This was the day the Celestial Dragons, nobles of the world, arrived at the Goa Kingdom from the Grand Line.
To welcome their grand ship, an elaborate ceremony had been prepared long in advance.
At the harbor, crowds swarmed the docks. Shoulder to shoulder, people gathered from every direction.
Everyone, commoner or noble, came dressed in their finest attire, lined up in perfect formation, faces brimming with anticipation and admiration.
Even one of the short mountain bandits from Dadan's household stood atop a high point with a telescope, observing the lively scene below.
As excitement built, a nobleman at the front of the crowd suddenly shouted:
"Hey! Look over there! Someone's sailing out to sea!"
"What?!"
"Hey! Come back!"
"You'll ruin the welcome ceremony for the Celestial Dragons!"
The crowd buzzed with agitation. At the front, the nobles' faces darkened as they glared at a small fishing boat sailing farther and farther away from the harbor.
"It's a child! Whose kid is that?!"
An official in charge of the ceremony stomped in frustration, shouting at the onlookers with a panicked face.
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The vast blue sea stretched endlessly, merging with the sky on the horizon.
Clear. Transparent. Pure. Peaceful.
The roaring waves and the snow-white spray they flung into the air made everything at the harbor feel small, trivial, even.
"Perfect weather. A great day to set sail."
Sabo tied off the sail of the fishing boat and stood up, gazing across the endless ocean.
A black flag fluttered at the mast, emblazoned with a white "S" over crossed white bones.
It was unmistakably a pirate flag, yet it didn't carry a trace of menace.
From the harbor, voices shouted for Sabo to turn back, begging him not to disrupt the Celestial Dragons' grand arrival.
Sabo looked back, watching the nobles yell with twisted expressions.
He recalled what had happened days before.
"What scares me most… is being swallowed by this country and becoming a walking corpse."
"Sorry, Ace, Luffy… I'm not turning back."
The little boat drifted further from the shore, becoming a speck of dust before the boundless sea.
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Then, from the side of the island, a massive warship slowly appeared.
Towering dozens of meters high and stretching hundreds of meters long, its golden lion-head prow glistened in the sun, unmistakably the ship of someone unimaginably powerful.
The giant vessel drew closer to the harbor.
The nobles of Goa burst into cheers, clapping and exclaiming in admiration. If not for noble etiquette, they might have broken into dance on the spot.
All eyes blazed with fervor, watching the Celestial Dragons arrive.
"That ship… is that really the Celestial Dragons?!"
"If I die now, I die without regrets!"
Such absurd declarations filled the air.
Meanwhile, Sabo's tiny boat was drifting ever closer to the Celestial Dragons' colossal ship.
"To one day command a ship like that... That'd be a dream. Better steer clear before I get crushed." Sabo chuckled, skillfully adjusting his course to avoid the behemoth.
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The Celestial Dragons, descendants of the twenty kings who founded the World Government 800 years ago, reside in the Holy Land of Mary Geoise.
They wear bubble helmets because they believe commoners aren't worthy of sharing the same air, and they treat all other races as slaves.
They enjoy absolute privilege. If they are offended in any way, the Marines will dispatch an admiral and a fleet immediately to punish the offender.
Over time, this unchecked power led to rampant abuse, especially on the Sabaody Archipelago.
They possess an extreme belief in bloodline purity, holding deep-rooted superiority and blatant discrimination toward all non-Celestial Dragon humans.
Simply put, they don't see anyone else as human.
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On the deck of the great ship, one of the Celestial Dragons looked down with disdain at the cheering idiots on the dock.
"This is the last stop, isn't it?" he asked, yawning with boredom.
"Yes, Saint Jalmack," a suited man beside him replied respectfully.
"Hm? What's that?" Jalmack asked, squinting at something in the water.
The bodyguard raised a telescope and looked.
"It appears to be a fishing boat… with a child on board."
"Oh? A fishing boat?"
"And it's flying a pirate flag."
"Then it's a pirate. Handle it as such."
With that, Saint Jalmack took a rocket launcher from a slave standing behind him.
He aimed it at the small vessel. The targeting lens locked on.
BOOM!
The missile roared through the air, leaving a fiery trail.
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From a nearby mountain, Luffy had been watching everything unfold.
At the moment the rocket was fired, his suppressed aura surged forth. A wave of Conqueror's Haki slammed into the missile.
"Hm?" Luffy narrowed his eyes, staring at the horizon.
Another wave of Haki burst forth, stronger than his, colliding with the missile midair.
BOOM!
The two forces clashed, prematurely detonating the missile in a burst of energy.
The sea trembled. A massive whirlpool formed beneath the explosion.
Sabo's fishing boat was shattered in the shockwave, and the boy himself was knocked unconscious.
Debris sank into the sea, yet, somehow, Sabo's body did not fall into the whirlpool.
A mysterious gust of wind swept him gently away, deeper into the ocean's embrace.
Luffy's pupils shrank. Focusing his superhuman eyesight, he caught a glimpse of a distant ship on the horizon.
Its design matched exactly the one that had rescued refugees from the blazing Gray Terminal.
Luffy chuckled.
"Looks like Dad reached out to Sabo after all."
With that, he retracted his Haki and became an ordinary boy once more, turning back toward Dadan's house.
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Back at the port, chaos had erupted.
"S-Sabo!!!"
A mountain bandit stared at the sea, eyes wide and trembling. Tears streamed down his face, heartbroken.
"The boat was hit!"
"God, is that kid still alive?!"
"Damn it! He pissed off the Celestial Dragons!"
On the warship's deck, Saint Jalmack laughed with glee, like a child who just broke a toy.
"That was actually kind of fun! Hahaha!"
The black-suited bodyguard, however, frowned. He had sensed something off about the missile… but with his Observation Haki fully active, he hadn't detected anything.
Still, considering the man beside him was a Celestial Dragon, he brushed aside his doubts.
The sea calmed. The warship docked.
When the nobles saw that the Celestial Dragons weren't angry, in fact, even seemed amused, they let out a collective sigh of relief.
The welcome ceremony proceeded as planned. A red carpet stretched from the harbor to the royal palace, with citizens and nobles kneeling on either side.
At that moment, throughout the entire Goa Kingdom, the only sound was the footsteps of the Celestial Dragons.
Even the king knelt at the end of the red carpet, bowing low to greet their arrival.
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