Reality is often more cruel than the most absurd nightmare.
"I've already... used everything I've got."
Shanks' voice was heavy as he stared at Makino, who stood less than five steps away. The hand gripping his sword trembled.
"Y-You're not Makino!"
Grinding his teeth, Shanks shouted word by word, "You're just an illusion wearing her skin! You shouldn't have this kind of power."
From the very beginning, he had felt that Makino's temperament and the way she spoke had become extremely unfamiliar.
He had only subconsciously assumed that it was the result of Rosse brainwashing her.
But now, reality had slapped him hard across the face.
He would rather believe that the real Makino had died long ago, and that the one standing before him was someone Rosse had transformed into Makino through some Devil Fruit ability.
"Why do you think I'm not Makino? Just because I've become stronger?"
Makino tilted her head slightly, a trace of strange sorrow showing in her eyes.
Before she had even finished speaking, her body moved without warning.
She had no refined footwork. Even the way she exerted force looked clumsy, because she had never received any professional combat training.
But under Rosse' development, the basic strength of this seemingly frail body had long since been raised to an unimaginable level.
Whoosh!
In the eyes of Snake, Lucky Roux, and the others, not even an afterimage was left behind.
All they saw was a blur, a gust of wind brushing past.
The next instant, Makino was already standing in front of Shanks.
That fair, slender hand, which had once done nothing but pour drinks and mend clothes, now clamped onto Gryphon's razor-sharp blade, which could split the sea itself, like a steel vise.
"Makino could never do something like this! DIE!"
Feeling the force coming through the sword, Shanks was completely consumed by a mixture of rage and terror.
With a roar, pitch-black Armament Haki instantly wrapped around Gryphon's blade. At the same time, Conqueror's Haki coating erupted as he mercilessly slashed down at that hand.
"The old me really couldn't."
Faced with this fatal slash that could split a mountain, Makino did not even blink.
The shockwave exploded, shattering the reef beneath Shanks' feet inch by inch.
But, the arm covered in bulging veins shook violently in midair.
No matter how much Haki he poured into it, no matter how hard he gritted his teeth and pushed, Gryphon, held in place by Makino's slender single hand, seemed welded in midair.
It would not move downward even a single millimeter.
"So, Shanks... you people simply don't understand the power the World Government has now."
Holding the terrifying black blade in one hand, Makino showed not the slightest joy or arrogance at suddenly gaining such overwhelming power.
Only deeper, more complete despair.
"You've seen it, haven't you?"
She slowly raised her head and looked directly into Shanks' eyes, which seemed ready to split apart from shock.
"The old me couldn't have stopped your sword. I couldn't even see your movements clearly when you attacked. To me, monsters like you who roamed the seas possessed power completely beyond human understanding."
"But now?"
A deep sadness filled Makino's voice, "A weak woman like me who doesn't even know how to hold a sword... simply because I was chosen by them. Now I can hold down your sword as easily as grabbing a tree branch, leaving you unable to move."
"And for Lord Rosse to give me this kind of power... all he did was casually give me a piece of food."
Makino closed her eyes and let out a soft sigh, "And that gift isn't unique. Inside the World Government, there are at least thousands of those things."
"IMPOSSIBLE!"
Shanks suddenly let out a roar like a trapped beast.
He poured every ounce of strength into trying to pull his sword back, but Gryphon did not budge.
He refused to believe it.
He dared not believe it.
If all of this was true, then what meaning did the pirates' life-or-death resistance have?
One Rosse with the power of a god was already enough to drive people into despair.
But if he was merely the one and only god standing beyond reach, Shanks still believed he had the courage to draw his sword.
But if... if Rosse could mass-produce monsters like this on an assembly line, monsters who could catch his full-powered strike with their bare hands... then wasn't the freedom he shouted about, the dream he had risked his life to protect, the greatest joke in the world?
He was proud because he was one of the strongest among the countless people on these seas.
Every bit of his strength had been earned through talent, sweat, and countless battles on the edge of death.
But Makino? She had no talent.
She had never shed a drop of sweat.
She had never experienced even a single life-and-death battle.
Simply because Rosse had chosen her, because that man had casually "fed" her a mouthful of power, she had effortlessly trampled decades of his hard work and pride b eneath her feet overnight.
If this world really could create countless monsters stronger than him out of thin air... then what exactly had Shanks' eventful life amounted to?
Bzzzz!
Along with an ear-splitting hum that seemed capable of tearing apart the heavens, the dark crimson Conqueror's Haki Shanks had suppressed to its limit burst out like a broken dam.
This time, he held absolutely nothing back.
"AAAAAAAH! Divine Departure!"
Shanks threw back his head with a furious roar, his eyes blood-red.
A dazzling blade of light erupted from Gryphon's black edge, so bright it was impossible to look at directly.
Dark crimson lightning coiled around it like giant serpents.
This strike emptied all the rage in Shanks' heart, along with his resolve to sever the illusions of the past.
Faced with this supreme attack capable of splitting a medium-sized island in half, Makino remained where she stood.
She did not dodge.
She did not retreat.
She did not even intend to withdraw the slender wrist still gripping the blade.
It was not because she did not want to dodge.
It was because there was no point.
She simply had no idea what she should do at a moment like this.
She was an innkeeper who would hesitate even when killing fish. The fiercest fight she had ever had was smiling as she lightly punched Luffy on the head a few times for stealing meat.
Other than that, her combat experience was zero.
Slash!
The scalp-numbing sound of flesh tearing apart rang out.
This was Shanks' strongest slash after all, unlike the casual swing born of anger from before.
Against a slash infused with top-tier Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki, Makino's body, which had only been strengthened by spirit particles, could no longer withstand it.
