The Straw Hat crew set sail once more.
Marcus stood by the shore, watching ship after ship leave Mock Town's harbor. The place was a constant flow of vessels, pirates arrived, restocked, caused trouble, and left. It was like watching a revolving door.
"What are you looking at?" Robin asked, appearing beside him.
He didn't answer immediately.
"Do you believe in fate?"
"Fate?" Robin considered the question, her mind drifting through years of survival, loss, and running. If fate existed, hers had been cruel. "If it does exist, I'd rather it didn't."
Marcus stayed quiet, his gaze locked on a specific point in the distance, where he saw exactly what he was looking for.
"What if I told you that right now, I have the power to change fate itself? Should I use it?"
Robin didn't understand at first. Then she followed his line of sight to the distant pirate ship with three skulls painted on its sail.
"Is this fate good or bad?" she asked.
"I don't know. Could go either way."
He'd watched enough of One Piece to know the chain of events. Blackbeard would eventually capture Ace. That would trigger the Summit War of Marineford. Thousands would die. Whitebeard would fall. And Ace would die in Luffy's arms.
But without Blackbeard, would Luffy ever break out of Impel Down? Would he have gained all those powerful allies? Would he have grown as much as he did?
The butterfly effect was a bitch.
Robin stayed silent. There was no easy answer to questions like this. Then she asked something simpler, "Is the unchanged fate one you actually like?"
Marcus thought about that. He'd been in this world for over half a year now. His time with the Straw Hats had been good. Really good. It reminded him of college, surrounded by friends who were absolute idiots but made every day fun.
Watching Whitebeard fall would suck.
Watching Ace die would suck even more.
"You really are a wise person, Robin. Yeah... that kind of future doesn't need to happen."
Robin froze when Marcus suddenly drew the Shichiseiken, ate an apple, and pulled out a potion. She didn't recognize what it was, but the moment he drank it, blood began streaming from his nose, ears, and eyes.
The sight made her stumble backward.
Everyone on the ship felt it, Marcus' aura exploded outward.
Before anyone could react, he raised his sword, pointing it at Blackbeard's ship several kilometers away.
He wasn't delusional enough to think he could kill Blackbeard from this distance with a flying slash. But the ocean was dangerous, especially for Devil Fruit users. All he needed to do was create chaos, and force Blackbeard's ship into a bad position.
If the guy drowned before he could trigger the war, well, that would solve a lot of problems.
This slash... is gonna be the strongest thing I've ever thrown.
He looked at the Shichiseiken as dark, ghostly energy began crawling up his arm. His body visibly thinned as his Life Return technique activated, converting his physical mass directly into raw power.
The enchanted golden apple he'd eaten earlier flooded his system with regeneration. Chopper's improved energy potion pumped pure stamina into his veins. An endless surge of power and Haki poured out of his body, all of it channeling into the cursed sword.
"Ender Dragon Slash!"
His eyes blazed as he locked onto the distant vessel.
---
On the ship, Blackbeard suddenly felt something he hadn't experienced in years, dread.
His instincts screamed danger. He turned toward the modified Going Merry in the distance, and his missing teeth somehow aligned perfectly in his mouth. He walked to the ship's edge.
"What..."
His Observation Haki kicked in, showing him a vision of what was coming.
"That's one hell of a strike... but still not enough."
Armament Haki spread across his hands and arms, hardening them.
"Captain?" Doc Q was the first to notice the change. The sickly man was always sensitive to shifts in aura, and right now his curiosity about Blackbeard's abnormal body was stronger than ever.
"Get ready to hit the deck. You might go overboard otherwise."
"What's happen—"
The sky exploded.
Black lightning tore through the air like ink splashing across canvas. A dragon made of dark flames and sword energy shot forward like a missile, leaving a visible scar across the sky itself.
The sheer presence of the attack hit them first, that crushing weight of Conqueror's Haki mixed with pure killing intent. Everyone on Blackbeard's crew felt it slam into them like a physical force.
The black flame dragon closed the distance in seconds, faster than anyone except Blackbeard could track.
The scene from his Observation Haki was becoming reality.
Despite his outward confidence, he was anything but calm. He was a Dark-Dark Fruit user, master of darkness itself. Against other Devil Fruit users, that gave him a huge advantage, he could nullify their powers entirely.
