Chapter 110: Liars
The Queen Mama Chanter — Forward Deck
The crimson glow of the explosion still painted the horizon, fading slowly into the afternoon sky. The sea had settled, but the silence that followed was heavier than any storm.
No one aboard the Chanter spoke.
No one moved.
Every pair of eyes remained fixed on the dark figure standing at the bow—the man who had, in the span of minutes, stripped their ship of its soul and carved a wound into the ocean itself.
Baron Tamago's hands hung limp at his sides. The shattered hilt of his blade lay forgotten on the deck. He did not reach for another weapon. He did not dare.
This power...
His mind raced through every encounter he had witnessed, every battle he had survived in service to Big Mom. He had seen warriors who could split islands. He had seen Devil Fruits that defied comprehension. He had stood in the presence of an Emperor and felt the weight of her terrible hunger.
This was different.
This was not the overwhelming presence of Conqueror's Haki. This was not the chaotic destruction of a rampaging Devil Fruit. This was precision. Control. The kind of power that did not announce itself with fanfare but simply... existed. Absolute and undeniable.
This man is comparable to Mama herself.
Cold sweat traced rivulets down Pekoms' leonine face. His tiny eyes—usually hidden behind sunglasses, now fully exposed—were fixed on the point where the sword energy had detonated.
"That slash just now..." His voice came out hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Did it miss?"
"No."
Capone Bege's response was immediate. Flat. Stripped of his usual swagger.
"That was absolutely not a miss."
He had seen the trajectory. Had calculated the angle in the cold, analytical part of his mind that had kept him alive through decades of underworld warfare. The sword energy had passed exactly where Itachi intended it to pass. The sails had been destroyed precisely enough to cripple pursuit without sinking the ship.
A warning shot.
A demonstration.
A message that could not be misinterpreted.
Itachi stood at the Chanter's bow, the Ten-Fist Sword still in his grip. The blade had returned to its dormant state—no longer actively sealing, no longer drinking souls—but its presence remained. A weight in the air. A promise of what would happen if he chose to swing it again.
His Mangekyō Sharingan swept across the assembled crew.
"Your ship." His voice was calm. Measured. "Turn around. Immediately."
Pekoms' fists clenched. His claws gouged furrows in the railing.
"You bastard—" He stepped forward, fur bristling, teeth bared. "What gives you the right to—"
"PEKOMS!"
Bege's voice cracked like a whip.
"Have you not understood the situation yet?!"
Pekoms froze.
"This man is letting us go!"
The words hit Pekoms like a physical blow. His jaw worked silently. His claws retracted.
"Letting us... go? What are you—"
"Do not overestimate our position, Pekoms." Baron Tamago's voice had lost all its refined elegance. Beneath his sunglasses, something flickered—something that looked very much like fear, buried deep but undeniable. "We are not the hunters here."
He raised his voice, addressing the figure at the bow directly.
"Rest assured, Uchiha Itachi! The Big Mom Pirates will not pursue your crew—not until you have emerged from Dressrosa alive!"
Itachi's expression didn't change. He nodded once. "A wise decision."
"But understand this." His Sharingan gleamed. "If the Big Mom Pirates choose to come before our business in Dressrosa is concluded... you are welcome to try."
His voice dropped. Cold. Certain.
"Do not mistake our restraint for fear. The Straw Hat Pirates do not cower before the Four Emperors."
Baron Tamago and Bege exchanged a glance.
Pekoms' chest swelled with indignation. "KARU! You arrogant little—"
Two hands clamped onto his shoulders.
"Lower your voice, Pekoms." Bege's grip was iron.
"You should be thanking our mother's name for the protection it grants us. Without it..." Baron Tamago's voice trailed off. He didn't need to finish the sentence.
Itachi raised the Ten-Fist Sword. "Are you leaving?"
"Yes! Yes, we're leaving!"
"We will not pursue your crew! You have our word!"
"ABSOLUTELY!"
Bege released his subordinates—the miniature soldiers housed within his Castle-Castle Fruit's pocket dimension. They poured onto the deck alongside the surviving crew members, grabbing whatever they could use as makeshift oars. Together, they began the laborious process of turning the crippled Chanter away from the Thousand Sunny's escape route.
Pekoms watched in disbelief as his comrades scrambled.
"You two." His voice was thick with confusion and wounded pride. "What did he mean back there? That warning about Dressrosa—"
"Enough, Pekoms." Bege cut him off, his voice low and urgent. "Think. Use that brain of yours for once."
