As the dust slowly settled, a biting cold wind howled across the snowy plains once more, swirling scorched earth and icy fragments through the air. The bottomless crater, like a grotesque scar, was now permanently branded upon the land of Wano.
"Queen the Plague" lay sprawled on the ground, his proud mechanical arm twisted and deformed from the aftershocks, sparking erratically. He gaped, drool trickling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes fixed on the man standing at the edge of the crater. It was a look one reserved for a monster beyond comprehension.
"King the Inferno" was in slightly better shape. He supported himself on one knee, his breaths coming in heavy, ragged gasps from beneath his mask. His black wings drooped uselessly behind him, their flames long extinguished. For the first time, an emotion he had never truly felt before—fear—flickered in his sharp eyes.
Their captain, Kaido—the man who would one day be known as the "World's Strongest Creature"—had been knocked out of his dragon form and rendered unconscious by a single blow. Just one. This was a reality that their minds simply could not process.
Kneeling in the distance, Gecko Moria's mind was still utterly blank. He looked from Kaido's broken form at the bottom of the pit to the man whose trench coat flapped in the wind. His lips trembled, but no words came out. Hatred? Joy? He felt nothing. There was only the instinctive fear and awe that came from witnessing absolute power.
"Well, if I killed him now, the future would be far too boring," the man murmured softly. His voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly to the ears of every conscious person on the field.
Future? Boring?
King and Queen's hearts clenched. This man… he didn't even consider defeating Kaido to be a significant event. He was already thinking about things on a scale they couldn't even imagine.
Kyle no longer paid any attention to the two "Disasters," who had completely lost their will to fight. His gaze swept over the ravaged battlefield and finally landed on Moria. He didn't walk over; he simply waved his hand.
A gentle, invisible ripple spread out, carrying with it a soft wind. This wind carefully bypassed the shattered gravestones and precisely swept up Moria and the few surviving members of his crew, who were still paralyzed with terror. Even the cold corpses scattered in the snow were lifted gently, as if being carefully placed by a pair of invisible hands. The wind carried them all slowly into the sky, drifting toward the coast.
Moria finally regained his senses in mid-air. He looked down at the hellish scene below, then back at the figure who was already being swallowed by the swirling snow. An extremely complex emotion surged through him. Just then, Kyle's lazy voice rang out again, this time directed at King and Queen.
"Tell Kaido," he began, his voice flat, yet it carried a weight that made the two powerful pirates feel like they were suffocating. "If he ever breathes on me again, I'll make sure he turns to dust."
Breathes on him? King and Queen trembled. Was he talking about Kaido's proudest attack, the "Boro Breath"? Such a terrifying, destructive technique was nothing more than a child's tantrum to this man. They both nodded their heads desperately, like they were pounding garlic, terrified of being even a second too slow to obey.
Kyle seemed satisfied with their reaction. He turned to leave, but then paused as if remembering something. "Oh, right. One more thing."
His profile was a blur in the wind and snow, but his golden pupils flashed with an unreadable light. "I don't care what happens to Kozuki Oden. But… his son must die."
Why? Why Oden's son? They didn't understand, and they certainly didn't dare to ask.
"Yes! Yes! We'll… we'll be sure to tell him!" Queen stammered, his voice distorted with fear.
Kyle said no more. He didn't even glance back at them as he took a single step forward, disappearing into the swirling storm as if he were just a traveler on a casual stroll. It was as if he had never been there at all.
Only when the suffocating pressure had completely vanished did Queen collapse to the ground with a thud, panting heavily, his entire body drenched in cold sweat. King slowly released his grip on the hilt of his sword. He stared in the direction Kyle had disappeared, his eyes filled with a profound sense of bewilderment.
This world… was about to change forever.
Carried by the wind, Moria finally saw his pirate ship waiting by the coast. The gentle current placed him, his surviving crew, and the bodies of their fallen comrades onto the deck.
The Moonlight Pirates' ship now floated like a ghost ship in the waters off Wano, shrouded in an eerie silence. The survivors sat or lay on the deck, their souls seemingly left behind on that snowy plain. No one spoke. No one cried. After the initial, overwhelming grief, a deeper, hollow numbness had set in. They neatly laid their comrades' bodies side by side, covering them with canvas sheets. The faint smell of blood served as a constant reminder of the crushing defeat they had suffered.
Moria stood at the bow, his tall figure like a weathered statue, staring out at the moonlit sea. His reflection stared back at him—a face that used to bear a confident, eerie "Kishishishi" laugh now showed only a desolate pallor.
His mind replayed the events of the battle in a frantic loop. He didn't see Kaido's island-destroying club or the Boro Breath that could melt stone. He saw the startled look on his helmsman's face as he was cut in half. He saw his navigator, screaming "Captain, run!" just before being turned to charcoal by lightning. He saw the crew's cowardly sniper, who always fired from the back, being cut to pieces… He couldn't even remember all their names. He just knew they were all dead.
