"Desert la Spada!" Crocodile's roar echoed across the wasteland, his voice laced with both fury and desperation. The sand dunes convulsed violently, rising like an ocean before crashing forward as a colossal blade of sand—jagged, monstrous, and wide enough to cleave a fortress in two.
The desert itself howled at his command, but the attack lacked the crisp ferocity of his prime. His body was failing him—blood seeping from deep cuts, his once-confident smirk twisted into a grimace. The feared Warlord of the Sea looked less like a predator and more like prey being driven into the ground.
Bogard moved.
The shadow of the Marine Hero, a man who had stalked battlefields in silence for decades, stepped forward with the calm precision of an executioner. His sword gleamed pitch-black under the weight of Armament Haki, every edge honed by killing intent.
With a single swing, his blade cut the desert's scream in half—his flying slash cleaving through the massive sand construct as though it were paper, scattering Crocodile's grand attack into harmless dust that swirled back into the wind.
The recoil rattled Crocodile. His right hand trembled, blood dripping freely from split knuckles as he struggled to maintain the cohesion of his Logia form. The confidence that had carried him through Alabasta, through Whitebeard's lessons, through his rise as a Shichibukai—it all wavered under the weight of this man's presence. For the first time since he had mastered Haki, he was drowning in disadvantage.
He knew Bogard. How could he not? The silent shadow of Garp the Fist—the man who lived in legends, whose sword was spoken of in whispers. And Crocodile understood too well why he had been hunted. The suspicion of regicide clung to him like a curse.
But suspicion was still only suspicion. If Bogard confirmed the truth—if Crocodile's crime against Queen Titi was laid bare—then nothing, not even the title of Shichibukai, would protect him from being carved into nothing. That knowledge alone made Crocodile grind his teeth and fight like a rabid dog backed into a corner.
Blood trickled down his lips as he forced a smirk, wiping it away with the back of his trembling hand. But before he could draw a breath of reprieve, Bogard was already upon him—no wasted movements, no arrogance, no words. Just steel. The blade descended, black with Armament, precise as judgment itself.
"Sables!" Crocodile bellowed in panic, flinging his arms wide. The desert responded violently, birthing a massive cyclone of sand that howled around him, walls of grit and wind rising like a fortress to shield him from the relentless assault. The air thickened, vision blurred, a storm born from his very will to survive.
But Bogard did not flinch. His eyes narrowed, unshaken by the howling vortex. He raised his sword high, every muscle coiling like a serpent, Haki coursing down his arm until the blade burned with obsidian light. And then—he struck.
The sword fell in an arc, cleaving through storm and desert alike. A crescent of raw destruction ripped outward, tearing a gouge into the dunes so vast it looked as if the earth itself had been slashed open. The cyclone shattered under the force, its spiraling walls splitting apart, scattering into harmless streams of sand as the slash carved a black wound across the horizon. The impact thundered through the battlefield, the ground shuddering like it had been struck by a divine hammer.
Crocodile staggered back, his sand form flickering and breaking apart under the sheer dominance of Haki. Every grain of his body trembled against the black edge of Bogard's strikes, every attempt at intangibility shredded and forced back into bleeding flesh. His logia powers—once his pride, his shield—meant nothing here.
He had faced Whitebeard. He had crossed blades with countless pirates. He had survived betrayals and deserts alike. But here, against this silent phantom of the Marines, Crocodile was reduced to a desperate, trembling figure—bloodied, beaten, and on the brink of being buried in the very sands he commanded.
Bogard did not gloat. He did not taunt. He advanced like an inevitable tide, each swing of his blade a merciless reminder: this was not a battle. This was an execution—drawn out only by the Marine's restraint.
"Has the World Government finally grown bored of my presence, that they've sent you to finish the deed?" Crocodile snarled, his voice dripping venom even as his body trembled beneath the weight of blood loss and exhaustion.
His golden hook glinted under the desert sun, but the defiance in his eyes was more survival instinct than bravado. He knew—under no circumstance—could Bogard confirm his involvement in Queen Titi's death. If that suspicion crystallized into truth, he would not leave this battlefield alive.
So he played the only hand he had left. Feign ignorance. Act the victim. Stall.
