"Mokuton: Jukai Kotan (Wood Style: Deep Forest Emergence)!"
The ground trembled.
Countless massive trees burst up from the earth.
In only a few seconds, they completed the impossible—growing from seedlings into towering giants.
The gray-yellow, dead desert was instantly swallowed by a sea of green.
Roots spread wildly in every direction, forcing aside the sand and gravel as they plunged deep into the soil.
The sandstorm Crocodile had created slammed into the trees.
Sand pelted the trunks, leaving only shallow marks.
And the trees kept growing.
They blotted out the sky.
Dense branches and leaves blocked the sunlight, plunging the entire plaza into shadow.
The sand beneath Crocodile's feet stopped flowing.
His Ground Death was interrupted.
Because there was no water—no, because the moisture was being stolen.
These roots weren't just growing.
They were plundering.
They were madly extracting every last drop of water and nutrient from the earth.
Crocodile could feel the sand he controlled becoming heavy and sluggish.
Even the moisture in his own body began to stir under that terrifying suction.
"What kind of ability is this?!"
Crocodile's right hand turned into a sand blade.
"Desert Spada!"
A massive blade of sand slashed out.
Several trees thick enough for three men to wrap their arms around were cut clean in half.
No sap flowed from the severed trunks.
In the next instant, fresh shoots sprouted from the breaks.
Endless regeneration.
Hashirama stood atop a raised root, looking down from above.
He watched Crocodile's attack and burst into loud laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
His laughter shook the canopy, leaves rustling like waves.
"Sand, huh?"
Hashirama folded his arms across his chest.
"Playing with dirt in front of me? You're ten thousand years too early!"
As his words fell, the entire forest came alive.
Countless branches shot toward Crocodile like writhing tentacles, moving at terrifying speed.
Crocodile instantly turned into sand.
The branches passed straight through him, scattering a plume of yellow grains.
Physical attacks were useless—this was the pride of a Logia user.
He re-formed somewhere else.
"It's pointless," Crocodile sneered. "I'm invincible."
Before the words even finished—
The forest seemed to understand his provocation.
The earth bulged again.
Several vines with dark red patterns erupted from the ground.
These vines were different from the earlier trees. A strange sheen flowed across their surface.
Senjutsu chakra.
Crocodile was about to disperse into sand again and relocate.
But the vines seemed to predict his landing point.
One vine lashed down hard on his shoulder.
It didn't pass through.
It hit—solidly.
Pain exploded through him.
Crocodile was whipped flying, crashing through two trees before stopping.
He clutched his shoulder, his face turning iron-black.
Intangibility failed…? That was impossible.
There was no seawater here. No Seastone.
The man hadn't even used Haki.
So why could he hit sand?!
Hashirama didn't give him time to think.
"Mokuton: Mokuryu no Jutsu (Wood Style: Wood Dragon Jutsu)!"
The sea of trees roared.
A gigantic wooden dragon thrust its head out from deep within the forest.
It was bigger than Alabasta's palace itself.
It opened its jaws and bit straight toward Crocodile.
Crocodile slammed his right hand into the ground.
"Ground Death: Desert Sunflower!"
He tried to turn the sand beneath the dragon into a trap and swallow it whole.
The quicksand vortex had only just formed—
When the dragon's scales spread open.
A horrifying suction erupted.
The chakra within the quicksand—no, even the kinetic force carried by the sand itself—was swallowed up completely.
The wood dragon bit down.
Crocodile had to leap away to dodge.
But the moment he rose into the air, the dragon's tail swept across.
Crocodile was smashed away again.
This time, he felt like every bone in his body was about to fall apart.
Even worse—wherever the wood dragon touched him, his stamina started draining at a frightening speed.
That monster was absorbing his energy.
Ever since he'd entered the New World and failed in his challenge against Whitebeard, he hadn't felt this sensation.
The sensation of being utterly powerless.
Crushed from every direction.
This wasn't a battle.
This was a one-sided beating.
His drying power, in front of these plants overflowing with life, was laughable.
You want to drain water?
