The Rocks Pirates' ship drifted quietly over calm night waters, the moonlight turning the wooden deck silver. Somewhere a drunk sailor snored; elsewhere someone was singing with absolutely no talent. But in the center of the deck, around a table that should've belonged in a noble's dining room, sat Xebec, Whitebeard, and Jinx.
Xebec slammed a half-empty jug on the polished wood, nearly splitting it in half. "Alright, brats—listen up. I've chosen our next target."
Whitebeard raised an eyebrow mid-drink. "Another kingdom?"
"Nope." Xebec grinned with all the subtlety of a demon. "A Celestial Dragon convoy."
Whitebeard stopped drinking. Even the bottle tilted in his hand froze. "…You're kidding."
Jinx didn't look up from the small ice sculpture he was shaping—something foxlike, tails curling back and forth as if alive. His silence bothered both of them.
Xebec leaned forward, elbows on the table. "A convoy crosses the Red Line in six days. Fat nobles, gold piled to the ceiling, a vault full of Devil Fruits… maybe even slaves worth a fortune." He grinned wide. "We're hittin' it."
Jinx finally lifted his violet eyes, slow and calm. "There are pros. And there are cons."
Xebec scoffed. "I don't do cons."
"You will now."
Jinx stood, flicking the finished fox sculpture onto the table. It walked slowly across the polished surface, leaving a faint frost trail.
"Attacking a Celestial Dragon is different," Jinx said. "We hit kingdoms, everyone shrieks, but the World Government barely reacts. Because the Marines serve them. Not the people."
Whitebeard nodded. "A Celestial? That's… the top of the ladder. That's declaring war."
Jinx continued, "If we attack one, the Admirals will chase us. CP0 will hunt us. Fleet Admiral, entire fleets, every government hound they have. You'll have the whole world turning its guns on this ship."
Xebec raised his sake jug in triumph. "GOOD!"
"You're not understanding," Jinx said flatly. "This makes the frozen kingdom look like a warm-up."
"GOOD!" Xebec laughed harder. "We're the strongest damn crew on the sea. Let the world come. Let it scream our name!"
Jinx sighed like he was dealing with a child. "Pros, then."
Xebec leaned in like a kid about to hear a bedtime story.
Whitebeard rolled his eyes.
Jinx tapped the table, creating a map of the Red Line in black ice. "Their convoys hold treasure. Gold. Weapons. Collection vaults of rare Devil Fruits."
Whitebeard blinked. "Vaults?"
"Mm." Jinx touched his shadow thoughtfully. "Useful. We need supplies. Materials. Money for a base. Funds to recruit more crew."
Xebec slammed his palm down so hard the table shook. "HA! See, Newgate? The brat says yes!"
Jinx frowned. "I didn't say that."
"You implied it."
"…I implied logic."
Whitebeard sighed, leaning back. "We're doing it. If we don't, Xebec will go anyway and get himself killed."
Xebec threw an arm around both of them, dragging them close with a massive grin. "HA! That's why I keep you two around! Best damn monsters on the sea!"
Jinx blinked. "I am not a monster."
Whitebeard laughed. "Boy… look at your shadow before you say that."
Jinx's shadow swirled unnaturally, dark tendrils shifting like a living thing.
"Mm." Jinx conceded. "Fair."
The conversation drifted off into crude jokes and more sake, but Jinx eventually excused himself, stepping to the ship's rail. His eyes tracked the moonlight on the ocean, an odd heaviness settling over him. Memories flickered—faces blurred, names torn away by time.
Something in his chest pulsed, uncomfortable.
He carved another figure in ice—tall, slender, wrapped in a cloak. A face hidden beneath a hood of frost. A shape he knew. A shape he feared. A shape he missed.
He touched the sculpture.
It shattered instantly.
He turned away before Whitebeard or Xebec could comment on the sudden shift in his aura.
Miles and miles away, under the Holy Land of Mariejois, a door creaked open in a chamber no Marine had ever seen. Cold air rushed inside, brushing against ancient stone.
Imu walked silently across the floor, a shadow more than a person. At the end of the chamber sat an array of ancient stone tablets—names carved into them, histories erased, bloodlines scrubbed from existence.
One tablet had a name violently scratched out.
NERONA JINX.
Barely visible.
Imu stared at it for a long, trembling moment.
"…It can't be you," they whispered, voice cracking in a way the world would never hear. "You were gone. I watched you fall."
A black tear slid down Imu's shadowed cheek and hit the stone. They wiped it away with shaking hands.
