Finn turned away from the compressed sphere of rubble and looked across the battlefield. The others were just finishing their own work.
A few dozen yards away, Gion snapped her fingers. A jagged bolt of lightning materialized from the clear air, striking the already charred, paralyzed figure of the blond elder, finishing whatever catastrophic internal damage her Thunder Roar Cannon had started. The body simply came apart, scattering as ash and scorched bone. Gion spun Konpira once, a smooth, practiced twirl to clear the blade, and sheathed it with the sharp click of a craftsman returning a dangerous tool to its box.
Off to the right, Sengoku's towering golden form held something small in one enormous, glowing palm. Saint Mars, who had foolishly punched the Fleet Admiral in the stomach at the start of the ambush, was doing exactly what small things do when held by very large, angry things. He was struggling, frantically and entirely ineffectually. A concentrated golden shockwave pulsed from Sengoku's palm. It was a casual gesture, the motion of a man who had simply decided to stop holding back. The struggling ceased instantly. A fine, dark mist of blood drifted out from between the giant golden fingers, settling onto the red rock.
Sengoku slowly turned his massive head to look at Finn. "You were saying something earlier?"
Finn closed his mouth. He looked at the vast expanse of bare red earth behind him. He looked back at the drifting red mist. He made a tactical decision to abandon whatever point he had been trying to make about the Fleet Admiral's legendary restraint.
"Nothing," Finn said smoothly.
"I thought so," Sengoku rumbled, letting the remains drop.
Nearby, Kuzan had completely frozen Saint Saturn, the same one who had ambushed and shattered him at the start of the fight. Kuzan stared down at the perfect, screaming ice sculpture for a moment. Then, with an expression of deep, vindictive satisfaction that he made absolutely no effort to conceal, he kicked it over. The frozen elder shattered across the bedrock into dozens of clean, bloodless pieces. It was a highly efficient execution, delivered in a very specific, personal way. Kuzan had maintained a lazy, unflappable demeanor through almost every crisis they had faced today. Being ambushed and physically scattered across the dirt had, apparently, finally located the man's limit.
That was it. The Five Elders were gone. All five of them. The absolute highest public authority in the world, the supreme, untouchable council that had governed eight hundred years of human history, had been systematically dismantled and eliminated in the dirt outside the God's Abode before the hour had even turned.
Looking around at the various messy, undignified ways they had met their ends, Finn privately decided that Saint Warcury, who had bled out under the rubble of Pangaea Castle with a smug little smile on his face, had arguably managed the best exit of the group.
"Im is going to have to come out now," Finn said quietly, staring up at the imposing black walls of the ancient castle.
Sengoku and the others gathered around him, their expressions grim as they nodded in agreement.
"She is going to be incredibly dangerous," Finn warned, keeping his voice low. "I don't have a lot of hard data, but the things I can confirm directly are terrifying. Her Observation Haki is operating on a completely different level. Back in the Void Throne Hall, Dragon let his aura leak by a fraction of a fraction. It was barely a flicker. Im caught it instantly. The Five Elders were kneeling three meters away and didn't notice a thing. That kind of perception gap is massive." He paused, letting the wind carry the dust away. "She is also ruthlessly decisive. She didn't pause to ask who Dragon was before she attacked him. You don't move like that unless you have absolute, unshakeable confidence in your ability to kill whatever is standing in front of you."
He also thought about Saint Nusjuro's dying words. The old man had said it almost casually during their clash. It was she who kept the world stable for eight hundred years.
That single sentence was the most critical piece of intelligence Finn had gathered all day.
He had theorized about Im's true age before. Doflamingo's stolen secrets had pointed heavily in this direction, and the circumstantial evidence fit perfectly. But having a working theory and standing in front of the living confirmation were two very different things. Eight hundred years. Not as a figurehead, not as a symbolic monarch, but as the actual, breathing architect of the world, the genuine governing intelligence pulling the strings of the Five Elders. No one alive had any frame of reference for what a human being could become with eight centuries to practice.
Even a pig, given eight hundred years to learn a maze, would eventually find its way out.
