And so, the man who would one day be hailed as the Pirate King charged into the heart of the storm.
Rain lashed the sea and the waves churned in fury, but he paid them no mind. His ship navigated the treacherous waters with masterful ease, cutting through the chaos. Aboard were legends in their own right, warriors who had bled and laughed alongside Roger through every hardship. They faced the Golden Lion Grand Fleet—the largest and most feared armada in the world—and yet, they did not flinch. Instead, every man among them wore a grin.
Despite only having met her once to tend to her wounds, Roger had taken up his blade for her.
Kanata and Roger. Roger and Shiki. Shiki and Kanata.
Fate is a tangled web of chance and necessity, but it is beneath the weight of one's convictions that these threads finally cross. The stage was set for a clash that would shake the foundations of the world.
The real battle was just beginning.
***
"Friends?! You're still spewing that sentimental crap, you damn fool?!"
"I don't remember asking for your opinion, Shiki!"
Shiki was visibly livid at Roger's interference, while Roger laughed, his sword already drawn and his spirit hungry for the fight. However, Roger was stuck on the surface of the sea; against an opponent who could fly, he was essentially a sitting duck.
The solution was simple.
"Kanata! Give me some ground to stand on! I'll take this bastard myself!"
"You're really going to rely on me for that?" Kanata replied. "Fine, but forget Shiki. Go help my crew! I can handle this man alone."
"Hah! You've got quite the mouth for a little girl!" Shiki roared.
Shiki swung his twin blades in a blur of gold. Kanata met the strike with her black spear, the shockwave of their Haki rippling through the air. She lunged for his heart, but Shiki shifted his weight, gliding through the air with the grace of a bird to avoid the point.
Before she could follow up, Roger's voice boomed from below.
"Don't you dare leave me out of this! Just make the damn ice!"
"Are you here to help or just to be a nuisance?!"
"I'm here to save your skin!"
Kanata clicked her tongue. They didn't have time for this bickering, but she couldn't deny the value of the Roger Pirates' strength. She manifested a path of reinforced ice leading from the Oro Jackson. Once Roger leaped onto the frozen platform, his ship veered off toward the Sombrero. Even without their captain, men like Rayleigh and Gaban were more than enough to turn the tide of a fleet battle.
Roger sprinted across the ice, coming to a halt beside Kanata. He adjusted his grip on his sword and grinned. "Long time no see."
"I'd appreciate the reunion more if we weren't in the middle of a war," Kanata said.
"Wahahaha! Don't be like that. I had a few things on my mind, so I came looking for you. Finding you here wasn't just a coincidence."
"Things on your mind?"
"Shiki's been talking," Roger said, his eyes shifting toward the Golden Lion.
Shiki hovered above them, lighting a cigar with trembling, angry fingers. He glared at Roger with pure venom. "So you actually care about what I said? You're playing 'friends' with the daughter of the man you killed? It makes me want to puke!"
"I consider her a friend," Roger said firmly. "Even if I'm the enemy of her parents, I've got no reason to raise a hand against Kanata herself."
Roger reached out and ruffled Kanata's hair. She swatted his hand away with a scowl, but in that moment, she understood what Roger's "concern" was.
"I have no interest in a father I've never met," Kanata said coldly. "If you have time to worry about such trivial things, use it to help me kill this man."
"Bwahahaha! No interest at all, eh?! I like your style!"
"Besides," Kanata added, "if we're talking about 'enemies of my parents,' Garp is on that list too."
Roger blinked. "Wait, why the hell is Garp involved in this?" He didn't have time to process the answer, as he had to bring his sword up to block a sudden, overhead strike from Shiki.
"No interest, you say?" Shiki sneered. "To think the man who could have rewritten history ended up with a brat like this!"
"Oh? So you knew him too?" Roger asked.
"As if you didn't!"
The clash of Haki intensified. When Shiki engaged Roger on the ice, Kanata would strike from above. When he took to the sky to escape her spear, Roger would send a flying slash to intercept him. It was a flawless pincer movement that left even the Great Admiral struggling to find an opening.
Shiki was beginning to feel the strain. Fighting either one of them was a monumental task; taking on both was a strategic nightmare.
"Teaming up with another monster..." Shiki spat. "Fine! I'll bury you both in the depths!"
"Try it if you can!" Roger challenged.
The bone-chilling blizzard Kanata had been maintaining began to thin. She had realized that if she fought alongside Roger, her massive area-of-effect attacks would hinder him as much as the enemy. She prioritized Roger's mobility over Shiki's discomfort.
