The dock had become a nightmare of splintered wood and grasping roots.
Admiral Ryokugyu's body had transformed into something ancient and terrible—a towering trunk of dark bark that punched through the stone foundation, sending shockwaves across the harbor. Branches erupted from the ground like spears, tearing through warehouses, ripping apart the wooden planks where Marines had stood moments ago. The air filled with the smell of fresh sap and crushed stone.
Ryokugyu's voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere, resonating through the growing forest.
"LITTLE AX MAN! Do you actually think you can defeat me?"
Mani Lucheres did not answer with words.
Suley sang through the air—a horizontal arc that caught three growing branches at once. The axe, coated in dark purple Haki, sheared through the wood like a blade through paper. The severed limbs crashed to the ground, sending up clouds of dust.
Mani landed in a crouch, his short, dense frame coiled for the next leap. His boots dug into the cracked stone.
"Not trying to defeat you," he grunted, rolling his thick shoulders. "Trying to give you a haircut. You're overdue."
Ryokugyu's trunk swelled.
The bark darkened, thickening, spreading outward. New branches shot from the main body—thicker than before, reinforced with the Admiral's Haki. They curved toward Mani like grasping fingers, blocking his path, herding him away from the central trunk.
"INSECT!" Ryokugyu roared. "I WILL TURN YOU INTO FERTILIZER!"
Mani's eyes tracked the moving branches. His Observation Haki, basic but functional, warned him of the danger. He leaped—not toward the trunk, but sideways, ricocheting off a fallen beam.
"Good iron," he muttered, and swung again.
---
Ember giggled.
The sound cut through the chaos like a shard of broken glass—high-pitched, unhinged, utterly out of place among the crashing trees and screaming men. Her neon-pink space buns wobbled as she ducked behind a newly grown trunk, her mismatched eyes—one icy blue, one gold—peeking around the bark.
"Where's Aloka?" she sang, her voice a sing-song melody. "I can't see Aloka! Oh, there they are!"
She fired.
The Helltide slingshot launched a sparkler round into the canopy above. The explosion set leaves and small branches ablaze, sending a shower of burning debris down toward the CP0 agent.
Aloka materialized from a shadow, their featureless white mask catching the firelight. Their silver hair floated around their obsidian skin. They did not speak. They simply reached for Ember's wrist.
Ember squealed and dropped.
She hit the ground, rolled between two roots, and popped up on the other side of the trunk.
"Oops!" She waved her fingers at Aloka. "Peek-a-boo!"
The fire spread.
Ryokugyu felt the sting of the flames on his outer branches. His voice rose in fury.
"SUB DUE HER ALREADY! THIS IS INEFFICIENT!"
Aloka's mask tilted. Their voice, when it came, was flat and empty.
"I am trying. She is... slippery."
"Slippery?" Ryokugyu's trunk shuddered. "YOU ARE CP0! GRAB HER!"
Ember fired another shot. This one struck a branch close to the Admiral's main trunk, and the flames licked at his bark. He cursed—a string of words that would have made a sailor blush.
Aloka lunged.
Their hand closed around Ember's sleeve.
Ember twisted, pulled, and the fabric tore. She left the scrap in Aloka's grip and scrambled up a leaning beam, her boots finding purchase on the splintered wood.
"Too slow!" she called, blowing a kiss. "Maybe next time!"
Aloka's shoulders rose and fell. A sigh, almost.
They vanished into shadow and reappeared behind her.
Ember's eyes went wide. "Oh—"
She dropped off the beam, firing as she fell.
---
Mani saw his opening.
Ryokugyu's attention had shifted—the Admiral was focused on Ember, on the fire, on the insult of being burned. His branches moved slower, distracted.
Mani moved.
Suley became a blur of dark iron and purple Haki. He cut through three trunks in a single sweep, then spun, caught his momentum, and cut through four more. Wood exploded in every direction. The sound of splintering timber drowned out everything else.
Ryokugyu screamed.
"LITTLE AX MAN!"
Mani landed on a stump, planted his feet wide, and struck a pose—one hand on his hip, the other resting Suley on his shoulder. He winked.
"The Weight is heavy," he said. "Lift anyway."
Then he ricocheted away, leaving a trail of fallen branches behind him.
Ryokugyu's trunk swelled again, but Mani was already gone, cutting a path through the forest, leading the Admiral's attention on a chase through his own creation.
---
Alejandro Fuego's tonfa cracked against Nisshoku's blade.
The impact sent a shockwave rippling outward, shattering a nearby branch that had grown too close. Marya did not flinch. Her golden eyes—her father's eyes, ringed with the same cold fire—stared through him.
"You are holding back," Alejandro growled, his red-black mane bristling. "I can feel it. You think I am not worthy of your full strength?"
Marya tilted her head. "You talk too much."