"I won't go down so easily…" Crocodile roared in manic laughter, throwing his arms wide. The desert itself answered his call. His form dissolved, his body unraveling into a tide of golden sand that poured into the dunes. The ground rumbled as his essence spread, merging with the very earth until the battlefield trembled beneath a colossal rebirth.
The sands shifted, howled, and rose. And from the storm was born a titan.
A sphinx of sand, towering hundreds of feet into the sky, its leonine body rippling with grains of gold and ochre, its human face chiseled into an eternal snarl. Desert storms whipped into frenzy around it, lashing out with knives of grit that tore visibility down to nothing. The wind screamed as the massive construct lunged forward, its enormous claws raking the battlefield, the very desert itself bending to Crocodile's wrath.
Bogard's blade slowed, if only for a heartbeat. His eyes narrowed. Crocodile's words gnawed at him—was this truly guilt or just another trick of a man who thrived on manipulation? The palace healers had found no evidence of foul play in the Queen's death. All he had were Garp's suspicions, and Garp's instincts had never failed him. But still—was he chasing a phantom?
The hesitation lasted a moment. That was all Crocodile needed.
"Desert Grande Espada!" Crocodile's voice thundered from within the sphinx as the earth erupted. Blades of sand—massive, serrated, and endless—burst upward from the ground, lashing across the battlefield in a storm of death. Each blade could split ships, carve armies, tear fortresses apart. Dozens, then hundreds, ripped through the desert, converging on the lone swordsman caught in their midst.
But Bogard was already gone. With Soru, he vanished, moving faster than the human eye could track. With Geppo, he launched himself into the storm-tossed skies, his silhouette a phantom weaving through Crocodile's blades. Not a single strike connected. Not even close. To the sphinx, he was a gnat. To Crocodile, he was a ghost.
And then—he was above it.
Suspended high over the monstrous sand titan, Bogard's form was framed against the burning sun. His sword rose, both hands steady on the hilt. The blade was drenched in Armament Haki, the steel glowing with a suffocating black sheen that pulsed like a living thing. The desert storm seemed to freeze in reverence, as if the world itself was holding its breath.
Bogard's voice did not roar. It did not thunder. It came quiet, steady, inevitable—like a verdict.
And then he struck. The blade fell in a single, merciless arc. The world split.
A crescent slash of pure destruction tore downward, shearing through the sphinx from crown to claw. The impact was apocalyptic. The towering construct froze, shuddered, then burst apart in an explosion of sand and wind, its form unraveling into countless grains that scattered across the desert like a collapsing mountain.
But the destruction did not end there. The slash carved straight through the desert floor itself, a black wound ripping the horizon wide open. For miles, the land was cleaved in two—a colossal scar etched into Alabasta's golden sands, as if the gods themselves had swung their blade.
Bogard landed silently, his boots sinking into the freshly cleaved ground. He stood with his back to the devastation, his blade lowered, black Haki still hissing faintly along its edge. Behind him, the massive sphinx collapsed in slow silence, crumbling into nothing as the desert itself seemed to bow before the strike.
Crocodile reformed weakly from the collapsing sand, his breath ragged, his face pale, blood dripping from his mouth. His titanic form was gone. His storm was gone. His smirk was gone. All that remained was a trembling man, dwarfed not by the desert, but by the shadow of the Marine who had just split it open.
Bogard said nothing. He did not need to. The desert spoke for him—scarred, silent, and broken in two.
"You should have stayed at sea… you should have never set foot in Arabasta."
Bogard's words cut sharper than his blade, whispered like a death sentence as he calmly wiped the edge clean against the hem of his coat. Blood streaked across the white of his Marine jacket, staining it with grim defiance, but his sword gleamed once more—pristine, merciless, eternal. With slow, deliberate steps, he advanced through the settling haze of sand and blood, his silhouette a specter of inevitability.
Crocodile staggered, his chest heaving, his once-proud form reduced to a trembling husk. At the start of the battle, arrogance had steeled his resolve. He had believed—foolishly—that he could stand toe-to-toe with the right hand of the Marine Hero. But hours of unrelenting pressure had stripped him bare, revealing the truth: he was still far, far away from the summit of monsters who ruled this sea.
