"Outrageous power."
"Are they trying to end the world?"
High above a shattered island, a bow-tied seagull beat its wings. Two devices clung to its chest and belly, one recording, one set to go live. The sky itself looked cracked, cloud banks torn into jagged ribbons by the aftershocks rolling up from below.
Inside Big News Morgans's headquarters, a white sheet served as a screen. On it, Ozz and Whitebeard clashed like two continents. Fists met. Stone hills burst like rotten fruit. The sea climbed its own walls and collapsed, a ring of tsunamis galloping away from the island.
"Chief Morgans, do we push this worldwide?"
An editor licked dry lips, eyes fever-bright. A global broadcast would blow the Grand Line's nerves to pieces.
Morgans's talons worried the arm of his chair. For a newspaperman, nothing beats lighting the fuse on a world that wants to burn. He almost said yes. Then common sense slapped him.
"Not yet. Keep recording."
"What?"
The staff stared. Morgans turning down a scoop was like the sun clocking out at noon. The boss had shrugged off the World Government more than once. Why hesitate now?
He did not explain. His eyes never left the screen. If Ozz started to dominate, the world would see it. If Whitebeard took control, this reel would sleep in a vault. He loved big news. He loved staying alive more.
On the island, the ground lay in quarters and eighths, a chessboard smashed by giants. Two figures stood amid the wreckage.
Whitebeard's cloak had long since vanished. Cuts crossed his barrel chest and shoulders. Even the great crescent moustache had a missing bite.
Ozz, bare-chested, gripped the black blade Ace. Wounds knit as fast as they opened, skin crawling closed like stitching drawn tight.
At a glance, Ozz seemed to be holding up better.
"Not bad, Ozz. Almost feels like fighting Roger again."
The title of brat had fallen away. Whitebeard spoke as one mountain to another.
"Seems you are not as old and creaky as they say, Whitebeard."
Ozz felt his stamina burning down in a steady blue flame. He eased his breathing. The storm was still building.
They raised their weapons. Armament and Conqueror's braided along steel and skin. Black and red lightning crackled. They met in a shock that ripped fresh fissures through the earth.
Whitebeard's hands tightened on Murakumogiri. His Observation sharpened to a cutting edge. Instinct grinned cold in his eyes. He chopped hard to his left.
"Ugly. Too slow, Whitebeard."
Ozz flickered out of the cut and appeared at the titan's back, eyes burning hell-red, black and crimson fire crawling over his frame. Killing intent pinned Whitebeard between heartbeats.
"The future I see reaches far beyond yours."
Whitebeard felt it. His last force had spent itself, his next had not yet come. His head turned.
Too late.
"This blade repays the kneel Captain Roger once gave you."
Black-red light blazed. The ground shattered under the weight of the cut. Ozz ghosted to the far side of the field, sparks dying along Ace's edge.
Blood burst skyward.
A brutal gash opened across Whitebeard's back, a geyser of red thrown high. Haki had blunted the worst of it. Without that, the cut would have been fatal. Even so, the skull-and-crossbones inked on that back now wore a long scar that split it cleanly in two.
"Old man!"
On the ships, jaws hung loose. Throats worked. Crewmen shouted themselves hoarse.
"I am fine."
Whitebeard wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and raised a hand. Marco and the others froze mid leap. Observation probed the wound's depth and width. Understanding tightened his eyes. He had glimpsed where Ozz would be, but Ozz had looked further, mapping not only his movement but his reaction to that movement.
And Whitebeard knew the kneel Ozz meant. The day Roger bowed to request Kozuki Oden. The day Roger bowed to him.
"What a body you have, Whitebeard."
Ozz clicked his tongue. The old titan still stood straight. In this age everyone was built like a fortress.
He had no intention of pecking him to death with fruit trickery. This was not a duel to the death. He wanted presence. He wanted a new line etched into the era.
Ozz flashed to Whitebeard's front. Space twisted and Conqueror's snarled around his leg. He pivoted and ripped a kick toward that iron jaw.
Boom. Crack.
Whitebeard caught the blow on haft and blade. The ground cratered under his feet, a hundred-meter bowl collapsing all at once.
"Do not get cocky."
"I am Whitebeard."
He shoved. Ozz skidded upward, boots carving sparks. Quake-light haloed the naginata's grip. Whitebeard ripped an upward slash that tore the air itself.
Cracks webbed the sky. The blow hammered Ozz in the gut. Haki and a monster's frame blunted it, but the tremor's teeth bit to the bone.
"Khff."
Blood sheeted from his mouth as he rocketed higher, the shock still buzzing through his ribs.
Down below, Crocodile's coat snapped in the wind of the collateral. She planted a palm and poured sand into the broken ground, bracing slopes, drinking shockwaves. She had orders, and she followed them. Keep the island from splitting in half. Keep the crews alive.
Mihawk stood on the figurehead of the Oro Jackson, arms folded, hawk eyes never blinking. Night trembled at his back as if eager to leap. This is the pinnacle. The gap between me and the seat at the summit. His breath fell calm and thin and cold.
