Jinx stepped onto the railing of the Rocks ship, Hyōmeishu already humming at his hip like a half-awake beast. He didn't hesitate—didn't even bother to glance back at Xebec shouting something crude or Newgate warning him not to fall in the damn ocean. He simply jumped.
The moment the katana cleared its sheath, the air around Jinx thickened.
A dark aura poured out of Hyōmeishu like ink bleeding into water—cold, ancient, hungry. Even Jinx blinked in mild confusion.
"…Huh. Didn't do that earlier."
But he didn't get time to think about it.
Lyra was already in motion.
She seized a fallen Marine sword, bio-green fire bursting to life along its edge—not normal flame, but living flame. A healing fire, a nature fire, a fire that burned only what she chose.
She didn't shout. Didn't posture.
She simply launched herself straight at him.
Jinx's eyes widened slightly—not in fear, but in appreciation. He coated Hyōmeishu in dark magenta fox-fire, the blade crackling with spiritual heat.
Then steel met steel and the world detonated.
Light—blinding, white-green mixed with neon magenta—erupted outward, forcing Marines and pirates alike to shield their eyes. The air rippled. Decks groaned. Even the sea recoiled.
And then—
shhhk—
Hyōmeishu, being a true blade, sliced clean through the cheap Marine steel. Lyra's sword snapped like glass, melting at the break as fox-fire and bio-fire hissed against each other.
The impact blasted her backwards across the deck. She dug her heels in, sliding until her back hit a railing. She looked at the ruined sword and clicked her tongue, irritation sparking across her face.
But something else caught her attention.
One of the treasure swords.
A golden-white katana resting on velvet.
Something in her chest tightened—an instinct, a familiarity she couldn't explain. With a flick of her wrist, a branch burst from the deck, snatched the katana, and delivered it to her hand.
CP0 agents immediately drew their weapons.
"That sword is property of the Donomore family—"
Lyra ignored them.
She unsheathed the blade.
The effect was instantaneous.
A warm, bright wave of pressure exploded outward—like Conqueror's Haki, but purer, older, almost divine. The Marines staggered. CP0 nearly fell to their knees. Even the sky seemed to pulse.
And Hyōmeishu responded in kind.
A dark, cold aura surged from Jinx's blade—death answering life, winter answering spring.
The two auras collided above the fleet, twisting together like dueling storms. The shockwave rippled through both wielders.
Jinx felt his power spike—his cursed energy, his emotions, his fox-fire, everything sharpening like a blade being honed mid-battle.
Lyra… Lyra froze.
And memories crashed into her.
She remembered Jinx.
She remembered the Void Century.
She remembered being Joyboy's little sister.
She remembered chasing Jinx across ancient islands, arguing, competing, fighting, laughing.
She remembered dying—pushing a child out of the way of a truck.
She remembered Death offering her a deal.
She remembered choosing a custom Devil Fruit, a reincarnator skill, two cursed techniques—one of them Limitless.
She remembered complaining to Death about getting downgraded Six Eyes, only for Death to joke about budget cuts.
She remembered choosing Conqueror's Haki because One Piece knowledge was fuzzy at best.
She remembered everything at least almost everything
She stared at Jinx—really stared—and for the first time in centuries, her heartbeat stumbled.
"…you."
But the temperature plunged before she could finish.
A black ice dragon—massive, jagged, alive—shot straight toward her.
Her instincts reacted before her mind did. She raised her palm, her eyes glowing faint blue.
"Blue."
A perfect azure sphere the size of a baseball formed in her hand—and immediately began devouring the world. Canon balls bent toward it. Air twisted. Even light warped. Gravity itself snarled around the tiny void.
When the black ice dragon came within range, it twisted violently—and was sucked inside, crushed into nothingness.
Xebec's jaw dropped.
Newgate's eyes sparkled.
Jinx blinked once.
"Oh. That technique."
He couldn't help it—this was too ironic.
Of all things for her to use, she used Blue.
Jinx let himself fall backwards onto the Rocks ship, landing lazily on a crate. With a flick of Hyōmeishu, dozens of tiny slashes—Dismantles—shot out. Completely invisible to all but Lyra, but still detectable by those sensitive to emotion.
Vice Admiral Kenjong jolted—his haki sensing a surge of killing intent approaching like knives on the wind. He slammed his palms onto the deck.
Wax exploded outward.