But against pure fighters or swordsmen? The tables flipped. His fruit's weakness doubled all physical damage he took. The pain was exponentially worse. Anyone else who'd eaten this cursed fruit would have died from the backlash or simply gone insane from the agony.
His Armament Haki spread across his entire body, coating him. Maybe it would dull the pain from what was coming.
Then the dragon hit.
The sea erupted.
The dragon's claws never actually touched Blackbeard's hands, but waves of sword energy exploded outward from its body in all directions. The water behind him turned into a killing field, countless fish were sliced to ribbons by invisible blades that filled the air.
Even the massive Sea Kings swimming deep below the surface were caught in the blast, their tough skin splitting open as blood rose in streams.
It was like watching the ocean get put through a blender.
Blackbeard's ship took the worst of it, of course. But somehow, whether through his control or sheer luck, it didn't break apart despite looking like it was made of driftwood.
Even with full-body Armament Haki, ghostly black flames began creeping up Blackbeard's form. Wherever they touched, there were no burns, only countless fine sword cuts carving into his flesh.
The cuts weren't deep, but they didn't need to be. They just kept coming, slicing at his nerves without pause.
A normal person might have gritted their teeth and endured it. The Haki hardening dulled the sensation somewhat, making it feel like walking naked through a thornbush.
But for him, it was like being flayed alive while conscious.
Agonizing, but not fatal.
Miasma burst from his body, trying desperately to devour the ghostly flames with his Devil Fruit power.
But it was pointless. Not because the flames couldn't be absorbed, they could, but because the black dragon in front of him kept unleashing wave after wave of the damn things faster than he could neutralize them.
The dragon roared, and more energy exploded outward.
He gritted his teeth, his whole body screaming in pain as he pushed more Haki into his defense. The flames were eating away at his stamina, but he refused to show weakness.
Behind him, his crew was in chaos. Burgess had been thrown against the mast. Doc Q's horse was bucking wildly. Augur had grabbed onto the railing to avoid being swept overboard by the sheer force of the attack's pressure wave.
Blackbeard's body covered in countless tiny cuts.
"Zehahaha..." The laugh was quiet at first, then grew louder. "ZEHAHAHA!"
His eyes burned with rage. Someone had just attacked him, completely out of nowhere, without warning or provocation.
By the time he'd realized what was happening, his attacker had already finished charging up that monstrous attack. There'd been no time to counter.
The unprovoked nature of it ignited an uncontrollable rage in him.
But he forced himself to breathe, and think. Anger clouded judgment, and clouded judgment dulled his Observation Haki. In a fight like this, that could be fatal.
If whoever attacked him could unleash one attack like that, they could probably do it again. And next time, it might not be a test or a warning shot.
The black dragon was ultimately a flying slash attack.
The clash between his defense and the dragon had literally torn a scar across the sky itself. But flying slashes always had the same weakness: they lacked sustained power once they left the wielder.
He shattered what remained of the attack with a single punch.
But even with control over his strength, his ship, basically a glorified raft, had barely survived the encounter. It swayed dangerously, threatening to capsize before finally stabilizing.
His Observation Haki swept the area, searching for any sign of a follow-up attack.
Nothing.
The ship in the distance was already sailing away.
Chase them? Of course he wanted to hunt them down. But one look at his ship told him that wasn't happening. The sail was covered in countless sword marks, and black flames were still burning in places, slowly eating away at the fabric. His crew was scattered across the deck, all of them looking shaken.
Doc Q and his horse were cowering behind the main mast, both of them looking like they'd seen death itself.
Burgess had been blown completely overboard by the shockwave, and Blackbeard could hear him splashing around in the water, cursing loudly.
The helmsman was the weakest of his crew, recruited more for his potential and ambition than his current strength. Facing a slash of that caliber, combined with the crushing pressure of Conqueror's Haki, he'd been completely overwhelmed.
Augur silently pulled his hat brim lower, then raised his rifle and peered through the scope toward the distant ship.
As the crew's sniper, long-range combat was his specialty. This should have been his moment to shine. But then he saw something that made his blood run cold.
A projectile was coming toward them. But that thing was exploding mid-flight, changing trajectory with each detonation.
The damn thing was going to hit them despite its weird, curving path. Maybe because of it.
