Right after Luffy's bounty poster was issued, the Marine building in Loguetown was in an uproar.
"Are you really going to follow Monkey D. Luffy, Colonel Coby? Then who's going to protect Loguetown?!"
"I've already made up my mind."
There, Marine officer Prinprin, with her pale lavender hair braided into a round bun at the back of her head, stood facing Coby, who had a bag packed full of belongings slung over his shoulder. Luffy had met her in Cocoyasi Village.
"It's no exaggeration to say Loguetown is the most important place in East Blue."
"Unless pirates cross the Calm Belt, they have to pass through this town—the largest and closest to Reverse Mountain—if they want to reach the Grand Line."
"That's why you were assigned here as a Headquarters colonel! If you leave, what happens to this place?!"
"A new officer from Headquarters will be assigned here soon. Until then, please keep an eye on things, Brigadier General."
"If every Headquarters colonel were as strong, diligent, and capable as you, I'd have nothing to complain about."
"And speaking of rank, what exactly am I supposed to call a branch brigadier general when, in Headquarters terms, that's basically a major..."
"But, Brigadier General."
Coby said this with a dark expression as he grabbed Prinprin by the shoulder.
"Was it you who passed along the information that Luffy was heading to Loguetown... to Hancock?"
"W-What? Who would dare leak information about Luffy...?"
"Brigadier General..."
As he said that, Coby tightened his grip on Prinprin's shoulder.
"Agh! Okay, okay! I told her!"
"I knew it."
"What? So you're accusing me without any proof?!"
"That's the kind of thing Luffy does when he's 99 percent sure."
"Haah... I didn't mean to start out that way."
With a sigh, Prinprin sat down in front of Coby's desk and continued.
"As you know, even if you're investigating Marine corruption because you've gotten involved with pirates, it isn't easy to dig into wrongdoing within the same Marine ranks."
"Probably because of the people who got fed by Nezumi, the interference during the investigation was far worse than expected."
"And compared to what the Fish-Man Pirates had plundered over eight years, the money Luffy and the villagers found at their base was far too little."
"If people tied to Nezumi had gotten their hands on the money that was probably hidden somewhere else, we wouldn't have been able to help the villages that had been robbed for eight years. I got anxious, so I couldn't help it."
"So I had no choice but to take a gamble and use Luffy's name to get things settled with Vice-Admiral Garp."
"So that's why information leaked that Luffy had stopped by Cocoyasi Village."
"Even so, where did the information come from that Luffy was heading to Loguetown?"
"Ah, that part was me too."
"And why would you do that?"
"Well... because I got to have a real-time video call with Her Majesty~!"
Prinprin's face, unlike her solemn expression from just moments before, was flushed red and her smile stretched from ear to ear.
As he smiled like that, he recalled a time in the past, in a dark room, staring at a wall lit by the glow coming from a Transponder Snail's eyes.
"Luffy is coming to Loguetown... are you certain?"
"Yes, Your Majesty! I heard it clearly!"
"Her Majesty already knew Luffy had set out from his hometown through another source, and she was in Loguetown because of it."
"By the time Luffy had already sailed toward Loguetown, I'd received that contact, so there was nothing really left to hide."
"That's not the same as the case you just mentioned! You just gave the information away because you like Hancock!"
"What's the problem? I'd heard through the grapevine at Headquarters that Her Majesty had liked Luffy for a long time, so I didn't think she'd do anything to harm him."
"Besides, I was happy just to see the beautiful Her Majesty through a video call, even if it was only like that♡"
"You old fool...!"
"Senior Coby! We're all done getting ready!"
While Coby was arguing with Prinprin, Hibari opened the door and came inside.
She had a bag on her back that was three or four times larger than Coby's—big enough to fit one person inside.
"Hibari, you could've put the heavy luggage on the ship first..."
"Once I was actually about to leave, I kept noticing more things I needed to pack!"
"Everyone who's going with you is waiting on the ship!"
"I only got permission from Vice-Admiral Garp to chase after Luffy, so there's no need for you or anyone else to go this far..."
"I don't want to take orders from anyone except Senior Coby!"
"So all you need to do is keep showing me... your cool side!"
"Thank you, Hibari. I'll do my best!"
"E-Even if you don't do your best, you're always cool, Senior..."
"Colonel Coby, but if you've got Vice-Admiral Garp's permission, is it really okay to just leave like this?"
"You could end up getting marked by the higher-ups. I'm saying this because I'm genuinely worried about you."
"If I have anything I need to say, then I should say it like this."
Coby said that, then put on a fierce expression and opened his mouth again.
"Mind your own business and do your jobs properly...!"
Seeing Coby like that, both Prinprin and Hibari looked utterly shocked.
"...or something like that, right?"
"Like hell that would work!!!"
After saying that, Coby's face wore a gentle smile so soft it was hard to believe it had been the same fierce expression from moments before.
'Was that just now Colonel Coby's true face, hidden all along... or was it emotion spilling out because of everything that's happened lately?'
'That was a vicious look completely unlike the mild manner he usually shows when we run into each other.'
Prinprin thought that as he turned toward Hibari, who was muttering by the doorway.
"The first time I've seen my senior like that... he's so cool!"
'Just like Her Majesty when I saw her on the video call... that girl's completely fallen for him too.'
*****
As Coby was preparing to leave Loguetown, Luffy's wanted poster spread across the country.
"Luffy's got a bounty! A hundred million berries!"
"That's a huge amount of money! That Luffy guy is amazing!"
