God Valley was a place of impossible beauty, a geographic masterpiece that seemed designed by a benevolent creator. An emerald jewel set in a sea of sapphire, the island was a sanctuary of ancient forests, crystal-clear waterfalls, and peaks that seemed to touch the stars. But on this day, the air didn't smell of jasmine or salt. It smelled of expensive perfume, vintage wine, and the cold, metallic scent of high-grade chains.
The Native Investigative Festival was in full swing, a polite name for a barbaric ritual.
The Banquet of the Vultures
In a sprawling pavilion overlooking the central valley, the Celestial Dragons sat on thrones of gold and ivory. They wore their pressurized suits and bubble-domes, not out of necessity—the air of God Valley was the purest in the world—but because they refused to breathe the same air as the "lowly lifeforms" beneath them. To them, the island was a board game, and the people on it were merely pieces to be discarded.
"Look at that one, Saint Saturn," one Noble gestured with a gloved, trembling hand toward a group of shackled children huddled in the dirt below. "The one with the dark eyes. He's been laughing for three days. It's quite irritating. Shall we use him for the target practice round?"
"Let the boy be," a younger, sharper-eyed Noble replied. This was Saint Figarland Garling, the champion of the God's Knights. He didn't wear a bubble; his Haki was so potent it created a natural barrier against the world. He rested his hand on the hilt of a ceremonial but functional saber. "His spirit is... unusual. He will make a fine trophy for the auction. But the mother... she's broken. We'll use her for the first heat of the hunt."
In the pits below, Eris gripped Teach's hand so hard her knuckles were white. Her back was a map of charred skin and open wounds, the result of protecting her son from the Corada whips. She heard the word "hunt." She knew what it meant.
"Teach," she whispered, her voice a dry rasp. "Remember what I told you. Keep laughing. Don't look at their faces. Look at the horizon. Your father is coming."
"Mother, the wind is changing," Teach said. He wasn't crying anymore. The "three-man" nature of his soul—a biological anomaly of the Davy D. lineage—was beginning to manifest. He could feel a pressure—a familiar, rhythmic thrumming—vibrating through the soles of his feet. "It feels like the sea is screaming. It feels like home."
The Horizon of Ruin
The God's Knights were the first to notice. They were masters of Observation Haki, and their senses were suddenly clouded by a massive, localized disturbance. It wasn't a storm; it was a projection of human will so dense it physically altered the barometric pressure.
"Sir!" a scout called out to Garling. "A ship! No... a fleet! They just bypassed the outer reefs of the Devil's Throat! They're coming in at a speed that should be impossible!"
Garling stood, his eyes narrowing. The sky was no longer blue. A wall of black clouds, thick with violet lightning, was moving toward the island.
"Alert the fleet!" Garling commanded. "Man the coastal cannons! This isn't a pirate raid. This is an invasion."
But the cannons never got the chance to fire.
The Saber of Xebec didn't sail into the harbor; it tore through it, its prow shattering the stone docks like they were made of parchment. Rocks D. Xebec sat on the figurehead, his hands resting on his knees. He didn't order a broadside. He simply released his Conqueror's Haki.
The shockwave hit the island like a physical hammer. The sea rose in a fifty-foot wall of displacement. The Marine escort ships anchored in the bay were snapped like toothpicks, their crews rendered unconscious before they could even draw their swords.
Rocks leapt from the ship while it was still moving at full tilt. He didn't land; he impacted. The beach of God Valley shattered, a crater a hundred yards wide forming beneath his boots. Behind him, the "Monsters" disembarked: Newgate with his bisento Murakumogiri, Linlin riding a sentient storm-cloud, and a young, shirtless Kaido swinging a club that hummed with kinetic energy.
The King of the Sinners
Rocks walked through the smoke of the burning harbor. Every step he took left a footprint of molten glass in the sand.
"Xebec!" Garling Figarland stood at the top of the marble stairs leading to the auction block. Twelve other armored figures flanked him—the elite God's Knights. "You dare set foot on holy ground? We will erase your name today!"
Rocks didn't look at the Knights. His eyes were locked on the iron cages. He saw the tattered dress of his wife. He saw the small, dark-haired boy standing in the dirt.
"You took my family," Rocks said. The voice was quiet, but it carried to every corner of the island, amplified by his Haki. "You touched the things that belonged to me. You made my son laugh in a cage because he was too afraid to cry."
"I didn't come here to be King," Rocks whispered, his hand finally moving to the hilt of his black blade. "I came to be the Grave-Digger."
