The excruciating pain of her body being severed made her break out in a cold sweat.
"What... happened?"
Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to turn her head, only to see a white-haired man holding a black war halberd walking toward her from a distance.
Mafie frowned. "A pirate? I suggest you stay out of business that doesn't concern you..."
"Who do you think you are? You think you're worthy of telling me what to do?"
Carlo gripped his heavenly dragon halberd and stepped forward. His gaze didn't linger on Mafie at all; instead, it fell upon Dragon, who was lying on the ground, and he broke into a grin.
"Dragon, long time no see. You've grown up."
Dragon hadn't met death; instead, he was met with a face that was both familiar and strange.
He stared blankly at Carlo's face, and as if remembering something, a familiar name escaped his lips.
"Big Brother Carlo!"
Several black lines appeared on Carlo's forehead as he corrected him, "What do you mean 'Big Brother'? It's Uncle Carlo! I'm of the same generation as your old man. Dragon, you brat, don't go lowering my seniority for no reason."
Dragon felt a bit embarrassed and muttered, "But... you're only seven years older than me..."
"Seniority! Do you understand seniority? It has nothing to do with age."
Seeing Carlo and Dragon conversing as if no one else were there right in front of her, Mafie's expression became incredibly unsightly.
"Don't look down on me! You damn pirate!"
"I am from the great Thatcherz Family..."
"Hmm?" Carlo tilted his head, his eyes narrowing.
In an instant, a terrifying aura erupted from within him, immediately enveloping Mafie's entire body.
Mafie's body, which was rapidly healing, suddenly froze.
An instinctive fear surfaced in her eyes as she looked at Carlo.
Yet this fear also made her, who prided herself on being noble, feel extremely humiliated and resentful.
"You lowly mortal! Die!!"
She screamed suddenly, opening her fanged mouth as a blinding light shone within. Aiming at Carlo, she fired a thick laser beam.
Carlo gave the heavenly dragon halberd in his hand a flick.
"Whoosh!"
A black line instantly streaked through the air.
"Boom!"
The tip of the pitch-black war halberd met the incoming laser beam head-on. Pushing against the thick laser, it shot forward with unstoppable force, plunging directly into Mafie's fanged mouth.
Thwack!
It pinned her head deep into the ground!
Mafie's upper body, which was in the process of reattaching and healing, was pulled by the massive impact and severed once again.
The infant she was clutching was flung away.
"Carlo!" Dragon cried out in worry.
Carlo beckoned with his hand from a distance.
A gust of wild wind appeared out of thin air, acting like an invisible tentacle to catch the falling infant and bring it before him.
The red-haired baby boy, swirled by the wind and floating in front of Carlo, actually stopped crying and looked at him with a pair of large, dark, shiny eyes.
"He really is quite cute."
"I just don't know if this is Shanks or Shamrock."
The twins, Shanks and Shamrock, looked exactly the same right now.
Even Carlo couldn't tell them apart.
However, considering the content of the manga...
If he hadn't appeared, Mafie would most likely have taken this infant back to the Holy Land.
So... this infant must be Shamrock.
And the one in Dragon's arms would be Shanks.
Carlo reached out and held the red-haired baby boy with one hand.
He crouched down and pulled Dragon up from the ground.
"Can you still move?"
"No problem!" Dragon gritted his teeth, enduring the intense pain to stand up, and hurriedly checked on the other baby boy he had hidden beneath him.
Once he saw the infant was fine, having only bumped his head and gotten a large lump, he breathed a long sigh of relief.
The best time to defeat Red Hair Shanks.
"That's great, both children are safe."
Dragon looked at Carlo gratefully. "Uncle Ca... Carlo, thank you so much for stepping in just now. Otherwise, the child would have been taken away."
Carlo looked at him with amusement, pointing at the gruesome wound on his shoulder.
"I might have expected you to say thank you for saving your life."
Dragon lowered his head, looking ashamed. "My life... isn't precious! Even if I really died, I would have deserved it."
"I realized something was wrong with this simulation training from the start, but because I believed too much in the Marine's justice, I still chose to carry out my superior's orders."
"I am a criminal... an accomplice in this killing game. Several innocent people were taken away because of me, becoming hunting targets for those Celestial Dragons. By now, they might already be... dead!"
He clenched his fists tightly, tears streaming from his eyes, his voice choking up.
"Damn it! If only I had tried to stop it from the beginning..."
"Then you wouldn't have been able to save even these two infants." Carlo reached out, teasing the Shamrock in his arms with his finger, while looking at the still-naive Dragon, who had already begun to awaken his own will, with a calm gaze.
Six years ago, before he joined the Rocks Pirates and while he was still a Marine at Marineford...
...he had met this son of Garp's family.
Dragon, who had no playmates and had undergone special training from his unreliable father since childhood, quickly came to see Carlo as his idol after witnessing Carlo's powerful display of sweeping through his peers with absolute dominance in the recruit camp.
Being somewhat precocious, he soon became close friends with Carlo, sharing everything with him.
Since he was seven years younger than Carlo, he was used to calling him Big Brother Carlo.
But Carlo would often correct him, saying he was of the same generation as Garp, and that Dragon should call him Uncle when they met.
As for Dragon, Carlo didn't give him any special treatment just because he might become the leader of the Revolutionary Army in the future.
Instead, he treated him like an ordinary friend.
This also allowed him to gain a deep understanding of the future Revolutionary Army leader's state during his youth.
Overall...
...Dragon was indeed very outstanding.
This excellence wasn't shown in the growth of his combat power.
Rather, it was in his character, morals, and the way he conducted himself.
Dragon's current strength wasn't great.
Compared to Luffy at the same age of seventeen, he could be said to be quite weak now.
But Dragon was resilient, pure-hearted, upright, and filled with hot-blooded justice; he truly was a rare good person in this world.
However, in the past, he hadn't really experienced the kind of darkness he was facing now.
This was why he was in such a state of being heavily impacted and overwhelmed by guilt.
Hearing Carlo's words, Dragon slowly raised his head and stared blankly at the Shanks he was holding in his arms.
"Giggle, giggle..." Little Shanks flapped his chubby little hands in his arms, letting out a cheerful laugh.
Carlo lifted the Shamrock in his arms and said to Dragon:
"Don't feel guilty. Those faults aren't yours. One should perform the duties of their position; do what your ability allows, and don't be overly hard on yourself. If you must feel that you've wronged those innocents, then these two children are your redemption, Dragon."
Carlo reached out and patted Dragon on the head.
"You fulfilled the request their mother made before she died. If their mother knows from the afterlife, she will surely be grateful to you."
Dragon felt as if he had been struck by lightning, his body trembling violently as more tears suddenly gushed from his eyes.