Hawkins' cards calculated outcomes based on physical strength, speed, latent variables, and countless unknown factors.
Yet the result sitting before him was completely unfathomable.
He had never encountered this Marine before and possessed virtually zero intelligence on the man's combat style or parameters.
And yet, according to the divine odds of his deck, not a single soul on their side held even a fraction of a percent chance of survival against him.
"Who is he...?" Hawkins murmured, his voice trembling slightly.
He trusted his Devil Fruit ability without hesitation. The cards never lied. Which meant the Marine walking casually down the cobblestone street possessed a caliber of power so utterly overwhelming that all resistance was meaningless.
'Crackle!'
While Hawkins remained frozen in dread, the distant figure flickered. A jagged line of blue light split the air, and in the span of a heartbeat, Kojin materialized directly in front of Urouge.
The sheer velocity and unnatural trajectory of the movement caused Urouge's entire frame to lock up.
"'Mad Monk' Urouge?" Kojin offered a faint smile, though his eyes remained entirely unreadable.
"...Who are you?" Urouge lacked Hawkins' predictive divination, but his battle-honed instincts were screaming at full volume.
The man standing before him was an existential threat. The moment Kojin stepped into his space, every hair on Urouge's arms stood on end, a primal recoil of a lower lifeform encountering an absolute apex predator.
"My name is Kojin," the Admiral sighed softly. "And unfortunately for you... your journey as a pirate ends here."
He barely seemed to shift his weight, yet his right leg was already whipping through the air.
'Too fast!' Urouge's pupils shrank to pinpricks. He couldn't even register the trajectory.
The next instant, it felt as though the momentum of an entire falling mountain slammed directly into his ribs.
'BOOM!'
"Gah, !" Blood burst from Urouge's lips as he was launched off his feet.
'Crack! Crack! Crack!'
An orchestra of snapping bones echoed inside his chest. He turned into a human cannonball, hurtling down the thoroughfare and smashing through layer after layer of stone architecture before collapsing into a mountain of rubble at the far end of the district.
Silence fell over the plaza.
Urouge lay completely motionless in a pool of his own blood, his eyes rolled back. Out cold in a single blow.
"Urouge of the Eleven Supernovas... taken down in one hit?!" a pirate shrieked in absolute terror.
Color drained from the faces of every outlaw gathered in the area. The remaining Supernovas looked particularly grim, watching a rival of their caliber get swatted aside like a minor nuisance was a brutal wake-up call.
"Who the hell is this guy?!" someone screamed, desperately trying to mask his panic.
"Marine Headquarters Admiral Kojin," X Drake answered in a heavy, low voice. "A legend from the past... and very much a monster in the present."
Drake remembered him with crystal clarity. Back on Minion Island, Kojin had intervened, saving both him and Trafalgar Law. That imposing shadow was impossible to forget.
"An Admiral?!" The surrounding pirates stared in horror.
"So that's why his entrance was so absurd..." Scratchmen Apoo muttered, his eyes wide. Without a second thought, Apoo spun on his heel and sprinted in the opposite direction.
Kojin remained standing in the center of the avenue, casually scanning the remaining rookies. A faint look of indecision crossed his features. "Where to begin? What a dilemma."
The remaining pirates tensed instantly, their breathing growing shallow.
"'Magician' Basil Hawkins," Kojin's gaze settled on the tall figure standing near the stone fountain. "You're actually the one I'm most curious about."
Hawkins' face went rigid as cold sweat beaded across his forehead.
'Crackle!'
In a flash of blue light, Kojin vanished and reappeared directly in front of him, his massive frame blotting out the sun.
"Did you calculate your odds of survival?" Kojin asked, leaning down slightly with a polite smile.
Hawkins' frame trembled. He took a slow, deep breath, forced his eyes up to meet the Admiral's, and answered softly, "...Zero percent. Total wipeout."
"Oh?" Kojin raised an eyebrow. "It seems your Devil Fruit is rather practical after all. At the very least, it spares you from any delusions about the gap between us."
Hawkins' jaw set tight, but he didn't dare make an aggressive move. The cards had been absolute. No action he took would alter the outcome. Resistance was an exercise in futility.
Seeing Hawkins stand motionless, Kojin smiled and raised his right index finger, aiming it directly between Hawkins' eyes. "Standing still won't change my duty, Hawkins."
'Zap!'
A concentrated beam of lightning shot from his fingertip, drilling straight through Hawkins' forehead.
A small, charred straw doll slipped from beneath Hawkins' robes and hit the stone pavement. Hawkins stood frozen, his scalp tingling with residual shock.
"Fascinating," Kojin murmured, glancing at the burnt doll. "You redirect fatal damage using straw substitutes?" He smiled warmly. "I wonder how many lives you have stored in there?"
His finger twitched again.
'Crackle! Crackle! Crackle!'
A rapid succession of lightning bolts pierced Hawkins' chest and head. Smoke billowed from his coat as doll after doll tumbled out, bursting into ash upon contact with the ground.
