The five Elders sat in uneasy silence, the sacred chamber thick with an atmosphere more suffocating than ever before. Never—not once—had they seen such conflicting emotions on the face of the man who had defied them time and time again without so much as a flinch.
Not even the brutal executions the night before had stirred him. That night, the plaza of the Holy Land had run red with the blood of four of his own kin—Celestial Dragons, publicly beheaded alongside two dozen others.
The executions had sent shockwaves through the highest echelons of power. For centuries, the Celestial Dragons had ruled with unchecked arrogance, but now the streets of Mary Geoise were eerily quiet. The once boisterous aristocrats who delighted in indulgence and cruelty cowered behind gilded walls, the opulence of their estates offering no comfort. Fear—an alien, unfamiliar thing—had taken root in their hearts.
Not fear of revolution. Not fear of pirates. But fear of their own. Of those who truly represented the will of the Celestial Dragons—the Elders, and their Supreme Commander.
And yet, the Supreme Commander of the God's Knights had not blinked at the purge. If anything, he had welcomed it—called it a cleansing. A necessary culling of the weak.
But this... this was different.
Now, for the first time, there was a tremor in Saint Figarland's aura. His posture, always straight as a blade, was wound taut like a drawn bowstring. Not from grief. Not from loss.
But from the weight of what he had witnessed.
The source of the tremor that had rattled the world days earlier—the same one Imu-sama had wordlessly dispatched him to investigate—was no natural event. What Figarland found had shaken even him, a man who had once fought Whitebeard to a standstill and lived to speak of it.
He took a slow breath, and let the silence linger a moment longer—let the dread settle like dust upon the Elders' shoulders.
"The entire face of the Red Line..." he finally said, voice hoarse, as if the memory still burned his throat, "...has been cleaved. Top to bottom."
Even the Elders, ancient and steeped in secrets that predated nations, twitched in their seats.
Elder Mars was the first to speak, though his voice barely rose above a whisper. "Are you absolutely certain of what you saw down there, Saint Figarland?"
Figarland's eye twitched, not from anger, but from frustration—a deep, gnawing helplessness that felt foreign in his chest. "Do you think I came back to you with ghost stories?" he snapped, rising from his seat in a slow, deliberate motion. "I knew you'd doubt me. So I made sure to record everything."
He reached into the folds of his crimson coat and retrieved a reinforced case, inside of which nestled a black, armored transponder snail—one of the highest-class intelligence models in the world, capable of capturing high-fidelity images in real time.
"I took this... just before I left the breach. If my words fail to move you, let this speak instead."
He placed the snail on the obsidian table. Its single eye slowly opened, and it began to play the recording.
The room dimmed as an image flickered to life—a vast panorama of the Red Line. But not the one they knew. This was something else.
The sky was bruised pitch black, cast in an unnatural hue by the power that had torn through the world's backbone; rogue lightning storms still lingered upon the area right above where the red line was cut. And there, running from sea to sky, was the impossible: a gash in the Red Line itself. A vertical canyon that cleaved the very bedrock of the planet—a wound that no natural force could have wrought.
Even with all their accumulated centuries of power, none of the Elders could look away. No explosions. No forgotten monsters. Just... silence. The kind of silence that follows the wrath of a god.
"This... this is not the work of any known force," murmured Elder Nusjuro, his usual stoic calm rattled for the first time in living memory. "Even the weapons of the old world—none could have done this and left such a scar. The Red Line was formed from the bones of the world itself. Not even the Ancient Kingdom dared tamper with it."
Figarland clenched his fists.
"I've faced monsters. Titans of the sea. I've seen the void-born horrors, those super ancient sea kings buried beneath the calm belt, each one capable of destroying continents. I've stared down at the full power of Whitebeard's tremor ability, and I did not feel such unease. But this—this is not a man, nor a devil fruit, nor an ancient weapon. This is something else. And I don't even know if it wants us to know it exists."
He looked around the room, fire returning to his voice.
"I don't know what caused that scar. But I know this: whoever it was didn't just attack the Red Line. They sent a message. A message to us."
For a moment, the five Elders said nothing. Even they, the stewards of centuries, found their tongues bound.
And then Elder Saturn exhaled deeply. "You say the wound hasn't mended?"
Figarland shook his head. "It's not healing, at least not the way our records suggest. Not even slightly. It's as if something is preventing the world from repairing itself. That's not brute force. That's manipulation of the world's laws. The last time we saw something like this... was before the world government was established, during the Void Century. However, my gut instinct suggests that whatever this is might be even older."