Blood exploded into the night sky like a fountain.
Makino's fair hand, together with most of her forearm, was cut off diagonally by Gryphon's overwhelming blade light.
The severed limb tumbled through the air, warm blood splashing all over Shanks' face.
"Ah... it hurts so much..."
Makino took half a step back and lowered her head to look at the empty stump of her right arm, where blood was gushing wildly. Her brows knitted together in pain.
Although her body's toughness had reached an inhuman level, her human sense of pain still remained.
Rather, because her senses had been greatly enhanced, the pain of losing an arm was even clearer than what an ordinary person would feel.
Watching her own forearm fly away was terrifying just to think about.
Though... she had already gone through similar things many times before.
Yet before the piercing pain could make cold sweat fully break out, a miracle descended.
Countless deep-blue spirit particles rushed frantically toward the severed arm.
Before everyone's eyes, which seemed ready to pop out of their sockets, in the span of a single breath those blue lights wove together into bones, rebuilt blood vessels, and covered them with fair skin.
At a speed visible to the naked eye, the severed forearm and its slender fingers completely grew back.
Not even a scar remained.
"W-What the hell kind of monster is that?"
Seeing this, Yasopp and the others felt their scalps go numb as a deep chill shot from the soles of their feet to the tops of their heads.
In all their years sailing the seas, they had never seen, nor even heard of, such terrifying regeneration.
That slash had been infused with top-tier Armament Haki and Conqueror's Haki.
Normally, as long as the Haki had not dissipated, no Devil Fruit user in the world, not even the most monstrous Mythical Zoan, should have been able to regenerate a severed limb immediately.
Bang!
Just as Shanks froze for an instant from overwhelming shock, his pupils shaking in fear, Makino suddenly raised her leg and kicked straight at his abdomen without any technique.
There was no Haki in that kick.
No understanding of how to generate force.
It was nothing but pure physical strength.
To the rest of the Red Hair Pirates, such a fast kick might have been difficult to dodge.
But to Shanks, the movement was full of openings, as slow as slow motion.
His battle-hardened muscle memory reacted before his brain even had time to think.
Shanks twisted his wrist, reversed his grip on Gryphon, and thrust the blade viciously toward Makino's completely unguarded chest.
Watching Makino's clumsy movement, without even a defensive posture, the last trace of hope in Shanks' heart was completely shattered.
He finally believed it.
The person before him really was Makino.
Only Makino could lack so much in combat experience.
Even the way she kicked was almost exactly the same as back in Foosha Village when she got angry with them and kicked them out.
Memories could be taught.
Knowledge could be passed on.
But muscle memory could not be replicated.
'Rosse can really mass-produce monsters like this?'
Right now, it was only because Makino had absolutely no fighting skill that he could find an opening.
But what if the monsters Rosse produced knew even the slightest bit about killing techniques?
What if there were a thousand Makinos?
He would have no power to resist.
Slash!
Without any obstruction, Gryphon's black blade accurately pierced through Makino's heart, bursting out through her back in a spray of blood.
Makino made no attempt to defend herself.
Deep down, she believed there was no way she could dodge such a lightning-fast fatal thrust.
At the same time...
BANG!
Makino's flying kick landed solidly in Shanks' stomach.
Shanks did not dodge either.
Taking one hit in exchange for a killing blow was the most basic logic of combat.
However, the instant that overwhelming force crashed into him, Shanks' face turned deathly pale, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.
His whole body flew back like a cannonball struck by a battering ram.
The wind howled around him in midair.
Shanks gritted his teeth, ignoring the agony in his abdomen that felt as though it would tear apart all his internal organs.
His gaze remained fixed on Makino.
Gryphon was still lodged straight through her heart.
Makino clutched the blade in pain, her petite body bent slightly forward.
Bright red blood flowed steadily along the blood groove, soaking more than half of her white clothes.
It really hit...
And it was an absolutely fatal wound through the heart.
A bitter smile appeared in Shanks' heart.
No matter how monstrous Makino's body had become, with her heart completely destroyed, even if she struggled on for a few more minutes, death was certain.
"Makino... I'm sorry..."
Still flying through the air, Shanks painfully closed his eyes.
Two streams of tears mixed with blood slid down from the corners of his eyes.
"If you're going to blame someone... blame the evil ghost possessing your body. The real you... died the moment you left the tavern..."
With a dull thud, Shanks let himself crash heavily into the sand at the edge of the deserted island, leaving a deep crater.
He did not get up immediately.
He simply lay on his back, gasping for breath, despair and melancholy written across his face as he stared blankly at the sky above.
Ever since Rosse had descended, the once clear sky had somehow become covered with suffocating black clouds.
Dark clouds pressed low.
A storm was coming.
Just like his heart, which had been torn apart.
So gloomy that not even a trace of light could shine through.
"Shanks..."
"Lying there on the ground... what are you thinking about?"
Just then, a gentle voice, carrying not the slightest hint of pain, suddenly drifted into his ear.
'Something's wrong!'
Every hair on Shanks' body stood on end.
It was the instinctive terror of a living creature faced with something unknown.
He whipped his head around.
Thud!
Gryphon was casually thrown out, embedding itself into the sand beside Shanks' head, grazing his cheek as it landed.
The blade was less than an inch from his temple.
But he did not even look at the treasured sword that had accompanied him for so many years.
His Observation Haki had sensed no danger at all, or he would have instinctively counterattacked.
His trembling gaze traveled up along the sword's hilt.
Finally, it landed on Makino, who stood beside him, looking down at him.
The clothes over her chest, where the blade had pierced through, were torn open.
But beneath the hole... was perfectly fair, smooth skin.
Apart from a few remaining bloodstains, there was not the slightest trace of a wound.