For the first time in years, a ghost returned to haunt him—Rosinante's face flickering through his mind, that phantom memory stabbing deeper than any blade. His severed hand throbbed with phantom pain, a reminder of his past humiliation. Now, it threatened to happen again.
"Damn you!" Crocodile roared, his pride erupting into one last desperate blaze. His golden hook shone with a furious gleam, Haki crackling across its surface as he poured every shred of willpower, every drop of life, into this final strike. His lower half twisted into a swirling cyclone, the desert itself fueling his charge, a sandstorm propelling him like a bullet toward the unshakable Marine.
The desert howled. The winds screamed. Their duel reached its crescendo. Bogard did not flinch. His eyes sharpened, his muscles coiled, and his blade tilted ever so slightly—prepared, poised, inevitable. Then they crossed.
For an instant, time froze. The storm died in silence. The sun itself seemed to hold its breath.
A single crimson spray burst across the desert. Bogard flicked his blade in a practiced motion, the droplets of blood scattering like rubies across the sands before his sword slid effortlessly back into its sheath with a muted click. His stride never broke, his presence unshaken—like a shadow that could not be cut.
Behind him, Crocodile faltered. His eyes widened in disbelief as his body betrayed him. The golden hook shattered, severed clean from his arm, clattering uselessly onto the desert floor. A deep, savage slash carved across his torso—from shoulder to hip—his flesh torn, his pride shattered. Blood gushed freely, staining the dunes beneath him.
His eyes rolled back, the world fading from his grasp. With a final gasp of humiliation and pain, Crocodile collapsed into the sand, unconscious, his empire of arrogance crumbling with him. The desert drank greedily of his blood, the crimson spreading like an omen.
And still Bogard stood, unshaken, his blade humming faintly with Armament Haki, his gaze as cold as steel. The battle was over. The desert knew its victor.
Bogard exhaled slowly, his breath carrying the weight of decisions too heavy even for a seasoned blade. His eyes swept across the battlefield—if one could still call it that. The desert was torn asunder, dunes shredded into jagged scars, the air heavy with dust and the stench of blood. Crocodile lay crumpled in the sand, broken, his once-arrogant form reduced to a trembling shadow of what it had been.
Bogard's hand lingered on the hilt of his sword.
"…Sigh. Now what do I do with this guy…?" he muttered, his voice low, almost lost in the whisper of the desert winds. "Garp-san asked me to see if he was involved… but I still don't have an answer."
His gaze hardened, cold steel behind calm eyes. The simple truth pressed against his thoughts—if he ended it here, if he let his blade fall one last time, the world would be rid of one more dangerous man. How many more would suffer if Crocodile were left alive? How many kingdoms would he try to corrupt, how many innocents would his ambition grind into dust?
For a brief, dangerous moment, Bogard considered it. One step. One strike. One clean end.
The desert itself seemed to hold its breath, waiting for his decision. And then—
"Puru puru puru… puru puru puru…"
The shrill, almost comical ring of a transponder snail shattered the silence, pulling Bogard from the brink of decision. He blinked, glancing at his coat pocket. The snail wasn't his own—it was Garp's. As always, he served as the old man's relay, filtering calls meant for the Hero of the Marines.
"Click."
The receiver had barely lifted when a thunderous roar burst from the other end.
"GARP! You bastard, where the hell are you?! You were supposed to report at Marineford a week ago!"
Fleet Admiral Sengoku's voice rattled through the line, a storm of fury that would have shaken most men. But Bogard's face remained unreadable, his calm unbroken even as the Fleet Admiral's words echoed over the devastated dunes.
"This is Bogard," he answered evenly.
On the other side, the tirade halted for a heartbeat. Recognition tempered Sengoku's tone; his fury receded into something more formal, though still sharp.
"…Bogard. Where is Garp? Why haven't you reported back to Marineford yet?"
Bogard's eyes flicked once more to Crocodile's broken form, bleeding into the sand. His fingers flexed slightly on the hilt of his sword. His tone, however, remained steady, professional.
"Garp-san is paying his respects to the late Queen of Arabasta," he replied. "Once the final rites are conducted, we'll report back to Marineford."
There was silence. Then Sengoku's voice returned, quieter, weighted.
