Chapter 117: Clues
"N-NANI?! EVERYONE'S DOWN?!"
The announcer's voice cracked through the colosseum's speaker system, raw with disbelief. The man was practically hanging over the edge of his booth, his microphone trembling in his grip. Below him, the D-block arena had transformed from a chaotic melee into a still life of unconscious bodies.
The audience sat frozen, their bloodlust cooling into stunned silence. Hands that had been raised to cheer for slaughter now hung limp at their sides. Voices that had been howling for Rebecca's death had gone utterly, completely quiet.
As the dust settled, Itachi's vision finally focused on a corner of the D-block arena.
There.
Sprawled across the blood-soaked sand, his white cape pooled around him like a fallen angel's wings, was a figure whose presence explained everything. His face, serene in unconsciousness, bore none of the violence he had just unleashed.
"I see," Itachi murmured.
'White Horse' Cavendish.
In the player viewing area, Sabo had reached the same conclusion. A knowing smile played at the corner of his lips.
"I'd heard the rumors, but seeing it firsthand is something else entirely." He shook his head slowly. "That speed. That complete domination. It's almost absurd."
"Old man, that—that was—!"
"That's right. Every fighter in the arena taken down in a single instant." Sabo's voice carried professional admiration. "That was the signature of the supernova 'White Horse' Cavendish. Or rather, his alter ego. Hakuba."
But Bartolomeo wasn't pointing at the fallen Cavendish.
"No, old man, not that rotten cabbage! THAT!"
His trembling finger aimed toward the front row of the spectators' gallery.
Sabo followed the gesture.
Itachi sat motionless among the crowd, his black cloak stark against the colorful attire of the bloodthirsty spectators around him. None of them seemed to notice the masked figure in their midst. None of them had seen him arrive. He was simply... there. As if he had materialized from the shadows themselves.
"When did Senior Uchiha Itachi get THERE?!" Bartolomeo's voice cracked with despair. "I haven't even properly greeted that senior yet! I grabbed his wrist! I threatened him! I'm the rudest person alive!"
He collapsed against the iron railing, tears streaming down his face.
"Karma! This is karma!"
Sabo edged away from the weeping supernova with undisguised distaste. "You're... really something else."
But beneath his irritation, genuine curiosity flickered. How had Itachi appeared there so quickly? The front row was a hundred meters from their position. There were no connecting passages, no maintenance ladders. Just open air and dense crowds.
That man is going to give me a headache before this is over.
Then the announcer's voice cut through their thoughts.
"WAIT! SOMEONE—SOMEONE IS STANDING UP!"
The crowd stirred. Necks craned. Eyes strained toward the arena floor.
"THAT IS—!"
The dust parted.
And there, amid the fallen bodies of warriors twice her size and ten times her experience, a young woman rose to her feet. Her gladiator helmet had been knocked askew, revealing pink hair that fell across her face in sweat-matted strands. Her arms trembled. Her legs shook. But she was standing.
"The daughter who inherits the blood of the Riku royal family—REBECCA!!!"
A beat of silence.
Then the boos erupted.
"WHAT A JOKE!"
"She must have cheated! There's no way she survived that!"
"Where are the inspectors?! Search her! She's hiding something!"
"Filthy Riku brat! Can't even die properly!"
The vitriol washed over Itachi like a foul tide. He remained motionless, his Sharingan still tracking the movements in the arena below. He had seen what the crowd had missed—the moment when the white blur had passed through the fighters, that instant when Rebecca's Observation Haki had flared with desperate warning. She hadn't dodged the attack entirely. Hakuba's blade had caught her helmet, shearing it from her head.
But she had been falling before the strike connected. Not struck down. Taking cover. Using the force of near-miss to drop below the killing arc.
In a field of unconscious warriors, the one who had simply fallen—and then risen—was the victor.
Clever girl.
In the viewing area, Sabo had seen it too. He lifted his water pipe from where it leaned against the railing, settling its familiar weight across his shoulders.
"No matter what fate that girl carries. No matter what tragic history weighs on her shoulders."
His voice was quiet. Certain.
"I won't surrender the Mera-Mera Fruit. Not to anyone."
This is Ace's legacy. His will. His flame.
I will carry it forward.
"Are you heading down for the finals, old man?" Bartolomeo scrambled to his feet, tears still glistening on his cheeks. "Wait for me!"