Among them, the atmosphere in Fusha Village grew especially lively after hearing the news about Luffy.
At the village tavern, Magura—the man who had nearly been eaten by the Sea King, the Lord of the Near Sea, when Luffy left Fusha Village in the past—was sitting with Dogura, who had nearly been eaten alongside him, and gaped at Makino.
"Makino, do you know where the village chief and Dadan went?"
"They said they were going up the mountain."
"Magura, if the village chief were here right now, he'd say this."
The smaller Dogura hopped up onto the table.
"You idiots! What's so great about a pirate coming out of this village?!"
"Yeah, that's exactly what the village chief would say!"
"Hahahahahaha!!!"
Dogura bent at the waist and imitated the village chief, and the people around them laughed at the sight.
"You idiots, what's so great about a pirate coming out of this village... I came here so I wouldn't have to see that, Dadan."
"You said you wanted to go to the top of the mountain a long time ago."
Meanwhile, the village chief, Woop Slap, was being carried up the mountain on Dadan's back.
"I'm glad Luffy seems to be living the way he wants."
"That Luffy brat... just what the hell has he been doing to get a hundred million bounty?"
"He's a good kid. There must've been a reason."
"You had it rough. Even if Luffy was manageable, raising a troublemaker like Ace too must've been hard."
"They were just kids, that's all."
"You too... you were a kid once."
At those words, Dadan lowered her head and climbed the mountain while staring only at the ground.
"I always regret it. Not treating you warmly back then."
"If I hadn't kept you too far away just because your father was a famous bandit and we'd only run into each other from time to time, maybe you would've turned over a new leaf sooner."
"It's not like I didn't do anything wrong."
"At first, I was scared of getting hit, so I started by doing what I was told—digging through the corpses my father and his men had raided and killed."
"After that, I killed people who were still barely alive, and I even killed a woman who was being held hostage."
Dadan recalled her younger self holding a dagger in front of a bound woman.
"I justified it by telling myself that if I didn't do it, someone else would, that I was a victim too... things like that."
"Before I knew it, killing people had become a little easier."
"Then why didn't you do it that day?"
"Because my father told someone else to kill people instead of me."
"After I became an adult, starting with Dogura and Magura, kids my age or younger who had nowhere else to go or were starving came to join the bandits."
"I couldn't bring myself to make those kids kill people."
"So I ran away with the people and children we'd been holding to demand ransom, but of course we were caught again right away."
"Luckily, Garp came back here after a long time and, after hearing what was going on, saved you and the others."
"Your father was beaten to death then, though..."
"I don't care. He was a man who deserved to be beaten to death."
"But Chief... I'm no different from him."
"How could you be the same as that bastard? If you were, do you think Garp would've left you alone?"
"I'm not innocent either, so I couldn't bring myself to go down to the village with the kids."
"The one who helped you all blend in with the villagers was Luffy when he was still a child."
"That's why I'm so grateful to Luffy. He let me throw off the bandit label and live like a human being."
"Yeah, before I went to Marine Headquarters, I kept trying to convince the villagers that you and the others under you weren't bad people."
"Thanks to that, everyone's working hard in the village now... huh? Why am I swaying so much?"
"Because we're here. We've arrived at the place you wanted to see so badly."
"The place Luffy spent a year smashing and carving away."
Woop Slap climbed down from Dadan's back and stared at the scene spread out before him.
The slope filling his entire field of vision was nearly five hundred meters long, while the hill itself was less than fifty meters high.
Across the slanted surface of the hill, there wasn't a single stretch of ground without cracks split into it.
As Woop Slap climbed the hill with hurried steps, the cracked slope grew more pronounced, its shape looking as if it had been carved away from below.
With Dadan behind him, he finally reached the summit.
"This is..."
"It's the mark Luffy made before he left recently, saying his training was over."
"After spending a year smashing the mountain top he'd left behind through training, he coated himself in that golden power called Haki and smashed it to pieces with everything he had."
What stood at the top of the mountain was a huge hole more than a hundred meters across.
More precisely, it was a deep, rounded gouge where the center and upper portion had been carved away together.
The rim of the hole, where the top had broken off, rose outward in symmetrical arcs on both sides, like a crescent moon lying with its waist pressed to the ground and its ends hooked upward.
"Yeah... a hero isn't proven by strength alone."
"What matters is how you use the power you forged through such bone-grinding effort."
"Garp poured the strength he built up into justice... and Luffy must have gone this far for his own version of justice too."
Woop Slap sat down on a flat rock nearby and continued.
"Understanding is the attitude of knowing in your head and accepting in your heart why someone made the choice they did."
"That's why only those who can understand can truly embrace the pain another person goes through."
"By contrast, respect is the attitude of acknowledging the choices someone made and the path they're walking, even if you can't fully understand them."
"Weak as I am, I can't know the pain Garp and Luffy went through. At best... all I can do is respect what they mean."
"And yet you're the one who goes ballistic because Luffy became a pirate?"
"I don't care if he wasn't a Marine like Garp! There are plenty of other paths!"
"Then why did it have to be pirates?!"
"You're really showing that there's a limit to respect compared to understanding."
"But as long as Luffy takes care of his own body, I don't care what he becomes."
"Besides, becoming Pirate King was Luffy's dream since he was little, wasn't it? Are you worried?"
At Dadan's words, Woop Slap looked up at the sun hanging in the center between the crescent-shaped rocks.
"Whether it's a dream, or fate..."