He drew on his cigar, exhaling smoke in a tight stream.
"That man could have destroyed the Chanter completely. He could have killed every single one of us."
Pekoms blinked.
"The only reason he didn't... is because we fly Big Mom's flag. If we die here, the Straw Hats face reprisal from an Emperor while they're still tangled with Doflamingo. They'd be crushed between two forces."
"Then why aren't we calling for reinforcements?!" Pekoms demanded. "We could have a fleet here within—"
"Within what? Days? Weeks?" Bege's eyes were cold. "We came on the Chanter, you idiot. Without the Chanter, how long do you think it takes for a battle fleet to sail from Whole Cake Island to Dressrosa? By the time reinforcements arrived, the Straw Hats would already be gone."
He stabbed his cigar toward the distant silhouette of Dressrosa.
"He knew that. He calculated it. He's letting us go because it costs him nothing and buys his crew precious time. Be grateful."
Pekoms fell silent.
"Now do as he says," Bege growled. "Turn the ship around. If the Chanter is destroyed, even if we survive... Mother will execute us herself when we return."
The words hit their mark. Pekoms' face drained of color.
"...Fine. FINE!"
He stormed toward the cabin, his claws leaving gouges in the deck with every step.
Baron Tamago watched him go. Then, slowly, he turned to Bege.
A smile crept across his face. Thin. Sinister. A predator's expression worn by prey.
Bege returned it with one of his own.
"What are you waiting for?" Baron Tamago's voice was barely a whisper. "Turn the ship around. I'll handle things from my end."
"Understood." Bege turned and jogged toward the liaison room, his mind already spinning with contingencies.
Baron Tamago straightened his jacket. Yes. Turn the ship around. Make them believe we've surrendered. And then, the moment that demon's guard is down...
He took a step toward the cabin.
...I'll contact Whole Cake Island directly. Request Mother's fastest forces. We'll surround Dressrosa and crush every last Straw Hat before they even know—
Steel pierced his heart.
Baron Tamago looked down.
A blade had emerged from his chest—no, not a blade. A crossbar. The crossguard of a sword that had been driven through his back and out his front, its edge glistening with his blood.
He tried to speak. Tried to scream.
A second blade opened his throat before a single sound could escape.
His body crumpled. His long legs folded beneath him like a collapsed compass. The deck rushed up to meet him—
And the last thing Baron Tamago saw was a pair of crimson eyes, spinning with the pattern of a pinwheel, utterly devoid of mercy.
Bege heard nothing.
He was already twenty paces toward the liaison room, his mind running through the message he would send to Whole Cake Island. Emergency priority. Request immediate deployment of Sweet Commander forces. Target: Straw Hat Pirates and Trafalgar Law. Location: Dressrosa. Threat level—
"SIKU GA MI!"
The voice came from directly behind him.
Bege spun.
And looked directly into Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan.
Tsukuyomi.
Ten Minutes Later
The Queen Mama Chanter drifted aimlessly on the waves.
Its sails hung in tatters. Its deck was slick with blood. Its crew—every last member who had sailed from Whole Cake Island—lay silent. Baron Tamago's body sprawled near the stern. Pekoms had fallen halfway down the cabin stairs, his sunglasses shattered beside him. The Homies were already gone, absorbed into the Ten-Fist Sword's gourd during the initial strike.
The ship that had terrorized the seas under Big Mom's flag was now nothing but a floating tomb.
And above it, suspended over the water by a grip of iron around his throat, Capone Bege gasped for breath.
"You..." His voice came out strangled, each word a battle against the pressure crushing his windpipe. "Why... why would you..."
His fingers scrabbled uselessly at Itachi's wrist.
"Didn't I already... promise... not to pursue... your crew..."
Itachi's cold smile was the last thing Bege expected to see.
"An enemy's promise?"
The smile sharpened.
"Ridiculous."
"You—!" Bege's face purpled with rage and oxygen deprivation. "You blood-soaked LIAR—!"
His struggles weakened. His body, even with the Castle-Castle Fruit's enhanced durability, was failing. The pressure on his throat was too precise, too controlled—
"You are also a liar."
Bege stopped struggling.
The words struck him like a physical blow. His eyes, bulging with suffocation, went wide with something that wasn't pain.
He knew.
He knew from the start.
