All the bodies that could be recovered from the sea had already been hauled ashore by the surviving residents of Central Street and the few Marines who had made it out alive.
As for Garp, badly injured, he sat cross-legged atop the ruins of the royal palace, recovering in silence.
Not far in front of him stood Admiral Kizaru, the first to arrive from Marine Headquarters. His expression was unusually serious as he looked down at the corpse of the Celestial Dragon, Saint Charloss, who was very, very dead.
"One shot straight through the head… how terrifying."
After confirming that Charloss had only a single fatal wound, Kizaru stopped examining the body and walked over to stand in front of Garp.
"Vice Admiral Garp, are you certain all of this was done by that one rabbit?"
"I saw it with my own eyes. You think I'm making it up?"
Garp glared at him. Still unable to vent the frustration of having been beaten half to death by Da Hong, he dumped all of it onto Kizaru instead.
"Borsalino… are you doubting me?"
"No, no, no."
Kizaru lifted both hands in his usual lazy manner and shook his head.
"I'm just shocked by how strong this rabbit is. Vice Admiral Garp… your injuries aren't too serious, are they? Shouldn't you head to the nearest base and have a doctor look at you?"
"It's just a scratch—cough, cough—"
Garp waved it off, then immediately coughed twice and covered his mouth.
"It's nothing."
"But you're coughing up blood," Kizaru said, staring at him without blinking. "Anyone who can make you cough blood must be very scary indeed."
Garp looked like he wanted to say something.
In the end, he chose silence.
Kizaru, for once, didn't keep pressing the knife in.
Instead, he asked seriously, "I searched the entire Goa Kingdom and found no trace of them. Do you know where they went?"
"How the hell would I know?"
Garp's face twitched slightly.
He wanted to say that Da Hong had punched him into the sky and dropped him into the sea, and that the fact he'd made it back alive at all was already a miracle.
But he swallowed the words.
After all, across the entire Grand Line, the number of people who could send him flying like that could almost be counted on one hand.
If he said it out loud, never mind his own pride—Marine morale would take a serious hit.
No matter what, he was still Garp the Hero, the role model and idol of countless young Marines.
"Wait…"
Suddenly, Garp remembered Droopy, who had been with Da Hong.
Based on what he had seen so far, Droopy seemed to possess some kind of long-range teleportation ability.
Now both Da Hong and Droopy had vanished.
That almost certainly meant they had already been teleported somewhere far away.
Thinking of this, Garp quickly added, "I don't know where Da Hong went, but there was a Droopy dog with him—Droopy. He seems to have the ability to teleport over long distances. By now, they've probably already moved somewhere very far away."
"Well, that makes things troublesome."
Kizaru still wore that same lazy, half-unbothered expression.
"The East Blue is huge. Trying to catch them when one of them can teleport is basically like scooping a needle out of the sea."
"Still, Fleet Admiral Sengoku has already sent Vice Admiral Gion, along with Momonga, Onigumo, and Yamakaji, into the East Blue. If all goes as planned, every sea under the control of every Marine base in the East Blue should already be under blockade."
"No matter where they teleport, they won't be able to escape."
Hearing that, Garp's face twitched harder.
A rabbit that had wiped out an entire royal family in a matter of minutes, killed a Celestial Dragon without blinking, and beaten him into the sea—
and a Droopy dog with long-range teleportation abilities—
How exactly had Kizaru arrived at the conclusion that they had "nowhere to run"?
More importantly, Da Hong was a monster who had launched him with nothing but raw physical force.
Even if the Marines did manage to appear the moment Da Hong and Droopy rematerialized somewhere—and even if Droopy couldn't teleport repeatedly in succession—
The Marines still wouldn't be able to stop Da Hong.
Those were the thoughts running through Garp's head.
But he said none of them out loud.
Because he knew Kizaru too well.
Yes, Kizaru was one of Marine Headquarters' greatest powers, a Logia user with the Glint-Glint Fruit, one of the Navy's highest combat assets.
But compared with someone like Akainu, Kizaru had never looked especially passionate about the job.
Even when Celestial Dragons had been offended in the past and Kizaru had been sent to deal with it, he was the type who showed up, went through the motions, and called it a day.
If he caught the culprit, fine.
If he didn't, that was fine too.
Once the clock ran out, he clocked out.
Now that Da Hong and Droopy had vanished, Kizaru was naturally in no rush. The part about them having "no way to escape" sounded more like something said for appearances than something he truly believed.
But this time was different.
A Celestial Dragon had been killed.
That meant the attackers truly did not care about the so-called authority of the World Nobles.
And the royal family of the Goa Kingdom, one of the World Government's member states, had been wiped out as well.
That meant the World Government would absolutely have to respond, both to preserve its image as protector of its allied nations and to defend its own authority.
Two things happening at once—
This was easily one of the most serious incidents in recent years.
Under these circumstances, the World Government would spare no effort in hunting down Da Hong.
And there would almost certainly be an enormous bounty involved.
As the military arm standing at the front of the World Government, Marine Headquarters would naturally be the one running itself ragged to deal with it.
Just then—
The Den Den Mushi in Kizaru's coat began to ring.
"Admiral Borsalino, what's the current situation inside the Goa Kingdom?"
The voice coming through belonged to Vice Admiral Gion, who had been ordered to support him.
"The culprits have already left," Kizaru said, glancing around the ruins.
"I just received fresh information from Vice Admiral Garp. In addition to Da Hong, there was also a Droopy dog with him who possesses long-range teleportation abilities. So at this point, no one knows where they are."
The moment Kizaru finished speaking, the Den Den Mushi beside Garp also rang.
Garp stopped meditating on the ruins, picked it up, and walked to the far side of the wreckage.
"Garp."
The voice that came through was Sengoku's.
"Tell me honestly—does any of this have anything to do with that mysterious boy named Kairo?"
"As far as what I saw goes, Kairo probably had nothing to do with it."
Garp answered almost as if he had been waiting for this question.
"This really does look like an accidental incident. Two minutes before Da Hong killed Charloss and the Goa Kingdom royals, I'd just given him a pair of red canvas sneakers."
"That means after parting with me, Da Hong likely ran into Charloss by chance. You know what Celestial Dragons are like. Da Hong didn't even care about me—he beat me up the moment he felt like it. So if he ran into some overbearing Celestial Dragon, there's no way he'd hold back."
"After all, he's just a rabbit. He doesn't understand all these human rules and hierarchies."
"There's no point talking about that now."
Sengoku's voice was extremely heavy.
"The Holy Land is furious. The Five Elders are demanding that we capture Da Hong as quickly as possible."
"And ten minutes ago, they issued a bounty."
"Five hundred million beli."
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