"BLACK HOLE: WORLD END!"
Rocks swung his blade in a horizontal arc. The space in front of him simply... vanished. A rift of pure gravity tore through the God's Knights' formation, pulling the marble stairs and the elite soldiers into a vortex of crushing force. Garling barely leaped back in time, his eyes wide with the realization that Rocks was no longer a man; he was a pact with the Void.
Rocks blurred through the battlefield, a black streak of lightning. He reached the pits in seconds. With a single flick of his fingers, the Sea Prism Stone bars—the strongest material in the world—shattered like dry glass.
"Eris," he said.
The woman looked up. She didn't cry. She reached out a trembling hand and touched his blood-stained cheek. "You're late, Rocks."
Rocks looked down at Teach. The boy was staring at his father with an expression of half-worship and half-horror.
"Happy birthday, Teach," Rocks said, his voice finally breaking into a human tone.
"Father," Teach whispered, his voice dark and cold for a five-year-old. "Kill them. Kill all of them."
The Moral Dilemma of Heroes
As Rocks prepared to lead his family back to the ship, the situation shifted. A fleet of Marine ships—led by a young, black-haired Monkey D. Garp and a determined Sengoku—appeared on the horizon. Moving through the forest from the other side was Gol D. Roger.
Garp and Roger met in the center of the chaos. They saw the burning pavilions. They saw the terrified Celestial Dragons. But then, they saw the cages. They saw Rocks holding his wife and child.
"Garp," Roger said, his voice unusually somber. "Look at those kids. Look at that woman. This isn't what the reports said. Rocks isn't here to take the world. He's here to take his family back."
Garp clenched his fists, his heart heavy. He was a Marine, sworn to protect the world, but his "Justice" felt like a lie in the face of this emerald hell. "I know, Roger. I can see it. The Government used us. They used the 'D' to bring a 'D' here so they could wipe him out. I don't want to fight him."
"Then let's let him go," Roger suggested.
But the World Government had anticipated the mercy of heroes.
The Domi Reverse: The Voice of Imu
From the highest peak of God Valley, a silent, unseen presence watched. Imu, the secret sovereign, did not move. They simply raised a finger.
A pulse of ancient, forbidden energy—the Domi Reverse—rippled through the island. It was a frequency designed specifically to interact with the "D" lineage's connection to the world's voice. It took the love and protective instinct of Rocks D. Xebec and inverted it.
It was a psychic virus. It took Rocks' desire to protect his family and twisted it into a paranoid delusion that his family was the source of his weakness.
Rocks suddenly staggered, his hands flying to his head. "No... stay away... get them to the ship!" he roared, his last ounce of sanity prevailing. He shoved Eris and Teach toward Newgate. "GO! NOW!"
The moment they were clear, the Domi Reverse took full hold. Rocks' eyes turned a terrifying, soulless white. His Haki exploded in a chaotic, jagged aura that began to disintegrate the very ground he stood on. He turned toward Garp and Roger, his face a mask of absolute, mindless slaughter. He was no longer a father; he was a weapon aimed at the world.
"He's lost it!" Roger yelled, drawing his sword Ace. "Garp! If we don't stop him, he'll kill everyone on this island—his crew, his family, everyone!"
"XEBEC!" Garp roared, tears of frustration in his eyes. He realized the tragedy: the Government had broken the man so they could justify killing him. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"
The two legends moved together. They weren't fighting a pirate for glory; they were fighting a father to save the world from the monster the "Gods" had created.
The Final Stand of the Saber
Rocks met them head-on. The clash between Garp, Roger, and the corrupted Rocks D. Xebec created a vacuum that erased the central valley.
In the distance, on the deck of the Saber of Xebec, Teach watched. He saw his father—his hero—standing alone against the Marines and the Roger Pirates. He didn't see the Domi Reverse. He didn't see the invisible hand of Imu. All he saw was that when his father tried to be a hero, the world joined together to destroy him.
"Look at them, Teach," Eris whispered, her voice failing as she collapsed on the deck. "Look at the 'Heroes.' They're the ones who take everything."
Teach didn't cry. He watched as God Valley began to glow with a blinding, celestial light—the World Government's final solution to erase the evidence. He memorized the face of Garp. He memorized the face of Roger.
He laughed. A jagged, broken, "Zehahaha" that would echo through history.
The island of God Valley vanished from the maps that night, but the fire it lit in the heart of a five-year-old boy would one day burn the world to the ground.
To be continued...