"MAMA...MAMAMAMA!"
Charlotte Linlin's unhinged laughter thundered through the war-torn sky, echoing like a devil's bell. Her once-magnificent figure was bruised, her skin torn and scorched, yet a gaping hole in her torso—a wound that should have felled even the mightiest—was knitting itself together at an unnaturally fast pace. Her flesh bubbled, bones cracked and reformed under the cursed resurrection power bestowed by Rocks D. Xebec.
Every breath she took trembled with resistance, her soul clawing to break free of Rocks' control, but the dark immortality coursing through her veins bound her like chains from hell. Had she remained among the living, this power would never have been hers—but this price… this undeath… was its cruel cost.
At the center of the devastation stood the once-proud Golden Lion, Shiki, battle-worn yet unbowed.
His body was a tapestry of blood and broken flesh. His clothes hung in tatters, scorched and stained, his wild golden mane matted with blood. His right leg was now a severed stump, torn clean by none other than Rocks himself—who had finally joined the fight after realizing that even three resurrected titans could not break Shiki after three relentless days of combat.
"Give up, Shiki..." Rocks stepped forward, towering, smirking, his cutlass slick with Shiki's blood. "Even alone, you'd fall to me eventually. But now—with these three at my side—what hope do you really have?"
He licked the blade, mockingly reverent, tasting the grit of Shiki's will. In truth, Rocks admired him. Had he not stepped in, Shiki might have actually destroyed the puppets—Big Mom, Izumi, and Dorian—despite their near-immortality.
Shiki had discovered the secret: Conqueror's Haki. That force, rare and divine, could rattle their cursed forms. And Rocks couldn't allow that. So he joined the fight himself. And with one swift, brutal swing—he severed Shiki's leg.
Yet still, the Golden Lion stood. Bleeding, limping, but with eyes blazing like twin suns.
"JIHAHAHAHA... DO YOU really expect me to bow to you again, you bastard?!"
Shiki roared in defiance, chest heaving, blood running in rivulets down his side.
"Even if I perish here, I swear—you'll NEVER turn me into one of those rotting mutts!"
The wind howled. The sea trembled beneath his feet, floating under his command. His Awakening had evolved his powers—he could now control even seawater, the great bane of Devil Fruit wielders. The salt-laced sea surged behind him, massive, writhing, alive with fury.
Rocks' grin curled tighter.
"Stubborn as ever. Maybe that's why I wanted you in my crew all those years ago..." he chuckled darkly, but his voice sharpened like steel. "But alive or dead, it matters little. Eventually, you'll be mine. Just like them."
His eyes flicked to Linlin, Izumi, and Dorian, who shifted uncomfortably. They were resisting him—he could feel it. Their will clawed at the edges of his control. One lapse, one second of weakness, and they'd turn on him. He would not give them that chance.
Conqueror's Haki exploded outward like a typhoon from Shiki's frame, flooding the battlefield. The very sea turned black and surged unnaturally, twisted by his fury. Shiki's floating domain expanded—dozens of levitated seawater masses spun and coiled above like serpents.
"NO, YOU DON'T—SHIKI!"
Linlin shrieked, charging with a blast of demonic might. Izumi in her dragon form and Dorian, clad in obsidian armor and glowing tattoos, flanked her, launching towards Shiki to stop his next move.
Even Rocks' grip on his cutlass tightened, readying for the renewed clash. But before any of them reached him—the sea screamed.
A deeper tremor. A different power.
A shockwave pulsed through the water, like the heartbeat of a slumbering god. Rocks turned, eyes narrowing. Then they widened. A madness gleamed across his face.
"So... you're finally here."
Even Shiki froze, his floating constructs hovering still as he turned slightly, a slow smile creeping across his torn face.
Then the roar came. A monstrous, sky-ripping bellow, full of fury and pain and wrath so pure it silenced even Linlin's madness. The heavens split, and from above, riding platforms of air and quake-forged space, descended a giant among men.
"XEBEC!!!"
Edward Newgate—WHITEBEARD— roared as he burst into view like a comet made flesh. His eyes were red with unshed tears and blind fury. His beloved sons had been murdered—he had followed the trail of blood and discovered the truth: Rocks. It had been Rocks all along.
He didn't even glance at Linlin, Dorian, or Izumi. They were irrelevant. He only saw the monster that had haunted the world's worst nightmares.
Rocks D. Xebec. And this time—he was going to end it.
"IKKOKU SOVEREIGNTY!"
Linlin intercepted, summoning a colossal, spiraling blast of raw destruction. The sky turned red, the beam of compressed energy large enough to devour an entire nation. Whitebeard didn't flinch.
"SCRAM!!!"
With one arm cocked back, his fist glowing with the white halo of tremor force, he struck.
The air itself fractured like glass, the quake pulse ripping outward and colliding with Linlin's attack. The two forces met—and for a moment, time seemed to stop.