Up on the announcer's platform, the host had finished a heated consultation with his two assistants. His face was flushed, his collar loosened, but his voice carried the weight of official ruling.
"The final victor of D-Block is... Rebecca!"
The boos redoubled. A few spectators threw their drinks toward the arena floor. Someone screamed a death threat that was swallowed by the general roar.
The host pressed on, shouting over the chaos.
"The tournament management has confirmed that Rebecca has been under the strictest supervision throughout this competition! At no point was she found in possession of additional weapons beyond her regulation blade! Furthermore, the victory condition of this arena is clear—the last fighter standing claims the block!"
He slammed his palm against the booth railing.
"The ruling STANDS!"
The crowd's anger curdled into resentful acceptance. They couldn't argue with the rules. But the rules, they muttered to each other, wouldn't protect her for long.
"It doesn't matter anyway! The finals are starting immediately!"
"General Diamante will be fighting! He's the hero of the colosseum!"
"DIAMANTE WILL KILL HER! THERE'S NO WAY THAT RIKU BITCH SURVIVES THE FINALS!"
Itachi's eyes narrowed fractionally behind his mask.
The finals are starting now?
That complicated matters. His original plan had been simple enough—wait for D-block to conclude, extract Rebecca during the confusion between rounds, and deliver her safely to the toy soldier's contact point before proceeding to the palace.
But if the finals began immediately, Rebecca would be trapped in the arena. And 'General Diamante'—the name stirred something in his memory. One of the Donquixote Family's elite officers. The man who managed the colosseum itself.
A setup.
There would be no extraction in the confusion between rounds because there was no gap between rounds. Diamante had ensured that the moment Rebecca survived her block, she would be thrown directly into a match against a Donquixote officer who had every reason to want her dead.
Which meant Itachi had two choices.
Intervene now. Reveal himself. Abort the mission.
Or wait. Let Rebecca enter the finals. Strike at the exact moment Diamante moved to kill her.
Law can survive a little longer. Doflamingo needs him alive to bait the rest of us.
His jaw tightened.
But every minute I spend here is a minute Law spends in Doflamingo's hands.
He made his decision.
The battle stage gleamed under the colosseum lights as Sabo strode into view, his water pipe balanced casually across one shoulder. The fake mustache still clung to his upper lip, the gladiator helm concealing his distinctive blond hair.
"OUR FIRST FINALIST! THE ROOKIE WHO CAPTURED THE AUDIENCE'S HEARTS FROM HIS VERY FIRST APPEARANCE—LUCY!!!"
The crowd roared with genuine enthusiasm. Whoever this Lucy was, he had earned their respect through strength and showmanship. They had no idea that the man they were cheering was an entirely different person from the one who had won Block C.
Sabo waved to the crowd with practiced ease. His eyes, hidden behind his sunglasses, swept across the arena—cataloguing threats, identifying escape routes, noting the position of every fighter and every guard. Old habits, drilled into him by years of revolutionary warfare.
"FOLLOWING CONTESTANT LUCY—THE BLOCK B VICTOR! THE SUPER! NOVA! 'MASSACRE' BARTOLOMEO!!!"
Bartolomeo swaggered onto the stage with a gait that could only be described as weaponized insolence. His hands were stuffed in his pockets. His chin was raised. His expression conveyed, with perfect clarity, that he considered every single person booing him to be beneath his notice.
He was, in fact, the public enemy of the audience.
The cheers that had greeted Sabo curdled instantly into jeers.
"BOOOOOO!"
"NOBODY WANTS TO SEE YOUR STUPID BARRIER!"
"FIGHT FOR REAL THIS TIME, COWARD!"
Bartolomeo's response was to pick his nose.
From the earliest rounds of Block B, he had deployed his Barrier-Barrier Fruit with infuriating efficiency—creating an impenetrable dome around himself and simply waiting for his opponents to exhaust themselves or eliminate each other. He had once, infamously, urinated off the edge of the arena's water channel while safely encased in his barrier, waiting for the last opponent to collapse from fatigue.
The crowd had not forgiven him.
"AND NEXT! THE WINNER OF BLOCK A! FIRST CAPTAIN OF THE BLACKBEARD PIRATES! THE 'CHAMPION'—BURGESS!!!"
"WEEEE-HA!"