"…Little brother… why would you return now?"
A CP0 agent approached and kneeled, head bowed so low his mask touched the floor. "Your Majesty… the Marines found the kingdom. Frozen beyond recognition. No survivors."
Imu didn't respond.
"The Marines also reported the attacker's alias… they call him 'The Kitsune.'"
Imu flinched.
The room itself trembled.
"…Jinx…" they whispered, pressing their palm to the ruined stone name. "Your shadow… has found the light again."
They straightened, voice returning to cold command. "Deploy everything. Cipher Pol, Admirals-in-training, war fleets."
The CP0 agent swallowed. "Everything? For… one pirate?"
Imu's cloak dragged across the stone as they turned, eyes burning beneath the hood.
"That is no pirate."
Their voice dipped lower, colder.
"That is the one thing in this world that I fear."
And far out on the sea, Jinx paused.
He felt it.
A spike of emotion from across the world—sharp, cold, familiar.
"…Sister," he whispered without fully understanding why.
The ship continued toward the Red Line, toward the Celestial Dragons, toward war.
The world was shifting.
And the siblings who shaped the Void Century were waking up again.
Rocks had barely finished snarling out the attack plan when the air around Jinx shifted. One moment he was standing behind them, quiet as always; the next, he was already sprinting toward the bow of the ship. Whitebeard blinked in confusion as Jinx vaulted onto the jibboom, perched there like a shadowed fox staring at something distant and unseen.
"Oi!" Rocks barked. "What the hell are you doing now, brat?!"
Jinx's voice came out low, almost sharp. "She's here."
Whitebeard frowned. "She?"
Jinx didn't turn around. His violet eyes glowed against the wind.
"My rival."
Rocks's grin widened immediately. "Rival? YOU have a rival?! This I gotta see!"
But Jinx wasn't grinning. Something coiled tight under his skin—an emotion he hadn't felt since the Void. Recognition entwined with irritation. He wasn't sure if he wanted to fight her… or avoid her. That alone was enough to unsettle him.
He whispered into the wind, "Tch… of all people."
Ahead of them, the Celestial Dragon convoy cut through the sea like a floating fortress. Not sloppy or pampered as the rumors claimed—this one was prepared.
Three Marine warships formed a spearhead.
A golden, orb-domed Celestial carriage ship rested safely in the center.
Cipher Pol elites lingered on the masts like shadows with masks.
CP0 agents stood openly on the deck, confident and cold.
And at the front of one ship… stood Commodore Zephyr, arms crossed, scowl carved into his young face.
Beside him, leaning over the railing with a grin full of food, was a very young Captain Garp, holding what looked like a roasted shark leg.
And just behind them—calm, green-haired, graceful—was the girl no one on the ship could figure out.
Lyra.
Zephyr snapped his clipboard shut, annoyed. "Garp, will you PLEASE stop eating everything before the battle even starts?!"
Garp swallowed an entire chunk in one gulp. "But I'm hungry!"
"You're ALWAYS hungry!"
The Marines nearby nodded aggressively.
But what truly drew their attention was the girl standing silently at Garp's side—elegant leaf-green outfit, vine-like markings curling up her arms, long hair swaying even without wind.
She was beautiful in a way that made the recruits stare and feel nervous at the same time.
No one knew where she came from.
Not her file.
Not her village.
Not even her origin.
All anyone knew was her name:
Lyra.
Sengoku had once asked Garp, "Where did you find her?"
And Garp—brilliant fighter, terrible thinker—had answered:
"I dunno! I was on patrol, blinked, and she was there."
Zephyr nearly resigned on the spot.
Today, Lyra stood at the rail, eyes fixed straight ahead—not on the convoy, not on the sea, but toward a distant shadow approaching over the waves.
Garp finally noticed her stillness. "Oi, Lyra. You okay?"
She didn't respond.
Zephyr frowned. "Lyra?"
Only then did she whisper, voice soft as wind in leaves:
"…He's coming."
Garp blinked. "He? Who?"
Lyra's emerald eyes darkened, glowing faintly with ancient power she never showed to anyone.
"My rival," she said quietly. "The Kitsune."
(i want to clarify that she heard the name from some background marines and she knew who it belong to from her past)
Zephyr nearly dropped his clipboard. "THE WHAT?!"
Garp choked on his food. "THE WHO?!"
Lyra didn't elaborate.
Her fingers curled slightly, green light curling around her fingertips like growing vines. Something in her posture softened—not fear, not excitement… recognition.
