"Enemy attack!!!"
It wasn't an alarm, but the gunner, Petermoo's shout echoing across the ship.
Sakura shook off Shanks's arm from her shoulder and looked up at the sky.
A black meteor, trailing a vicious flame, tore across the sky, homing in with precision guidance towards the Oro Jackson.
"Not good! Incoming artillery!"
Sakura picked up a fragment of the wooden sword from the ground. With monstrous strength surging, a shrill, lingering sound shot from her fingertips.
A brown streak shot out from the girl's hand, the wooden sword fragment embedding itself directly into the black meteor.
However...
It hit, but it didn't.
Reflected in Sakura's emerald-green pupils was the scene of the cannonball grinding the wooden fragment she had thrown into dust.
'Wait, whose cannonball wouldn't explode after an impact of that force? Are you trying to fire cannonballs or shot puts?!'
'Wait! That thing must be coated in Haki! Only Haki could create such a phenomenon!'
Sakura covered her forehead with one hand, letting go of the wooden fragments with the other.
'A cannonball imbued with Haki must have been thrown by hand.'
'This missile-like throwing method, and the only strong person on the seas who would dare attack the Roger Pirates... there was only one.'
'The Hero of the Marines… Monkey D. Garp!'
"Heh!"
Roger's figure suddenly appeared in front of Sakura and the other two. The famed sword, Ace in his hand slashed upwards.
The flying slash tore the sky. A casually swung flying slash, hundreds of meters long, cut down the numerous cannonballs flying through the air.
"Hey, you guys, fall back. That guy isn't someone kids should be facing."
As Roger's voice fell, a voice amplified by an electric loudspeaker also reached Sakura's ears.
"Testing, testing! This is Garp, this is Garp."
"Roger, surrender! I'm definitely sending you to Impel Down today!"
A broadcast mixing three parts goofiness with seven parts fervent passion boomed out.
A man with a white Justice Cloak and slightly graying temples walked to the front of the dog-headed warship and gave a powerful kick.
The next instant, a powerful impact pressed the bow of the dog-headed warship into the sea.
The legendary hero, his right arm wreathed in dark lightning, hung high in the sky.
"Wahahaha, Garp, I won't let you catch me so easily."
"After all, my dream isn't fulfilled yet!"
Roger laughed loudly as he leaped from the ship, rapidly closing in on the falling meteor in the sky.
"Galaxy Impact!" / "Divine Departure!"
Violent momentum slammed into the entire sea.
Fist and sword clashed head-on. The will of the conquerors turned into pure spirit, running rampant and roaring between the fist and the blade that never actually touched.
The residual waves from the clash between the two legends expanded violently, spreading out, enveloping everything.
The sea was churned by sword light and fist winds, stirring up colossal waves.
A dazzling white light glared down ferociously, making it impossible for anyone to look directly at their figures.
"They... didn't even touch?"
Pressing down his hat brim to barely lift his head, Buggy couldn't help but cry out.
"Idiot, you still have time to watch the show now?"
Grabbing Buggy and Shanks, Sakura didn't think twice before pulling them towards the cabin.
But unexpectedly, affected by the intense spiral currents, the two ships sideswiped each other directly.
'Not good, no time!'
The feeling of being targeted by a beast surged in Sakura's heart. She only had time to throw Buggy and Shanks backwards.
Then, harsh frost spread across the deck, instantly freezing the girl's feet.
"Sakura(-chan)!"
Buggy and Shanks cried out in anguish simultaneously.
"There are even children... this is truly troubling."
A tall man in a black coat with puffy hair let out a puff of frosty smoke.
The man scratched his cheek, falling into a dilemma.
After all, although they were pirates, these three were just three kids.
Killing them didn't align with his justice, but letting them go seemed to violate Marine's regulations.
"Such a hassle. Garp-san didn't teach me how to handle this situation."
"So, can you surrender on your own? Just say Marine Kuzan arrested you."
At that time, the young marine officer wearing a Marine Captain's cloak, Kuzan, offered what he thought was a friendly smile to the little girl before him.
But the frost creeping up his face, combined with his ferocious appearance shaped by shadows and sunglasses-
Together, they stripped the smile of any approachability it might have had.
"No way!"
Sakura twisted forcefully, the monstrous strength in her body directly shattering the shoes frozen into blocks of ice.
Freed from the ice's restraint, Sakura leaped high, her small fist fiercely punching Kuzan in the stomach.