Bege's mind raced back through the last ten minutes. The promise to turn back. The capitulation. The false surrender. He had thought he was playing Itachi—had thought his plan to contact Whole Cake Island was safe behind his mask of compliance.
But Itachi had seen through him from the very first word.
The plan had never been Bege's trap.
The trap had always been Itachi's.
He let us believe we were escaping. He let us lower our guard. He let us think we had outmaneuvered him... and the whole time...
"You're really..." Bege's voice came out as a rasping laugh, equal parts admiration and despair. "You're more ruthless than any gangster I ever knew in the West Blue."
Itachi's response was to drive a blade into Bege's torso.
Once. Twice. Three times.
The Castle-Castle Fruit's defenses held. The flesh parted but did not penetrate—the pocket dimension within Bege's body absorbing the strikes, redirecting them, protecting its host from fatal damage.
Itachi's eyes narrowed.
Devil Fruit defense.
He had noticed it earlier, too. The way Bege's throat had depressed slightly under his grip—not from genuine constriction, but from the Castle-Castle Fruit creating the illusion of vulnerability. The hardness remained. The defense was always active.
"You're a Devil Fruit user yourself," Bege managed. "Don't act so... surprised..."
His voice was weak. But beneath the weakness, something stirred. One last card. One final gambit.
Within Bege's body, in the fortress that was his very being, a single soldier took aim. The armor-piercing round—the same ammunition that had failed against Susanoo—was useless at range. But at this distance? Pressed against the target with no room to dodge?
Now.
The shot fired from Bege's chest at point-blank range.
Itachi leaned back.
The bullet passed through the space where his head had been a millisecond earlier, close enough to ruffle his hair. Close enough to feel the heat of its passage.
But not close enough.
Not even remotely close enough.
The Mangekyō Sharingan had seen the attack forming before Bege's soldier had even pulled the trigger. The subtle shift of muscle. The minute displacement of air within the Castle-Castle pocket dimension. Every tell, every sign, every whisper of intent—all of it laid bare before eyes that had been trained to perceive the imperceptible.
Bege's last card had been played.
And it had accomplished nothing.
The mob boss went limp.
"You..." His voice was barely a whisper now, stripped of all pretense, all bravado, all hope. "You are a terrifying enemy."
"Thank you."
Itachi's grip tightened—just slightly. Just enough.
"Then I will grant you a less painful death."
He released Bege's throat.
The mob boss fell. His body struck the water with a sound like a stone dropping into a well. The sea closed over him, dark and cold and utterly indifferent.
Capone Bege—veteran of the West Blue underworld, captain of the Fire Tank Pirates, senior operative of the Big Mom Pirates—sank beneath the waves.
He did not resurface.
Itachi watched the ripples fade. The Castle-Castle Fruit's defenses were formidable, but they meant nothing against the sea itself. The moment Bege's body had touched the water, his strength had evaporated. Within seconds, consciousness had followed.
Within a minute, so had everything else.
Itachi stood alone at the Chanter's railing, his tattered coat billowing in the wind. Below him, the sea stretched endless and indifferent. Behind him, the corpses of those he had killed lay scattered across the deck like fallen leaves.
The Wood Black Crow materialized at his side.
He mounted it without a backward glance.
As the crow rose into the sky, Itachi's thoughts turned toward Dressrosa. Toward Luffy and Zoro, trapped and outnumbered. Toward Law, broken in Doflamingo's grip. Toward Robin and Usopp, navigating the shadows of an occupied kingdom.
Toward the battle that still waited for him.
But beneath the tactical considerations, beneath the strategic calculus that had governed his every action since arriving in this world, something else stirred.
An enemy's promise is worthless.
Trust must be earned.
And liars...
The image of a boy with whiskered cheeks flashed through his mind. A boy who had turned promises into reality. Who had taken the hatred of a village and transformed it into love. Who had never, not once, broken his word.
Some liars become Hokage.
Others become corpses.
The black flames carried him toward the horizon.
And behind him, the Queen Mama Chanter drifted empty across the waves—a ghost ship, silent and dead, waiting for the tide to carry it home.
End of Chapter
✨If you're enjoying this story, consider supporting me on Patreon —
Patreon.com/TofuChan
Where you can read Extra Advance Chapters
Bonus Chapter For Every 100 Power Stones
Lets hit the goal of 300 Patreon Members now for 5 Extra Chapters 💕