He created a fortress of hardened wax thicker than a ship's hull, coating it with Armament Haki. It wasn't the strongest haki among the Vice Admirals, but it was solid.
The first slash hit.
Cracks formed instantly.
More followed.
Kenjong gritted his teeth as fractures crawled across the wall like spiderwebs. He forced more haki into it, barely holding it together.
Up on the Rocks ship, Jinx smirked—not malicious, just analytical.
"That's the limit, huh…? Dismantle's fixed output. If I don't augment it with incantations or hand signs, that's all it'll do."
He twirled Hyōmeishu lazily.
Lyra steadied her stance, the golden-white blade humming like a living sun.
Xebec had been watching Jinx and Lyra trade impossible techniques with a grin that twitched wider and wider until the vein in his forehead finally popped.
"Oi. Enough of this lovey-dovey sword-waving bullshit," he growled, cracking his neck like a man about to punch God in the teeth. "I'm gettin' bored."
Before Newgate could even open his mouth to tell him to wait, Xebec was already stomping toward the rail, snatching up his cleaver-like sword. He didn't imbue it with haki the way normal swordsmen did—no refined coating, no elegant flow. Xebec forced Armament Haki into the blade like someone stuffing gunpowder into a cannon.
Black lightning cracked along the weapon.
Newgate sighed. "He's gonna break that thing one day…"
"Good," Xebec barked, planting his feet. "Means it wasn't worthy of me."
He swung.
But he didn't cut.
Xebec's sword style had never been meant for slashing. His blade was built to bludgeon the world into agreeing with him. The haki in his swing didn't slice the air—it detonated it.
A shockwave erupted from the swing like a battering ram from hell, a compressed blast of raw force screaming across the water and slamming into the nearest Marine escort ship.
The entire vessel jolted as if hit by a falling island.
Then it launched sideways.
Not cut.
Not split.
Just blasted halfway across the sea like a kicked slipper.
Marines went flying. Masts snapped. The ship skidded across the waves until it slammed into another escort, the two vessels locking together in a horrific wooden tangle.
Xebec spit to the side. "There. Now things are movin'."
Newgate chuckled under his breath. "Show-off."
Then he stretched his arm back, fist tightening as the air around it warped with that familiar, bone-deep thrumming power. His knuckles gleamed with Armament as the world wavered like glass around his hand.
"Kaishin."
The punch didn't hit a ship.
It hit everything.
A quake burst outward in a cone toward the right wing of the convoy, cracking the very space above the ocean. The result wasn't a tremor—it was collapse. Water folded downward, then upward, twisting into a wall of churning sea that rose higher and higher until it towered like a newborn tsunami.
Marine ships bucked violently. Masts swung. Men screamed orders into the wind, trying to stabilize before the waves rolled them under.
Lyra ducked the spray without taking her eyes off Jinx.
Jinx's cloak fluttered in the shifting cyclone of heat and frost their auras created, the clash of gold and black painting the air.
Xebec cackled over the storm.
Newgate grinned like someone handed him his favorite toy.
The Marine fleet panicked to rearrange formation.
And Lyra and Jinx stood in the middle of all of it, as if the chaos existed just to give their fight a proper backdrop.
The whole battlefield shifted, every force, every faction, every instinct snapping into motion—but the story didn't slow, didn't settle, didn't end.
It was only getting warmed up.
Jinx knew the moment Hyōmeishu clashed with Lyra's golden-white katana that she wasn't just strong—she was dangerous, in a way that scratched old memories he didn't even know he still had.
When their auras collided, something cracked open in his mind.
Limitless.
Six Eyes.
Her Six Eyes.
A technique she could toggle on and off, and not the perfect, god-tier version Gojo used, but still potent enough to terrify anyone who understood what it meant. Even weakened by reincarnation, her perception was razor-sharp, her CE control precise, her defensive options ridiculous.
And that wasn't even the part that unsettled him.
Jinx had never heard of her in the original manga.
No mention of a reincarnated plant goddess with Limitless. No mention of Joyboy's sister. No mention of Lyra at all.
Which meant she had to be like him—
another reincarnator with wishes, a blank spot in canon, a wildcard that the world was not prepared for.
His memories trickled further, revealing flashes of the Void Century: Lyra creating forests effortlessly, bending vines into weapons, coaxing plants from stone and steel like they were obedient pets. She wasn't just Hashirama.
She was worse.
