A crushing presence settled over everyone present, and beneath its weight the very heavens and earth seemed to lose their color. An invisible binding force filled the air, pressing down on the entire crowd, and the weaker among them could barely move at all.
Straining against it, they turned toward the source and found Rosinante standing there, his face dark as a gathering storm.
A world drained of color beneath the Will of Eternal Silence: this was the power Rosinante had gained after awakening his Silence Fruit. When he first awakened the fruit, he had fused his Conqueror's Haki with that will of eternal silence. As his bond with the fruit deepened over time, his very soul melding into it, his Conqueror's Haki came to carry an ever-stronger thread of that silence within it.
Normally he never released his Haki at full strength. But now, in his fury, it poured out of him entirely on its own. And the eternal silence woven through that full-force Haki was enough to bleed the color from the world, something that should only be possible for an awakened Devil Fruit.
"Y-Your Majesty!"
Only now did the newcomer notice Rosinante, and his battered face lit up with desperate relief. The wounded man who had dragged himself here for help was no stranger to Rosinante. It was Raijin Kisuke, once the one of the Seat of the Oathblood Guard.
A suppression seal kept his injuries from closing, and his body was marked with wounds that simply would not heal. He was very nearly spent. Yet once the shock passed, his expression broke into wild, unguarded joy, and all the fear and worry from moments before vanished in a heartbeat. Worn down to his last reserves, the instant he saw Rosinante his spirits surged and the strength flooded back into him.
For the Oathblood Guard, as long as Rosinante stood with them, it made no difference who they faced. Big Mom, any of the Four Emperors, none of them inspired the slightest fear.
"What happened? What's become of Enel and the others?" Rosinante asked, his face still grim.
As he spoke he drew his Conqueror's Haki back in, careful not to let it crush Kisuke's answer or bear down on those around them.
"Your Majesty, please, you have to save Enel and the rest. The Big Mom Pirates hit our ship out of nowhere, I don't know why. Enel could have slipped away on his own with no trouble, but he stayed to shield the others and couldn't break free. It's bad. Truly bad. A few of us cut our way out to call for help, but they hunted us the whole way. Now I'm the only one left. The others were caught on the road behind me. I don't know if any of them are still breathing."
The memory of it twisted his face all over again. When he spoke of the men who had broken out alongside him, grief sank into his voice. The Big Mom Pirates had run them down, and the other guards had turned to hold off the pursuers so that he alone could carry the message through. They had bought his escape with their own blood. But against the elite of an Emperor's crew, the Oathblood Guard, capable as they were, were simply too few in number. By now their chances were grim.
"What does Charlotte Linlin think she's doing? Striking people under my protection, in my own waters? Has she forgotten what the name Whitebeard means? Boys, it's high time we reminded the Big Mom Pirates exactly what the Whitebeard Pirates are."
Rosinante hadn't even spoken yet when Whitebeard rose to his feet and let the words boom out of him. The Oathblood Guard were not part of the Whitebeard Pirates, but he had long ago publicly placed them under his protection. For anyone to attack them within the seas he ruled was an open challenge, and for that anyone to be the Big Mom Pirates, one of the Four Emperors no less, struck at his pride directly.
"Old man Whitebeard, this stopped being your business a moment ago. What comes next belongs to me." Rosinante had risen as well now, and his voice came out cold and level. "You might want to prepare yourself for the seas being short one Emperor. The waters could turn a good deal rougher after that."
As he spoke he came down the steps to Kisuke's side and rested a hand on his shoulder. In that instant every wound on the man's body was erased, and a surge of raw vitality poured into him, lifting him back up from the edge of total collapse.
"Hold on a little longer, Kisuke. I still need you to lead the way," Rosinante said.
"Don't worry, Your Majesty. I'll hold on," Kisuke answered with a solemn nod.
The words had barely left him when he felt his own body lift from the ground and begin to drift upward. The sensation was familiar and foreign at once, and it filled him with a sudden ache of longing. He had known it before. It was his lord's power: Gravity Silence.
"Katakuri, I'll go get Enel and the others. The rest of you stay behind. Head straight for the Sabaody Archipelago and take control of the Nightless City. Once I have Enel, I'll meet up with you," Rosinante said.
With that he caught Kisuke up beside him, turned, and shot off through the sky toward the battle waiting in the distance.