Then— BOOOOOM!!!
Reality shattered. Linlin's massive sovereign blast was torn asunder, vaporized like a child's candle in a hurricane. The shockwave continued, slamming into her full force. She screamed as her Haki-clad body was flung across the sea like a meteor, crashing through a distant island and setting the horizon ablaze.
Izumi and Dorian moved to engage Whitebeard—but Shiki blocked their path.
"Oi... you two forgetting something?"
He raised his battered swords, Conqueror's Haki igniting like a solar flare.
"THOUSAND SLICE VALLEY!"
His blades cut the air, tearing the sea apart, sending a storm of razor-thin slashes cascading in every direction. Water and wind became weapons. Izumi and Dorian roared in pain and fury as the onslaught tore into them, dragging them back into a new duel with the Golden Lion. Above it all—two gods prepared to collide.
Whitebeard descended, gripping Murakumogiri in both hands, the naginata trembling with built-up power. His muscles flexed, his skin glowed, and his soul screamed with fury. Every ounce of Conqueror's Haki, every tremor from the Gura Gura no Mi, every drop of wrath and vengeance burned in that single strike.
"DIIIIEEEEEEE!!!" he roared, swinging with world-shattering force.
"COME!!!" Rocks bellowed in answer, his cursed cutlass coated in a swirling abyss of power—a darkness that tried to consume the world itself. His own Haki surged—a storm of chaos and domination, a black sun exploding out from him as he met the attack head-on.
Then they clashed. The weapons didn't even touch. The forces between them were so immense that they created a repulsion—like two atoms pushed together at the edge of detonation.
The air between them hummed, glowed, fractured. Whitebeard's domain: a blinding pressure of rupturing quakes, the fabric of reality unraveling. Rocks' domain: a devouring abyss, where even light seemed to fall inward, consumed by infinite gravity.
The sky screamed. Clouds vaporized in rings of energy. The ocean recoiled, tsunami after tsunami erupting and falling back. Islands cracked apart and crumbled into the abyss. For miles, everything ceased to exist. Erased in a flash of divine confrontation.
The very world trembled. Animals across the Grand Line went still. People fell to their knees, clutching their heads. The sea itself tried to flee.
"ROOOOCKSSS!!!"
"WHITEEEABEEEEAAARD!!!"
They weren't men anymore. They were titans. No—gods, in the heart of a battlefield that no mortal should ever witness. The world would remember this clash. Because this was no longer a battle for power. This was war for the soul of the sea itself.
CRACK…BOOOOOM….!
The sky detonated in sound. The instant Rocks's and Whitebeard's powers collided, the heavens buckled and the sea was cast into chaos. Tremor met Abyss. Shockwave met Void.
For a full second, time ceased.
Then—
"RAAAAGGGHHH!"
Whitebeard pushed forward, teeth bared, veins bulging from his neck. Murakumogiri gleamed, vibrating like a tuning fork struck by the wrath of gods. The very air rippled around him in circular waves as his quake force tore at the world's foundation.
Rocks roared in response, his cutlass radiating a sickening aura—something beyond mere Haki. Shadows slithered around him, alive and shrieking, trying to latch onto Whitebeard like chains from hell. His power was wrong. Ancient. Forbidden.
Their weapons smashed together, again and again.
Every blow created a sonic ring of annihilation that carved new trenches in the ocean floor.
The sea around them had vanished—replaced by a colossal crater of steam, mist, and energy, hundreds of meters deep. Chunks of the sky had turned black, as if the atmosphere itself was cracking under the pressure.
Whitebeard twisted, bringing his naginata into a brutal spin, and slammed it into Rocks' shoulder. The tremor fruit's power surged point-blank—a targeted quake, concentrated to fracture even the strongest metalal.
The explosion blew Rocks through the air, tearing through the surface of a distant rock formation. The entire island split in half from the force. But Rocks didn't fall. He floated, grinning, even as his shoulder bled.
"You're still just a man clinging to rage, Edward!"
He vanished in a blur of speed unnatural for a man his size and age, reappearing directly above Whitebeard, his cutlass flashing with obsidian flames.
SLASH!
Whitebeard raised his weapon just in time, parrying the strike, but Rocks' power exploded on impact—an implosion of negative force. Whitebeard was sent crashing into the ocean like a meteor, causing a shockwave so intense that every nearby island trembled, ancient sea beasts deep below scattering like minnows.
From the depths, Whitebeard burst out like a beast reborn, dragging half the sea with him. He didn't speak. He didn't need to. His next strike was silent—but devastating. He drove Murakumogiri into the air, and the sky shattered. Entire wind layers peeled off in concentric rings as he released a quake so massive it tilted the sea itself.
Mountains on the horizon collapsed. The very planet groaned beneath the impact.
