The bedrock of Hachinosu was no longer a silent witness to the carnage; it had become a living, breathing participant in the apocalypse. Avalo Pizarro, the "Corrupt King," had fully integrated his consciousness into the island's crust using the terrifying awakening of the Shima Shima no Mi. This was no longer a battle against a man; it was a battle against geography itself. Every cobblestone was a sentient eye, every fortress tower was a prehensile limb, and every tectonic shift was a deliberate, homicidal attempt to crush the life out of the intruders.
Standing on the crumbling span of the northern bridge, Jinbe, the "First Son of the Sea," looked like a mere blue speck against the literal face of the island. Pizarro's gargantuan visage had formed out of the central mountain range; his stone beard was composed of jagged, razor-sharp cliffs, and his eyes were the glowing, sinister windows of the ruined skull fortress. The very ground heaved with Pizarro's laughter, a sound that felt like plates of the earth grinding against one another.
"You think a mere Fish-man can stop the will of an entire nation?" Pizarro's voice boomed, a seismic roar that caused the sea levels in the harbor to oscillate wildly. "I am Hachinosu! I am the history of the New World's sins! I am the bedrock upon which legends are buried! You are just a stray wave hitting a cliff, Jinbe! And the cliff does not move!"
Jinbe stood his ground, his webbed feet wide and anchored so deeply into the masonry that the bridge groaned under his weight. He didn't look up at the mountain-sized face; he looked down at the dark, swirling water beneath the bridge. He felt the pull of the moon, the salt-spray on his skin, and the rhythmic, ancient heartbeat of the ocean.
"The cliff has stood for a thousand years, perhaps," Jinbe said, his voice a calm, deep baritone that carried over the howling wind like the sound of a foghorn. "But the water is what shapes the world. It is the patient sculptor. Even the tallest mountain eventually bows to the sea, Pizarro. You are not an island; you are just a stone that hasn't realized it's sinking yet."
The Battle of Earth and Water
Pizarro didn't wait for further philosophy. He shifted his immense stone hands—two massive peninsulas of rock and soil—and slammed them together toward the bridge with the speed of a closing trap. The impact was enough to create a localized earthquake that shattered the windows of every building for miles.
"SHIMA-SHIMA: CONTINENTAL CRUSH!"
Jinbe didn't dodge. To move was to let the shockwave travel toward the refugees behind him. He breathed, a deep, guttural inhalation of the salty air, centering his spirit. His skin turned a darker, bruised shade of indigo as his Armament Haki reached its peak saturation, flowing like oil over his muscular frame.
"GYOJIN KARATE: FIVE THOUSAND TILE TRUE PUNCH!"
Jinbe struck the air directly in front of the approaching peninsula of rock. The shockwave didn't just hit the surface; it utilized the humidity in the air and the moisture trapped within the porous limestone of the island. The vibration traveled through the rock like a virus, finding the fault lines and mineral veins. With a sound like a thousand cannons firing at once, the peninsula shattered from the inside out.
Stone fragments the size of galleons rained into the sea, creating massive splashes, but Pizarro's laughter only grew louder.
"I have more earth! I have the whole island! You can't break everything, little fish! For every pebble you shatter, I have a mountain to replace it!"
Pizarro began to manipulate the very ground beneath Jinbe's feet, turning the bridge into a literal maw of jagged stone teeth. The road itself rose up to swallow him. Simultaneously, Pizarro sent massive, spear-like spikes of bedrock shooting up from the ocean floor, targeting the hull of the Thousand Sunny.
"Jinbe! The ship! The hull won't hold against the bedrock!" Nami screamed from the deck, her Clima-Tact sparking as she tried to blow the spikes off-course with wind gusts.
Jinbe's eyes narrowed into slits. He realized the futility of a surface war. He couldn't just fight the rock; he had to fight the spirit of the island where it was most vulnerable. He had to go to the source.
The Secret of the Sea King
With a powerful leap that cracked the remains of the bridge, Jinbe dove into the churning, black water of the harbor. To any human, the water was a chaotic mess of debris, blood, and violent currents. To Jinbe, it was a sanctuary. It was his cathedral. It was a weapon.