These roots would pierce thousands of meters down into underground rivers and pump it up like it was nothing—then spray you in the face with it.
You want to turn the earth into sand?
The roots gripped the soil harder than steel. The sand couldn't move at all.
A total matchup disadvantage—an outright dimensional suppression.
Crocodile panted, half-kneeling on a thick tree trunk.
His golden hook was smeared with wood chips.
He stared at the man standing above him—who didn't even look like his clothes had been disturbed.
"It's over," Hashirama said.
He raised a hand, and the trees around them began to close in.
The massive canopies formed a natural cage.
"Desert Great Sword!"
Crocodile turned both arms into four massive sand blades, trying to carve out a path.
The blades struck the contracting wooden walls.
The walls only shuddered once.
More vines coiled in, sealing the gap.
The space grew smaller and smaller until darkness fell.
Before the last light vanished, Crocodile saw a gigantic wooden hand reach toward him.
"Kokujo Tengen: Myojinmon (Kokujo Tengen: Bright Deity Gates)!"
A "seat" mark appeared in the palm.
The hand pressed directly onto Crocodile's chest.
There was no physical damage.
Instead, sealing power flooded his entire body in an instant.
His Suna Suna no Mi (Sand-Sand Fruit) ability was forcibly suppressed.
Crocodile felt himself becoming an ordinary man again.
His body grew unbearably heavy.
The wooden hand closed, crushing the Shichibukai in its grip.
The forest stopped expanding.
The once-wide palace plaza was gone, replaced by a lush primeval woodland.
Only at the very center stood a colossal wooden hand raised toward the sky—
Holding the man who had once terrified an entire nation.
Crocodile couldn't move.
He could only watch as Hashirama jumped down from the treetops and landed on the back of the wooden hand.
"This is a Warlord?" Hashirama scratched his head, sounding disappointed. "Kinda… fragile."
Those words hurt more than any attack.
Crocodile grit his teeth, glaring at him.
"Who… are you…?"
"Senju Hashirama," he answered simply. "But that doesn't matter to you."
From the forest's edge, a figure walked out.
Shinju.
Stepping along the newborn roots, he approached the imprisoned Crocodile from below.
Shinju looked up.
"Crocodile."
He spoke calmly.
"Your ambition ends here."
Crocodile tried to retort—
The wooden hand tightened a little more.
"But you still have some value," Shinju continued, ignoring Crocodile's murderous stare.
"We're going to retrieve the Poneglyph about Pluton."
The moment he heard "Pluton," Crocodile's eyes went wide.
That was the ultimate goal he'd spent years plotting for.
And they knew everything.
He'd thought he was the hunter, playing with an entire country.
In truth, he was just a pig being fattened up.
When the time was right, the real hunters arrived—pot and all—taking everything and flipping the table in one move.
That realization humiliated him.
Shinju didn't spare him another glance.
Hashirama controlled the wooden hand, dragging Crocodile along behind them.
The group passed through the forest that had only just been born.
The so-called king of the desert closed his eyes.
He knew it.
His era had ended before it even began.
On the palace heights, Princess Vivi stared blankly at the sudden forest below.
The sandstorm that had threatened to destroy the nation was gone.
The untouchable Crocodile was gone as well.
Only this thriving green life remained, growing wildly under the desert sun.
It was a miracle.
Alabasta was saved.
Shinju looked ahead at the grand entrance to the royal mausoleum.
The ancient weapon Pluton.
It might be a warship, but its core technology was the true prize.
If they obtained blueprints or clues—and combined them with the group's technological strength—
Building a Pluton capable of traveling through space might not be impossible.
As for Crocodile…
Throwing him into Impel Down would be a waste.
The group just happened to be short on a workhorse.
A laborer with ambition, brains, and Logia abilities?
Leaving that unused would be stupid.
A strange smile surfaced on Shinju's face.
He'd already decided how to squeeze every last bit of remaining value out of that "Sand Crocodile."
Footsteps echoed through the empty palace corridor.
The Poneglyph was just ahead.
A stone that recorded the power to destroy the world—
Quietly waiting for its new owner.
(End of Chapter)
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