The chamber darkened further, as if the very air around them had turned cold.
"And Imu-sama?" Elder Mars asked cautiously.
Figarland's voice dropped to a whisper. "They returned to solitude. Without a word. Which worries me more than if they had raged."
For all his ambition, Saint Figarland understood the gravity of what loomed over them now. This was no longer about pirates, or rebellion, or ancient weapons. This was something primordial. Something forgotten—or worse, something that had never been recorded even by the World Government.
An unknown variable. A god among monsters. And for the first time in centuries, the rulers of the world found themselves staring into the dark... and seeing something staring back.
"So what are we going to do now, with an unknown variable lurking in the shadows...?" Elder Saturn finally spoke, exhaling a breath that trembled under the weight of uncertainty. His voice, usually steel-clad and composed, carried the fatigue of a man seeing cracks form in the walls of the world he helped build.
Saint Figarland leaned back into his seat, the shadows of the chamber clinging to him like a second cloak. "I'm afraid," he began slowly, "that isn't the worst of it."
The Elders turned toward him in unison.
"There's something else. A matter I had intended to reveal at a more... opportune time. But given what we've just witnessed—" he gestured briefly toward the transponder snail still showing the gaping scar across the Red Line, "—I believe that time has come."
What he didn't say aloud was that he had known about this for months—whispers and shadows, half-truths from the darker corners of the world. He had let it simmer, let it fester beneath the surface, planning to use it as leverage against the Elders when the moment suited him. But now? Now even he couldn't afford to gamble with secrets. Not with a force powerful enough to wound the world itself walking freely in the dark.
Elder Saturn narrowed his eyes, his voice low and stripped of all patience. "Spit it out, Garling. Whatever scheme you're playing at—I've no time for your theatrics today."
He didn't even bother with honorifics. Just Garling. A deliberate slight.
Saint Figarland's jaw tensed at the insult, but he knew better than to provoke Saturn now. Not yet. The old wolf may be brittle with age, but he still sat closest to the throne of Imu-sama. Still, Figarland's pride burned behind his eyes.
"…Tch. Fine," he muttered, his tone shifting. "I'll speak plainly."
He leaned forward, eyes sweeping over the Elders, his voice lowering to something sharp and cold.
"There are rumors. Fragmented, scattered, and half-believed even by those who speak them. But persistent, nonetheless."
He let the silence build before dropping the blade. "Rocks D. Xebec… is alive."
The chamber froze. A stillness so absolute it felt as if time itself had halted within the walls of power.
Crack—SHATTER.
The obsidian table before the Elders exploded into splinters beneath Saturn's tightening grip, fragments ricocheting across the marble floor like shards of black glass. He stood, eyes wide with fury, mouth open in disbelief.
"What did you just say?" Saturn's voice was a thunderclap, echoing with a rage that hadn't surfaced in decades. "Say that again, Garling. I dare you."
But Figarland didn't flinch. He met Saturn's gaze and repeated, slowly, clearly:
"Rocks. Is. Alive."
The name alone carried with it the weight of a forgotten apocalypse. It wasn't merely history—it was a nightmare the world had buried in legend, locked in the void of silence. A name too dangerous to speak aloud for over three decades.
"NO!" Elder Warcury's voice boomed, trembling with denial. "That's impossible! We made sure—we made sure! He died at God Valley! We used the Celestial Dragons themselves as bait! The ancient weapon was deployed—there was nothing left but dust and sea!"
His voice cracked under the pressure of his own words, as if repeating them would make them true.
"We erased him!" Warcury continued, panic fraying the edges of his usually stone-like demeanor. "Even he couldn't have survived that. No one could."
"But what if he did?" Figarland asked, voice low and steady. "What if God Valley wasn't the end? What if he went underground, changed his identity, and rebuilt from the shadows? He was always a man of impossible ambitions… and terrifying resolve."
Elder Jaygarcia Saturn, still standing amid the shattered remnants of the table, narrowed his eyes as cold fury settled back into his bones. "You listen to me, Garling. Rocks wasn't a man—he was a cataclysm. He sought to overthrow Imu-sama themselves. He brought together monsters—Kaido, Big Mom, Whitebeard, Shiki—before they became legends. He was the origin of chaos."
Elder Ju Peter finally broke the silence, his voice low—gravelled with age and dread. "I'm disinclined to believe that monster survived. You don't understand Rocks like we do... or more accurately, like I do."