A huge force rushed across, and Sakura only felt her fist shatter a layer of frost, carried by inertia as it passed right through Kuzan's stomach.
Although she knew it was difficult to fight a Logia user without Armament Haki, her choice was still the best option available at the moment.
Taking advantage of the time Kuzan needed to reform his body, Sakura decisively utilized the most useful partner on the entire ship!
-Buggy!
She quickly moved past the marine soldiers and reached the red-nosed boy, grabbing his wrist.
"Buggy, whether we can defeat this guy depends entirely on you!"
The marines and the Roger Pirates were locked in heated battle, and the other crew members all had their own opponents.
It seemed this Aokiji in front of them was a trial specifically left for the three kids by the main fighters.
With a slight exertion of her wrist, the hand Buggy was held with immediately dented significantly.
"Ouch ouch ouch, Sakura, you...!"
Buggy's half-spoken sentence was shredded by the rapidly swirling air currents.
Then, he felt the small hands holding him suddenly let go. His entire body spun through the air before plunging into a vortex.
"Sa... glug glug glug!"
Listening to the miserable cries of her friend within the current, Shanks lowered his straw hat and moved behind Sakura.
"Sakura-chan, will this work?"
"Don't worry!"
Sakura gave him a thumbs-up, pushed off with her legs, and once again threw a punch at Kuzan.
"Trying to send your companion away? But without a ship, where can he escape to?"
Kuzan's brow furrowed slightly. Although the girl before him couldn't attack his true form, each time she shattered his icy body with a punch, it took time to reform.
This was clearly a stalling tactic, and she seemed to have pinpointed his reluctance to seriously harm a child.
'-Despicable pirate!'
Thinking this, purple energy surged around Kuzan's arms. The leakage of Haki made the tall man dangerous.
"If you keep blocking me like this, I'm going to have to get serious."
Kuzan was so focused on ending the fight with Sakura as quickly as possible that he didn't notice a hand grabbing the railing of the Oro Jackson behind him.
"Haruno Sakura, you bastard!!!"
Hearing the roar of the ultimate luck possessor, Buggy, Sakura broke into a smile.
"Hehe, Marine, we're going to win."
"Just try it if you can!"
Kuzan summoned ice mist into his hands, freezing it into a snow-white spear, its sharp point reflecting a cold gleam.
"I'm counting on you, Buggy!"
Sakura punched the deck. The tremendous force caused the Oro Jackson to tilt sharply.
Buggy, who had just climbed aboard, was sent flying high into the air by the shockwave, landing right in Sakura's hands.
"Hmm, so this is your method of victory?"
Kuzan slapped the deck. Cold air spread, forming a sheet of smooth, solid ice on the wooden planks.
Intending to make Sakura lose her footing, he was surprised when she avoided it with a high jump.
Watching the girl's shadow gradually cover him, a sense of foreboding rose in Kuzan's heart.
'-The distance is closing. Maybe I should do something.'
'-But what can such a little girl possibly do? She doesn't even have a way to attack a Logia user.'
"Ninja Art: Buggy Sealing Technique!"
Mid-air, Sakura used both hands to steady Buggy's head and clamped her legs tightly around his abdomen.
"Pfftt!!!"
Instantly, a massive amount of seawater gushed out of Buggy's mouth, drenching Kuzan from head to toe.
"Wait, this is... seawater!"
Kuzan's pupils behind his sunglasses trembled. He never expected the red-nosed boy's stomach could hold so much water.
He leaned back, trying to create distance.
Although being splashed with seawater on land doesn't completely nullify Devil Fruit abilities, the core defensive mechanism of a Logia user, nature system, fails under such conditions!
White icy mist erupted from Kuzan's body surface, rapidly freezing the seawater on him, striving to regain his elemental form.
But his actions were ultimately a fraction of a second too slow. The shadow of the girl, fist raised, had already descended upon him.
Kuzan looked up.
He felt as if all the light in his field of vision had vanished.
All that remained was that fist, wreathed in blazing, intense flames.
[Death!]
Sakura's fist flew like a meteor, piercing through the darkness.
Boom-!
Monstrous strength poured into Kuzan's tall frame. The shape of the impact manifested on his face in waves, spreading out bit by bit.
Just before Kuzan's consciousness was completely swallowed by darkness, his final thought surfaced, 'Young people have no fighting ethnic... how can you hit the face?'
Then, the promising new star of the Marine plunged into the sea, his condition unknown!