"Ragnarok…!"
Whitebeard's roar wasn't just sound—it was a verdict. The verdict of the sea god who ruled the battlefield. It hit me in the chest like a war drum, echoing through my ribs as the air thickened under the weight of his will.
Then the world broke.
The island shuddered, and reality buckled in two. The ground beneath his feet splintered like an old ship's hull under a monstrous wave. Buildings, rocks, and even the sea itself twisted unnaturally, folding and tearing under an invisible hand. The quake didn't just shake—it reshaped.
But only half the world moved.
My half stood still. Untouched. My domain crawled with black lightning, each jagged streak wrapping around me like the coils of some great beast. Every ripple of his quake that reached my side died in silence, eaten alive by my will.
Two worlds. Two storms. One silver, roaring and wild; the other black, silent, and inexorable.
"Yamimatoi… Jigen Giri!"
I drew my breath in, and then I cut. Akatsuki's crimson edge vanished into a darkness so deep it made the world look dim. The slash ripped outward, not along the ground but through space itself, slicing apart even the warped, trembling air his quake had created. I didn't just cut matter—I severed the idea of it.
The two forces met.
BOOM.
No—that word was too small. This was no boom. This was a detonation that tore the skin off the world. The desert island was erased in the time it took for my next heartbeat. The sea rushed in like a starving animal, and the land groaned as it was dragged under.
Whitebeard rose above the chaos, striding through the air itself, each step detonating with the invisible shatter of his shockwaves. I matched him, my body snapping from point to point on Geppo, my every movement leaving trails of black lightning. In speed—I was beyond him. But in weight, in force… his presence was an avalanche in human form.
I moved first. The black slash slammed into him, ripping apart his guard. Before Murakumogiri could rise for a counter, I was already in his shadow. Akatsuki descended—heavy as the sky.
CLANG!
The impact wasn't the meeting of steel—it was the collision of worlds. My arms shook, but I didn't yield. His knees bent. I saw it. For all his monstrous frame, for all the legend that clung to his name like armor, I was forcing him down.
Black and silver lightning snarled between us, clawing at the air, each bolt carving open the horizon for an instant before vanishing in the next. Then my blade found his flesh.
Akatsuki bit into his shoulder with a hiss like meat thrown on a hot forge. Crimson-black flames leapt from the wound, feeding greedily—not on blood, but on Haki. His aura flickered under the curse's hunger.
His eyes narrowed. "Brat… what kind of cursed blade is this?"
He shoved with the weight of continents, forcing my blade back. His right hand bloomed in silver—the tremor halo forming like the ring of a dying star.
"Armageddon…!"
The punch came, and the sea ran. The horizon split. The sky bowed. The ocean rose in walls miles high, each droplet screaming through the air as the very water fled from the path of his blow.
I didn't step back. I couldn't—not here. Not against him. I poured everything into Shusui—Haki condensed until the blade weighed as much as the guilt of a thousand sins. The steel trembled, hungry to release its power. The air shrieked in protest as the tip carved its path upward to meet him.
"Meteor Slash…!"
Akatsuki still kept his naginata locked; Shusui was my shield, my answer, my challenge.
Steel met quake. The collision tore the breath from my lungs, not from pain but from scale. The force didn't push me—it pressed against me like the hand of a god testing my worth. The sea flattened for miles, the air turning into molten glass around us. Ships far beyond the horizon rolled like toys in a storm, their crews screaming prayers into the deafening air.
I looked into his eyes. And saw it—just for a moment. Disbelief. The kind that only comes when something you've known to be absolute… is not. The battle didn't pause. It escalated.
He roared, spinning Murakumogiri in a wide arc, the naginata dragging crescents of silver quake-light through the air, each one splitting the ocean below like the jaws of a leviathan. I slipped between them, black lightning bursting from my heels, Geppo turning my path into a blur of death angles.