He took aim and fired, hoping to detonate it early before it got too close.
Bang!
The bullet hit its mark, and then, BOOM!
A massive mushroom cloud erupted in the sky. Fierce flames roared outward, carried by hurricane-force winds that turned the ocean surface into chaos.
His hat was ripped off his head. Smoke and dust from the explosion rolled across the water like a solid wall, cutting off all visibility between the two ships.
When everything finally settled and the smoke cleared, the enemy ship was gone. Only the vast, churning ocean remained, looking like it could swallow the world.
Blackbeard stood at the railing, veins bulging on his forehead.
What was going on?
Who was that man? Why attack them? And what kind of strange power caused that explosion?
Questions piled up in his mind.
He wanted badly to vent his rage, and tear something apart with his bare hands. But his ship couldn't take any more punishment. One more hit like that and they'd all be swimming.
"Don't let me find you," he growled, glaring at the distant sky where the ship had disappeared.
Behind him, Burgess finally managed to climb back aboard, soaking wet and sputtering seawater. "What just happened?"
---
Back on the Straw Hat ship, everyone was still processing what they'd just witnessed.
The moment Marcus had unleashed that slash, the entire crew had been stunned. Nobody understood why he'd suddenly gone berserk like that.
When his whole body became shrouded in ghostly energy, several people's first thought was that he'd been possessed or mind-controlled. Nami had actually started to move toward him, probably to knock him out before he hurt someone.
But then they saw the target of his attack, a pirate ship in the distance with three skulls on its sail. Not the Straw Hats. Everyone exhaled in relief.
Then came the shock, overwhelming shock at the power he had just displayed.
That single slash had literally split the sky. The air itself had torn open under the force of the attack, leaving a visible scar that took several seconds to close.
Zoro's expression was complicated. As a swordsman himself, he could clearly feel just how terrifying that attack had been. The technique, the power, the sheer will behind it, everything had been on a completely different level from what he'd taught Marcus.
He had finally mastered flying slashes and reached the level of a true swordsman. But Marcus had already stepped into the realm of a great swordsman, and many of the techniques he'd used were variations of things Zoro himself had taught him.
"He's cheating," he muttered under his breath.
Marcus, meanwhile, was calmly eating steak and drinking milk, trying to clear the bleeding debuff from his system. He felt drained and hollow inside, but not dangerously so.
Looking at the slash still hanging in the distance, though, he realized something important: even without the Tremor-Tremor Fruit, Blackbeard's base strength was quite strong.
His own attack hadn't used Advanced Armament Haki or Conqueror's infusion, it was pure power, brute force shaped into a blade. Impressive on the surface, sure, but ultimately hollow within.
He could pop another golden apple and do it again, but if Blackbeard had blocked it once, he could block it twice. And if it turned into a prolonged fight, they'd be at a serious disadvantage.
He needed to end this quickly and cleanly.
"Usopp!" he called out. "Deploy the B1!"
The sniper froze for a moment, then quickly obeyed. He grabbed the specially prepared explosive from Marcus' storage and loaded it into his slingshot, aiming for the distant ship.
Nobody asked questions. They'd learned to trust Marcus' judgment in situations like this.
"They're getting away!" someone shouted as the mushroom cloud finally dissipated.
Everyone turned to Marcus. They wanted answers.
He had already recovered his composure and prepared what he was going to say. He looked directly at Luffy.
"Ace told you about his goal at sea, didn't he?"
Luffy scratched his head, trying to remember. "Uh... yeah, something like that. He mentioned some guy... Black...?"
"Blackbeard," Marcus said.
"Right! That's the one!"
Marcus nodded. "That pirate ship we just saw? That was his crew."
Robin's eyes widened slightly as pieces started connecting in her mind. She knew about Ace, everyone did. The infamous Fire Fist, Second Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates. But she hadn't known he was hunting someone specific. And if he was hunting this Blackbeard person, that meant the man was dangerous.
She'd been close enough to feel the sheer power of Marcus' attack. Even though the killing intent and Haki hadn't been directed at her, she'd still felt the suffocating presence of death looming over everything. And that attack hadn't defeated Blackbeard. From Marcus' reaction, it was clear that if they hadn't detonated the explosive when they did, something far worse might have happened.
"Ace is hunting someone that strong?" Sanji exhaled a trail of smoke.