Distantly, on the Rocks Pirate ship, Jinx's ears twitched at the same moment she spoke.
Jinx smirked faintly. "She felt me first. Irritating."
Whitebeard raised a brow. "So this girl's the reason you're acting strange."
Jinx didn't reply.
Rocks barked out an excited laugh. "KUAHAHAHA! A rival! A lady rival! This just gets better and better!"
Jinx closed his eyes briefly, pushing down memories sharp enough to sting.
"…I'm killing her first," he muttered.
Whitebeard nearly choked. "Why?!"
"She annoys me."
The sky rumbled like it agreed.
And somewhere across the sea, Lyra's eyes narrowed, a soft smile touching her lips for the first time.
"…I'll deal with him," she murmured.
The Celestial Dragon convoy tightened its formation.
The Rocks Pirates angled their sails for attack.
And the wind between Jinx and Lyra crackled like two ancient storms recognizing each other after a very long time apart.
The rival arc had finally begun.
Two hours later, when the Rocks ship finally carved through the mist like a nightmare cresting the waves, Vice Admiral Kenjong felt his jaw tighten.
Guard duty.
For Celestial Dragons.
Assigned not by choice, but because Admiral Kazan—wind-logia bastard that he was—claimed it was "protocol" for an Admiral to avoid personally escorting nobles of this rank.
Kenjong knew the truth.
Kazan just didn't want to deal with the Donomore family.
And after today, Kenjong didn't blame him.
The Donomore lineage wasn't merely greedy—they were infected with greed. Their estate in Mariejois was rumored to have vaults so deep even CP0 didn't know where all of them led. Jade, obsidian, underground collections of rare artifacts—Kenjong assumed it was Marine exaggeration.
Until he saw this haul.
Three swords.
Each one so lavishly sealed in silk it was as though the blades themselves were royalty.
The first sword Kenjong did recognize, if only because the memory of it haunted every marine rumor mill:
Yoru.
He knew the name because the trader who once tried to auction it had been executed by CP0 before the hammer even fell. Rumor said the sword vanished afterward—straight to Mariejois, straight to the Donomore vaults.
Kenjong swallowed.
Seeing it in person felt like looking at a myth taxidermied into reality. The cruciform beast of a weapon gleamed with a predatory black sheen. It radiated a confidence that made lesser men adjust their posture without realizing.
But the other two swords…
He didn't know their names.
He didn't know their grades.
But his haki whispered answers without permission.
The first was a cutlass. Its blade shimmered with a muted blue glow, as if the ocean itself had been hammered flat and sharpened. It was beautiful—too beautiful. Kenjong felt his chest grow tight the longer he stared at it.
The last sword, though…
That was the one that disturbed him.
A golden sheathed katana with brilliant blue accents—sun and sea married into steel. Its tsuba, ridged like a trefoil, looked almost ceremonial. But when Kenjong leaned closer—
His Observation Haki buckled.
Just from proximity.
He jerked back instinctively, breath hitching.
He wasn't being rejected.
He wasn't being tested.
It was worse.
It was being polite.
As though the sword understood he was beneath notice.
"Vice Admiral? Sir?" a marine asked nervously.
Kenjong waved him off, pretending his hand hadn't trembled.
He wasn't a weak man.
He had fought pirates, New World monsters, storms that killed entire fleets.
But those swords…
They felt like artifacts that should not be touched by mortal hands—especially not someone like him.
Before he could regain composure, a shrill, nasally voice snapped from behind silk curtains:
"Vice Admiral Kenjong! Do not scratch the merchandise! These treasures are the pride of the Donomore line!"
Saint Renlor Donomore—today's patron saint of Kenjong's migraines—stepped out wearing enough gold to blind a man in the shade.
Behind him, his brother Saint Varrick was lounging on a pile of cushions, casually eating fruit peeled by three trembling servants.
Their greed was nauseatingly casual, like breathing.
Kenjong forced a salute. "Rest assured, Saint Renlor, the Marines will ensure your protection—"
A marine suddenly screamed from the crow's nest:
"Vice Admiral! Enemy ship approaching! Fast!"
Kenjong spun toward the fog.
A monstrous vessel cut through the mist.
Black sails.
Aura of raw murder.
A figure perched lazily on the jibbom, cloak fluttering like fox tails in the wind.
The Rocks Pirates.
And standing at the prow like a bored god surveying ants—
Jinx.
The marines did not know his name.
Not yet.
But instinct screamed predator.
Behind him, Saint Varrick choked on his fruit.