One swing. Two. Three—my black slashes bit into his silver crescents mid-flight, each collision erupting into explosions of warped space. The sea below boiled where our power met, entire schools of fish floating dead on the surface before being swallowed by the collapsing waves.
The sky wasn't blue anymore. It was split in halves—one side a churning silver storm, the other a yawning black void. Where they met, reality frayed like rope. I closed in again. Akatsuki in my left, Shusui in my right, the blades humming with the resonance of each other's killing intent.
He swung down. I swung up. The impact sent us both back—me sliding through the air in a hail of black sparks, him crashing into a platform of cracked air with the grace of a war god. I could taste blood in my mouth. My arms ached. My heartbeat was thunder in my skull. And still—I smiled.
Because in that moment, I realized something. We weren't fighting on an island anymore. We were the island. Every clash of our weapons was a tectonic shift. Every step we took was a tidal wave.
Whitebeard straightened, blood running down his shoulder where Akatsuki had tasted him. And then, the sea answered his rage. The horizon buckled. The ocean rolled upward like an unending wall, a ring of water surrounding us as far as the eye could see. But it wasn't water alone—it was quakes. Each wave shimmered with that silver halo, vibrating so violently that the air around it screamed like tortured metal.
"You've got fangs, brat," he rumbled, voice deep enough to rattle my bones. "Let's see if they can bite through the end of the world."
He slammed Murakumogiri into the air. The quake didn't just spread—it enclosed. A silver dome rose above us, stretching high into the sky and deep beneath the sea, a prison of ruptured reality. Inside it, sound twisted, light warped, and every heartbeat felt like it was dragging me toward collapse. The very molecules in the air wanted to break apart.
And then it shrunk.
The dome began to close in, every inch bringing with it the crushing weight of an entire world trying to collapse in on me. It was like standing in the throat of the world serpent as its jaws closed. But fear wasn't an option. Not here. Not for me.
I planted both feet on the empty air, every muscle screaming, and poured Haki into the darkness. Black lightning bled from my skin, coating me until my outline became a jagged silhouette. Akatsuki roared in my left hand, Shusui in my right—both blades harmonizing with the pulse of my heartbeat.
"Kuro Kaminari… Jigoku no Shōheki!" (Black Lightning: Wall of Hell)
The air before me split open like paper. Not a slash—an absence. A jagged, yawning tear in the world itself, from which an abyssal storm howled outward. Black lightning burst from the fissure, meeting the quake dome head-on.
When they touched— The world screamed.
Silver and black erupted, each trying to consume the other. Lightning bolts as wide as ships crashed into shockwaves that could sink continents. The ocean below didn't just churn—it inverted, flipping in vast cyclones that left patches of seabed exposed to the open air before slamming shut again.
I moved through the chaos, using my own dimensional tear as cover. With each Geppo step, I flickered in and out of existence, my body momentarily swallowed by the black rift before reappearing closer to him.
Whitebeard saw me coming.
He pulled Murakumogiri back, coating the blade in so much quake energy that the naginata's steel seemed to melt under its own power. His muscles flexed, each one a cable pulled taut enough to snap.
Our eyes locked. The next instant— BOOOOM!
We collided in the center of the dome. My dual blades met his quake-wreathed naginata, and the force of the impact shattered his prison from within. The silver dome fractured like glass, exploding outward into a storm of raw force that blasted the sea flat for miles.
The shockwave rolled out to the horizon, hitting distant islands like a hurricane of invisible fists. I sensed through my observation haki one galleon, which had wandered too close, rise completely out of the water before snapping in two.
I pressed in harder, my black lightning chewing into the steel of Murakumogiri. The cursed hunger in Akatsuki was almost ecstatic, its crimson-black aura drinking greedily from Whitebeard's Haki. Shusui, on the other hand, didn't hunger—it judged. Every ounce of power I poured into it made it heavier, more final, as though each stroke carried the weight of inevitability.