His hand moved unconsciously to the base of his neck, fingertips brushing over the jagged scar hidden beneath the folds of his high-collared robes. A scar few knew existed. Few had ever managed to scar an Elder—immortal as they were, bestowed with divine gifts from Imu-sama Himself.
Only two men in recent history had ever inflicted such wounds: Rocks D. Xebec and, a decade later, Monkey D. Garp. During the incident at Marineford, these two men had learned to harness haki to a level where they could even negate their regeneration to an extent, leaving a permanent scar on them.
"Even Gol D. Roger," Ju Peter continued, eyes narrowing, "for all his infamy and power, never once crossed blades with us. But Rocks... he did. He dared. If he truly lived, the world would have already known. That man was arrogance incarnate. A demon who flaunted his defiance like a crown."
He paused, letting the silence stretch, the memory of that ancient terror thick in the air.
"If Rocks D. Xebec had truly survived God's Valley," he said, voice cold and resolute, "he wouldn't be hiding in shadows. He'd be on the frontlines, shouting to the heavens that he survived the wrath of an ancient weapon. You forget—he once slaughtered a Marine Admiral just to lure us into battle."
He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. The implication was carved clearly in the minds of everyone present: this was a ghost story, nothing more. A drunken tale whispered in dimly lit taverns.
Figarland sneered. "No wonder the empire we've upheld for a millennium is beginning to crack," he said, voice laced with disdain. "It's because of thinking like that."
His eyes bore into Ju Peter.
"If you believe a man like Rocks cannot change, cannot adapt, cannot learn from failure, then you're already obsolete. You knew the man once—but don't assume you know what he's become."
A murmur of tension rippled through the room. Then, surprisingly, it was Elder Saturn who nodded in agreement.
"…He's right."
All eyes turned to Saturn, the weight of his words pulling gravity into the center of the chamber.
"Sometimes power kept too long makes us complacent. We grow too comfortable atop the throne and forget to look down—at the ones crawling beneath our feet. If what Figarland says holds even a shred of truth... Then we have to believe that Xebec is alive."
He turned toward the Supreme Commander, his gaze cutting through the haze of political theater.
"You're not the type to come to us with a rumor unless you had reason—real reason—to believe it. You always confirm, always cross-check. So tell us—what else are you hiding, Garling?"
Saint Figarland sighed and leaned forward slightly, like a man about to unburden himself.
"You all remember the incident more than a year ago… when Kaido miraculously escaped Whitebeard's wrath and returned to Wano with his Devil Fruit awakened?"
Nods and grimaces met his words.
"Well," Figarland said, his tone darkening, "he didn't escape. A third party intervened. Someone faced both Whitebeard and Shiki who were in their prime—and pushed them back. Not just bought time. Defeated them enough to escape with Kaido in hand."
Silence fell like a guillotine.
"There is no one—no one—other than Rocks I can imagine doing that. Not Garp. Not Roger. Not even Imu-sama's most loyal weapons, the Gods Knights."
Saturn's voice was grave. "But that wouldn't have been enough for you. Not to leap to a conclusion this heavy."
"You're right," Figarland admitted. "Which is why I sent one of the God's Knights to survey the battlefield. At the time, the traces were faint—but they aligned with Rocks' unique haki signature, something I alone knew how to identify."
He paused for effect.
"Two weeks ago, another clash occurred in the New World. Cataclysmic. Hidden from the world's eyes. The Gods' Knight stationed nearby on a mission to investigate a lead about a special devil fruit was able to confirm it—without a doubt. The lingering haki left at the scene belonged to Whitebeard, Shiki, and Rocks."
The room stiffened. Breath caught.
"But that's not all," he continued. "There was another Haki signature present—Charlotte Linlin."
Elder Mars scoffed, his hands curled into fists. "That's absurd. Linlin was killed by Donquixote Rosinante, and our own intelligence confirmed it. Are you saying she returned from the grave?"
But it wasn't Figarland who answered.
"…Scarlett D. Lachlann," Elder Saturn whispered.
The name fell like a funeral bell across the chamber. Even Figarland's eyes widened. The connections surged in his mind like a storm: the mysterious pirate who had returned from the dead, the unexplained revival of a corpse they believed lost forever. He hadn't made the connection before—but now? Now it felt inevitable.
Could Rocks have mastered resurrection? Had he found a way to revive his old crew?
"Was Linlin's body ever recovered?" Saturn asked sharply, turning to Ju Peter.