Rocks blocked with both arms, his body encased in obsidian Haki, but he still skidded back mid-air, blood flying from his mouth. He grinned, even as his flesh smoked from the shock.
"NOW THIS IS A FIGHT! Bring it on Edward…!"
They clashed again, and again, and again. Their Haki flares were so massive that the air ignited. Bolts of black lightning zigzagged through the clouds, and the seafloor ruptured, lifting new landmasses into the air only to be shattered seconds later.
Rocks created a sphere of abyss around Whitebeard—a mini-gravitational well that pulled at every fiber of his being. Even light bent toward it. But Whitebeard roared, stabbing his naginata into the gravity field and unleashing a quake from within, blowing the singularity apart from the inside.
Debris, water, and blood rained down for miles.
Whitebeard lunged, his speed godlike now, Conqueror's Haki radiating in sharp pulses. The sky darkened as both their wills clashed again—this time, even the air burned in streaks of red and black.
"Haaaah!"
He brought his naginata down in a two-handed swing. Rocks intercepted it with one hand, blade to blade, the force of the impact nearly snapping the bones in his arm—yet he held on, madness gleaming in his eyes. His cutlass now pulsed with cursed energy as he shoved forward and headbutted Whitebeard in the face.
Whitebeard reeled—only to counter by driving his elbow into Rocks' throat, causing the forgotten monster to choke, then spin and drive a quake-infused kick into Rocks' midsection.
Rocks sailed backward, smashing into the floating remnants of a shattered island. Whitebeard didn't let up. He leapt across the air platforms, chasing him, every step creating a detonation of wind and pressure behind him.
Above in the skies, Shiki, battered but not broken, was locked in a high-speed clash with Izumi and Dorian. They exchanged blows mid-air, above whirlpools and tsunamis raised by the two gods' battle.
Charlotte Linlin, still reeling from the earlier punch, had risen from the ruins of the island she crashed into. But even her soul trembled from the overwhelming force between Rocks and Whitebeard's fight; there was a reason why she never truly challenged Whitebeard during her time.
She remembered this.
The fear. The helplessness. This wasn't a battlefield for monsters. This was a battlefield for deities. Down below, Rocks launched a technique that chilled even the sky.
"Hell's Maw!"
He stabbed the sky—and from the wound, a rift opened. It roared with the sound of souls screaming, a torrent of cursed energy firing downward like a cannon of death. Everything it touched withered, vaporized, or turned to ash.
Whitebeard gritted his teeth. He held his hand aloft, and with a growl, drove his fist into the rift itself.
"YOU THINK THAT'S ENOUGH?!"
His punch caused the cursed rift to implode, sucking in its own energy until it folded and vanished—leaving a thunderous vacuum behind. From that void, Whitebeard emerged, a god of war incarnate. He was bleeding. Breathing heavy. But his wrath never waned, his eyes set on Xebec unflinching.
Then came the brutal exchange. They both knew it. This battle would not last days. It would not last weeks. It would be decided in the end— not by force. But by will.
Rocks raised his cutlass, swirling with black infernos. Conqueror's Haki spiraled into a spear above his head—a lance of authority, of domination, of pure will.
Whitebeard held Murakumogiri, glowing white-hot with tremor force. The ground beneath him fractured, splitting open from the sheer power building inside his body. For miles, birds fell from the sky.
Fish died. The ocean turned black. The planet held its breath.
Then—
"HAAAAA!!!"
Whitebeard struck, a diagonal slash that cleaved the air from sea to sky.
"RAAAARGH!!!"
Rocks countered, his blade wreathed in screaming shadows, slamming downward with all the power he could summon. The weapons didn't connect. The world shattered before they did.
A sphere of pure destruction formed between them, expanding in a violent bubble. Space around them cracked like glass, folding in on itself. The sky was ripped open, revealing stars above midday. The entire ocean was pulled upward, forming a leviathan column of water that spiraled into the air—only to be split in half by the clashing forces.
The planet screamed. A white ring of shockwave expanded for hundreds of kilometers, knocking over fleets, capsizing islands, tearing apart clouds. The horizon went blank—nothing left but light and thunder.
From the eye of the storm, Whitebeard roared in unadulterated rage. He stepped in, through the blinding energy, and plunged his fist into Rocks' gut, unleashing a quake so devastating that the very concept of gravity shook. Rocks' eyes widened.
Rocks was sent flying, skipping across the air, bones breaking, power unraveling, until he crashed into the sea with such force that it drained the ocean outward in a massive ring around him. He didn't rise. Not immediately.
Whitebeard stood in the air, chest heaving, blood streaming from dozens of wounds. His weapon cracked. His breath ragged. But he was still there. Standing.
Far above, Linlin and the others trembled as the bindings of the curse began to unravel. The pressure that had anchored their souls to Rocks began to fade. Shiki looked up. A grin split his bloodied face.