Whitebeard's teeth grit, a low growl rising in his throat. Then his left hand shot forward, silver halo coalescing—another quake punch, point-blank. Too close to dodge. I met it head-on.
Both blades crossed, my arms locking as the fist hit the X of black steel. The impact carved a hole in the sea behind me, water rushing away in every direction before crashing back in a tsunami.
My vision blurred for a split second from the impact, but my senses didn't dull. My bones felt like molten lead. But I held. And then I pushed back.
One step. Two. The impossible weight of his fist began to give. My black lightning surged, climbing up his arm, devouring the quake halo until the silver light dimmed. With a roar, I twisted Akatsuki free and slashed diagonally across his chest. Black fire bloomed, spreading like a plague.
He didn't flinch. He laughed.
"Gurarara… You can make me bleed, brat…!" he said, voice rumbling like an oncoming quake. "Then I don't have to hold back anymore." The sea itself seemed to bow when he said it.
I grinned back, blood in my teeth. "Neither do I." And then we moved— Two storms, colliding again, ready to see whose world would break first.
****
Mokomo Dukedom, Zou
"So… You're telling me the Kozuki bloodline still lives? You knew all this while, and you still chose to keep it from me…?"
Hitsugisukan, the Sheep Mink, current Duke of the Mokomo Dukedom, stared hard at the two young warriors kneeling before him. His voice was low, almost calm — but there was a dangerous current beneath it, like a storm waiting to break.
"And according to Toki-sama… they will return to us in the future?"
Neither Inuarashi nor Nekomamushi dared to lift their gaze. Their ears twitched, tails still. They had repeated the story of Oden's death more times than they could count, but the Duke had never been fully convinced. He had always sensed… holes. Discrepancies. A missing heartbeat in the rhythm of truth.
And now, inside the towering Whale Tree, in the shadow of the Red Poneglyph, that heartbeat had been found. The Duke's voice sharpened, his tone turning from curiosity to accusation.
"So you two were planning to keep this secret… until when?" His eyes narrowed, the fur around his cheeks bristling. "You little bastards. You let yourselves be ostracized by the tribe — spat on, whispered about, called cowards — and you never once thought to share this truth? The one thing that could have cleared your names?"
His voice rose, a growl rumbling in his chest. The memory of those years was fresh in his mind — how the tribe had looked at the two once-proud warriors with nothing but disdain, how the shame of failing to protect the Kozuki had clung to them like a wound that would not heal.
But even as the words left his mouth, a strange warmth glimmered in his eyes. Because now, he understood.
"You endured it," he said, voice softening. "All of it. The scorn, the exile, the weight of your people's disappointment. And you endured it for more than two years… because of your word. Because of a promise."
He exhaled heavily, almost a sigh, but there was something like pride in it.
"If I hadn't doubted your stories… If I hadn't brought you here, before our ancestors, to swear the truth before the Red Poneglyph itself… you two would have carried this secret to your graves."
The silence between them was thick. Finally, Hitsugisukan stepped forward, his long shadow draping over them. His gaze was heavy, but no longer in judgment.
"Forget the anger," he said quietly. "I have to say… you've made me proud today. More than I have been in a long time. You endured the weight of shame to protect the hope of Wano. That takes more than strength — it takes unshakable loyalty."
The two minks finally spoke, their voices overlapping in rare unison.
"…We are sorry."
The words were simple, but the emotion beneath them was deep — a mingling of sorrow, relief, and the exhaustion of years spent under a silent burden. Ever since Oden's death, the bond between the canine mink and the feline warrior had frayed; the fire of grief had driven them apart. But that same fire had forged their resolve to one day liberate Wano — and to keep Toki's secret until the appointed time.
They had swallowed every insult. They had let their honor be dragged through the mud. They had even set aside their own pride as warriors of Zou… because they had given their word.
