East Blue, the Bridge Kingdom.
They stood over the open throat of the sea, an uninhabited stretch of gray water at the very edge of the world's longest construction project. Through the swirling salt fog, the silhouette of the bridge, a monumental labor that had ground on for eight centuries, loomed like the skeleton of a forgotten god.
Pop!
A sphere of white light detonated in the upper atmosphere. It sounded like a massive pane of glass shattering, raining down millions of shimmering motes that vanished before they touched the waves.
Rowen hung suspended in the void, arcs of borrowed lightning crackling beneath his boots. He looked around, a genuine trace of wonder in his eyes.
"To cross from Mary Geoise to the East Blue in the blink of an eye... the Space-Space Fruit, I assume?"
He had seen spatial tricks before. Blueno's Door-Door Fruit was a parlor trick by comparison. But if Devil Fruits were truly the seeds Imu had planted to conquer the world, it stood to reason the gardener would keep the most potent ones for himself.
"It is," Imu said, standing as firmly on the empty air as if it were a marble floor. "But it has its price. I can only step where I have already walked. I must set the coordinates in advance."
Imu looked out over the horizon, his voice thin and ancient. "Much like the Time-Time Fruit I once gifted to my shrine maiden. It appears godlike, defying the natural order, but its limitations are stifling. In this world, Rowen, even I cannot act entirely as I please."
"A Time-Fruit that only moves forward, incapable of stopping or looking back," Rowen mused, nodding. "A one-way ticket to a future you might not want. Not much use at all."
Imu glanced at him, a cold, thin smile touching his lips. "The Elders must be frantic right now. Their supreme ruler whisked away by a subordinate... and no Mountain Ancestor here to keep me in check."
Rowen's grin was like a razor. "Shouldn't you be the one who's anxious, My Lord? There are no other Devil Fruit users out here for you to harvest. You're on your own."
BOOM.
The air didn't just vibrate; it shattered. Two titanic auras erupted at once, purple-black lightning lashing out from both men and colliding in the center with the force of a collapsing star.
The pressure was a physical weight, turning the sea below into a boiling cauldron. The nearby end of the Bridge Kingdom, the fruit of eight hundred years of slave labor, began to groan and buckle. Under the sheer weight of two Conquerors who could bend reality, the stone gave way, crashing into the abyss in massive, silent chunks.
"Hm?"
Imu suddenly turned his head toward the bridge, his brow arching in surprise. "You evacuated them."
Despite the devastation, the bridge was a ghost town. By all rights, the construction site should have been teeming with thousands of workers and guards. Now, it was empty.
"There are traces of light in the air," Imu noted, turning back to Rowen. "Kizaru was here. For a man who fancies himself a cruel, godlike entity, you seem remarkably concerned with the lives of the insects below."
"A god?" Rowen laughed softly, shaking his head. "Only if you have a very limited imagination. In my eyes, you and I are just two mortals who happened to find very large sticks to swing."
"A philosopher's view. One way to look at it, I suppose."
Imu took a deep breath and turned his hand over. From a flicker of white light, a massive stone egg appeared, held effortlessly in his palm. It was a dull blue-gray, unremarkable save for a red cord tied around its crown and a square indentation carved with symbols that seemed to pulse with an ancient, terrifying rhythm. It looked like a relic stolen from a forbidden altar.
"Let's go," Imu said. "As we agreed: fifty-fifty."
Rowen looked at the egg, then at the crumbling bridge, and let out a sigh of mock regret. "Those poor Celestial Dragons. They really believed the bridge actually had to be finished."
The Road of Atonement. The ultimate lie.
"Not entirely a lie," Imu said. He began to walk forward, the air beneath his feet solidifying into invisible steps. "When their true god and shrine maiden were still alive, the rule was real. Only those who completed the pilgrimage could enter the Heavenly Palace and behold the radiance."
He paused, his voice turning cold. "But she is dead. And visiting a god follows very different rules than breaking into her tomb."
Rowen felt the pieces click into place. "Seven parts truth, three parts lie. You only changed the final step."
"Indeed. Now, tell me... I am curious. What backup plan have you devised that makes you so certain you can handle her?"
"Can't you see for yourself, Lord Imu? With those eyes of yours?"
"No," Imu replied casually. "It's too far. The Red Line and the Grand Line divide the world into four distinct cages. I can only monitor the region I currently inhabit."