Shiki moved more freely now, but the dual pressure of two legends was not something that could be overcome by speed alone.
"Trading blows with Shiki head-on... you've really come into your own, kid," Roger noted.
The last time they met, she had been a bloodied mess after her encounter with Sengoku. Now, her Haki was on an entirely different level. It was a terrifying rate of growth, but for a man like Roger, it was exhilarating. He loved a good fight, and even though he called her a friend, a part of him wanted to see what happened when their blades eventually crossed.
"Hey! Stop ignoring me and fight!" Shiki roared from the air.
"Shut up! I'll get to you in a minute!" Roger barked back.
"If that's how you want to play it, I've got an idea of my own...!"
Roger leveled his blade and sent a concentrated wave of Haki toward Shiki. As Shiki drifted to avoid it, Roger unleashed a relentless barrage of slashes, forcing the Golden Lion into a predictable flight path. The moment Shiki's movement was restricted, Kanata dropped from the clouds like a falling star.
Shiki parried her spear, but he was forced to keep one eye on the ground to dodge Roger's continuing fire. He was being squeezed. Frustrated, he dove toward the ice, aiming to take Roger out first.
Roger laughed as he met the heavy, high-speed strike. "There you are!"
"I don't have time for you! I'm here for the girl's head!!"
After a rapid-fire exchange of blows, the two pushed off. Shiki didn't fly back into the air; instead, he touched the giant ice platform Kanata had created.
"Up you go!"
The massive ice floe began to rise into the sky. Roger stumbled, his balance failing as the ground beneath him tilted violently. Lifting such a massive weight created a momentary opening in Shiki's defense, but it was a calculated risk.
Roger lunged for Shiki, trying to keep his footing as the ice rose higher and higher.
"You're out of the game for a while," Shiki sneered. "I'll finish her, then come back for you."
He tilted the ice floe into a vertical spin, dumping Roger into the sea, and then slammed the massive frozen block down on top of him. Shiki didn't think it would kill him, but it would keep him occupied while he dealt with Kanata.
As the ice crashed into the waves, Shiki turned his head to find Kanata—and in that split second of diverted attention, a shockwave tore through the air.
"Gugh—?!"
"You looked away."
In the microsecond he had focused on Roger, Kanata had closed the distance. She drove a Haki-infused kick into his ribs with the force of a tectonic shift. It was the first clean hit of the entire duel.
Kanata didn't follow up immediately. Instead, she dove through the gap in the falling ice and pulled a soaking-wet Roger out of the water, hoisting him into the air by his collar.
"I can't believe you've survived this long against Shiki with that kind of footwork," she remarked.
"Normally I don't give him the chance to pull that crap!" Roger wheezed.
The ice block hit the water behind them, creating a gargantuan splash that sent a tremor through the nearby ships.
"Achoo! Damn, it's cold! Kanata, do something about this!"
"I can only make things colder. If you want heat, go back to your ship."
"Not a chance! I said I'd help, and I'm staying!"
Kanata sighed at his stubbornness. Shiki wasn't counterattacking yet, so she froze the surface again, giving Roger a place to stand.
"They say Devil Fruit users are useless in the water," Roger said, wringing out his coat. "But I guess that doesn't apply to you."
"My power is one of the few that can directly manipulate the sea. Unless I'm bound by Sea Prism Stone, I won't drown."
"Handy," Roger muttered. He shivered as the freezing wind hit his wet skin. "Where's the Lion?"
"He's close..."
A kick like that wouldn't put Shiki down for good. He was planning something. Kanata's eyes widened as she looked toward the horizon. A wall of water was rising—a tsunami of impossible proportions.
"Oh, come on..." she whispered. "He's peeling back the ocean..."
This wasn't just a wave. Shiki was using his power to lift the very sea itself, intending to fold the ocean over them and crush them beneath thousands of tons of water.
"He's seen what I can do," Kanata said. "He knows a simple wave won't stop me."
She manifested a small shard of ice in her palm and hurled it into the rising wall. The moment it made contact, the entire tsunami began to flash-freeze, turning the liquid disaster into a mountain of jagged glass. But the mountain didn't stop. It shattered under Shiki's command, falling from the sky to block their vision.
As Roger cut through the falling debris, he saw what Shiki had been hiding behind the screen: an enormous sphere of compressed seawater, hovering like a moon.
"He can throw a wave, but he knows I'll freeze it," Kanata noted. "But if he drops a frozen moon on us from above, the weight is all that matters."