"…Tell me the truth, Bogard. You haven't gone after that Shichibukai, have you? We've received strict orders from the higher-ups. Don't make this harder for me. We already have enough chaos on our hands—don't add to it. Pass my condolences to the royal family, and once the formalities are finished, I expect you back at headquarters. Understood?"
Bogard's eyes narrowed. He gave no outward sign of the storm in his thoughts, of how close he had been to silencing Crocodile forever. Slowly, he let his hand slip from his blade's hilt.
"…Understood."
The line clicked dead.
The desert wind howled once more, swirling around the two men. Crocodile remained unconscious, alive—but only barely. Bogard's gaze lingered on him for a long, heavy moment. Fate had spared him. Or rather, the Fleet Admiral's voice had.
Seconds bled into minutes. Minutes bled into hours. Crocodile's broken form lay half-buried in the shifting sands, his once-proud body reduced to a corpse-like silhouette under the merciless desert sky. The sun had long since sunk beyond the horizon, surrendering the world to the creeping cold of night. The desert winds howled mournfully, carrying grains of sand that lashed against his wounds, as though the desert itself sought to swallow him whole.
Bogard had gone—returning to the capital, his duty pulling him back to the palace. And so Crocodile remained here, forsaken to fate, abandoned to the embrace of death should it come.
But he was not alone.
Before him stood a figure, small against the immensity of the desert, yet trembling under a weight greater than the world itself. Lily. Barely more than a girl—barely out of her teens—yet tonight she bore the burden of a thousand lifetimes.
Her pistol shook in her hand, its barrel trained at the exposed spine of the unconscious Warlord. This should have been her moment of freedom. The leash that bound her, the fear that caged her—it could all end with a single squeeze of the trigger. Crocodile would never rise again. The monster would fall, and she would finally be free.
And yet… her finger refused to move. The trembling grew worse. Her breath hitched, shallow and uneven. For the first time, she realized why her hand would not obey. Because the blood was already there.
Her eyes widened, as if seeing her own hand for the first time. The pale fingers wrapped around the pistol were no longer hers—they were drenched, dripping with invisible crimson. Not the blood of soldiers, not the blood of pirates, not the blood of faceless enemies. No.
The blood of a mother. The blood of a wife. The blood of a queen.
The memory seared through her like fire. She saw again the vial, innocuous in its simplicity, passed through her trembling hands. She remembered Crocodile's cruel smile, the way his voice coiled like a serpent around her ears, telling her it was necessary, that it was the only way she could guarantee her own life, that it was nothing more than a step in the grand plan. And she remembered her own silence. The way she had delivered the poison.
Not resisting. Not questioning. Obeying. And now—Arabasta wept.
She had heard it. The wails of the desert tribes. The choking sobs in Nanohana's streets. The silence in the palace halls, where every servant, every guard, every noble mourned as if their own mother had died. They were not crying for a monarch—they were crying for family. Queen Titi, the Jewel of Arabasta, the Mother of the Sands, the Lioness of Courage, had been theirs. And Lily—Lily had been the one to take her from them.
Her chest clenched. The pistol in her hand suddenly weighed more than iron, dragging her arm down. A sob escaped her lips, raw and broken, swallowed immediately by the wind. How was she different?
How was she any different from the monster lying broken before her? Crocodile, who twisted kingdoms to his will, who spread death and despair in the name of ambition. She had thought herself merely an accessory, a tool for information, a shadow used by others, a prisoner of circumstance. But no. Tonight she had crossed the line. She was no longer an accomplice of circumstance. She was a murderer.
Willingly or not, she had become his weapon.
Her knees buckled, collapsing into the sand. The pistol fell from her hand with a soft thud, as though even the desert pitied her. She clutched her head, trembling, her tears falling freely, staining the sand with her shame.
The howling wind drowned out her cries, but within her own heart, the echo was deafening. The grief of a nation clawed at her soul, the accusing voices of a million citizens screaming inside her skull. Every sob, every cry, every tear shed in Arabasta became her curse, her sentence.
And as she sat there, before the crumpled husk of the Warlord she had once followed and hated with her very soul, Lily realized the truth that cut deeper than any blade: she had become the very thing she abhorred. The monster was not just Crocodile. The monster was her.