"Buckin! Can you stop clinging to Newgate all the time?!"
Fireblossom hissed as a snake coiled protectively around her. "Every time there's danger, you crawl up his shoulder like it's your nest!"
"Shut up! We need to worry about staying alive first!"
Buckin shot back, slipping behind Sharn instead.
Whitebeard was now facing Steel Bone Kong head-on—
and Sharn, towering in his beastly form, was the next safest wall around.
The power he'd unleashed moments ago still lingered in the air, crackling like static. Buckin had a strange instinct—
if one day the sea birthed someone who could rival Whitebeard at his peak,
Sharn would be among them.
"Your name's Sharn, right? Take it from me—stay away from her, or you'll regret it!"
Fireblossom sent a marine flying with a kick, while her comrade Shakky covered her flank.
"I don't take care of people," Sharn grunted, brushing off the woman behind him.
He had no intention of letting Buckin "attach" herself—
a bad habit that would one day define her.
After the Rocks Pirates fell, Buckin would drift across the seas,
eventually joining Vegapunk and the MADS scientists,
and decades later appear again as a CP0 clone and the "mother" of Whitebeard Jr.
A literal parasite on legends.
Even so, the young Buckin was breathtaking—
her beauty, her mind, her fighting grace—all flawless.
When Sharn first laid eyes on her, his only thought was a stunned comparison.
"Her? With Whitebeard? You've got to be kidding."
Whitebeard was 6.6 meters tall and built like a fortress.
The idea alone made his scales crawl.
"Don't mention that crazy woman!" Kaido barked somewhere in the distance.
"Those Amazon Lily types are all nightmares.
Even Shakky and Rayleigh are a thing now—just wait, she'll be begging him for help next!"
Buckin ignored the mockery, guns flashing in her hands.
Twin flintlocks roared—bullets pinged off armor, marines fell in clusters.
Sweat traced a line down her golden hair as she fired, calm and cold.
Around them, chaos surged.
Haki burst like lightning. Cannons roared.
The clash between Roger and Rocks shook the horizon,
while Garp hurled punches that shattered air itself.
This was not the skirmish of Onigashima—
this was the era's true convergence, where nearly every legend of the next half-century
was alive, young, and burning at full strength.
Sharn's next opponent came charging through the wreckage—a massive Fishman,
harpoon in hand, skin shimmering blue-green.
Sunbell, a master of Fishman Karate and one of Roger's early crew.
"Fishman Karate: Three-Thousand Brick Strike!"
Water condensed on his fists, exploding outward with Armament Haki.
BOOM! BOOM!
Each strike detonated like a cannon.
Sharn met him blow for blow, purple lightning coiling around his fists.
His punches blurred, fast as the Six Styles' Shigan, sweeping like Rankyaku.
"Violet Flash — Three Hundred Blows!"
Each hit pulled that unseen thread within him—
that delicate wire of Haki hidden in every muscle.
He'd learned the Six Styles, mastered Life Return,
but to manifest true Armament Haki, he needed more—
to break his body down beyond human limits,
to rip every fiber open until that power bled out.
"Keep fighting," he told himself, "and I'll find it."
Sharn and Sunbell collided again and again, shockwaves spraying seawater and ash.
Nearby, Buckin winced. "He's insane—another battle maniac!"
"Dream on, woman," Fireblossom shot back, kicking a marine.
"You just want every man to worship you."
Their argument ended abruptly when Kaido came crashing down beside Sharn,
blasting a crater into the ground.
He stood, brushing rubble off his shoulders, back in human form.
"You lost to Bogard?" Sharn asked, half-joking.
"Hell no! It's barely been five minutes!" Kaido snapped, rubbing his chin.
"You know Devil Fruits can awaken, right? Especially Zoan types."
He jabbed a thumb at himself.
"When that happens, the user's vitality goes berserk—
your regeneration speeds up, wounds vanish before you even feel them.
That's the true terror of Zoan awakening.
That's what Saturn Saint was—an awakened Zoan."
Sharn froze mid-motion.
He understood instantly.
Without Rocks suppressing him with the Dark-Dark Fruit,
Saturn—the demon of the Five Elders—
wasn't dead at all.
At that same moment—
somewhere on the blood-soaked plains of God Valley—
the Gorosei Saturn opened his eyes.
He lay surrounded by hundreds of pirates,
their blades hacking, guns blazing.
But no matter how many times they shot,
his wounds closed faster than they formed.
"Rocks… Rocks!" he bellowed.
"This feeling—this mortality! How dare you make me feel it!"
"The Dark-Dark Fruit should never have existed!"
Black light seethed beneath him, shaping itself into a six-pointed sigil.
Breathing ragged, his eyes glowed with a hellish red-gold hue.
All around, time froze—
pirates and marines alike stopped mid-motion,
their bodies rigid under an unseen grip.
BOOM!
They all exploded into crimson mist.
A magic circle teleportation technique.
A demonic aura of paralysis.
A death-gaze that annihilated those it locked on.
And worst of all—
that terrifying regeneration, instant and absolute.
The Oni-Beast form of Saturn trembled—
not with fear, but fury.
He had followed Imu for centuries, gifted eternal life,
and never once been pushed this far.
If not for Rocks and that accursed darkness,
the Five Elders would have remained untouchable.
"Rocks must die. God Valley must burn."
"No one will ever know what happened here."
"Erase it—erase this history from the world!"
He vanished into black smoke—
and reappeared deep in the valley,
where Holy Knight Commander Glengus Saint clutched two treasure chests.
The two highest of the Celestial Dragons—
the ones who had hosted this year's "World Hunting Game."
Defeated, humiliated, bleeding.
If the Dragons of Mariejois learned that their gods had lost to the "King of the World,"
what would they feel?
"Do the Holy Knights still stand?" Saturn asked.
"Barely," Glengus growled. His rapier gleamed obsidian under his Armament Haki.
"But we fight until the end."
"Heat Breath!"
A roar split the valley.
A pillar of flame streaked down—Kaido in azure-dragon form, charging the Holy Knights.
"Thunder Bagua!" he bellowed, lightning cascading from his club.
This time he aimed not for Rocks—but for the remnants of the Celestial Dragons' elite guard.
"Violet Heat Breath!"
Sharn joined in, scales crackling with purple fire.
"You're not the only mythical Zoan anymore!"
He bit into a chunk of charred meat mid-charge,
his fangs sparking as he chewed.
"You think you can kill me now?" Saturn snarled, rising again, wounds closing.
"I'll flay you alive, little monsters!"
"Now, now," a smooth voice said from behind Sharn.
"Give the rookies their chance to grow."
Kurozumi Semimaru stepped out from the smoke,
his fingers crossed.
And in the air above them—
a barrier formed.
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