Hashirama needed earth. He needed soil. He needed a living foundation.
Lyra?
She could make trees sprout from swords, from walls, from ships, from thin air.
Anything non-organic was hers to reshape.
And any living plant on the battlefield automatically fell under her control.
Versatile didn't even begin to describe it.
But the part that left him uneasy was the devil fruit she used.
He couldn't remember it.
Jinx hated unknown variables.
He needed information—fast.
His Sharingan slid into shape, the single tomoe spinning once as he looked at Xebec.
"Use conqueror infusion."
Xebec paused mid-laugh. "Huh?"
"Your family technique," Jinx said, barely meeting his eyes. "The one from your notes. Do it."
Xebec blinked… then grinned like someone had just handed him a new toy.
"You got it, brat."
He lifted his cleaver-sword, flooding it with thick Armament Haki until it gleamed obsidian-black. Then he forced Conqueror's Haki into it—raw, violent, crackling red-and-black lightning crawling over the blade like feral energy looking for something to kill.
Jinx nodded.
Conqueror Infusion wasn't just something you learned by watching—it required intuition and a mental blueprint. But with the Sharingan decoding the structure of the haki flow, his imagination technique filling in the logic, and the memories of his past life giving him context, gears started turning.
It clicked faster when he added more fuel.
He released a burst of his own Conqueror's Haki.
It wasn't polite.
It wasn't clean.
It was a detonation.
The clouds overhead didn't drift apart—they split, cracking open in a violent rift. The sea didn't churn—it convulsed, waves rearing like beasts preparing to devour the fleet.
Lyra reacted instantly, green-and-black conqueror's haki bursting from her like a blooming firestorm.
Garp responded too, slamming down a pure red-and-black burst, though his red was lighter—less bloody, more primal, like an early-stage conqueror forging its identity.
The three waves collided mid-air.
Jinx's aura had the slight edge, pushing Lyra by centimeters, but Garp's addition nearly forced Jinx back entirely. The force of their combined will threatened to swallow the battlefield.
Newgate and Xebec stepped forward to support him—
"No."
Jinx's voice cut through the wind like a blade.
Veins bulged across his arms and neck, crawling like ink drawn by some invisible brush. His haki burst intensified, not outward but inward, concentrating as if he were compressing a storm inside his own skull.
He refused to be pushed back.
Not by Lyra.
Not by Garp.
Not when he was only just remembering who he was.
The winds roared.
The sky cracked.
The ocean rose.
And Jinx stood in the middle of that pressure, shaking—not from fear, but from the strain of trying to control something that didn't want to be controlled yet.
His eyes narrowed, Sharingan spinning faster.
He wasn't done.
Not even close.
ChatGPT said:
Jinx felt the clash of wills fading in his chest like a drum losing rhythm, power settling but… not quite clicking. Something was missing. Something subtle. Something that used to come naturally to him long before he ever died, reincarnated, or woke up inside a tree of black ice.
He exhaled once, sharp, cutting off his Conqueror's Haki mid-surge.
The sky immediately relaxed—clouds slamming shut like a wound trying to seal. The sea, however, had already tasted violence and rolled beneath the fleet in uneasy tremors.
Jinx crouched, placing his palm flat against the deck of the Rocks ship.
"Move," he said quietly.
Xebec and Newgate stepped back without question, instinctively giving him space.
A thin hum of cursed energy ran through the wood, followed by the faintest pulse of something older—colder—like the heartbeat of a glacier deep beneath the ocean.
Then Jinx whispered:
"Ice Age."
The effect was instant.
A shockwave of absolute cold exploded from beneath his palm, rushing outward—not in a sloppy dome, not in uncontrolled chaos, but in a perfectly calculated ring of frost. His slumber had dulled him, but not enough to blunt this. The ice curved around the Rocks ship like water parting around a stone, leaving a ten-meter moat of untouched sea around them.
Beyond that boundary?
The world died.
The ocean turned black.
Not blue dark, not night dark—black ice dark. The kind of color that had weight. The kind of cold that didn't numb—it erased.
The Celestial Dragon ship froze mid-scream. Marines trapped on deck froze in place, bodies crystallizing before they could even process the cold. Every escort ship within range locked in an instant, every mast, cannon, rope, and hull swallowed by the spreading sheet of frozen death.
The sound was eerie—no crackling, no shattering—just a deep, resonant quiet spreading over the sea.
