Next Bonus, 100!!
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"Kaido and Jin fought for days with no clear winner, and in the end, Ochoku gets his ass kicked and loses Hachinosu Island?!"
Aboard the Moby Dick, Marco read the newspaper aloud. The division commanders were stunned for a moment.
Then, the air filled with laughter.
"Hahaha! Talk about bad luck for Ochoku!"
"Seriously, that's rough."
"You don't think Jin and Kaido planned that, do you?"
"Maybe..."
"I'm telling you, Ochoku got set up."
Even Whitebeard cracked a smile. He and Ochoku had never really gotten along, even back on the Rocks Pirates' ship.
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On an island in Whitebeard's territory.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A pirate captain who'd lost a bet and refused to pay up was sent flying by a heavy Fire Fist, flames erupting around him.
He tumbled across the ground, slammed into a wall, and was left embedded in it, barely clinging to life.
"Ace!"
To prove himself, Ace had taken on the duty of protecting Whitebeard's territory. Pops and the commanders were deliberately grooming him for a greater role, letting him handle many of these situations on his own.
One of Thatch's subordinates connected a Den Den Mushi to a box-like device.
Then, he took a picture of the captain's face and sent it as a fax.
A short while later, a reply came through.
Ace picked up the fax. It bore a signature in the shape of a skull—the mark of the intelligence specialist, Skull.
"From the North Blue... 'Bloody Hand' Gren, bounty of 65,000,000 Berries," Ace read aloud.
"Hey, not a bad bounty."
"Alright, let's turn this guy over to the Marines," Thatch said, coming over to confirm the details.
"Will they really pay a pirate?"
"There are middlemen for this sort of thing," Thatch explained. "They pose as bounty hunters and collect the reward on our behalf."
"Teach! Tie this bastard up tight. As for the rest..."
BANG!
A muffled gunshot. Everyone whipped their heads around.
"Ugh..." Teach mumbled, looking down at his stomach.
It was wet... and covered in blood.
At his feet, one of the enemy crew's heavily wounded officers was holding a smoking gun.
"TEACH!"
"GAAAAAH! I'M SHOT!" Teach screamed, the sight of his own blood scaring the soul right out of him.
"Tch! Didn't you disarm him? How careless..." Ace said, raising his hand to form a Fire Gun, about to attack.
Just then, another scream echoed out—a gut-wrenching sound like a giant frog being squashed.
"THAT HURTS, YOU BASTARD!" Teach roared, stomping on the officer's body with immense force.
The man's limbs were twisted behind him, his body practically driven into the ground.
"Teach, wasn't that a little much?"
"Is he... still breathing?"
"Zehahahaha!" was Teach's only reply.
Ace was at a loss. "Are you okay? You were shot."
"Hm? Oh, yeah. Zehahahaha! It hurts..." Teach clutched his wound, as if just remembering it, and theatrically collapsed to the ground, yelling for a doctor.
"This guy is unbelievable," Ace muttered, completely exasperated.
Marshall D. Teach. No matter what happened, the man was always like this.
And this chaotic buffoon was a member of his crew?
Ace put a hand to his forehead and sighed.
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After dealing with the scoundrel pirates, Ace, Thatch, and Teach held a small victory celebration at a nearby tavern.
"A toast to Pops' flag!"
"No thanks!"
"Zehahahaha! Nothing beats a good meal after a hard day's work!"
Eat, fight, drink. Teach was the quintessential pirate. As long as he had food and booze, he wouldn't cause any trouble.
The tavern flew the Whitebeard Pirates' flag, and though they were pirates, the owner treated them with respect.
"Ace, did Shanks really say that?" Thatch asked, surprised.
"He did. He pointed to the scar over his left eye and said,"—Ace mimicked Shanks's voice—"'I got this scar from a member of the Whitebeard Pirates.'"
One of ours? Thatch wondered.
"Well? Who was it? Don't leave me hanging!" Ace demanded.
Thatch fell into a thoughtful silence. "One of ours... did that to Shanks... hmm. Wait, isn't that common knowledge around here? I can't believe scarring Shanks's face is just a topic of casual conversation. It wasn't one of the commanders, was it? If a commander did that, it would be no laughing matter... Teach, do you know anything about this?"
