The iron-gray deck creaked beneath their feet. The sea was quiet, but Arne's heart thundered with unease.
He wasn't some greenhorn. He'd followed his old captain through countless raids—plundering merchant ships, razing towns, leaving carnage in their wake. His conscience had long since been cast to the Sea Kings. In the world of pirates, it was steal or be stolen from.
But this... this was different.
What he'd just witnessed chilled him to the bone.
One moment, Musa—the infamous "Dog of Carnage"—was grinning arrogantly behind his Seastone cuffs. The next, he was... nothing.
Just meat.
It happened in an instant. Buggy reached toward Arne's arm, pulled out the hidden knife, and drove it straight into Musa.
Buggy stood over Musa's collapsed corpse, his scarred face half-concealed beneath a curtain of blue hair. His expression? Carefree. Almost cheerful.
He turned to the stunned prisoners and casually flicked his hair back.
"Ah, sorry. I just got excited all of a sudden," he said with a wide grin. "What was that phrase again? Right—I'm a peace-loving person."
The knife was already back at his waist, dripping blood. He didn't even glance behind him.
Musa's torso had been split open like a gutted fish. His internal organs spilled across the floor. One arm—still twitching—landed near another cell's bars.
Buggy stooped, picked it up, and chuckled.
"So that was the infamous Musa... annoying voice. Hurt my ears."
But what disturbed Arne most wasn't the blood. It was how Buggy had escaped.
The Seastone cuffs were made to suppress Devil Fruit users, render them helpless.
Buggy had simply cut off his own hands—without hesitation.
The moment the cuffs hit the floor, his body pulsed with energy. The Bara Bara no Mi—the Chop-Chop Fruit—reactivated. His severed hands reattached instantly, snapping into place like puzzle pieces.
"Really useful fruit," Buggy muttered, licking blood off his lips. "Wasn't sure it'd work. But hey... worth trying."
This wasn't the same Buggy the world knew—the cowardly clown from East Blue.
This Buggy held Joaquin's soul—the madman from Gotham's infamous asylum. A lunatic with no leash.
He chuckled to himself. "I wonder if my dear doctor and those charming inmates miss me. Especially that cute little bat. Ah well. I'm having so much more fun here."
He tilted his head thoughtfully.
"I wonder what happens if I eat another Devil Fruit. They say you explode, right? But I can already explode... heh. Experiment time."
His blue hair fell loose, and his eyes sparkled—part mischief, part madness. Unmistakably Joker-like.
"Buggy-sama..." Arne whispered.
Even as a scoundrel himself, Arne had instincts. And those instincts screamed one thing:
This wasn't a man.
This was a monster in clown makeup.
He had thought Buggy was just a minor pirate with a 15 million bounty—a joke.
But watching him gut Musa with a smile and reattach his limbs like it was nothing?
That wasn't a joke.
That was someone worth hundreds of millions.
The Marines were either fools or cowards for assigning him such a low bounty.
Buggy smiled a little wider, as if reading his mind.
"Don't worry. I feel much better now."
He waved his hand—and his body split apart into floating segments, spinning mid-air as he passed through Musa's shattered cell like a ghost.
Devil Fruit powers. Sea curses. Inhuman cruelty.
"Buggy-sama... your hands...?" Arne stammered.
One of Buggy's hands scuttled across the floor like a spider, fingers tapping silently. Another floated upward through a hatch to the deck above—a scout.
"I don't remember how many of us they loaded onto this ship," Buggy murmured. "Dozens? Hundreds?"
His tone was casual, but his eyes gleamed sharp and calculating.
Controlling multiple body parts simultaneously was easy now. It felt... natural. As if he had three brains instead of one.
Not even the original Buggy had that level of mastery.
Outside, the Marine warship sliced through the moonlit sea. Commodore Brownie and Captain Jacques were on their way to Impel Down. Jacques puffed on his cigarette, reassuring his men.
"Just a bit longer. Once we pass the Gate of Justice, we're in the clear."
But Jacques didn't see it.
No one did.
A tiny hand skittered through the shadows, unseen.
With an ear and eye built into its palm.
Before long, the hand returned to Buggy with loot: gunpowder, pistols, blades, a Marine's diary, a set of keys, and a nautical map.
Buggy flipped through the diary and yawned.
"Boring. But useful."
Then he squinted at the Marine map.
"Yeah, nope. Can't read this."
Joaquin had a high IQ. Brix—the college student whose soul also resided in Buggy—had decent education too.
But neither of them could decipher a Marine-standard navigational chart from this world.
Even the original Buggy preferred maps that looked like riddles.
"I can read them, Buggy-sama!" Arne said quickly. "I was trained as a navigator!"
His wrists still burned from the cuffs, but this was survival.
Buggy blinked.
"Really now? Then congratulations... you're my navigator candidate."
Arne nearly cried. A lifeline—at last. His old captain, who had a 70 million bounty, hadn't lasted a minute against a Marine officer.
Buggy selected a pistol and spun it around his finger. Without warning, he fired three shots.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Two bullets shattered Arne's cuffs. The third blew the lock clean off the cage.
Arne winced and clutched his wrists.
"Y-You're insane! This is a Marine ship! They'll hear us!"
Buggy gave him a wide, toothy grin.
"Exactly."
Joaquin laughed like a man possessed. "Now then... let's go crew-hunting, shall we?"
He tossed the sack of weapons to Arne and hummed a tune no sane man would recognize.
Then he strolled toward the next cell—
A blood-soaked clown, laughing through the dark.