Rowen stared at him, genuinely stunned. "A barrier? So the world's geography... it has a function beyond being a nuisance."
This broken, stitched-together planet was even more of a machine than he had imagined.
Monitoring an entire ocean from a chair was terrifying enough, but Rowen wasn't finished.
"I've spent a lot of time watching her," Rowen said, his voice steady as they drifted higher. "According to my data, Poseidon has never once approached the waters surrounding Laugh Tale. We simulated her movement patterns over several decades; the conclusion is that she isn't just ignoring it, she's avoiding it."
He looked at Imu, whose expression remained unreadable. "Combined with the legends, it's clear: if she gets too close to the stone monument that originally sealed her, her soul will be vacuumed back into that prison. Of course, that only works if the 'vessel' is empty. That's why awakening Shirahoshi isn't just a mission, it's the kill shot."
Imu slowed his pace, clapping his hands in soft, mocking praise. "To deduce all of that without ever seeing the blueprints... Impressive, Rowen. Truly."
"It's nothing," Rowen replied with a modest, razor-thin smile. "Just a basic application of big data. Logic fills the gaps where history fails."
"And what about me?" Imu's voice suddenly dropped an octave, turning glacial. "What has your 'big data' told you about your God?"
By now, they had ascended to ten thousand meters. They had passed the realm of clouds and birds; the air was thin, cold, and dead. Above them, the stars began to bleed through the darkening violet of space. Below, the world was a curved, silken sheet of blue.
Directly ahead, floating in the void like a hallucination, was a silent island of stone. Upon it sat a red-and-white temple, its shattered gates and ruined courtyard speaking of an ancient, violent history.
They were a hundred meters from the entrance, a distance that felt like the border between life and death.
Rowen raised his head, meeting Im's gaze. "I've determined that you can't take it back."
Imu's eyes twitched.
"The Goro Goro no Mi," Rowen continued. "If Devil Fruits are truly pieces of your own flesh, then this particular piece has been thoroughly digested. You monitor the world through these fruits, the 'seeds' you planted. But the Calm Belt, Poseidons, the Seastone... they all contain Pyrobroin keratin. That substance severs your connection to the fruits."
Rowen tapped his chest. "There is something inside me, something that mimics that effect. I am the only one who has eaten your power and remained beyond your leash. You aren't just curious about me, Lord Imu. You're afraid. You're afraid a second or third 'Soryu (Azure Dragon)' will appear and drag you down from your throne."
Silence fell, heavy and suffocating. The violent aura between them surged until the air hummed.
Im stared at him for a long beat, then slowly nodded. "You're half right. Again." He paused, his gaze darkening. "But it isn't your body I fear, Rowen... it's you."
As the final word left his lips, the man-sized stone egg in his hand became a blur. It tore through the thin atmosphere, breaking the sound barrier with a scream that ignited the air into orange-red heat waves. It wasn't as large as a meteor, but the kinetic energy behind it was concentrated into a spear-tip of pure destruction.
Rowen's pupils contracted. In a flash of blue light, his lightning-dragon crescent halberd manifested in his grip.
Zzz-t!
Thunder roared in the vacuum. Rowen swung with everything he had.
BOOM!
The halberd caught the egg mid-air. There was no satisfying shatter; the lightning blade left only a scorched white scar on the stone's surface before the sheer momentum hurled it backward. It slammed into the floating island's gates, the impact so violent the entire landmass tilted thirty degrees into the abyss.
Before Rowen could reset his stance, a silent, invisible pulse of force pierced his skull. His vision blurred, his equilibrium vanishing as a monstrous, ancient consciousness tried to overwrite his own.
Eye of the Heavens!
Rowen snarled, forcing his fruit into overdrive. High above in the blackness of space, a gargantuan azure eye opened, staring down with cold, mathematical precision. The mental invasion didn't stop, but Rowen shoved it into a corner of his mind and lunged forward through the vertigo.
Military Wrist: Deep Gate!
CRACK!
The shockwave of the punch rippled outward in a visible ring, so powerful that the ocean two miles below actually dipped into a concave bowl.
Im's head snapped back. A spray of blood and a shattered tooth spiraled into the void. The God-King recoiled, his face twisted in utter, jarring disbelief.
"How..." Imu rasped, wiping the crimson from his lip. "You should be paralyzed. Even if you were prepared... how are you still moving?!"
(End of Chapter)
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