"Heh... you crazy old bastard... you really did it..."
For a moment—an impossible moment—the battlefield above held its breath. Shiki, bloodied but defiant, floated amidst ruin. His blades hovered by his side, trembling with residual Haki. Linlin, Izumi, and Dorian, who had moments ago thrown themselves at him with undead fury, now stood frozen. Their expressions—once twisted in blind devotion to Rocks—had softened, their postures slackened. The fog in their eyes cleared.
A stillness swept over them. Like prisoners long chained to a tyrant's will, they felt something unnatural begin to lift.
For the first time since their resurrection, the curse felt lighter. Linlin staggered back, clutching her chest as if expecting something to explode from within. Her breathing steadied. The fire in her soul flickered to life again.
Izumi shifted, glancing at her clawed hands. Her dragon form trembled, muscles loosening.
Dorian dropped to one knee, his axe falling with a dull thud. "...Is it over?" he muttered.
Above the shattered world, a faint breeze stirred. Could it be…? Was Rocks D. Xebec truly gone?
But Whitebeard did not move. He remained rooted at the epicenter of the cataclysm, Murakumogiri planted like a monument of finality. Tremor ripples still pulsed gently from the weapon's head, steady and cold. His body was heaving, drenched in blood and sweat. But his Haki—his soul—remained sharp. Watchful.
He stared at the body he'd struck down—split and seared in the shadow of godlike force. The collapsed figure looked like Xebec. It even bore his wicked sneer, his hunger for control etched into every contour of its fallen form.
But Whitebeard's eyes narrowed.
"No..." he growled under his breath. "That wasn't him."
The weight was still here. The pressure on the world itself hadn't faded. No, it had only shifted. The conqueror's will—the one that had once stood toe-to-toe with Roger, that had broken mountains with laughter—was still very much alive.
Whitebeard clenched the handle of his naginata tighter, and a low growl thundered in his throat.
He had pierced a puppet. Above, Linlin's chest suddenly seized. Her breath caught. She staggered.
Then, like a coiled serpent striking, the binds that had begun to loosen snapped tight again. But they didn't just return—they strengthened. The ethereal chains that shackled their resurrected souls tightened with a vengeance, wrapping around their cores like jagged ice.
Izumi screamed. Her scales flared, and smoke poured from her maw. Dorian convulsed, clawing at his own chest as if he could rip the curse out. Linlin's eyes flooded with rage and despair as she sank to her knees.
"No... No! We were free!"
Then came the sound. Crack…!.
A jagged tear ripped through the air like a seam unzipping reality. The clouds overhead, already darkened by previous Haki storms, suddenly turned a sickening green-black, crackling with lightning that danced with unnatural grace.
The sky itself shuddered.
From deep beneath the earth—below even the seabed—something stirred. The ocean floor quaked as if the planet were retching. Waves fled from the center. Craters deepened, sand and stone torn away by invisible, chaotic hands. Ships miles away were pulled in by whirlpools that hadn't existed seconds earlier.
A howl rose from the abyss—not of wind, not of beast, but of something far more ancient, more cursed. Then the sea exploded.
A pillar of shadow erupted from the very crater where Whitebeard had struck down the clone. This wasn't water or smoke—it was pure cursed essence, a column of coalescing darkness that churned with the memories of nightmares, forged in a place where souls screamed for release.
From within that maelstrom, a form emerged—walking, not rising. Footsteps echoed as if on steel. From the eye of the storm, a tall, muscular figure stepped forward, each pace rippling the sea and sky alike.
Rocks D. Xebec.
The real one. Gone was the half-made, rage-born clone Whitebeard had felled. This was no puppet. No imitation. This was the tyrant who once made Roger and Garp fight for their lives.
This was the man who had almost ended the age of pirates before it even began.
His coat was torn, burned at the edges, but regal in silhouette. Veins of black lightning crawled across his skin like serpents feeding on pure will. His eyes—solid gold irises surrounded by inky sclera—radiated fury, clarity, and amusement all at once.
He smirked.
"It seems trying to kill the mighty Whitebeard with just a clone was a tale fit only for fools."
The moment he spoke, the atmosphere collapsed inward. Air pressure plummeted. Clouds warped. The weight of Rocks' full will pressed down on the battlefield like a falling moon. The sea flattened, groaning under the spiritual gravity of the man's presence. The Conqueror's Haki he exuded made even Whitebeard's flare from before seem tame—polite, even.
Every living creature within hundreds of kilometers felt it. Marines on distant battleships dropped to their knees, blood dripping from ears. Birds plummeted from the sky. Entire currents of sea creatures turned tail and fled.
Even the sky turned a different shade, darkening as if trying to hide from the returning monster. And at the heart of it all, Xebec stood, arms spread slightly, welcoming the terror.
"This time, Edward... we fight for real."