"How about it? Pretty impressive, don't you think?"
Dragon tried to beam at Darren, his smile bright and easy, as if to chase away the gloom.
In that smile was only grief and a flicker of loss.
Under the flickering lightning in the sky, it looked desolate.
Darren noticed this at once, frowning slightly. Suddenly, he asked:
"This story... it's not over yet, is it?"
Dragon forced a smile.
"No... this story isn't finished."
He hadn't said everything yet.
The wind that always comes before a storm swept through the street, rustling up leaves and swirling them high.
It caught Dragon's hood, blowing it back from his face.
Darren's pupils narrowed.
Dragon didn't look much different—high-bridged nose, deep eyes, clear, defined features, black hair disheveled.
Only now he wore a new scar.
It cut across the left side of his face in a splatter pattern, flesh ragged, the burn of gunpowder seared into it.
Darren's expression darkened.
"He's the criminal just wanted by the World Government!"
"What's he doing here!?"
"Shit!! Don't move!!"
"Alert the Marines!!"
A chorus of terror, anger, hesitation, and fear rose from the street.
As Dragon's hood was swept away, the passersby recognized him in an instant.
The street fell into chaos.
Parents clutched their children, faces pale, and fled.
Some, eyes glittering with greed, lifted trembling pistols and aimed them at Dragon.
Others scrambled to the phone booths and shops' Den Den Mushi to call the Marines—only to find every line dead, no signals at all.
In the midst of it all, Dragon sat unmoved, his eyes calm, a faint smile on his lips as he looked at Darren.
"So that's how it is. I understand now."
Darren's eyes flickered. His fists clenched, a faint arc of electricity dancing across his skin.
"With your strength, if you'd been ready for it, not even a CP agent with a Seastone bullet could have injured you. So there's only one explanation..."
Dragon's smile was a little tragic as he finished the story.
"After I killed that Celestial Dragon, I easily dealt with the few CP guards around him."
"But when I turned around... I saw something I couldn't believe."
"Civilians running in terror. Some dialing frantically for the Marines. Some collapsing in tears. But that wasn't what mattered most."
Dragon paused here, finally picking up his cup and drinking deeply, only to cough violently, face flushing.
He took a shaky breath.
"The parents of the boy I saved... they were trembling in fear. And they picked up a fallen CP agent's pistol..."
His smile twisted, a hint of bitter absurdity.
"And they aimed it at me."
It was as if something snapped in the air around them.
A jagged bolt of lightning split the night sky, the thunder shaking the earth.
Darren's gaze swept over the crowd, his expression cold.
They watched, they coveted, they trembled.
Some were already running away. Others were lifting their guns.
But faced with the Marine commodore's cold stare, those who had been ready to shoot threw down their weapons and fled in a panic.
"I don't understand, Darren... I was standing up for them. I was protecting them. They shouldn't fear me..."
Dragon's eyes were rimmed red, confusion clouding his features.
"I was doing the right thing. I'm a Marine of justice."
Darren took a slow drag from his cigarette and said softly:
"Yes. A good man is always the one staring down the barrel of a gun."
Dragon's voice dropped to a whisper:
"They kept saying 'I'm sorry' over and over. I tried to calm them down..."
"But in the end, they still pulled the trigger."
Darren spoke quietly.
Dragon hesitated a moment.
"Because you weren't ready. And because you didn't expect them to actually shoot."
"You know why they did it?"
"I do. They didn't want to die."
Darren let out a cold, short laugh.
Yes. They didn't want to die.
Dragon had killed a Celestial Dragon, and as witnesses, the only way they might live was by killing Dragon—to atone for the crime.
Even if he'd done it to save them.
The world... what a cruel joke.
Dragon exhaled a long breath, then laughed softly.
This time, there was something easy in that laugh. Something resigned.
"I don't blame them."
"I know... they're just ordinary people. They have their lives, their families. They just want to live in peace, to finish out their days quietly. What they did... it was to protect themselves, to protect those they love."
"I don't blame them. They did what they had to. They even said they were sorry."
"But when the bullet hit me... I understood something."
"All these countless souls who kneel before the Celestial Dragons—they're not kneeling to power. They're kneeling to this wretched, rotting world."
"A world built on decay, on petty cruelties and selfish hearts... the Celestial Dragons are just the monsters born of that corruption."
As he spoke, Dragon's eyes drifted to a corner of the street.
Darren followed his gaze.
There, a woman sat on the muddy, filthy roadside. Her face was gaunt, skin pale from hunger, clothes in tatters.
In her arms, she cradled a bundle of rags—a child.
Barely five meters away, an opulent restaurant gleamed in the lamplight.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the chaos had driven the diners away.
Left behind were table after table of steaming, extravagant dishes.
Dragon looked at the food, then back at the woman clutching her child, and his lips tightened. In a low voice, he said:
"Do you see it, Darren?"
"This... is the truth of the world."
"The Celestial Dragons live in obscene luxury. They demand tribute, bleeding the allied nations dry."
"The kings and nobles of those nations bleed the merchants and the landowners... who in turn bleed the common folk."
"Countless souls trapped at the bottom—starving, some forced to beg, some to steal, some to sell themselves... but most of them? They become pirates."
"These poor, pitiful people... they've spent everything they have just to keep living."
Dragon laughed again, softly.
"So no, I don't blame them for pointing a gun at me."
"I understand... they'll side with whoever wins. I just haven't really won yet."
This time, Darren saw it clearly.
There was no sorrow or disappointment left in Dragon's smile.
Only calm acceptance—and a flicker of guilt buried deep in his eyes.
"Not just them. Everything we see around us—this hunger, this fear, this endless struggle... it's the future of the world. In a world of survival of the fittest, happiness never lingers."
Dragon's gaze turned solemn as he met Darren's eyes, each word deliberate:
"One day, I will change this world."
Hearing those words, Darren couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
In his mind, he saw flashes of Dragon drunkenly arguing in his yard, just months ago.
But now... Dragon's face had aged. In just two short months, the bright-eyed, impulsive young officer had vanished—replaced by a man who had seen the world's rot and faced it without flinching.
He was a real man now.
He would still walk the path he had chosen.