"Focus, Lily."
Vice Admiral Tsuru's tone was soft, but there was iron under it. Her hand settled gently on the girl's shoulder as the echo of rifle shots faded from the training hall.
"I understand your frustration," she went on. "But this is not something you can rush. If the Government can't capture him yet, that's good for us. It buys time."
Lily didn't lift her eyes from the shredded targets lining the wall.
Tsuru lowered herself a little so she could see Lily's face.
"Master the energy inside you first. Before anything else. After all…" a faint warmth touched her voice, "you're the only one capable of finding him without issue."
The air grew still.
Lily said nothing.
Three months later.
Helena entered the office without a word.
Normally, she saluted first. Not today.
She set a folded newspaper down on the desk.
The headline detonated across the page:
BIRD OF CALAMITY SIGHTED IN NEW WORLD
50,000,000 BERRIES — ALIVE ONLY
A rough, vivid sketch of an orange bird engulfed in flames dominated the center.
Even in this era, before bounties inflated into the hundreds of millions and billions, fifty million was monstrous.
"Cipher Pol leaked the bounty," Helena said quietly. "They want pirates chasing him instead of asking questions."
"And the 'alive only' directive?" I asked.
"The Elders," she replied. "They want him back intact."
I folded the paper slowly. "Lily will see this today."
"That's why it came to you first, ma'am."
Lily stood alone in the firing range, posture straighter, aura sharper than it had been three months ago.
She reached for the next target sheet—
—and froze.
A bounty poster rested on the bench beside her.
Bird of Calamity — 50,000,000 Berries
Alive Only
Her fingers trembled.
Her voice cracked once. "…Crow."
A pulse of energy rippled out from her chest—controlled, sharp—rattling the rifle racks behind her but nothing more.
Tsuru appeared at her side in an instant.
"Control," she said firmly. "Not emotion."
"He's alive," Lily whispered. "They want him alive."
"That means he's still useful to them," Tsuru answered. "And that makes him more of a target than ever."
Lily's jaw clenched. "I'll find him."
"You will," Tsuru said. "When you're ready."
Helena joined them, placing a steady hand between Lily's shoulder blades.
"In three months, you've done what some cadets take years to do," she said. "You're not the same girl who picked up that rifle the first time."
Lily didn't smile.
Her eyes stayed locked on the poster, on the crude image of an orange bird cutting across the sky.
"I'm coming, Crow," she murmured.
"Ma'am," Helena said later, standing across from the desk, "her improvement is accelerating. At this rate, she might need to train under the admirals soon."
Lily was twelve. Brilliant. Obsessive. Dangerous in all the ways the Marines liked—and in a few they didn't.
"Garp sent two new talents," I said, flipping through another stack of files. "Smoker—a Smoke Logia. Hina—gifted in the Six Styles."
Helena's expression brightened faintly. "Peers, then. People her age who might actually keep her grounded."
"They'll help her look sideways," I agreed. "Not only forward."
She nodded. "I'll prepare their files and get the identities sorted."
"Do it," I said.
When the door closed behind her, the office felt heavy again.
Fifty million on a child's head. Alive only. A girl who could find him if no one else could.
The seas were shifting.
"You'd swear the kid was possessed."
Crow swung the heavy spear in a wide arc, over and over, sweat soaking his clothes, breath harsh but steady. He didn't talk. He didn't laugh. He didn't complain.
He just trained.
"Harbinger of Death fits too well," John muttered from his seat, watching him between swallows from a bottle. "People see that orange bird and they know Rocks isn't far behind."
Shiki sat nearby with a grin, tapping the metal bracelets on his arms. The metal strained constantly toward the matching bracers on his legs.
"The brat gave me the idea," Shiki said. "Instead of floating things up, he suggested I attract them. Constant resistance. Every step a fight. Smart brat."
Shakky exhaled a thin stream of smoke, eyes following Crow's movements.
"He doesn't show it," she said quietly, "but he hates being denied an escape path. Whatever they did to him when he was younger… he'd rather die than be captured again."
On the cabin roof above them, Rocks watched in silence, arms folded loosely, gaze fixed on the boy who refused to stop moving.
Eventually, his voice cut through the sounds of the sea and the crew.
"Crow."
The spear halted mid-swing.
Crow turned, shoulders rising and falling with his breathing.
"We're approaching another island," Rocks said. "Scout it. Last one."
Crow strapped the spear to his back, feathers already flickering along his arms as he shifted. A moment later, the golden bird launched into the air, beating its wings once to rise to Rocks' level.
Rocks held out a log pose.
Crow took it in his beak with the same quiet focus he gave to everything else these days.
A weapon honed by humiliation and hammered by loss.
Then he shot toward the horizon.
BOOOOOOM—
The sky flashed white.
A beam of light tore through Crow's shoulder, blasting him out of the air and dragging him toward the ground like a falling star.
He twisted at the last instant, crashing into the street and rolling aside as a molten hound of magma slammed into the stone where he'd been.
"Lava hounds!"
His spear slid into his hand as if it had grown there. He spun it, ki coating the flames along its shaft, forcing his heat to hold against the magma's burn.
Cold bit through the steam.
An ice spear screamed toward him—
Crow hurled his own spear like a javelin.
The ice shattered. The frozen body behind it cracked apart.
Kuzan stepped calmly out of the collapsing ice clone, pulling Crow's embedded spear free as if he were plucking a toothpick from a table.
Crow's eyes narrowed.
Surrounded.
"You didn't think the Marines wouldn't respond?" a young voice said.
A cadet stepped forward, fists tightening, standard uniform fitting like armor. The air around him wavered with heat—Akainu in his youth, magma simmering just under the skin.
"Garp and Sengoku are helping Admiral Xer keep your crew busy," he said calmly. "We handle you."
Light condensed beside him, folding into the lanky frame of a blond boy with a lazy, sleepy expression.
Kizaru.
Mist gathered on the other side, freezing into shape until Kuzan's form solidified fully.
Three Logia.
All in Marine cadet uniforms.
All Crow's age.
Crow inhaled once.
The air shook.
His Conqueror's Haki roared outward, black-orange lightning crackling across broken cobblestone, crawling up walls, rattling window frames.
His Devil Fruit responded—heat flaring, flesh shifting—but he forced it back with his ki, refusing the full transformation. Instead, he channeled the power into his back.
Orange-and-black wings tore free from his shoulder blades, spreading wide. His feet reshaped into clawed talons, gouging the stone beneath him.
Akainu grinned, magma drooling from his fingers and spattering onto the ground.
Kizaru yawned, lifting one hand lazily as light bent toward his palm. "He's really our age? Ne… what a pain."
Kuzan's breath fogged the air as he nodded once. "This is going to get noisy."
Crow's flames rose higher, swirling around his wings. His ki locked tight around his core, anchoring his half-transformed state in place.
No escape routes.
No sky to retreat to without being hunted.
Just him.
Three future monsters.
And a street about to be erased.
He spread his wings wider, heat rolling off him in waves.
The battlefield igniting.