Under Golden Lion Shiki's overwhelming assault, the dual-blade swordsman was finally defeated; his two swords were ruthlessly seized.
Golden Lion Shiki had also been injured by the swordsman's desperate counterattack.
"Gyahaha! You should rejoice—they've found a mightier master!"
Golden Lion Shiki gripped sakura jū and kogarashi, a wild grin splitting his face.
The dual-blade master hadn't been killed outright, yet with his blades gone his spirit seemed to die; his life-force ebbed away.
"Hey, it's just steel! Ready to quit living?"
Whitebeard Newgate appeared beside the fallen swordsman, voice cold with scorn.
Did he have any idea how hard the folk of Sphinx Island fought just to stay alive?
Now a strong fighter would rather die than lose two blades.
Even without them he could live well by strength alone.
"What would a pirate know! A sword is a swordsman's soul!"
Perhaps stung by Newgate's contempt, the broken man roused himself for one last shout.
"How did you survive before you owned those blades?"
"Don't tell me they were clutched in your fist the day you were born!"
Newgate's voice stayed icy; had the man fallen in battle he'd never have interfered.
But he despised those who threw their lives away.
Such fools never saw how countless others clawed for every breath.
"Tell me—do you truly want to die?"
"If so, I'll end you myself; I won't watch a coward quit."
Newgate levelled Murakumogiri at the swordsman, killing intent sharpening the air.
The supreme blade's edge snapped the man back to clarity.
"Gyahaha! Newgate, wasting your breath!"
"The weak deserve to perish!"
Golden Lion Shiki had not expected Newgate to intervene.
"Tch, a fraud of a samurai who lives for pride and glory."
"A man can't truly grow until he's crawled through humiliating defeat."
Seeing Newgate step in, Fang Huo drifted over and offered a casual jab.
"Move out! Quit dawdling!"
Rocks barked from behind; he had no time to counsel losers.
In this brutal world there is only culling—no lessons, no comfort.
Shiki tapped sakura jū and kogarashi, the solid ring of steel mocking the air as he swaggered back.
Fang Huo followed, drifting leisurely away.
Newgate gave the swordsman one last glance, then spared him.
His and Fang Huo's words had already kindled a new will to live.
The master watched their retreating backs, eyes swirling with conflict.
A famed swordsman and bounty-hunter, schooled by pirates—what irony.
Fang Huo never knew that this small mercy would lead the man, like Bolo Gram, to entrust his child to Newgate on his death-bed years later.
—"Gyahaha! Famous blades in hand—soon sakura jū and kogarashi will join the roster of supreme grade meito through my name alone!"
Golden Lion Shiki grew ever fonder of the two swords; they suited his style perfectly.
The Twelve supreme grade blades are not a fixed dozen.
The list can shift with every update.
Blades vanish, are destroyed, or new ones rise to supremacy—any change shuffles the rankings.
Thus the catalogue is always in flux.
Before long, the gokudō kaisen that flowed out of Wano would ascend to supreme grade.
Rocks's Gibeck's Sword, like Roger's Ace, could claim a spot on the list.
A blade's quality matters, yet its master's fame matters just as much.
The black blade shusui surely qualified, but with Ryuma dead centuries and the sword enshrined in Wano, the world knew little of it.
So the compiler placed Shusui among the great grade blades instead.
Wano's national treasure Shusui was ranked great grade, while Fūgetsu Kisaburō's gokudō kaisen became supreme grade—a seeming absurdity.
Yet that was the reality.
Only because Kisaburō left Wano for the West Blue did his blade earn worldwide fame.
Likewise, Kōzaburō's Enma and Hitetsu's ame no habakiri rose to great grade after Oden carried them to sea.
Even Kōzaburō's wado ichimonji, taken to the East Blue, earned enough repute to join the great grade list.
When first forged in Wano, no outsider could guess their eventual rank.
Supreme or great grade—nothing more than the compiler's opinion.
The author could not possibly have examined every famed blade.
Beyond time-honoured supreme swords, he ranked by the wielder's renown.
Were Rocks and Fang Huo to pay the compiler a visit, Gibeck's Sword and the Seven-Star Demon Blade would instantly grace the supreme list.
Sword and master, Devil Fruit and eater—each lifts the other to glory.
—Watching Golden Lion Shiki's arrogance, Silver Axe clenched his fists.
That bastard Shiki had everything—Conqueror's Haki, the Float-Float Fruit, the famed blades sakura jū and kogarashi—while he himself had only a big axe.
Even his nickname borrowed from that weapon.
Why was fate so unfair!
"Fang Huo, I want a famed blade too!!"
Charlotte Linlin, seeing Shiki's triumph, demanded outright;
Sun Prometheus and Thunder Cloud Zeus could no longer satisfy her arsenal.
With every crewmate gaining a weapon, she refused to keep fighting with mere thunder-fire fists.
"The legacy blade of Flanders Kingdom—emperor blade napoleon!"
Reading her eagerness, Fang Huo answered without hesitation.
He had lately studied the weapon catalogue.
In the original timeline Big Mom's Homie emperor blade was easy to trace.
"emperor blade napoleon?"
"Good! We raid it at once!!"
Charlotte Linlin's roar of excitement turned toward Captain Rocks.
"First stop: West Blue!"
Rocks decreed coldly.
"Then the North Blue!"
"Linlin, wait your turn!"
Silver Axe, impatient for the North Blue Devil Fruit hunt, cut in.
"You—!!"
Charlotte Linlin's fury ignited.
"Easy, easy… Flanders Kingdom happens to be in the West Blue…"