"Sorry?" the Duke repeated, shaking his head. "What are you sorry for? We Minks share a sacred bond with the Kozuki clan — a bond written in blood and history. And today…" His voice deepened, a note of reverence coloring his tone. "…you've given us something I thought we'd lost forever. You've given us hope."
Above them, the Whale Tree's leaves shivered in the wind, as if the very island of Zou had heard and understood.
The sacred stillness of the Whale Tree chamber was like a living presence. The air was thick with the scent of ancient wood and salt from the sea below, and the dim light filtering through the canopy seemed to turn the Red Poneglyph into a monolith of bloodstone.
Inuarashi and Nekomamushi knelt side by side beneath it — not speaking, not moving — their heads bowed in respect. For two years, they had borne the weight of a secret that could have cleared their names in an instant, a truth that could have silenced the whispers of failure and shame. Yet they had chosen silence, because they had given their word to Toki.
Duke Hitsugisukan, the sheep mink whose crown of curling horns and long beard gave him the appearance of an ancient sage carved from the very wood of the Whale Tree, turned his back to them slowly. His voice was low, but each word carried the authority of the Mokomo Dukedom.
"You two will remain here; you two do not need to live as exiles. This place is sacred. Not all who call themselves minks may set foot before the Whale Tree's guardian stone. Let its presence witness your oath, as it has witnessed ours for centuries."
The only sound was the slow, steady creak of the ancient tree swaying gently with Zunesha's eternal march through the seas. Then, from the far end of the chamber, padded footsteps echoed — heavy, deliberate.
A tiger mink emerged from the shadows, a warrior clad in the black leather armor of the Duke's personal guard. His amber eyes glinted with restrained urgency. He bowed.
"Hitsugi-sama," he rumbled, "there is a matter requiring your presence. A gathering at the base of the Whale Tree — a dozen young minks. They ask for an audience with you, and they will not leave without it."
The Duke's ears flicked, but his expression remained calm. He glanced back once at Inuarashi and Nekomamushi, holding their gaze for a brief, wordless moment — a silent reminder that their part of this story was to wait.
"See that they remain here, make sure all their needs are met,"" he instructed the tiger mink, "and allow no one else into this chamber."
Then, turning on his cloven hooves, the Duke followed the guard out into the open air. The transition from the chamber's hushed reverence to the vibrant world outside was stark. Sunlight streamed down through the canopy, painting shifting patterns on the wide platforms built into the Whale Tree's trunk. The salt-laden wind from the endless sea far below was cool on his fur, though it carried an undercurrent of tension.
They descended the spiraling ramps to the base of the great tree, where the wooden platforms widened into a natural meeting ground.
There they stood — a dozen young minks, warriors and artisans alike, their tails flicking and ears forward. The Duke's eyes immediately found three among them whose faces he knew as well as his own.
Zepo, broad-shouldered, his fur bristling with restless energy. Pedro, lean and sharp-eyed, a navigator's tools and a saber hanging from his belt. Pekoms, the ever-defiant lion mink, his sunglasses reflecting the bright light.
The three of them stepped forward from the group, Zepo's boots clicking sharply on the wood, Pedro walking with quiet, coiled confidence, Pekoms wearing a grin that didn't quite reach his eyes.
"Duke Hitsugisukan," Pedro began, bowing just enough to honor the Duke's station, "we come representing the next generation of the Mokomo Dukedom to make a request of you."
The Duke said nothing, his gaze measuring them. Pedro continued, his voice gaining strength. "With the fate of the Kozuki clan uncertain, we cannot remain idle. They were the only family in the world who could read and write the Poneglyphs. Without them… the path to the Dawn may be lost forever."
Zepo stepped forward, fists clenched. "We've talked among ourselves. We want to form an expedition. An adventure group. We'll scour the seas for any trace of the Kozuki. Even if only a single heir remains, we will find them."