Garp stumbled back, jaw slack.
"What in the hell…?!"
Zephyr's breath fogged instantly even from the distance. He flexed his arm, testing mobility, as if making sure his bones hadn't frozen inside him.
Lyra's pupils tightened. Her breath came out a thin white wisp as she lowered her blade.
"Can you do something!?" Garp asked her, half demanding, half desperate.
Lyra stepped forward, one fingertip brushing the frozen ground that used to be ocean… and then jerked her hand back.
"No," she said softly. "That's not normal ice."
Garp frowned. "What do you mean it's not normal ice?! It's ice! Freeze it back, burn it, plant something—whatever you do!"
Lyra shook her head, eyes fixed on the frost that spread like a continent across the sea.
"This isn't just cold. It's… the absence of heat. The opposite of life itself. My nature abilities won't respond to it." She traced a hand through the air, but even her bio-fire dimmed in its presence. "I can't make anything grow here. This ice is… final."
Jinx straightened on the deck, dusting frost from his fingers.
He didn't say a word, but the look in his eyes made the implication clear:
This ice wasn't something that could be melted, broken, or replaced with life.
It wasn't an element.
It was an ideology.
Garp looked over the frozen fleet, then back at Lyra, uncertain for the first time.
"How deep does that stuff go…?"
Lyra scanned the sea with her senses—her Six Eyes flickering for a moment, just long enough to gauge the energy beneath the surface.
"…At least ten meters," she whispered. "Maybe more."
Garp swallowed hard.
The entire convoy was immobilized.
The Celestial Dragons were trapped.
The Marines were stranded.
And the ocean—an entire swath of it—belonged to Jinx.
Up on the Rocks ship, Xebec started laughing, the kind of laugh that meant someone was about to die horribly.
Newgate crossed his arms, smirking despite himself.
"You've been holdin' out on us, kid."
Jinx didn't answer.
His gaze was on Lyra—steady, unreadable—as black ice fog curled around his boots and the world continued freezing beneath him.
The fight wasn't ending.
It was only shifting into its next shape.
The world should've been loud after Ice Age.
It wasn't.
It was this unreal, suffocating quiet where the sea had turned into a flat, black mirror and the Marine escort ships sat frozen in place like toys glued to a table. Even the Celestial Dragon liner—golden and absurd—was locked into the ice, its hull creaking under pressure it didn't understand.
Then the sound came back all at once.
A cannon crew screamed orders and fired anyway, the recoil snapping their own frozen rigging. Steel grated. Men slipped and cracked their knees on ice-hard decks. Somewhere a den-den mushi shrieked like it was being strangled. CP0 moved first—because they always did—mask-white shapes appearing and disappearing across the frozen corridor between ships, their footwork impossibly light even on glassy ice.
Xebec leaned over the prow of his ship like he was looking down into a pit he couldn't wait to jump into.
"Now this," he said, voice full of poison delight, "is a stage."
Whitebeard rolled his shoulders once, the air around him vibrating, the ice beneath the Rocks ship groaning like it already hated him. "Just don't break our deck, Rocks."
Xebec barked a laugh. "If the deck can't handle me, it shouldn't exist."
Jinx stood at the rail with Hyōmeishu in hand, the black-and-ghostwhite ghostflame licking off the steel in slow hungry tongues. His eyes kept flicking to Lyra across the frozen gap. She stood on the Marine flagship's forward deck, one hand gripping the golden-white katana that had reacted to Hyōmeishu, her other hand open as if she could grab the wind and make it behave.
Garp was a few paces from her, shoulders hunched forward, grinning like a kid who'd just been told he could punch someone important.
"Hey, hey," Garp called out across the ice, voice echoing. "You're the Kitsune, right?"
Jinx didn't answer.
Xebec did, because he couldn't help himself.
"HE IS!" Xebec shouted back. "AND I'M ROCKS! COME GET YOUR ASS BEAT!"
Zephyr's eyes narrowed, posture tightening. He looked young, but there was something heavy about him, like the kind of man who'd already decided he'd die for the job if he had to. "This is a Celestial Dragon escort," he said, loud enough for his men to hear. "Hold formation. Protect the noble vessel. CP0 handles the intruders. Marines hold the line."
The frozen sea made formation feel like a joke. There was nowhere to maneuver, nowhere to drift, nowhere to "adjust sails." It was just a flat battlefield with ships nailed down and men forced to become the weapons.