Saint Renlor stumbled backward, wheezing, "W–What is that thing!?"
Kenjong didn't answer.
Because as he stared at that lone figure, a cold feeling crawled up his spine.
The unnamed golden-blade katana behind him seemed to… hum.
Not loudly.
Just enough that Kenjong's haki twitched in warning.
And deep inside Mariejois—far from this ship, far from this ocean—
Imu's shadow-shrouded form paused over an ancient stone tablet…
the name Nerona Jinx scratched out violently.
A single black tear slipped down their cheek.
"…So," Imu whispered, "you live."
On the Marine ship, Kenjong drew in a breath, lifting his saber.
"Men—prepare for battle!"
And in the distance, Jinx smiled.
Jinx stayed crouched on the jibbom, the wind tugging at his cloak, his eyes fixed on the Marine convoy like a predator watching cattle pretend to be lions. Below him, Xebec cracked his knuckles, already grinning, while Newgate was muttering something about "warming up his arms."
But before either of them could open their mouths, Jinx inhaled slowly.
A very specific inhale.
Xebec's smirk faltered.
Newgate's brow lifted.
They recognized that look—not because they knew the technique, but because they'd seen Jinx pull new shit out of nowhere every goddamn week.
Jinx lifted his hands into a single, deliberate Horse seal, fingers locking together.
Newgate blinked. "Oy, brat… what's with the hand pose?"
Jinx didn't answer.
He simply leaned forward, drew the deepest breath either pirate had ever seen a human take, and whispered—calm, casual, like saying good morning:
"Great Fire Annihilation."
A small stream of flame slipped past his lips.
Small.
Pitiful.
Barely enough to roast a marshmallow.
Xebec tilted his head. "…That's it?"
Even Newgate frowned. "Jinx, what the hell is that supposed to—"
And then the sky changed color.
The tiny stream of fire bloomed outward like someone had torn open the sun. It expanded—no, detonated—into an ocean of roaring flame, a miles-wide inferno sweeping over the sea with impossible speed. The temperature spiked so violently that even Rocks' veteran monsters took a startled step back.
The Marines didn't have time to scream.
The first rows of ships were swallowed in a blazing red reflection dancing across their pupils. Heat haze warped the world. Men dropped their rifles. Some forgot how to breathe.
On the flagship, Vice Admiral Kenjong froze mid-command, his voice caught in his throat as the sky became fire.
"W–What… what technique is that?!"
Sengoku, Zephyr, Garp—every Marine of rank looked up with identical wide eyes.
Even CP0 agents broke composure, a ripple of unease sliding through their masks.
But the one who moved first—
Lyra.
She slammed her hands together so hard the sound cracked through the heat.
"Nativity of a World of Trees!"
The sea trembled. Roots erupted from beneath the water, splitting wood, stone, and steel. Towering trees burst upward in walls, spiraling into a living fortress that wrapped around the Marine fleet.
The inferno smashed into her makeshift forest.
Every tree ignited instantly.
But they held.
For three seconds.
Three long, blistering seconds where molten bark rained onto decks and Marines shielded their faces from falling embers. Lyra poured power into her technique until veins glowed green against her skin, but the flames ate through everything she conjured.
She gritted her teeth. "Damn it—! Why is that fire alive?!"
Garp, half-chewing a rice cracker he'd forgotten he was eating, stared at her with shocked admiration.
Zephyr cursed under his breath. "That was no natural flame. That was—"
He didn't finish.
Because the trees that slowed the flames for those few seconds… those burning, towering creations of nature…
Were now turning pitch black.
The edges froze.
A wave of cold washed over the battlefield from the direction of the Rocks ship.
Zephyr and Garp whipped toward it at the same time.
Jinx was standing upright now, cloak fluttering, blade at his hip glowing faint violet from the inside.
He hadn't even moved yet.
And he'd forced an entire Marine fleet into defense.
Lyra's chest rose and fell as she steadied herself, eyes narrowing not in fear… but recognition.
"…So," she whispered, "you really are here."
Back on the Rocks ship, Jinx closed his left eye, bored already.
"That was just the warm-up."
Xebec barked a laugh. "HAH! Brat! Do that again!"
Newgate just shook his head, grinning. "Oi, Jinx… next time warn us when you're about to cook the sea."
Jinx ignored them entirely.
His gaze was locked on the green-haired girl who had just stopped his inferno with sheer will.
His rival.
His opposite.
His tether.
Lyra.
And the moment their eyes met across burning waves, the air between them sharpened like drawn steel.