"And while we're out there," Pekoms added, tilting his sunglasses down just enough to reveal the seriousness in his eyes, "we'll learn. Study. The Poneglyphs are scattered across the world. If the Kozuki are truly gone, someone has to be ready to take up their duty when the time comes."
A breeze stirred through the branches, whispering like a distant tide. The Duke remained still, his eyes hooded. If only they knew.
He, more than anyone else alive, knew now that the Kozuki bloodline was not extinguished. Toki's prophecy was not mere legend. The heirs would return. He had heard it from Inuarashi and Nekomamushi themselves, sworn before the Red Poneglyph and the spirits of their ancestors.
But he could not tell these young ones. The oath bound him as surely as it bound the two guardians kneeling in the Whale Tree chamber. And beyond that — secrecy was protection. The fewer who knew, the safer the heirs would be when they returned.
Still… the fire in these young minks' eyes stirred something in him. It was the same fire he had seen in Inuarashi and Nekomamushi when they were young, before tragedy and betrayal had carved deeper lines into their faces.
"You understand," the Duke said at last, his voice a low rumble, "that what you ask is no small thing. To leave Zunesha is to leave safety. The seas beyond are cruel. The enemies you face will not care for your honor, nor for the sacred bonds we hold dear. Some of you may never return."
Pedro didn't blink. "We understand. And we accept that risk."
Zepo nodded firmly. "If we stay here, we'll be blind to what's truly happening out there in the seas. Our duty isn't just to Zou but to the world. If the Kozuki are truly gone, then someone has to stand in their place; their duty needs to be fulfilled."
Pekoms flashed a grin again, but there was steel under it. "And we're not asking for your permission to dream, Duke sama. We're asking for your blessing to make it real."
The Duke's gaze swept over the group, reading the lines of resolve and ambition in their faces. He saw no hesitation, no fear worth naming—only the determination and recklessness of youth, raw and untested but unbreakable. For a long moment, he stood in silence, the creak of Zunesha's ancient steps echoing through the air.
It would be safer to keep them here. To tell them nothing, let them train, let them wait. But what if the heirs returned into danger? What if the prophecy faltered? What if the world was not ready when the tide rose?
No… better to have eyes and hands in the world now. Better to have allies already moving toward the Dawn.
Finally, the Duke straightened, the sunlight catching in the silver threads of his beard.
"…Very well. You will have my blessing."
A ripple of relief passed through the group. Pedro's shoulders relaxed slightly; Zepo grinned like he'd just won a battle; Pekoms adjusted his sunglasses, hiding the flicker of satisfaction in his eyes.
"Your expedition will have two purposes," the Duke declared, his voice carrying across the gathering. "First: search the seas for any sign of the Kozuki bloodline. Follow rumor, chase whispers, and scour the forgotten places of the New World until you are certain there are none left—or until you find them."
He paused, letting the weight of the words settle.
"Second: learn. Map the locations of every Poneglyph you can find. Mark them, their rubbings, their histories. If the Kozuki never return, someone must be ready to read the stones when the time and tide align. We will be that someone."
Pedro bowed deeply. "We will not fail you, Duke-sama."
"I know you won't," the Duke replied. For the first time, a small smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "You leave not just as warriors of Zou—but as keepers of our bond with the Kozuki clan. Carry that bond well, for it will be tested. And above all, make sure to be safe out there; we minks are not seen favorably by the humans. You should understand your fate if you fall into their hands."
He looked past them, toward the horizon beyond Zunesha's back—endless blue, hiding a thousand dangers and just as many wonders. "Prepare yourselves. You depart with the next high tide."
As the young minks erupted into murmurs of excitement and determination, the Duke turned back toward the Whale Tree. Inside, Inuarashi and Nekomamushi still knelt before the Red Poneglyph, holding their oath like a shield. He trusted them with his life. Now, he would trust these young ones with the future.
Somewhere far above, Zunesha let out a deep, resonant bellow — as if the ancient elephant itself had given its blessing.