Ragnar, bloodied and breathing heavily, his body screaming with pain. Weevil, a canvas of bruises and broken bones, his simple mind now a singularity of rage.
Ragnar began walking toward Stussy.
She backed away instinctively, her eyes wide, her breath shallow. Her voice trembled as she tried to summon her venom again.
"You… you think this is over?" she spat. "You think you've won?"
Ragnar didn't answer.
His silence was louder than any threat.
"YOU!" Weevil roared, voice raw and cracked. "WILL. NOT. HURT. MAMA!"
He charged.
Ragnar turned, met him head-on.
Their fists collided in the center of the ruined square—both wreathed in the supreme power of kings.
VROOOOM.
The world went white.
A perfect, silent sphere of annihilating energy expanded from the point of impact. Then the sound returned—a deafening, reality-tearing roar that blasted upward. The sky itself ripped open. Clouds weren't parted—they were torn, revealing a black and crimson rift in the heavens. A celestial wound bleeding chaos.
The island groaned.
The shockwave didn't knock things over—it erased them. The last remnants of the town were atomized. The forest flattened for miles. At the epicenter, the ground gave way.
A jagged canyon tore through the island, splitting it in two.
The combatants fell into the chasm they had created.
They slammed against the canyon walls, fists still flying. Ragnar drove a knee into Weevil's gut, cracking the cliffside. Weevil retaliated, grabbing Ragnar's head and smashing him through a rock outcropping, dragging him down the wall.
They were a tumbling avalanche of violence.
They hit the bottom with a ground-shaking impact.
Ragnar, thinking fast, slammed his Ryuu-charged palms into the earth. A pillar of force erupted beneath Weevil, launching him skyward.
Ragnar leapt, met him mid-air, and delivered a devastating axe kick to his chest.
BOOM.
Weevil crashed through the canyon floor, vanishing into darkness.
Ragnar landed, panting, blood dripping from a dozen wounds. He stared into the pit.
Silence.
"You were Strong! But It's my Win!"
He turned to climb out, to find Iris.
RUMBLE.
He froze.
From the pit, a hand emerged. Then another.
Weevil pulled himself out, bones snapping back into place. His face was a mask of blood. One eye swollen shut. The other burned with relentless fire.
He was smiling.
Ragnar's shoulders sagged.
A profound, soul-deep frustration washed over him. A weariness beyond exhaustion.
This thing… this monster… he just. Wouldn't. Stay. Down.
Weevil cracked his neck. "Again," he grunted.
Ragnar closed his eyes.
There was only one way left.
Annihilation.
Weevil charged, throwing a clumsy but devastating haymaker.
This time, Ragnar didn't meet force with force.
He sidestepped, flowing around the punch like water. His hands moved with precision—he caught Weevil's outstretched arm, spun, and used the monster's own momentum against him. He locked his stance, becoming an anchor, and channeled every ounce of his Conqueror's Haki—his rage, his desperation, his need for this to end—into a single, focused point in his palm.
He slammed his open hand into Weevil's chest.
It wasn't an explosion.
It was propulsion.
A jet-like blast of pure Conqueror's and Armament Haki erupted from his palm. Weevil's eyes went wide as he was lifted off his feet and sent flying—not tumbling, but rocketing like a missile.
A crimson and black streak against the split sky.
He shot across the ruined half of the island and slammed into the main peak of the mountain range.
He didn't stop.
The force of Ragnar's blow bored a perfect, molten tunnel straight through the mountain. Rock and earth vaporized in his wake.
For a moment, the mountain had a glowing hole punched through its heart.
Then, on the far side, Weevil burst out in a storm of stone and steam, tumbling through the air before crashing into the distant, frozen sea.
Ragnar stood in the canyon, arm trembling, smoke rising from his palm. Blood soaked his body. His own. His opponent's.
He had won.
He had to have won. "That Monster! Now Where is Iris?"
He looked across the strait, to the mountain with a fresh wound carved through its core.
And on the far peak—
A silhouette pulled itself from the rubble.
Small. Broken. Swaying.
But standing.
And walking back toward the chasm.
Ragnar's face was a mask of stone.
Inside, a single, weary thought echoed:
It doesn't matter. He will not stop.
He didn't move. He didn't recover. He simply stood, watching the relentless figure grow larger. The brief respite only allowed the pain to settle deeper into his bones.
When Weevil finally reached the edge of the canyon, he was a horror.
His body was a latticework of injuries—skin flayed, bones jutting at unnatural angles—all knitting back together with sickening crunches. His face was a ruin. One eye swollen shut. The other burned with mindless fire.
He didn't roar.
He just charged.
Ragnar met him, but his timing was off. His body screamed in protest. His punch, still powerful, felt sluggish.
Weevil ignored it.
He wrapped his arms around Ragnar's torso, lifted him high, and ran him headfirst into the canyon wall.
CRACK.
The rock spiderwebbed. Ragnar's vision flashed white. Stars exploded behind his eyes.
Weevil pulled him out and slammed him again.
And again.
And again.
Each impact was a thunderclap. A sledgehammer blow. The island trembled.
Weevil wasn't fighting anymore.
He was breaking.
He threw Ragnar to the canyon floor, then brought his foot down on his chest.
SNAP.
Ragnar coughed, blood spraying the rocks. He tried to push Weevil's leg off, but his arms were dead weight.
"Stay. Down," Weevil grunted, pressing harder.
He leaned over, grabbed Ragnar by the throat, and began to punch.
Left. Right. Left.
