"Come on, Luffy, let's fight!"
Rayleigh folded the yellowed newspaper in his hands and set it on the rough tree-stump beside him.
He rose slowly; the hand that had gripped a sword for decades settled on the worn yet gleaming hilt at his waist, knuckles bearing the calluses carved by years and tides.
Eyes that had watched countless storms and the rise and fall of eras now rested, calm as the deep sea, on the grinning Luffy.
Tales of this boy had already ridden every wind to every corner of the sea.
His fists shook the pillars of the world; he stood tall against the Three Admirals amid the fires of Marineford; above the clouds of Onigashima he sent the so-called "strongest creature," the Hundred-Beast Kaido, plummeting from the sky… each feat an epic beyond ordinary imagination.
He was truly an Emperor of the Sea who could stir the tides of the age with his own two hands.
Yet rumor is only ink on paper; real battle is the tide that tests.
A faint, blade-sharp smile touched Rayleigh's lips.
The boy had reached such heights that perhaps he could teach him no more.
But the insight forged through decades of life-and-death struggle, that understanding of battle itself, might still be a gift.
—Not to teach technique, but to light the subtle shadows ahead he had not yet seen.
"Heh-heh, bring it on!!"
Luffy's voice blazed like sunlight. He dashed to the center of the island, kicked off the ground, and sent up a spray of fine sand.
Excitement flushed his cheeks; battle-fire roared in his eyes. The whole world was forgotten—only the former first mate of the Pirate King stood before him.
The very wind seemed to grow heavy with their presence.
———————
The cigarette between Sanji's fingers burned a straight ribbon of blue, then trembled as the air abruptly tensed.
He and Law lifted their heads as one, arrows of gaze shooting toward the island's center—where the air quivered with a silent hum.
"It's finally starting!!"
Sanji's voice was low, yet it trembled with excitement.
He drew a deep breath; sparks danced from the tip of his cigarette in the sunlight, mirroring the fire in his eyes.
Law cradled kikoku, the cold metal scabbard resting against his arm.
He said nothing, only gave a slight nod, eyes beneath the brim sharp as a hawk's.
The two figures in the distance—one a steady mountain, one a surging volcano—had already rewritten the island's atmosphere with their mere stance.
"The 'Sun' of the new era and the 'Pluto' of the old…"
Law's voice stayed level, yet cut to the core like a scalpel.
"This duel itself is already history."
Sanji tilted his head slightly; sea breeze tangled strands of his golden hair.
He glanced at Law, the corner of his mouth lifting in its usual challenge, though curiosity burned beneath: "Hey, who d'you think wins?"
Law didn't answer at once.
His gaze remained fixed, as though calculating invisible variables.
After a moment he returned the question with rare playfulness: "What do you think, Black-Leg-ya?"
"Isn't it obvious?!"
Sanji shrugged without hesitation, the cigarette spinning idly between his fingers.
The look he sent Luffy's back held a faith as fervent as flame.
"Our Captain is the man who'll become the Pirate King."
The words had barely fallen when both lapsed into silence.
The next instant, invisible auras burst outward.
Observation Haki was pushed to its limit, senses stretched taut, locking onto the battlefield's center.
For fighters of their caliber, every detail of a clash at the world's summit could be the key to break through to the next level.
Sanji and Law held their breath, pupils contracted; color drained from the world, leaving only the two figures about to ignite the age—and the earth-shaking first collision about to come.
————————
Boom—!!!
Countless pale lightning-snakes writhed across the black sky, draping the island in a mesh of indigo and violet.
It was not weather—it was heaven's wrath.
Then two abyssal, mountain-rending auras erupted without reserve!
Crack—!!
The very air screamed under the strain.
Violet and crimson, two living torrents of Conqueror's Haki, rose like tidal walls and slammed together above the island.
Every clash birthed black-red lightning that tore the eye; every collision loosed ring-shaped shockwaves visible to the naked eye.
The island's outline blurred and quaked beneath the raw will-power.
The wind was no longer wind but shredded currents bearing sand, broken wood, and brine, fleeing in ruin.
At the heart of the chaos Luffy's laughter cut through the thunder: "Hehaha, Rayleigh, catch this!!"
The instant the words rang out, the ground beneath him cratered from the explosive force.
He appeared at the apex of the sky, as though standing on lightning itself!
His right fist rose high, wreathed in violent black-red Haki, a fusion of boiling magma and bottomless abyss.
The starlight above paled before that fist; the familiar cross-star gleam devoured light, heat, and energy, swelling into a miniature black hole on the verge of detonation.
"Fist Bone: Galaxy Impact—!!!"