She sidestepped a root that erupted between them and brought Nisshoku around in a low arc. Alejandro blocked with Alchimia, the left tonfa, and the impact drove him back a step.
"WHERE IS KUZAN?" he demanded.
Marya blinked. "Still asking about Kuzan."
"He betrayed the Marines! He betrayed EVERYTHING!"
Marya shrugged. "Not my problem."
Alejandro's amber-yellow eyes blazed. He shifted tactics, letting his voice drop to something colder, more deliberate.
"You know who else betrayed people? Your father." He watched her face. "Dracule Mihawk. The World's Strongest Swordsman. He abandoned the Warlords. He abandoned the World Government. He abandoned—"
Marya's expression did not change.
"There is nothing you can tell me about my father," she said, "that I do not already know."
She lunged.
Nisshoku's obsidian blade swept toward his throat. Alejandro barely parried with Fuegora, the right tonfa, and the force of the blow sent him stumbling into a tree trunk.
He caught himself, his chest heaving.
"Your father—"
"Is not here," Marya finished. "I am. Focus."
Alejandro's jaw tightened. He had tried insults. He had tried taunts. He had tried bringing up her father, her past, her failures. Nothing worked. She was a wall of ice wrapped in steel and mist.
Then he saw it.
A flicker. A crack.
Not in her expression—her face remained calm, almost bored—but in her guard. Her left hand had twitched toward her side. Toward the small dagger on her necklace.
The kogatana.
Alejandro smiled.
"That dagger," he said. "The one around your neck. It belonged to someone, didn't it? Someone who died. Someone you couldn't save."
Marya's eyes narrowed.
"The Void inside you," Alejandro pressed, stepping forward. "The curse on your arms. It's not just from your sword, is it? It's from failure. From watching someone die and doing nothing."
Marya's hand closed around the kogatana's hilt.
"You don't know anything," she said.
"I know you're afraid." Alejandro raised his tonfa. "I know you're running. I know the reason you left your father wasn't because of the Warlord system—it was because you couldn't face him. Because every time you look at him, you see the person you failed to save."
Marya's golden eyes burned.
She did not speak.
She moved.
Nisshoku came up—not at Alejandro, but at the sky. A massive arc of Haki erupted from the blade, a crescent wave of invisible force that shot upward, expanding as it rose.
The forest shuddered.
Ryokugyu's branches—the tops of every tree, every limb, every leaf within a hundred meters—were severed in a single stroke. The Admiral's central trunk, where he had anchored himself, was cut clean through.
Tree tops rained down.
They fell in slow motion—massive canopies of green and brown, crashing into the dock, into the harbor, into the burning buildings. The ground shook with each impact.
Marya stood in the center of the storm, her black hair whipping around her face, her golden eyes fixed on Alejandro.
"Try again," she said.
---
Ember rolled leaped to her feet, avoiding Marya's deadly slash of haki, as a tree top crashed behind her.
"TA-DA!" She threw her arms wide, her tattered Lolita dress flapping. "This is SO MUCH FUN!"
Aloka appeared from a shadow, their hand outstretched.
"Enough."
Ember ducked, rolled, and fired. The sparkler round exploded in Aloka's face, forcing them to retreat into the shadows.
"Catch me if you can!" Ember sang, and disappeared behind a fallen branch.
Aloka's mask twitched. They muttered something under their breath and gave chase.
Mani rolled out of the path of a falling trunk, came up in a crouch, and stared.
The sky was visible again. Where a forest had stood moments ago, there were only stumps—dozens of them, scattered across the ruined dock like gravestones.
And in the center of it all, Marya stood with her sword raised, her leather jacket covered in sawdust, her golden eyes cold and steady.
Mani swallowed hard.
"So that's..." he started, then stopped.
He heard of her father. He had respected the strength. But this—this was something else. A single stroke. A wave of Haki that had cut down an Admiral's forest.
He shook his head and raised Suley.
"Good iron," he muttered.
---
Ryokugyu's trunk had reformed—but slowly, the bark crawling upward, the branches regrowing. His voice, when it came, was raw with rage.
"DRACULE MARYA!"
Marya did not flinch.
"YOU THINK YOU CAN CUT ME DOWN? I AM THE FOREST! I AM THE EARTH! I AM—"
"You're loud," Marya said.
The Admiral's trunk shuddered. His branches reached toward her—not to block, but to attack. To crush.
Mani moved.
"NO YOU DON'T!" He charged, Suley swinging, and cut through the reaching limbs before they could touch Marya. Wood exploded around him, but he kept cutting, kept swinging, kept the Admiral's attention divided.
Alejandro Fuego roared.
His body swelled—muscles bulging, fur erupting, wings sprouting from his shoulders. The Chimera emerged: lion claws, serpent tail, goat horns, eagle wings. His amber-yellow eyes blazed with fire.
He charged toward Marya, flames spewing from his jaws.
Marya raised Nisshoku.
"Finally," she said.
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