Wet, meaty thuds.
Ragnar's head snapped back and forth. His face became a swollen, unrecognizable mask of blood and bruises.
He was losing.
His Haki flickered. His will bent under the relentless tide of Weevil's strength.
He thought of Iris.
A fresh wave of adrenaline surged—but his body was failing.
Weevil lifted him by the throat, Ragnar's feet dangling.
He stared into Ragnar's one eye that wasn't swollen shut.
"You… are not… my father's son," Weevil said, slow and deliberate. "You… are weak."
Ragnar flew through the air like a broken toy, crashing into the flattened ruins of the town square. He landed hard, every nerve screaming, his consciousness flickering like a candle in a hurricane.
He groaned, pushing himself onto his elbows. The world tilted and blurred.
Through the haze, he saw Weevil leap from the canyon, landing with a ground-shaking thud. The monster stood over him, fists raised for the final blow.
Ragnar closed his eyes.
He had nothing left.
He had failed—Iris, the village, everything.
He waited for the end.
But the final blow never came.
A small voice, trembling but clear, cut through the tension.
"Stop."
Weevil froze, fists hovering mid-air. He turned.
Iris stood at the edge of the crater, her small body shaking, white hair matted with dirt. She had disobeyed. She had come back.
Tears streamed down her cheeks, but her golden eyes burned with defiance.
"Please," she whispered, voice cracking. "Don't hurt my papa anymore."
Ragnar's eye fluttered open. "Iris… no…" he croaked, trying to rise. "Run…"
Stussy climbed from the canyon, her face alight with cruel delight.
"Oh, look, Weevil," she purred. "The little mouse has come out of her hole."
She stepped toward Iris, crouching low, voice dripping with poison.
"Don't worry, child. Your father's suffering will be over soon. And then you and I are going to have a very long conversation… about your heritage."
She reached out and grabbed Iris's arm.
Iris struggled. "Let me go! Let go of me!"
"Insolent brat," Stussy hissed, raising her hand—
SLAP.
The sound rang out sharp and ugly.
Iris stumbled, clutching her cheek, eyes wide with shock.
And in that instant—
Everything changed.
A pressure dropped on the world. Immense. Suffocating.
It wasn't Haki.
It was something else.
From the ground, Ragnar began to rise.
His head bowed. His body trembling.
Then—
Crack.
Two horns sprouted from his skull. One fiery red. One glacial blue.
His teeth elongated into fangs. A low growl rumbled from his chest.
His eyes opened.
No longer gold.
Swirling vortexes of red and blue.
His body transformed—half molten scales, half crystalline frost.
He had become a perfect duality.
Fire and Ice.
Stussy stumbled back, still clutching Iris.
"That… that form…" she stammered. "You… you're Gunnar. The Mythical Zoan… the Ymir…"
The monster that was once Ragnar didn't speak.
He vanished.
Then reappeared in front of Stussy, hand wrapped around her throat.
"GAH—!" she choked, feet kicking.
"GAH—!" Stussy choked, her feet kicking uselessly in the air.
"MAMA!" Weevil roared, snapping out of his shock. His eyes locked on her dangling form, and instinct overtook everything else. He charged.
But Gunnar didn't even look at him.
With a flick of his wrist, he hurled Stussy skyward—her scream trailing behind her as she became a speck against the torn sky.
"Catch," he growled, his voice a monstrous duet of crackling fire and grinding ice.
Weevil didn't hesitate. Loyalty overrode pain, fear, and reason. He leapt, his massive legs launching him skyward in a blur of motion. He caught her mid-air, wrapping his arms around her protectively.
And Gunnar looked up.
He inhaled.
His chest glowed—half molten red, half glacial blue.
Then he exhaled.
A torrent of elemental fury erupted from his mouth. Not fire. Not ice. But both—a vortex of molten lava and absolute-zero frost, a dragon's breath of cosmic duality. It tore through the sky like a divine judgment.
Weevil saw it coming.
He did the only thing he could.
He curled around Stussy, shielding her with his body.
The blast hit.
The sky ignited and froze at once. A flash of impossible light. Then the sound—a deafening, continuous roar that shook the heavens. The beam punched through the clouds, visible for miles.
When it ended, Weevil fell.
Smoking. Steaming. His back a ruin of charred flesh and frostbitten bone.
He crashed to the earth, landing on hands and knees. Alive. But broken in a way no Haki could mend.
Gunnar landed before him, the ground cracking beneath his monstrous weight.
He looked down at the kneeling giant.
Then he punched him in the face.
CRACK.
The air shattered.
Weevil's head snapped back. He was driven into the ground.
Gunnar didn't stop.
He rained down a storm of tremor-punches—each one wrapped in the white, crackling aura of the Gura Gura no Mi.
Left. Right. Left. Right.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
Each blow was a world-breaking quake. The earth split. The canyon deepened. He wasn't just hitting Weevil—he was burying him.
Ten feet. Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred.
The hole plunged into the crust of the earth, a crater carved by a father's wrath.
When it was over, Gunnar stood at the edge of a perfect, circular abyss—219 feet deep.
At the bottom, Weevil lay still.
Gunnar panted, steam rising from his fists. His monstrous form began to fade. The horns shrank. The scales receded. The fire and frost dimmed.
He was Ragnar again.
Naked from the waist up. Covered in blood and ash. Standing on the edge of the pit he had carved with his bare hands.
He looked down at his trembling hands.
And for a moment, he didn't recognize them. Face barely recognizable, completely destroyed.