-Broadcast-
Kaido, the cautious King of the Beasts, rarely made mistakes. Yet at the most critical moment of his conquest, he faltered. Moved by something in Kozuki Oden's final stand—by the samurai's hour of suffering in boiling oil—Kaido did not immediately eliminate Kozuki Momonosuke in the burning ruins of Oden Castle.
That single moment of hesitation gave his enemies a chance to turn the tables. The legend of Joy Boy and his goal of liberating the world were destined to end in failure—undone not by strength, but by mercy.]
Kozuki Momonosuke's sobs echoed through the smoke-filled chamber as flames consumed the walls around them. His mother's unconscious form lay crumpled on the scorched floor, blood trickling from her temple where Kaido's fist had struck. Hiyori clung to her, small hands shaking Toki's shoulders desperately.
Then Lady Toki's eyes opened.
Pain etched deep lines across her face as she struggled to rise, one hand pressed against the wound on her head. The remaining Red Scabbards rushed to support her, but she waved them back with surprising strength.
"There's... no time..." Toki's voice came in ragged gasps. "I must... send you forward..."
"My lady, you're too weak!" Kin'emon protested, his eyes wide with alarm. "Using your power now could—"
"It's the only way." Toki's gaze swept across the faces of those she would save—young Momonosuke with tears streaming down his cheeks, loyal Kin'emon, steadfast Kanjuro, brave Raizo, fierce Kiku, and the others. "Twenty years from now... Wano will need you."
Her hand rose, trembling but resolute, and power unlike anything the retainers had ever witnessed began to manifest.
Lady Toki revealed the true nature of her Devil Fruit to those assembled. The Toki Toki no Mi (Time-Time Fruit)—a power that touched the very origin of time itself—enveloped them all in its ethereal glow. These people would travel twenty years into the future to save Wano Country from its darkest era.
Brilliant white light erupted from Toki's palm, spreading like morning dawn through the burning chamber. The air itself seemed to shimmer and distort, reality bending around the ancient woman's will.
"Mother!" Momonosuke reached for her, but the light had already begun pulling him away. "Mother, no!"
"Live, my son." Toki's smile carried infinite sorrow and infinite hope. "Live to see the dawn I could not."
Kozuki Momonosuke and several of the Nine Red Scabbards vanished into the white light, their forms dissolving like morning mist. Only Kozuki Hiyori remained behind—too far from her mother's reach when the power activated.
The moment they disappeared, Lady Toki collapsed.
The cost of using the Paramecia-type Toki Toki no Mi at full power was absolute. The Devil Fruit had completed its mission, and Lady Toki was dying. Her life force had been the final fuel for sending others across decades.
Yet even as death's cold fingers closed around her heart, the ancient woman refused to yield. With the last dregs of her vitality, she dragged herself through the inferno consuming Oden Castle. Wooden beams crashed around her. Flames licked at her kimono. But she pressed forward with singular purpose.
She had one final duty to perform.
The people of Wano gathered in the streets beyond Oden Castle, their faces illuminated by the raging fire that devoured their former Shogun's ancestral home. Most watched with the numb expressions of those who had long since surrendered hope. A few wept. Many simply stared.
Then a figure emerged from the flames.
Lady Toki stumbled into view, her elegant kimono charred and smoking, burns covering her exposed skin. Blood stained the fabric red. Yet her voice rang clear across the execution ground:
"Hear me, people of Wano!" Each word cost her agony, but she would not be silenced. "Twenty years from this day, nine shadows shall appear to challenge the false Shogun! The dawn will come! Wano Country will open its borders! A savior will liberate this land completely!"
Her prophecy echoed through the stunned crowd. Like her husband before her, Lady Toki believed with absolute faith that Wano's salvation would come—that the future held freedom for this imprisoned nation.
She never saw the arrows.
The Beasts Pirates soldiers fired from the shadows, their projectiles finding their marks with cruel precision. Lady Toki's body jerked as multiple arrows pierced her back and chest. She crumpled to her knees, then collapsed forward onto the blood-soaked earth.
The soldiers of the Beasts Pirates indirectly took the life of Kozuki Momonosuke's mother. Like her beloved husband, Lady Toki suffered the burning of fire before death claimed her. The indifferent people of Wano could only watch as this once-noble woman was consumed by the sea of flames spreading from Oden Castle.
The crowd stood frozen, witnessing in silence as fire slowly engulfed Lady Toki's fallen form.
Not one person moved to help her.
What Kozuki Toki did before her death was noticed by only one person of that generation in Wano Country.
