The square was shrouded in eerie silence for several seconds—until an enraged voice finally broke it.
"What the hell are you saying, Captain Shanu?!"
A pirate captain clenched his teeth, shouting furiously, "You still see us as enemies? Don't forget—you just killed a Marine Vice Admiral!
The World Government will brand you a pirate no matter what, so why pretend to be some righteous hero?!"
"That's right!" another captain followed, his tone sharp.
"We're supposed to be on the same side now!
You won't even let us plunder, and you're still talking about your old reputation? Don't you think you're overdoing this act?!"
"An act? Pretending to be noble?"
Shanu raised an eyebrow, lifting his index finger slightly.
"When did pirates get so good at slapping labels on others?"
His voice dropped into a cold growl.
"Listen up, scum. The Marines I've killed—each one of them deserved to die. But you lot? You're just another pack of rabid hyenas who deserve the same."
Buzz!
The instant the words left his mouth, a violent shockwave burst from his fingertip—
Shigan: Bullet!
Before the two captains could even react, their heads exploded like melons, leaving nothing but two twitching corpses on the ground.
Smack!
Shanu leapt down from the execution platform, landing heavily on the ground below. The pirates nearby flinched, stumbling backward in terror.
They looked from the corpses to Shanu, swallowing hard, too afraid to flee or advance.
"Hey, Kuina," Shanu called, ignoring the trembling mob around him.
"I'm here, Captain!" the young swordswoman quickly raised her hand in reply.
"You kept asking me back in the café what my dream was, remember?"
He slowly looked around—the ruins, the shattered walls, the broken cannon shells scattered across the street.
"Well… I guess now's as good a time as any to answer you."
"Huh?" Kuina blinked. "Now? Here?"
RUMBLE!
Lightning split the clouds above.
The flash of white illuminated Shanu's sharply cut face; his dark hair whipped in the storm wind as a feral grin curved his lips.
"Of course—right here, before the world's most famous execution platform!"
He bent low, driving his fingers deep into the stone base beneath the platform. The grey-blue bricks groaned under the strain—
And then, before the stunned eyes of everyone present—the execution platform that had withstood eighteen years of wind and rain rose with a thunderous crack!
"Eighteen years ago, the Great Pirate Era began right here. You all came here, didn't you?
To worship the spot where it all started…"
His voice roared out through the storm—
"You've gotta be kidding me, Roger!!!"
With a furious snarl, he wrenched the platform completely free and hoisted it onto his shoulder—using just one arm.
"Tempting fools across the world to kill each other over some so-called treasure, dangling the 'One Piece' like bait while people tear at one another like wild dogs…
Ordinary folks scrape together every last coin to pay their Heavenly Tribute—and then get plundered again by you worthless scum!
Tell me—what's so glorious about this damn era?!"
His roar thundered through the rain, the very air quivering from the sound.
"If you want to change something, then do it yourself!
You opened this Great Pirate Era, then sat back for decades waiting for some 'Chosen One' to appear? What kind of twisted logic is that?!"
"If you're oppressed, then go after your oppressors!
But no—you join the Marines and lick boots, or you become pirates and slaughter the weak.
What kind of screwed-up world is that?!"
The square fell silent again—utterly silent.
Every pirate stood frozen, staring up dumbly at the raised execution platform and the figure beneath it.
"This world never needed a so-called Pirate King! And it sure as hell doesn't need more self-proclaimed gods looking down on everyone else!"
"Roger started the Great Pirate Era—and only made this world worse!
People have suffered enough already!"
"So my dream—" his eyes burned like lightning—
"is to become the man who brings this rotten era to an end!
And as for this filthy Great Pirate Era—"
He swung his shoulder, and with a mighty heave—
"—I'll shove it back into Roger's coffin!!!"
BOOM!
The platform, weighing several tons, hurtled through the air like a cannonball,
whistling as it shot out over the distant sea—
Vrrrrmm—!
As he watched it disappear, Shanu spread his arms wide and burst into wild laughter.
A terrifying, invisible shockwave erupted from his body—
Conqueror's Haki!
The sky cracked with streaks of black lightning.
Under its shroud, all of Loguetown flickered between light and darkness.
Gale winds howled, the ground split, and the clouds rolled backward!
Pirates across the square felt a crushing dizziness—then dropped one by one like harvested wheat, collapsing in droves.
The few who remained conscious fell to their knees, trembling violently.
Their teeth chattered as they stared at their fallen comrades foaming at the mouth, and then up at the figure standing where the platform once stood—
That black-haired youth—just by standing there—it felt as if he could drag down the entire sky!
In the distance.
Nojiko, Nami, Kuina, and the others looked up at the chaotic heavens, faces pale with shock.
"Th-That was my brother's doing?"
Nami swallowed hard, stammering.
"All that just from saying his dream out loud? I mean—sure, I got goosebumps too, but how did he do that?!"
"It's Conqueror's Haki," said Zeff quietly beside them.
The old man's expression was complicated as he stared toward the storm-lashed square.
"Maybe I should've expected it… our captain's a man born with the rarest of gifts—the will of a true king."
The man who ends an era?
The one who'll drag the mighty down from the heavens, one by one?
Damn, to even say something like that…
That's a dream even crazier than finding All Blue!
"Conqueror's Haki?" Nami repeated, head full of question marks.
"It's a kind of Haki too?"
Still—it sure looked amazing.
She glanced at the sea of unconscious pirates and sighed with envy.
"Wow… that's my brother for you! Ugh, I wish I could do that too—just wave my hand and make everyone drop! No Devil Fruit could ever top that!"
"Conqueror's Haki is something you're born with," Zeff said, shaking his head.
"Not something you can learn. And even among those born with it, the strength of one's first awakening varies wildly."
"What about my brother then?" Nojiko asked curiously. "How strong is his?"
"I've never seen anything like it."
Zeff clicked his tongue.
"What's even scarier is that, normally, someone's first awakening runs wild—they can't control it. But look at that square. Every unconscious body is a pirate. Not one civilian—none of us, even those hiding nearby—were affected."
"That's… actually true…"
Kuina followed Zeff's gaze, eyes shining with awe.
Truly worthy of being called Lord Shanu.
The crew were too absorbed in the spectacle to notice—
Just a short distance away, hidden behind the ruins, a tall white-haired figure, still bound in seastone cuffs, stood frozen, staring at the direction of the execution platform.
Unmoving.
Like a statue carved from disbelief.