On Moby Dick, Marco's fingers glowed with healing flame he was not yet allowed to use. Jozu's shoulders crystallized with diamond he dared not throw. Vista's moustache quivered as the swordsman's fingers twitched near hilts he would not draw. They could only watch.
On another deck, a black-bearded man eased behind taller bodies, shadowing his grin with his collar. Old scars ached near his neck. His eyes glittered with a wolf's curiosity and a scavenger's patience. Worst possible run-in. Best possible lesson.
Ozz hit the apex of the launch, stole momentum from the air, and vanished. The next instant a dark shape knifed down behind Whitebeard. A vertical line slashed across the battlefield and the horizon dipped, as if the sea itself had flinched.
Whitebeard stepped through the line. Quake haloes unraveled and reformed around his fists. He did not look back at the blood spreading down his spine. He did not need to.
"Your space. My quake. Let us see which breaks first."
Ozz answered with a grin that bared teeth. "Gladly."
They met again.
Fists coated in Armament smashed together, Ozz's knuckles wrapped in a layer of warped space that dragged the world toward a point, Whitebeard's fist thrumming with the Gura Gura's will to tear. The clash produced no sound for one breath, as if the world forgot how. Then sound returned everywhere at once. The island bucked. The sea fell into a hole and then climbed out angry.
From below the Red Line the rumble reached even Fish-Man Island. Neptune's trident shook on its rack. Otohime pressed a hand over her heart and prayed that the one whose name blackened the papers would be the one to guard her people. She did not know who would win. She only knew which banner could change minds as well as fates.
Back on the island, Whitebeard set his feet and drove Ozz across broken stone with a storm of heavy chops. Murakumogiri's long arc dragged quake-waves that detonated a heartbeat behind every swing. Ozz's eyes burned with scarlet light as he read lines no one else could see. Ace met steel. Elbows slipped. Knees checked. He caught each chop a ghost-width off center, stealing force, bleeding impact into space that kinked and folded around the blades.
"Your future is noisy," Whitebeard growled.
"Yours is short," Ozz shot back, and paid for the joke with a grazing quake that split a fresh river down the island's spine.
He vanished and reappeared at Whitebeard's ankle, dropped low, and swept. Space buckled. The titan's leg dipped, but the naginata's butt struck ground and Whitebeard rode the stumble into a pivoting cut that would have parted a battleship. Ozz folded space like a curtain and stepped through the gap. The blade passed where he had been, the pressure wave alone turning a ridge into gravel.
Morgans leaned forward so far his chair tipped and clattered. No one noticed. The room smelled of ink and fear.
On the field, Ozz's breathing grew rough. He felt the press of reality around his fruit. Close to a true awakening. He could crush a patch of air into a killing star. He could bend an island into a fist. He could also burn himself out and fall into the sea. Not today.
He rolled his shoulder, flexed fingers, and surged in.
"Divine Departure."
He had promised himself he would stop calling the names. He broke that promise for one cut only. Roger's technique. His twist. Space braided into the stroke, the edge hauling the world forward as it fell. Whitebeard met it with a quake-wrapped parry. Lightning tore open the sky. The collision carved a long, clean trench into the earth behind them, a wound so straight it looked drawn by an angry god with a ruler.
They separated. For the first time in a long time, Whitebeard's grin showed something like joy. "That is the spirit. Come again."
Ozz obliged. He blinked behind him, aimed at the same scar he had already made. Whitebeard did not turn. His fist opened. A half dome of trembling air popped like a bubble. The rebound caught Ozz at the hip and bounced him into Whitebeard's waiting swing.
The naginata's edge hummed. Ozz crossed Ace to guard, feet sliding trenches into stone. The quake rode through blade and bone. He tasted iron. For a heartbeat the world doubled.
"Khff."
Blood bright as paint sprayed from his lips as the upward force carried him toward the clouds once more.
Far below, Crocodile stared upward, smoke curling from the tip of her cigar. "Do not die, idiot," she muttered, and poured more sand into the failing cliffs.
Mihawk's eyes narrowed to hard points. His fingers finally closed on Night's hilt. He did not draw. Not yet.
On Moby Dick, Marco's flames climbed involuntarily around his arms. "Old man."
Whitebeard did not look at him. He planted his feet and raised Murakumogiri in both hands, quake-light pooling along the blade's length until it looked like a fallen crescent moon. He aimed that moon at the falling figure.
"Stand tall, brat. This is the sea's peak."
The blade rose. The island shuddered. The clouds seemed to crouch.
Ozz wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes shone brighter than ever, seeing lines upon lines, futures branching like coral. His lips curled.
"Good. Higher, then."
He vanished upward into a speck and then came down like a meteor, Ace howling. Whitebeard stepped in to meet him, Murakumogiri singing with quake.
Steel met quake met space.
The island screamed.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Hey Pirates!
Want more chapters? Let's make it happen!
If we hit 250 Power Stones, I'll be uploading extra chapter as a thank-you for your amazing support! ^.^
Every vote counts, and together, we can push this story to the top. Let's reach that goal and unlock more content!
The tides are shifting, and secrets linger in the dark... Step into the shadows early on P@treon, where the next chapter awaits before the world sees it.
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"