The Red Force carved through the violent sea like a scalpel through flesh, her sails taut against the wind, her prow rising and falling with each monstrous wave. The water around her had gone mad—swells twenty feet high crashed against her hull, spray exploding over the deck in sheets that stung the eyes and soaked the wood. The sky above was split in two, gold and shadow bleeding through a wound in reality itself.
And through it all, streaks of Haki shot across the battlefield like the wrath of angry gods.
Shanks stood at the prow, one hand resting on Gryphon's hilt, his red hair whipping in the wind. His cloak billowed behind him, a dark banner against the chaos. His face was calm—the calm of a man who had seen too much to be surprised by anything—but his eyes... his eyes burned.
Ben Beckman stood at the helm, his cigarette long forgotten, his sharp eyes scanning the chaos with the focus of a man who had survived the New World by never missing details. His voice cut through the roar of the sea, calm and absolute.
"Hard to port! Watch that wave—she's going to break right across our bow! Yasopp, keep your eyes on the Marine ships—if they so much as twitch a cannon our way, I want to know about it!"
The crew moved with the fluid grace of long practice, adjusting lines, trimming sails, riding the chaos like surfers on a breaking wave. They had faced worse. They had faced Kaido, Big Mom, the Blackbeard Pirates. This was just another day in the New World.
But Shanks wasn't watching the waves. He wasn't watching the Marine ships or Shamrock's vessel or the submarine.
He was watching the two figures at the center of the storm.
His Kenbunshoku Haki reached out, touching everything at once—the future possibilities, the branching paths, the moments that hadn't happened yet. He saw Marya dodge left, saw Shamrock counter, saw the blow land, saw her recover. He saw a dozen outcomes, a hundred possibilities, a thousand ways this could end.
None of them were good.
His jaw flexed. The muscles in his neck stood out with the effort of staying still, of staying here, of not launching himself into the fray before the moment was right. They were too far. Just out of reach. Close enough to see every blow, every drop of blood, every moment of pain—but not close enough to do anything about it.
The Red Force rocked sideways as a massive wave caught her broadside. The ship groaned, timbers protesting, but she righted herself with the grace of a creature born to these waters.
"Stay the course!" Shanks called out, his voice carrying over the chaos. "We are—"
He stopped.
His eyes tracked something—a blur, moving faster than anything had a right to move, cutting through the air like a meteor. It was coming straight for them. Straight for the Red Force.
"BRACE YOURSELVES!"
---
Marya was a streak of blood and fury across the sky.
She had taken the full force of Shamrock's last blow—a strike that would have killed anyone else—and it had opened a gash across her cheek that poured crimson down her face. But she was still moving. Still fighting. Still alive.
She arced through the air at speeds that should have been impossible, her body twisting, repositioning, always moving, always flowing. Behind her, Shamrock's laughter echoed, but she didn't look back. She was looking forward.
At a mast.
At a familiar pirate flag, flapping in the wind—a skull with a red eye patch, crossed sabers behind it.
Marya's lips curved into a smirk, blood staining her teeth.
Perfect.
She adjusted her trajectory, folding her body, aiming for the tallest mast on the Red Force. The one near the crow's nest. The one that would give her the launch point she needed.
She hit it feet-first.
The impact was catastrophic.
The Red Force, already rocking in the violent sea, lurched as Marya's momentum transferred to the mast. The wood screamed, bending, flexing, holding by some miracle of shipbuilding and willpower. The ship tilted—thirty degrees, forty, fifty—water rushing across the deck, men sliding, ropes snapping—
For one terrifying moment, the Red Force was going to capsize.
Then Marya twisted, turned, and launched herself back into the sky, using the mast as a springboard, catapulting herself toward Shamrock with renewed fury.
The ship righted itself with a crash that sent spray exploding across the deck. Men gasped, grabbed for handholds, breathed again.
Shanks caught himself against the railing, his eyes wide. Beckman was already shouting orders, steadying the crew, but Shanks wasn't listening.
He was watching his niece disappear back into the chaos.
Beckman appeared at his side, his voice low and urgent. "That's her. That's Mihawk's girl."
Shanks nodded, his jaw tight.
Beckman didn't hesitate. "GO. We're right behind you."
Shanks looked at him—at this man who had been by his side for decades, who knew him better than anyone, who understood without words what needed to be done. He nodded once.
Then he launched himself into the sky.
Gryphon sang as it left its sheath, the blade catching the fractured light of the split sky. Behind him, Gab and Yasopp rushed to the railing, Yasopp already raising his rifle, his keen eyes tracking targets across the battlefield.
"Cover him!" Beckman called out. "Make sure nothing gets through!"
Yasopp's grin was sharp, confident. "They won't even see him coming."
He took aim.
Shanks flew toward the heart of the storm, toward his brother and his niece, toward a reckoning decades in the making.
The battle waited for no one.
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