From the shadows of a distant rooftop, blood-red eyes watched the execution ground with cold calculation. Uchiha Madara's expression remained utterly unmoved as Lady Toki's prophecy faded into the crackling of flames.
"The death of one woman means nothing," he murmured to himself, "as long as the Hyuga clan's bloodline continues. Everything remains according to plan."
The legendary shinobi had felt it—the ripples in time itself as Toki's Devil Fruit power activated. His Sharingan perceived what others could not: the temporal distortion that sent several individuals hurtling into the future.
"Time fluctuations..." A ghost of a smile crossed Madara's scarred features. "You sent others forward, didn't you? The power of that Devil Fruit truly is remarkable. Unfortunately, everyone only receives one chance."
Though he had noticed Toki's final gambit, the Uchiha had no intention of exposing or preventing it. If anything, the prophecy served his purposes. Let the people of Wano cling to hope for a future savior. Let them wait twenty years in suspense. Such false hope would keep them docile, dreaming of liberation that would never come.
"Kozuki Momonosuke..." Madara's blood-red pupils gleamed even more eerily beneath the moonlight, the crimson seeming to overlap with the lunar surface itself. "I will wait for you in twenty years. But please, don't disappoint me."
The ancient shinobi turned and vanished into the night, leaving behind only corpses and flames.
But this story was not written by accidents alone. Deliberate human interference created new accidents, making the predicted timeline inaccurate. Kozuki Momonosuke would appear in the future far earlier than anyone expected.
-Inside the Time-Space Channel-
Kozuki Momonosuke tumbled through an impossible space.
All around him, reality itself seemed to fragment and reassemble in dizzying patterns. Streaks of white light flashed past like shooting stars. The sensation was neither falling nor floating—simply existing in a place where normal laws meant nothing.
The Nine Red Scabbards floated nearby, their expressions ranging from terror to wonder. Kin'emon reached out protectively toward his young lord, though in this strange dimension, the gesture felt meaningless.
Kozuki Momonosuke and his companions had entered the time-space channel created by Lady Toki's Toki Toki no Mi. Within this rapidly shifting space, the passage of time held no meaning for those who traveled through it. Even journeying decades or centuries into the future would not age them a single day. Twenty years would pass in the outside world in what felt like mere moments to them.
"What... what is this place?" Momonosuke whispered, his earlier tears forgotten in the face of this new impossibility. Nothing in his sheltered life had prepared him for traveling through time itself.
"Lord Momonosuke, stay close!" Kin'emon called out, though his voice sounded distant and strange in this dimension. "We must trust in Lady Toki's power!"
Then Momonosuke saw something that made him point ahead in shock.
"Wait... why is there someone running in front of us?!"
Far ahead in the temporal corridor, a figure in crimson raced through the time-space channel as if it were solid ground. Crackling lightning surrounded the runner's form—golden electricity that left afterimages in the distorted space. The figure's speed was incomprehensible, yet somehow, Momonosuke could perceive him clearly.
The runner moved with desperate purpose, as if trying to reach something—or change something. And as he ran, the flow of time within the channel itself began to shift. The passage that should have carried them forward started to slow, its temporal current growing sluggish.
Before any of the Nine Red Scabbards could respond to their young lord's observation, two more figures appeared behind them.
"There!" one of the newcomers shouted, his voice echoing strangely through the dimensional space. "He's still ahead of us!"
The two pursuers blazed past Momonosuke and his retainers like living lightning, their forms crackling with the same golden electricity as the runner ahead. All three speedsters seemed to transcend the normal rules of time itself—their power was something far beyond Devil Fruits or Haki.
"Wait, are they twins?" Momonosuke squinted at the figures. One of the pursuers wore the same style of red suit as the person they were chasing. Their faces looked remarkably similar. "Why are there two of them?"
The second pursuer, however, was vastly different.
"Barry, if you don't stop right now, we'll have to make you!" the second figure called out. This one appeared to be an elderly man—and he was completely naked, his wrinkled body on full display as he ran at impossible speeds through the time corridor. Certain body parts bounced and swayed with each stride in a manner that made Momonosuke quickly avert his eyes.
Character Note: Marine Admiral Kizaru, first-generation Flash—Borsalino, user of the Pika Pika no Mi (Glint-Glint Fruit)
"Barry, I'm begging you!" The young man in the red suit shouted desperately at the runner ahead. "I want to fix my mistakes too, but changing the past will create disaster! You have to stop!"