Ju Peter blinked, thinking. "No. The recovery team sent to retrieve her remains for the Seraphim Project reported nothing. Not a trace. They searched the battlefield, scoured the seafloor—even brought in Sea Kings to inspect their stomachs. She was gone."
A chill passed through the room like a dying wind.
"We need to inform Imu-sama immediately," Elder Nasujuro said, his voice tight with unease.
"This is no longer a power we understand. This… this is beyond even us."
The other Elders nodded gravely.
Figarland interjected before they could act. "Imu-sama has already been informed. I reported the matter the moment the battlefield traces were confirmed."
He stood slowly, his cloak brushing the marble floor. "We may receive new directives soon. I suggest we accelerate the plan for Elbaf. If this is all connected… Imu-sama may wish to bring the giants under our rule before they are taken by this unknown force."
He turned, his back to the Elders, and took a few steps toward the great doors of the chamber—then paused.
"One more thing," he said without turning.
"Regarding the Seraphim Project—from the last clash site between Rocks and the others, we recovered a… gift. A severed limb, unmistakably belonging to Golden Lion Shiki."
He let that settle in.
"It's already been sent to Vegapunk for integration into the next Seraphim prototype. I trust the good doctor will put it to proper use."
Without waiting for comment, Saint Figarland pushed open the great doors and walked out, leaving behind only the echo of his boots and the storm he had just unleashed. The Elders remained, unmoving—frozen not by indecision, but by the dawning horror of what lay ahead.
The ghost of Rocks D. Xebec no longer lingered in legend. He had returned—possibly with the dead.
****
Above the waters of New World, the skies were torn apart by two figures hurtling through the clouds like twin comets.
For days, they had flown without rest—cutting through storms and sunlight alike. Though battered and bruised, Golden Lion Shiki kept pace beside the blazing wings of Marco the Phoenix, each beat of their flight tearing through the clouds.
Their destination now loomed ahead: the outer waters of Donquixote territory.
Shiki's open eye gleamed with feral anticipation as he soared forward, his observation haki sweeping the sea below. His lips curled into a wicked grin as he spotted three distant specks anchored on the water's surface.
"Hah… seems like the Donquixote brats have been expecting us," he muttered, his grin widening into something far more dangerous. "I wonder how they knew we were coming. Perhaps I should give them a proper greeting…"
Marco, flying slightly behind in his radiant phoenix form, narrowed his eyes. Even with his enhanced vision, he could now see the three massive galleons—each flying the Donquixote insignia, motionless like sentinels on the waves.
This wasn't a patrol. This was an ambush in waiting. But what troubled Marco wasn't the ships—it was the look on Shiki's face. He'd seen that look before.
The man was unhinged.
The past week spent flying with the Golden Lion had taught Marco something vital: Shiki didn't understand the concept of restraint. He acted purely on impulse, guided by emotion, and barely gave thought to the consequences of his actions.
Marco let out a sharp cry as he dove to follow Shiki, who was already descending—falling like a meteor under the influence of his Float-Float Fruit, preparing to make an entrance.
"BOOOM—!"
The deck of the lead galleon exploded as Shiki landed with devastating force, the impact rocking the entire vessel and sending massive ripples across the sea. Water surged over the rails as the ship buckled dangerously, nearly capsizing before stabilizing again.
Cannons whirred to life—miniature railguns mounted across the three ships immediately locking onto Shiki's position. The Golden Lion's peg leg tapped slowly against the soaked wood, and with that single tap, gravity bent to his will—the entire ship began to lift subtly, the creaking hull groaning under unseen forces.
"Shihahaha…" Shiki laughed with theatrical delight, his wild mane catching the ocean wind. "So, who's the rat that spilled the news? I don't remember sending out invitations."
But something was off. The response he expected—panic, hostility, even recognition—never came. The Donquixote crew didn't so much as flinch. Aside from the gunners manning the railguns, the rest of the crew didn't draw their weapons. Their expressions were blank. Calm.
Almost... disinterested. Shiki's smile twitched.
"You bastards," he growled, rising to his full height, "Don't you know who the hell stands before you?! I'm Golden Lion Shiki!"
His voice cracked the air like a whip.
"Has joining an upstart crew made your balls grow bigger?! Tremble before me!"
He raised both arms, preparing to launch the galleon into the sky and hurl it into the sea below—not to kill, but to send a message. He still owed Donquixote a debt, but he wouldn't let this disrespect slide.
Then—
"I wouldn't do that if I were you…"
The voice echoed not from the deck, but from the figurehead at the ship's prow. A silhouette emerged—still, composed, powerful.
