at Shamrock.
"Then what are we waiting for? Finish the mission quickly!"
The blue-haired, heterochromatic girl, Gunko, put on the headphones hanging around her neck and stepped past Shamrock to the front.
The previously bloodstained bandages slowly detached, transforming under her ability into black arrows, interweaving and winding to form a large bird faintly radiating a metallic sheen.
"Calm down, Gunko. Our strength isn't enough to go to war with those monsters."
Shamrock, wearing red gloves, placed his hand on Gunko's shoulder. "And there seems to be something in this country interfering with the signal. The energy transmission to the pentagram is unstable. Rash action would be dangerous."
Tossing her cigar to the ground and stamping it out, Maffey proposed: "Then let's go to the safe house prepared by those two CP5 agents first. We'll wait until the pirates have fought each other to a standstill before making our move."
"Mm!"
Shamrock nodded, supporting the idea.
Seeing her superior speak, Gunko also dispersed the arrows on her body and followed the two as they walked down from the completely collapsed mountain shrine, heading toward Ringo.
…
Elsewhere, inside the Mirror World.
"Huff... huff... huff! I thought I was going to die!"
Brulee, her body pale like a withered, dead branch, lay on the ground, gasping with the relief of the living after a disaster.
Earlier, forcibly opening a passage large enough for her mother to pass through had drained almost all of her stamina.
"Good work, Brulee!"
Katakuri, covered in blood, dragged his severely injured body to her and helped her up.
"Katakuri-nii!"
Seeing her most respected elder brother so seriously injured, Brulee immediately burst into tears.
She took out a Galleila field first aid kit through the Mirror World and began to clean and bandage Katakuri's wounds.
Linlin, sitting nearby, saw the severed arm that had pursued them into the Mirror World. The fire of anger in her eyes gushed uncontrollably.
The more she thought about it, the angrier she got!
"Damn it! Prometheus, Stolen Fire!" Linlin called out loudly.
The previously disordered flames suddenly rose and contracted, gathering into a sun that radiated a warm glow, revealing a humanized smiling face.
"Yes, Mama!"
The scorching firelight burned fiercely. Prometheus autonomously locked onto Sakura's severed limb on the ground and violently charged toward it, forming a giant pillar of fire wrapping around it.
Boom!
Explosion, high temperature, flames. The severed limb turned to ashes in this extreme, fierce light, disappearing without a trace with a gust of wind.
Still unsatisfied after doing this, Linlin turned her hollow gaze toward Brulee and Katakuri, who were still being bandaged. "You two! Why did you take me out of the battlefield!!!"
Why? Why else?
For fear that you would stay there and be beaten to death on the spot!
For fear that Morgans' newspaper headline tomorrow would be 'Eighty-Year-Old Son Watches Mother Get Ganged Up On and Does Nothing: Is This a Distortion of Humanity or a Collapse of Morality?'
"Cough, cough! Mama!" Coughing, Katakuri patted Brulee's hand, signaling her to help him sit up. "Because we cannot afford to lose you. We can't afford to lose this fight."
Surrounded and attacked by two Emperor-level Haki masters, even someone as strong as Linlin would be at risk of defeat and death.
But unfortunately, pirate crews on the sea mainly cohere around the captain's personal strength, wealth, or fame.
If anything happens to the captain, even a powerful, politically stable nation like Totto Land could face an ending of disintegration.
The only course of action now was to join up with Kaido, ensuring that their two strongest combatants would not be surrounded by the enemy's leaders, and then utilize Wano's geographical advantages and military strength far exceeding that of the opposing pirate crew to annihilate them!
"Damn it—!"
The Homies spewed their respective abilities, repeatedly slamming into the direction of Sakura's severed arm again, turning the entire Mirror World into a disorderly mess full of cracks.
Brulee helped Katakuri stand up. The two of them watched Charlotte Linlin venting her anger by destroying everything in sight, waiting for her to come around on her own.
After rampaging through the smoke for more than ten minutes, Linlin finally calmed down. She flew out riding Zeus, taking her two children with her as they sought out the mirror leading to Onigashima.
After the three left, in the huge crater of the Mirror World-
Fine white substance wriggled toward the center, slowly gathering into a fair-skinned hand.
Then, green vines grew from the severed edge, taking root in the earth and beginning to probe outward.
And at the very center, the palm turned upward, a fine crack opened. A green eye opened from within.
After rotating once to survey its surroundings, the bottom of the eye showed an expression of keen interest.
"Oh, interesting!"