The mass of water descended like a meteor.
"Too slow!" Kanata shouted. "You think this is enough?"
"Don't underestimate us, Golden Lion!!" Roger roared.
Roger swung his blade, bisecting the frozen mass in a single strike. But Shiki's control hadn't wavered. The two halves of the "moon" simply fused back together and continued their descent. Roger growled and unleashed a flurry of slashes, mincing the ice into harmless powder until it vanished into the wind.
Through the cloud of ice crystals, Shiki appeared like a bolt of lightning.
Their Haki-clad weapons collided with a sound like a thunderclap. In the brief moment Shiki and Roger were locked in a stalemate, Kanata lunged from the side, her spear a silver blur.
"Tch—!"
Shiki dodged by a hair's breadth, countering with a backhand slash that forced both Roger and Kanata to reset. He was holding them off, but the two monsters were slowly backing him into a corner.
Even with their lack of coordination and their tendency to get in each other's way, the sheer combined pressure of Roger and Kanata was something few beings in history could withstand.
"Don't you dare think you can kill me this easily!!" Shiki screamed.
The swordplay was as graceful as a dance, but it was a dance where a single misstep meant a severed head. And the music was far from over.
***
On the surface, Lucian bit back a curse as he watched the Roger Pirates engage.
Standard tactics and superior numbers meant nothing to a crew like that. They were elite warriors who broke through armadas by force of will. As a commander, they were the last people he ever wanted to face. He wanted to focus on sinking the "Witch's" crew, but they wouldn't let him.
"The Roger Pirates are training their cannons on us, Commander!"
"Block the shots! Contact the Left Wing! Tell them to hold the line at all costs!"
If he left the Oro Jackson unchecked, they would tear his formation apart. But if he diverted too many ships to deal with them, the Sombrero would have an opening to counterattack.
"Silvers Rayleigh, Scopper Gaban... every man on that ship is a nightmare," Lucian whispered.
He realized he had to step in himself. Lucian threw out his arms, and gun ports manifested all over his body and the deck of his ship. Every barrel swiveled to face the Oro Jackson. He was the user of the Shoot-Shoot Fruit—a man who could manifest and fire heavy ordnance from any surface. His suppression capability was on par with a Logia.
"Victory lies ahead! Blow them open!!"
The sea erupted in a continuous roar of cannon fire. A wall of lead and fire screamed toward the Roger Pirates. By forcing them into a defensive loop, Lucian hoped to buy enough time for his Right Wing to finish off Kanata's escorts.
It seemed to be working—until the sea itself began to tilt.
"What now?!" Lucian shouted.
"Report! A massive whirlpool has formed under the flagship! We're struggling just to stay afloat!"
"Damn it! This sea is a curse!"
In the Mobejumul Sea, weather and currents were erratic, but this was too perfect. Lucian looked over the railing and saw a shadow beneath the waves.
"Sunbell... so it's him!!"
The fish-man of the Roger Pirates was a master of the sea. At his level, a fish-man didn't just swim; they commanded the currents. Sunbell was busy rescuing survivors from the sunken ships while simultaneously creating localized vortexes to ruin the aim of Shiki's fleet.
"Get me the Left Wing! Tell them to sink the Witch's ship now!" Lucian ordered.
"We can't, sir! The Left Wing has been decimated! The Sombrero and the Oro Jackson coordinated their fire—half the fleet is gone!"
Lucian hissed through his teeth. They still had the numbers, but the momentum had shifted. He braced himself against the tilting deck and focused his power.
"Don't think you've won yet. As long as I'm breathing, this armada will not fall!!"
If the ship was tilting, he would simply adjust the angle of his cannons to match. His weapon manifestation was telepathic; he was the only man who could maintain a perfect firing solution in a storm like this.
"All batteries... FIRE!!"
A solid wall of explosions erupted from his ship. Even if the enemy blocked the shells, the sheer volume of fire was enough to keep them pinned. Lucian knew that Rayleigh or Gaban would likely try to board soon. He had to trust Aps and Lelampago to handle their ends.
"Keep firing! If we don't sink them soon, we're the ones who are going to be fish bait!"
The Oro Jackson was tough, but no ship could withstand a hundred direct hits. Lucian was so close to dealing a finishing blow to Kanata's crew. He couldn't let it slip away.
Numbers were still on his side. Shiki's fleet still had over thirty ships against the enemy's four. Lucian gritted his teeth and leaned into the chaos. He would show them why the Golden Lion's armada was the strongest in the world.
***
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