"It's not that they don't recognize you, Golden Lion Shiki," I said calmly as they stepped down from the prow, landing silently beside him. "It's that they trust me enough to know you won't do a damn thing while I'm standing here."
Shiki's eyes widened.
The moment my boots touched the deck, Shiki reacted on instinct; his awakened ability surged, and simultaneously a pulse of conqueror's haki surged outward from me—quiet, invisible, yet overwhelming. The floating ship suddenly slammed back into the sea, the Golden Lion's powers forcibly suppressed. His float ability crushed under the sheer weight of the my will.
He turned slowly.
"So... it's you," Shiki muttered, eye narrowing. "Seems even Garp wasn't able to bury you deep enough."
Without warning, golden lightning burst from Shiki's body—his awakened paramecia and Conqueror's Haki flaring violently, splitting the clouds above in a fiery spectacle. The sea churned in protest as his aura tore through the world, like a lion roaring into the storm.
But then—another burst. Darker. Colder. Far more powerful.
The air shattered as a black ethereal silhouette formed behind me—the outline of a black dragon, its scales forged from obsidian, eyes burning with celestial fire. The moment Shiki's power rose, it was crushed beneath a tidal wave of superior will.
The sky split in two. Thunder cracked. The sea screamed.
Above us, the clouds were cleaved like parchment by the force of two kings colliding. One side burned with golden light, the other with the deep abyss of blackened lightning. It was as though the heavens themselves bore witness to the clash of two ancient beasts: A golden lion fighting against a black dragon.
Shiki gritted his teeth. "Brat… are you challenging me?! You think in just a decade you've reached my level?!"
But even he could feel it.
The haki pressing down on him wasn't that of the cocky upstart from years ago. It was different now—heavy. Colder. Measured. His own will was being crushed, step by step.
The crew from the ship behind Shiki had already begun to collapse—fainting from the overwhelming pressure that Shiki released without restraint. Yet I stood before him, and I hadn't even unleashed my haki in full. I was using it surgically, pinning Shiki alone with precision.
"You're not alone this time, are you?" I asked, eyes never leaving Shiki.
Then—
"SKREEEEE—!!"
The heavens tore open as a radiant flame blazed through the clouds. A colossal phoenix descended, wings blazing with regenerative fire, the screech echoing across the sea.
"Golden Lion Shiki!" Marco's voice boomed. "We didn't come here to cause trouble!"
His phoenix form descended like a meteor before shifting into his hybrid state, wings still glowing, talons ready, his body bracing against the impossible force of haki in the air. He hovered just beside the black dragon, eyes narrowed, protective.
Shiki growled, grinding his peg leg into the deck.
How? How had this child—this boy he could've swatted away years ago—become someone capable of holding his own against him?
"Shiki… stop this madness!" Marco's voice thundered across the deck, wings flared, flames rippling violently in the air. His voice wasn't just a plea—it was a warning.
This wasn't why they'd come. They were here to ask for help, not to provoke war. And yet Shiki was poking a sleeping titan.
The man who stood before them—serene and unmoved in the face of the Golden Lion's fury—was not just any pirate. He was someone the world government considered a threat equal to Whitebeard, with a bounty rivaling their pops. And provoking him was as dangerous as it was foolish.
But Shiki just smirked, still caught in the throes of the power high that came from battle.
Until— The force of Marco's yell and the tension in the air finally pulled the old lion back from the edge.
Shiki's haki began to recede, like a tide ebbing back into the sea. The crackling energy faded from his form, and the oppressive pressure that had been bearing down on the deck lifted, like a storm finally passing.
I didn't move. Didn't blink. Didn't flinch.
"Long time no see, Marco," I said coolly, still not turning to face him—my attention fully focused on keeping the ship stable, my haki coiled like a silent dragon around every plank of wood, suppressing any lingering trace of Shiki's influence.
Shiki scoffed, stepping back and waving a hand like he was bored with the whole thing. But Marco could see the truth—Shiki had backed down not out of disinterest, but out of respect. Or perhaps uncertainty. Because even Shiki, in all his madness, knew not to test the will of the man who stood before him.
Marco let out a long, slow breath of relief as he landed gently beside me, the tension in his shoulders easing. The fire around him dimmed, his body reverting from his hybrid phoenix form to his human shape—lean, composed, but still alert.
He straightened, placing a hand on his hip and smiled faintly. "Yes… it has been a long time."
He gave a nod of greeting, voice more formal now as he spoke the name with a mix of respect and gravity.
"Donquixote Rosinante."