Character Note: Citizen of the Holy Roman Empire, second-generation Flash—Barry, user of the Pika Pika no Mi (Glint-Glint Fruit)
But the speedster in front—Barry—showed no signs of slowing. His determination blazed as brightly as the lightning surrounding his form. Whatever drove him to race through time itself, he would not be dissuaded by mere words.
The two pursuers poured everything they had into their chase. The old man Borsalino wheezed with exertion despite his incredible speed, while the younger Flash gritted his teeth and pushed his power to its absolute limit.
The gap closed. Meter by meter, second by second.
Finally, they reached him.
"Got you!" The young Flash grabbed Barry's arm while the naked Admiral Kizaru seized his leg. The sudden resistance disrupted Barry's temporal momentum catastrophically.
All three speedsters tumbled through the time-space channel in a chaotic tangle of limbs and crackling electricity. Their lightning discharge painted the dimensional corridor in brilliant gold and crimson as they fell.
Kozuki Momonosuke watched the scene with wide, uncomprehending eyes. Before he could process what had just happened, blinding white light engulfed his vision.
When the light faded, he and the Nine Red Scabbards found themselves lying on solid ground—real ground—beneath a real sky.
They had exited the time-space channel.
-Inside the Time-Space Channel-
Borsalino lay sprawled across the impossible surface of the temporal corridor, every bone in his ancient body screaming in protest.
"Ohhh... my back... my knees... my everything..." The elderly Admiral groaned pitifully. "Barry, you damned reckless brat! You nearly destroyed the old world order because of your impulsiveness! Thank the heavens we stopped you in time, but now who knows what unpredictable future we've created!"
The second-generation Flash—Barry—sat up slowly, scratching the back of his head with an embarrassed expression. His mentor was absolutely right. This entire crisis had been caused by Barry's own willfulness, his desperate attempt to change a past that perhaps should have remained unchanged.
"I'm sorry, Borsalino-san," Barry muttered, genuine regret in his voice.
The naked old man groaned again as he tried to sit up. "Just... please don't do this again. I want to enjoy my retirement in peace! My body might be able to handle traveling through time at my age, but my heart certainly can't take another chase like this!"
As Borsalino's complaints faded, the time-space correction force within the channel began to assert itself. An invisible current pulled at the old Admiral's body, dragging him backward through the temporal flow. Unlike Barry, who belonged to a future era, Borsalino was a man of the past. The timeline would return him to his proper place.
But even as he began to fade from this impossible space, Admiral Kizaru managed one final piece of advice:
"When you return to your own time, don't cause any more trouble." His voice grew distant as the temporal current strengthened. "What's happened has happened. No one can truly change the past. Remember this, Barry—never play with the timeline just because you have the power to do so."
With those words, Borsalino vanished completely, pulled back to his own era.
Barry watched his senior disappear in silence, the weight of the advice settling heavily on his shoulders. He wanted to believe he would heed the warning. He wanted to believe this would be the last time.
But deep down, he knew the truth: if he had interfered with space-time once, he would do so again countless times. The power to change things, once tasted, was impossible to abandon.
Due to the willful behavior of the second-generation Flash, the combined efforts of two generations of speedsters had erased one timeline and prevented a catastrophic ending. But the changes rippled forward through time, manifesting in unexpected ways.
Barry looked down at himself and froze.
His suit—which had always been dominated by crimson red—was transforming before his eyes. Golden lightning patterns now decorated the material, weaving through the scarlet fabric in intricate designs. The suit he had built with his own hands suddenly felt unfamiliar, as if it belonged to someone he didn't quite recognize.
Then the memories came.
They flooded into his mind like a broken dam—memories that didn't belong to him, experiences he had never lived, a life that was somehow both his and not his. The timeline had changed, and reality was rewriting itself to accommodate that change.
"The future is different now..." Barry whispered to the empty temporal corridor, his voice carrying equal parts hope and melancholy. "Mr. Borsalino, I pray this time it's a better future than before."
With infinite uncertainty weighing on his heart, the second-generation Flash transformed into a bolt of lightning and shot forward through the time-space channel, racing toward his own era—whatever that era had now become.
The three speedsters' race through the time-space channel happened in what felt like a single moment to Kozuki Momonosuke and his companions. But their presence disrupted the continuity of the timeline in ways that would have lasting consequences.
Originally, Lady Toki had predicted that Momonosuke would arrive exactly twenty years in the future. But due to the strong interference of the speedsters' temporal battle, a deviation occurred. The refugees who should have appeared in Year 1540 would instead emerge in an earlier future.
When Kozuki Momonosuke opened his eyes, he would find himself not in the year he was meant to reach—but in a Wano Country whose fate had already begun to shift along a new path.
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