What Im had found her way to over eight centuries was likely going to be something none of them were going to enjoy discovering.
He was still trying to organize the tactical implications of this when the voice arrived.
It didn't come from a specific direction. It was simply present, filling the open air the way ambient sound fills a room without a clear source. The voice itself was striking. It was clear, slightly textured, and carried the heavy, unmistakable cadence of absolute authority. It sounded like an ancient, priceless book being read aloud by someone entirely aware of their own immense importance.
"All three colors of Haki," the voice murmured, the tone carrying a mild, almost nostalgic recollection. "Taijutsu. Advanced martial arts. Master-level swordsmanship and spearwork. Fish-Man Karate. Fish-Man Judo. The electro-combat techniques of the Mink Tribe. The brutal fighting traditions of Elbaf. The aerial methods of the Shandians. And so many more that I simply stopped keeping count centuries ago."
The voice paused, letting the sheer weight of the list settle over the red dirt.
"Culturally speaking, I wrote the Poems of Gonia. I authored the only comprehensive history of Mary Geoise. I penned a rather popular novel titled The Different Lives of Three Thousand People. I also wrote a dense philosophical treatise on the balance and redistribution of power, a text that the Revolutionary Army has apparently adopted as their guiding doctrine."
Finn slowly processed the fact that Im, the absolute tyrant of the world, had ghostwritten the foundational philosophical text that fueled the Revolutionary Army. He made a firm, immediate mental note that Monkey D. Dragon could absolutely never find this out. Not for any grand strategic reason. Purely because the sheer irony of it would probably destroy the man's mind.
"I know every language currently spoken in this world," Im continued, her pace unhurried, "including several belonging to cultures that no longer exist. I am fluent in the traditional dance forms of every civilization I have ever encountered. And those two Pacifista units you just dismantled? They were built to my exact specifications, not Vegapunk's. He couldn't quite realize what I envisioned, so I corrected his math and finished the blueprints myself."
A heavy, suffocating pause hung in the air.
"I know considerably more combat applications than the simple Six Styles. And so does the man they call the strongest admiral in history. Finn."
The Marine vanguard stood frozen in the cleared wasteland, staring at the imposing black castle, and said absolutely nothing.
Finn turned the words over in his head. Im had just casually referenced observations from a private conversation that had taken place inside the Void Throne Hall. She could only know those specific details if she had been actively monitoring Finn's thoughts or words at the time.
"You can hear us," Finn said to the empty air.
"You visited the Sky Islands," Im's voice drifted back. "Are you familiar with a technique they call Heart Network? It is something akin to Observation Haki, but it was developed from entirely different spiritual principles."
She didn't elaborate. She didn't need to.
Finn knew exactly what she meant. Enel, the false god of Skypiea, had used a terrifying listening technique called Mantra that covered his entire island. He had achieved that impossible range by broadcasting his awareness through the electromagnetic waves of his Rumble-Rumble Fruit. The Rumble-Rumble Fruit in question was currently attached to Gion's hip, bound into the steel of her sword.
But what Im was doing right now had no obvious electromagnetic medium. She was simply doing it through eight centuries of sheer, terrifying willpower.
Every single veteran officer in the group instantly pushed their Observation Haki to its absolute breaking point. They swept the God's Abode. They swept the ruins of Mary Geoise. The coverage was microscopic and thorough. They felt each other's massive presences. They felt the surviving castle guards frantically regrouping near the outer perimeter. They felt the distant, heavy thud of artillery as the lower ranks continued to suppress the city.
They found absolutely no trace of Im.
"Do not bother straining your senses looking for me," Im said, her voice dripping with mild amusement. "I am inside the castle. I have been watching you this entire time. If you wish to finally meet me, you may come in."
Finn looked over at Sengoku. Sengoku held his gaze for a second, the heavy lines on his face set like carved stone.
Without a single word, they both turned toward the looming black doors of the ancient castle, and began to walk.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Writing takes time, coffee, and a lot of love.If you'd like to support my work, join me at [email protected]/GoldenGaruda
You'll get early access to over 50 chapters, selection on new series, and the satisfaction of knowing your support directly fuels more stories.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~