"Huh? Know what?"
"About one of our guys scarring Shanks's face."
"That was me," Teach said, his mouth full.
What?
Ace and Thatch stared at the hulking veteran in disbelief.
Teach grabbed an uncut pizza and shoved the whole thing into his mouth, then washed it down with a goblet of red wine.
"Just kidding," he said with a booming laugh.
"Right."
"No way."
It was just a drunkard's joke.
Ace breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, it's just a bar story. Shanks probably just wanted to scare me since I'm the new guy."
He raised his glass.
Just then, a News Coo arrived with the day's paper.
Thatch grumbled about the price going up again but paid for a copy anyway.
"A CLASH OF TITANS, AND THE SMALL FRY SUFFERS! HACHINOSU ISLAND HAS A NEW MASTER!!!"
The front page was dominated by a picture of a destroyed island and a bold, black headline.
"Hm? So it's over?" Ace asked.
"Looks like it was a draw."
"Hachinosu..."
Teach snatched the paper from Thatch's hands.
"Hey! Teach, what are you doing?!"
Teach ignored him, scanned the article, and then tossed it back, laughing like a drunken fool.
Thatch just shook his head. "A great battle with an ending no one could have predicted."
"Those two are on another level, aren't they?" Ace said, a fire in his eyes. "They nearly destroyed an entire island."
"Kaido and Jin must both be top-tier Devil Fruit users," Thatch said. "Their destructive power is terrifying. The strongest Zoan and... the strongest Logia..."
Ace, wanting to change the subject, asked, "Thatch, if you could have any Devil Fruit, what would it be?"
"A Devil Fruit, huh..." Thatch, feeling the effects of the wine, was in a good mood. "We've got a few users on this crew. Marco, Jozu, Pops... The rule is, whoever finds it, gets to eat it. Of course, you could also sell it for over a hundred million... The one I really want is yours, Ace."
"The Flare-Flare Fruit? Why?" Ace asked, surprised. "You can already create fire with your hands."
"From a chef's perspective, it's a dream come true," Thatch said. "To be able to control any flame at will... A knife may be a chef's soul, but fire is his lifelong partner."
"I see... I wish I could share it with you," Ace said. "I was stranded on a deserted island when I found it. I didn't even know it was a Devil Fruit when I ate it."
"That's impossible," Thatch said. "Only one of each type of Devil Fruit can exist in the world at any given time."
"Right."
"So if you really wanted to eat the Flare-Flare Fruit..." Teach said, downing his wine and playfully pointing his dinner knife at Ace.
"...you'd have to kill Ace. Zehahahaha!"
"They say that when a user dies, their fruit reappears somewhere else in the world."
"Teach, that's not funny."
"I haven't found a fruit I'd be willing to kill for yet," Thatch said, ordering another bottle of wine.
"So, other than the Flare-Flare Fruit, what would you want?" Ace asked. "How about a fruit that... I don't know, makes ice? You wouldn't need a refrigerator."
"Nah, that one's taken," Thatch said, shaking his head. "By Kuzan."
"Right, the Marine Admiral."
"What about a knife fruit? A blade-man or something."
"That would be handy..."
"No, a fruit like that has probably already been eaten by some assassin. Besides, I enjoy sharpening my own knives."
"Zehahahaha!" Teach laughed. "Even for a pirate, Devil Fruits are not so easy to come by."
"So, Teach... what kind of fruit do you want?" Ace asked.
"Me? I..." Teach raised his goblet. For a man of his size, any glass looked too small.
"I know!" Thatch said, a mischievous glint in his eye. "You want that one, don't you?"
"What?! How did you know, Thatch?!" Teach exclaimed, a look of panic on his face as he frantically tried to remember if he'd said anything while he was drunk.
"What is it?" Ace asked.
"It's obvious, Ace! The legendary... Clear-Clear Fruit!"
"The one that makes you invisible..."
"No way! A fruit like that really exists?!"
"Zehahahaha! You found me out!" Teach said, relieved, scratching his head and sticking out his tongue.
And the three of them spent the rest of the night discussing all the perverted things they would do if they were invisible.
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