"Is this the extent of a fist swung with hatred and fighting spirit?"
Rosen's voice was steady, almost cold. His eyes lingered on Gild Tesoro's horrified expression. A faint chuckle left his lips."
"He had not moved a single step, yet the fingers pressing lightly against the golden gloves gleamed with dazzling violet light.
Click.
Under Tesoro's disbelieving gaze, the golden gauntlets covering his arms split apart like fragile shells. Shards burst into glittering dust before dissolving entirely into powder. An overwhelming impact surged forth—vast as a mountain torrent, unrelenting as a tidal wave—swallowing Tesoro whole.
Bang!
The roar cracked like thunder across the battlefield. Tesoro's body was hurled backward like a cannonball, his scream tearing through the golden air.
"Guaah!"
Blood burst from his mouth as his body crashed into a towering mountain of gold. The structure, though hardened like forged steel, melted pliant as dough under the stress of impact. It tried to absorb the invading force but failed.
Crack—!
The massive golden hill split apart instantly, fragments scattering as Tesoro's body plummeted through and slammed into the ground below. A jagged crater spider-webbed outward, fractures gouging deep into the island.
Tesoro did not lose consciousness. He dragged his bloodied face upward, turning toward Donquixote Doflamingo, who stood a short distance away, smirking with visible relish.
Tesoro's eyes seemed to demand: Why? Why is it that I, who wield the power of gold itself, cannot withstand even a finger from Rosen?
"Fufufufufufufu!"
Doflamingo's mocking laugh sliced the silence.
"Unbelievable, isn't it? That posture… it's exactly the one every man assumes before Rosen."
Doflamingo's smile widened. He knew this scene intimately. Not long ago, he himself had been broken in the very same fashion.
The resemblance made him shiver with recognition—and satisfaction.
"It's not that you're weak," Doflamingo continued, "but that in front of this man, everyone is equal. No matter who you are, you will end the same way."
Tesoro's labored breaths rasped.
Doflamingo reached into his coat and tossed a steel collar at Tesoro's feet.
"I've lived through what you're feeling now. There's no path forward. You can't beat him—hell, you can't even make him take a single step back. Accept it, Tesoro. Put on the collar."
Tesoro's eyes burned with fury.
"Who do you think I am?" he growled, coughing blood. "I am the man who will become a god of this world! Don't you dare treat me like you're my equal!"
He refused the words outright. His vision of supremacy burned too brightly to be extinguished. He had imagined himself sweeping through the North Sea, then building outward—buying, crushing, and enslaving all who once looked down on him.
The power of gold, he believed, would be absolute.
Yet that dream had just been shattered by Rosen's single finger.
"...…"
Doflamingo's expression darkened at the arrogance. He had respected Tesoro's ambition, even admired it. But to be compared unfavorably, to be dismissed as beneath him, stung. His pride as former King of the North Sea and now Warlord twisted. Still, when he imagined the despair awaiting Tesoro, a wicked grin curled across his face.
"Rosen," Doflamingo said lightly, "what you're about to see—I originally prepared it for the Celestial Dragons. But perhaps he'll demonstrate it now."
Tesoro staggered to his feet, ignoring Doflamingo entirely. To him, the man was a defeated dog—a guard dog of the Marines at that. Their earlier duel had ended evenly, but Tesoro had never treated him as worthy of his full strength. Against Rosen, however, he understood he could afford no reservations.
Boom!
Tesoro slammed his fist to the earth. Gold burst outward like a shockwave. The island glowed with blinding brilliance as soil, rock, trees, and even the rushing river twisted into radiant metal.
The forest became a golden forest.
The cliffs turned into golden ramparts.
Even the water roared now as a molten golden current.
"The Gold-Gold Fruit's awakening…" Rosen murmured, his tone even but laced with recognition.
Indeed, Tesoro had awakened his devil fruit.
The contrast between seas struck Rosen immediately. In the East Blue, petty tyrants like Colonel Mouse or Axe-Hand Morgan could run rampant unchecked. Even its so-called powers—men like Krieg or Arlong—were laughable compared to the monsters of the North Sea.
Here, Doflamingo wielded not only all three Forms of Haki but also an awakened String-String Fruit. Judge of Germa, though fruitless and without Haki, commanded clone armies and cybernetic children. And now Tesoro, still young in his rise, brandished an awakened Gold-Gold Fruit.
Compared to such brutality, no wonder the East Blue remained the weakest of the seas.
Boom—!
The golden ground beneath Tesoro surged like a tide. It lifted him high, waves of molten metal coiling around his frame.
Gold climbed his body, stacking in torrents until smoke and dust swallowed him entirely. His figure expanded, growing larger and larger.
The air trembled as colossal weight pressed upon the island.
Bang!
A massive golden arm burst from the haze, scattering the choking dust with a casual sweep. The form that emerged towered monstrously. A golden giant—vast beyond even the size of true giants—stood revealed. Each step crushed the earth beneath its feet, leaving craters of molten gold behind.
The giant's body gleamed with sacred brilliance. The people of the North Sea could only look up in awe—or terror.
"Rosen," Tesoro's voice thundered from within the colossus, reverberating like the voice of a god. "Do you see it? This is the power of gold—the very posture of divinity itself!"
Now he stood above Rosen, gazing down from the height of his golden throne, reversing the humiliation he had endured moments earlier. Just as Rosen had once loomed in his Susanoo, Tesoro now claimed the heavens with his golden majesty.