"You hide in the stone because you fear the depths," Jinbe muttered, the bubbles trailing from his mouth like pearls.
He sank deep, plunging past the graveyard of sunken ships until he reached the foundations of Hachinosu—the "roots" of the island where the volcanic rock met the abyssal seafloor. Here, the pressure was immense, but for the former Warlord, it was a familiar embrace. He saw the massive columns of stone that held up the Pirate Island, looking like the legs of a petrified god.
He reached out his hands, feeling the massive weight of the ocean above him. He didn't just move his arms; he harmonized his movements with the rotation of the planet and the deep-sea currents.
"GYOJIN KARATE OGI: BURAIDOKAN (Vagabond Drill)!"
Jinbe didn't strike the island directly. He struck the ocean itself. He created a massive, spinning vortex of high-pressure water, a liquid drill that began to spiral upward, wrapping around the submerged base of Hachinosu. The water didn't just hit the rock; it acted like a high-velocity hydraulic saw. It forced its way into the tectonic fissures, expanding the cracks and cutting through the foundations to which Pizarro's consciousness was tied.
"What... what is this?! The water is... it's inside my brain!" Pizarro's giant stone face on the mountain screamed in genuine, high-pitched pain. "My legs! I can't feel the seabed! The island... it's floating!"
"Water is life, Pizarro," Jinbe's voice echoed upward through the vibrations of the sea. "But it is also the ultimate solvent. It dissolves empires and erodes the ego."
The Final Verdict
Jinbe shot out of the water like a blue, Haki-clad torpedo, encased in a shimmering shroud of high-pressure liquid. He used the momentum of the rising current to propel himself thousands of feet into the air, soaring above the smoke of the battlefield. He landed with a bone-jarring thud on the highest peak of the island—the "forehead" of Pizarro's screaming stone face.
"GYOJIN JUJUTSU: KAIRYU IPPONZEOI (Sea Current Overarm Throw)!"
Jinbe didn't throw a person; he gripped the very column of water he had brought up from the depths. He swung it like a liquid whip, a massive current of seawater that slammed into the mountain peak. The weight of a million tons of ocean crushed the stone features, washing away the "Corrupt King's" eyes and mouth in a flood of salt and foam.
But the final blow was yet to come. Jinbe pulled back his fist, his aura glowing with a deep, bioluminescent oceanic blue. This was the culmination of decades of mastery, the pride of the Fish-men concentrated into a single point of impact. He targeted the "center" of the island's vibration—the exact nervous center where Pizarro's true, physical body was hidden deep within the stone mantle.
"GYOJIN KARATE ULTIMATE: ONI-GAWARA SEIKEN (Demon Tile True Fist)!"
The punch landed. The world seemed to go silent for a heartbeat. Then, the shockwave erupted. It bypassed the stone, the dirt, and the stolen pirate treasure. It traveled through the water molecules in Pizarro's own lungs and blood.
A massive, cross-shaped shockwave of blue energy erupted from the back of the mountain, shattering the peak. Avalo Pizarro was forcibly ejected from the rock like a bullet from a gun. His physical body tumbled out of a shattered cliffside, trailing blood and rubble, his metaphysical connection to the island severed in a single, violent stroke.
The mountain face crumbled into mundane dust. The seismic tremors that had plagued the rescue mission stopped instantly. The "Corrupt King" lay defeated on the shore, his gills—a remnant of his own long-forgotten heritage—gasping for air that the sea had rightfully reclaimed.
Jinbe stood atop the ruins, his chest heaving, his blue skin glistening like polished sapphire in the moonlight. He looked out at the Thousand Sunny, standing tall amidst the falling debris, and gave a single, solemn nod to his crew.
"The sea," Jinbe whispered, the sound carried by the spray of the surf, "always takes back what belongs to it. And Hachinosu has belonged to the depths for a very long time."
The first pillar of Blackbeard's empire had fallen. The "King" was now just a man on the sand, and the "Island" was finally silent.
To be continued...