"Captain…" A bandaged officer carefully approached him from behind, his voice hoarse. "We… we should leave this sea. After we recover, we can still…"
"Still what?" Moria finally spoke, his voice hollow.
"We can still make a comeback! Avenge our brothers!" the officer shouted, mustering his courage.
"Avenge?" Moria slowly turned around, his shadow engulfing the officer in the moonlight. His lips curled into a smile that was uglier than a sob. "Kishishishi… Avenge? With what? With your life? Or with mine?"
He extended a massive hand, pointing to the row of bodies covered by canvas sheets. "Go on, tell them! Tell them you want revenge! Ask them if they're willing to let you go die for nothing!"
"I…" The officer was speechless, his face flushing with shame.
"Powerless…" Moria's voice dropped to a whisper. "I watched you all die, one by one, and I couldn't do a single thing… This is what I, your captain, brought upon you."
In his mind, another figure appeared—the man with black hair and golden eyes. Kaido's world-ending attacks were nothing but a child's tantrum to him, casually brushed aside. Kaido's strongest form was like a pathetic snake, slammed into the ground from the sky.
That was power. Absolute power that could set the rules and rewrite any outcome.
"We're not afraid to die, Captain!"
"Yeah! As long as we can follow you!"
The other surviving crew members gathered around, their eyes still burning with a fiery loyalty. Seeing their familiar faces, seeing the unwavering trust they still had in him, Moria finally broke. His tall body began to tremble violently. Then, the man who stood nearly seven meters tall slowly squatted down like a lost child, covering his face with his massive hands. Broken sobs escaped through his fingers.
"Don't follow me anymore…" he choked out. "Please… just don't follow me anymore…"
A few days later, Moria personally buried the last of his deceased comrades. He disbanded the Moonlight Pirates. He gave all the treasure on the ship to the survivors, practically ordering them to leave, to find a safe place, get married, and live normal lives. He told them to forget they were ever pirates, to forget him, their useless captain, and to live.
The crew wept and refused to leave. In the end, Moria had to use his shadow powers to forcibly place each of them on the small boats he had prepared.
"The Moonlight Pirates are officially disbanded." Those were the last words he ever spoke to them.
Now, he was alone. He stood before the graveyard he had made, the cold wind swirling snow against his face. He felt nothing. Moria swore to himself that he would never again experience that kind of despair—the powerlessness of watching his comrades die before his eyes.
He wanted to become stronger. Not for the ridiculous title of Pirate King, not for treasure. He just never wanted to lose anything again.
That night, Moria appeared like a giant ghost before the tomb of the legendary samurai, Shimotsuki Ryuma. Without hesitation, he dug through the hard, frozen earth and forced open the ancient stone coffin. Inside lay the skeleton of a samurai, long since dried into a mummy. Beside it was a pitch-black katana with a flame-like pattern on its blade.
Moria reached out and took the sword. Buzz. A cold, powerful aura surged into his body from the hilt.
"The Meito, Shusui…" he whispered. He then hoisted Ryuma's corpse and the legendary sword onto his shoulder. "Kishishishi… From today on, you're my new companion."
As he turned to leave, a faint cry, nearly drowned out by the wind, reached his ears. He stopped, tilting his head. The sound was coming from a nearby abandoned village. He frowned, not wanting to get involved, but the intermittent sobbing, like that of an abandoned kitten, tugged at a nerve deep inside him.
He carried Ryuma's body and followed the sound. In the corner of a dilapidated house, he found the source. It was a little girl, no older than three or four, with pink hair tied in pigtails. She wore a torn dress and was clutching her knees, trembling. When she saw Moria's giant, strange figure, she stopped crying, her large eyes filling with terror.
Moria looked down at her, his gaze cold. A burden. The thought was immediate, and he turned to leave. But after a single step, he stopped. He remembered his crew. He remembered his powerlessness. If he left this child here, she would freeze or starve to death. How was that any different from watching his comrades die?
"Hey, kid," he said, his voice raspy and unpleasant.
The little girl flinched, tears welling in her eyes again.
Moria sighed—perhaps for the first time in his life. He set down Ryuma's body, extended one massive finger, and gently poked the little girl's head. "Want to come with me?"
The little girl froze. She looked at the terrifyingly ugly monster before her, then at the even more terrifying corpse behind him. For some reason, her fear began to fade. She sniffled and timidly reached out her small hand, grasping Moria's finger, which was thicker than her arm.
"Kishishishi…" Moria let out his characteristic laugh, but this time, it held less arrogance and more of an unexplainable, complex emotion. "What a… troublesome kid."
He lifted the little girl and placed her on his broad shoulder, then re-hoisted Ryuma's body and the black blade, Shusui. "What's your name?"
"…Perona," she whispered, her voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz.
"Perona, huh? Kishishishi. From today on, we're companions."
Under the moonlight, a huge, strange figure walked out of Wano Country. On his shoulder sat a small, pink-haired girl, and on his other, he carried the corpse of a legendary samurai. His silhouette, stretched long by the moonlight, marked the beginning of a new, darker path.
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