Deep, primal terror finally began to break through Hawkins' stoic facade. It felt as though the Marine was methodically peeling away his defenses, entirely unfazed by his trickery.
'Zap! Zap! Zap!'
Within moments, a pile of burnt straw dolls littered the floor around Hawkins' boots. Sweat dripped down his chin as his lungs heaved. He was down to his final, real life.
"I suppose that's enough testing," Kojin said casually, withdrawing his hand with a pleasant smile.
Hawkins let out a ragged exhale, the crushing tension around his chest loosening slightly. 'He's stopping...?'
Before the thought could fully form, a heavy leg swept through the air like a steel beam.
'Too fast. Impossible to dodge.'
'BANG!'
The impact was equivalent to being rammed by a speeding warship. Hawkins was hurled backward, carving a jagged trench into the stone road before coming to a violent halt, entirely unresponsive.
"This guy has no intention of leaving anyone breathing! Apapapapapa!" Apoo yelled, leaping wildly across the nearby rooftops. "Drake! If we're going to take him down, we have to strike together right now!"
Mid-air, Apoo slapped his chest and head in rhythmic sequence, drumming out a chaotic beat. "'BOOM!'"
An invisible soundwave blast detonated directly against Kojin's upper torso, erupting into a localized explosion of fire and shockwaves.
Drake's eyes widened slightly in genuine shock. 'An attack from one of the Supernovas actually connected?'
His surprise lasted less than a second.
The flames coating Kojin's chest collapsed inward and vanished without leaving a mark. With a brief arc of static, the Admiral stood completely unscathed, his coat pristine, his uniform unwrinkled.
Apoo's jaw dropped. Without hesitating for another moment, he kicked off the roof tiles and tried to sprint away.
'Flash!'
A bolt of lightning arced over his head, solidifying into Kojin's towering form right in his path. Cold eyes locked onto the long-arm pirate.
Kojin didn't bother speaking. He simply drove a sandbag-sized fist straight into Apoo's upturned face.
'CRACK!'
Apoo's nose shattered instantly, his cheekbones caving beneath the raw, unyielding kinetic force. The impact sent Apoo spinning like a top through the air before he slammed violently into a two-story building, causing the entire facade to collapse over his limp body.
Drake's eye twitched involuntarily. He offered a silent prayer for Apoo. Getting kicked by Kojin was bad enough, but taking a direct punch to the skull from that monster? Living through that was purely up to fate.
Then, Kojin turned his gaze toward Drake.
'Whoosh!'
No lightning this time, just pure, unadulterated physical speed. Kojin closed the distance instantly, appearing inches from Drake.
"X Drake," Kojin said softly, looking down with a faint grin. "It's been a while."
Drake maintained a stiff silence for a brief second before snapping his feet together and offering a crisp, formal Marine salute. "Sir."
"I hear you're currently working under deep cover?" Kojin asked lightly.
Drake's lip twitched. "Is that really something an Admiral should be bringing up in the middle of a pirate territory, Admiral Kojin?"
Kojin chuckled softly. "They're all taking a very deep nap right now. Besides... if you want, your undercover operation can end right here."
Drake looked up, genuine shock flickering across his features. "Is that... an official order from Headquarters?"
"My personal decision," Kojin replied with an easy smile. "Though at this point, my decision and Headquarters' orders are functionally the same thing."
Drake fell silent, weighing the words carefully. After a moment, he lowered his hand and gave a firm nod. "Understood."
"Good," Kojin nodded, glancing over at the three unconscious Supernovas buried under stone and straw. "In that case, I'll leave these three in your care to process."
Drake gave a solemn nod.
By the time his vision cleared from his salute, Kojin had already vanished into thin air.
Drake looked at the three battered rookies scattered across the ruined street and let out a long, weary sigh. Running into Admiral Kojin was simply a stroke of cataclysmic bad luck for them. Their pirate careers had barely begun, and they had just crashed headfirst into an immovable wall.
...
Meanwhile, several blocks away on a bustling commercial avenue...
"Still no sign of Admiral Kojin?" Kuina asked, her hand resting on the hilt of her sword as she led her squad forward.
Enel took a crunching bite out of a red apple, a lazy smirk on his face. "Haven't spotted the Admiral yet, Vice Admiral. But... I did pick up something interesting inside that dining establishment up ahead."
"Who?" Kuina glanced back.
She was well aware that Enel's artificial Goro Goro no Mi dramatically amplified his Observation Haki across vast distances. While her own Haki excelled at reading short-term future movements, Enel's was built for wide-area radar detection.
"That giant guy," Enel pointed toward a large restaurant building at the end of the street. "The one named Kuma."
Kuina halted in her tracks. "Bartholomew Kuma?"
"Yeah, he's sitting inside," Enel added casually, tossing his apple core over his shoulder. "Oh, and three of the rookie pirates on your priority watchlist are sitting at the tables right next to him."
Kuina's eyes narrowed instantly, a sharp glint surfacing in her gaze.
(End Of This Chapter)
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