Time fractured the moment the punch flew.
Sound, wind, even light were drawn into that fist.
Not stilled—every flow was violently twisted toward the point of ruin.
Below, the sea sank into a vast bowl-shaped hollow; above, the sky seemed pierced by an invisible maw.
Rayleigh tilted his head back, the wind pressure pressing his silver forelocks flat against his skin.
That familiar opening stance yanked him back decades in an instant.
The fearsome figure once called "Iron Fist" had once forced the Roger Pirates to brace themselves with this very star-shattering might.
"Oh? One of Garp's moves?!"
A complicated memory flashed across his eyes, then sharpened into a blade-like edge,
"Truly... a nostalgic pressure."
No dodging, no blocking.
The former "Dark King" chose the old-era sovereign's answer—an all-out clash.
Crack—!!
Crimson Conqueror's lightning no longer scattered, but coiled around his ordinary-looking longsword as if alive, docile yet wild.
Before the blade moved, the surrounding space twisted and wailed, exuding an instinct-terrorizing law.
The next instant, the earth beneath him silently turned to dust.
From perfect stillness he became a scarlet comet shooting skyward, rising to meet the falling "Galaxy".
Channeling a lifetime of swordsmanship, ambition, and legend into one move—
"Kamisari!!!"
The two forces finally collided.
Boom—!!!
The first thing heard was not an explosion but a roar so absolute it erased all sound—silence itself.
A blinding white sphere bloomed at the impact point, devouring every color.
Then—
The clouds were torn open in a perfect ring that pierced the horizon.
The island groaned one last time; canyon-sized cracks erupted from the impact and the ground heaved like a wave.
Hundreds of meters of tsunami reared like awakened walls, crushing outward to reshape the entire sea.
At the center of this apocalypse, two figures—one high, one low—pressed fist against sword within the white glare and ripples of ruin.
Torrents of power kept clashing, annihilating, erupting.
A collision across eras, the roar of will and dream.
The embers of an old legend and the blaze of a new sun together lit the curtain of a new age.
"Heh-heh, Rayleigh, still monstrously strong!!"
Luffy's laughter burst through the thunder and blasts, utterly carefree.
The recoil from the punch tingled and carried an edge that seemed to shake his very soul—
that was "Kamisari", a slash said to drive even gods away.
Even with his current physique he couldn't help an awed gasp from his bones.
Yet under that extreme pressure something hotter awakened inside him.
He could "hear" every muscle fiber, every strand of Haki, shrieking, reshaping, growing stronger.
Though the gains were as small as dust, to him—already atop the summit—that speck was more precious than gold.
"Again!!!"
What burned in his eyes was no longer mere fighting spirit but a hunger for "evolution" itself.
Clenching both fists, he set off twin thunderclaps in the air; black-red lightning raged around him like a mantle of storm and Haki.
Across the field, Rayleigh rode the titanic recoil, drifting back dozens of meters, tapping the air with his toes to shed the unbelievable force.
His sword hand stayed rock-steady, yet a veteran's resignation rippled through his mind.
"Trade stamina with a bottomless brat like that?" He could almost hear his old bones protesting.
The kid was a human perpetual-motion machine—pain and fatigue only fueled him.
A straight war of endurance was suicide.
But Luffy's pure, unreasonable hunger to attack surged like a tsunami, leaving no room to breathe or outmaneuver.
"Really... no choice at all."
Rayleigh murmured, a wild grin tugging at his lips.
If he couldn't dodge, then he'd fight to his heart's content!
The decades-refined Haki around him burst open like an unchained beast.
Silver hair whipped in the violent wind, holding its own against Luffy's scorching red aura.
One calm as the abyss, one fierce as the sun, splitting the battlefield into two realms.
Whoosh—!
The next instant both vanished.
Not teleportation—speed had simply surpassed what normal eyes or even basic Observation Haki could track.
"This...?!"
At the island's edge Law's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
Within his ROOM the two colossal life signals had become countless flickering after-images and broken paths.
One moment they clashed mid-air, the next a slash erupted from the ground.
His Observation Haki was like a net trying to snare a hurricane, torn to shreds.
Even battle-hardened Sanji clenched the cigarette in his teeth, its ember flaring.
He could only "see" bursts of light and blurred traces, unable to predict their next unfettered movements.
It had surpassed mere speed; it was an instinctual "art of combat" born when battle sense, Haki flow, and bodily reflex merged completely.
At the center only a continuous roar could be heard, impossible to separate:
"Boom! Clang! Crash—!"
Each clash briefly lit a patch of twisted space, flashing the silhouettes of dueling titans.