Burgess exploded onto the stage like a force of nature. His body was an inverted triangle of pure muscle, his arms thick as cannons, his grin wide enough to swallow the sun. He flexed and posed for the crowd, drinking in their adulation.
Then his eyes locked onto Sabo.
"STRAW HAT!" His voice boomed across the arena. "The Mera-Mera Fruit belongs to the Blackbeard Pirates! No one else is walking away with it!"
"WEEEE-HA!"
Sabo regarded him with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"How's your captain doing these days?"
Burgess's grin vanished. His fists clenched.
"You..." The word came out as a growl. "I've got a score to settle with you, Straw Hat. Your damn crewmate—that bastard with the red eyes—he nearly killed our captain at Rilke Callander!"
Sabo's smile sharpened. So Blackbeard had survived after all. The Revolutionary Army had suspected as much—that man was too stubborn to die easily. But "nearly killed" was satisfying to hear regardless.
Itachi did that much damage, even with Blackbeard's darkness abilities?
Burgess, it seemed, had been dispatched to Dressrosa before the Rilke Callander incident. He hadn't been there for the battle. But the news had clearly reached him.
Sabo didn't bother responding. Instead, his gaze drifted toward the front row of the spectator gallery.
Itachi was looking back at him.
Their eyes met across the distance—Sabo's dark gaze meeting the crimson gleam of Itachi's Sharingan behind the cat-face mask.
Sabo raised one hand. Thumb extended upward. A gesture of confidence. Of camaraderie. Of we're in this together.
Itachi inclined his head slightly in acknowledgment.
And then—
Sabo blinked.
Itachi was standing directly in front of him.
"Protect that girl." The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, calm and unhurried. Itachi's masked face was inches from Sabo's own, close enough to see the individual tomoe spinning in his crimson eyes. "It's inconvenient for me to intervene directly. Don't let her die."
Sabo's breath caught.
He blinked again.
Itachi was back in the audience. Sitting in the front row. As if he had never moved.
What—?!
Sabo's hand, still raised in the thumbs-up gesture, trembled slightly. His mind raced through the implications. That wasn't speed—not the way Cavendish's Hakuba was speed. That was something else entirely. Something that had bypassed his perception completely.
Was that an illusion? When did he—how long was I under—?!
Before he could finish the thought, his eyes found the front row again.
Itachi was gone.
The seat where he had been sitting was empty. The spectators around it were still screaming, still absorbed in the drama of the finals, completely unaware that a phantom had been sitting among them.
"Why is that guy always so mysterious?" Sabo muttered, shaking his head.
But the message was clear. Protect Rebecca. Don't let her die.
He could do that.
The Dome of the Corrida Colosseum
The wind was stronger up here.
Itachi crouched on the colosseum's highest point, his black cloak whipping around him as he surveyed the kingdom below. From this vantage point, Dressrosa spread out like a living map—the coastal districts, the terraced hills, the palace gleaming at the island's highest point.
He unfolded the map the toy soldier had given him.
The parchment was worn soft at the creases, marked with annotations in a careful, precise hand. Every street. Every landmark. Every hidden passage and underground route. The toy soldier had spent years compiling this information, wandering the kingdom he could no longer claim as his own.
Itachi's eyes traced the routes.
The Toy House. Located in the eastern district, near the trading port. According to the toy soldier, this was where the transformed humans were forced to labor through the night—the hub of Doflamingo's black market operations. Directly beneath it, accessible through a series of maintenance tunnels, was the SMILE Factory. Robin and Usopp's objective.
The palace. Situated on the highest plateau, accessible by three main routes and seven secondary paths. Doflamingo's stronghold. Where Law was being held.
And between them...
Itachi's finger traced a line from the colosseum to the palace, then branched toward the Flower Field where the secret tunnel emerged.
There. A notation in the toy soldier's handwriting. Small. Precise. Easy to miss if you weren't looking for it.
*Underground passage. Connects to palace sublevels. Maintained by Tontatta for supply runs. Guard patrols minimal between 1600-1800 hours.*
His Sharingan memorized the route in a single sweep.
This changes things.
If he could access the palace through the underground network, he didn't need to fight through Doflamingo's defenses. He could infiltrate. Locate Law. Extract him before anyone knew he was there.
And if Doflamingo happened to be in the way...
Itachi folded the map and tucked it into his cloak.
Then I'll kill him and be done with it.
End of Chapter
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