Vice Admiral Kenjong stood closer to the treasure hold hatch, jaw clenched so hard it looked painful. His hands hovered near the deck like he could already feel the "something" coming. The faint emotional pressure from Jinx's cursed techniques rubbed against his senses like sandpaper. He didn't like it. He didn't understand it. Which meant he wanted to kill it.
And behind the curtains of obscene silk and gold, Saint Renlor Donomore was already shrieking at servants, his voice high and furious.
"I TOLD YOU TO BRING MORE GUARDS! IF THAT FOX THING TOUCHES MY PROPERTY I'LL HAVE YOU ALL EXECUTED!"
Somewhere deeper inside, Saint Varrick was yelling too, but his sounded more panicked—less about greed and more about the sudden realization that gods could bleed.
Then the battle stopped being a staring contest.
CP0 launched.
They didn't jump—they glided, their feet barely kissing the ice as they crossed the black frozen sea like ghosts skipping across a grave. Their hands flashed, blades appearing from sleeves, thin knives designed to kill quickly and vanish.
Jinx shifted, foxfire flaring, but Xebec moved first.
He didn't sprint.
He hit the air like it owed him money.
His sword came down not in a cutting arc, but in a brutal, blunt swing coated in Armament and infused with Conqueror's like it was a war club made of pure ego. The shockwave smashed through the ice corridor, erupting upward in a wall of shattered black shards. Two CP0 agents had to twist mid-air to avoid being pulverized, and even then the pressure slammed them sideways.
Whitebeard followed immediately, fist cocked back.
The air cracked.
A quake rippled through the frozen sea and the ice under a Marine ship's right side exploded upward, lifting the entire vessel at an angle like it was being pried open by an invisible giant. Marines screamed as the ship tilted, cannons ripping loose, bodies sliding across the deck.
Zephyr barked a command, stepping forward, arm coated in Armament, and the wind around him tightened—like the air itself had been grabbed by the throat. He wasn't an Admiral yet, but he moved like one.
"Don't let them dictate the battlefield!"
He thrust his palm forward and a compressed blast of air shot across the ice like a battering ram, slamming into the Rocks ship's side. The hull shuddered. Sailors fell. A mast rope snapped.
Xebec laughed, delighted.
"YES! That's more like it!"
Jinx leapt from the Rocks ship, landing lightly on the black ice, Hyōmeishu angled low. His feet didn't slide. The ice didn't resist him. It welcomed him like home.
He moved toward Lyra.
Not charging.
Not rushing.
Just walking—calm as a funeral procession, violet eyes fixed on her like she was the only thing that mattered.
Lyra watched him approach and exhaled, green-black Conqueror's aura flickering faintly around her shoulders like a cloak of leaves.
Garp cracked his knuckles beside her. "You want me to take him?"
Lyra didn't look away from Jinx. "Don't."
Garp pouted. "Huh? Why not?"
"Because he'll learn you faster than you learn him."
That made Garp grin wider. "Now you're making it fun."
Jinx stepped within striking range and Hyōmeishu's ghostflame surged, edges turning brighter ghostwhite, the black core pulsing like a living bruise. He raised the blade.
Lyra raised her katana.
Their auras collided again, warm and bright against cold and dark, and the air between them distorted like heat shimmer—except it was cold shimmer, as if reality itself was freezing.
Jinx's Sharingan spun once, the tomoe tracing Lyra's micro-movements, reading her weight shift, her breathing pattern, her eye focus. He could feel the shape of her cursed energy even without seeing it perfectly, because it carried intent.
Lyra's gaze sharpened. Six Eyes flickered on—just a heartbeat—blue-white clarity washing across her pupils. She turned them off again instantly, like she was flipping a switch to avoid burning out.
Jinx caught it anyway.
"So you can still toggle it," he murmured, more to himself than her.
Lyra's lips twitched. "And you still talk too much."
They moved.
Jinx's blade flashed in a crescent arc, foxfire trailing. Lyra parried with bio-fire flaring along her katana's edge. Their clash didn't spark—it screamed, the sound like glass being cut by lightning. Jinx's footwork was weirdly elegant, Moon Breathing rhythm married to something darker. Lyra's stance was cleaner, grounded, with an almost royal discipline behind her movements.
They traded five blows in a single breath.
Then Jinx shifted his shoulder and his sword passed through her guard in a way that didn't make sense—like the blade had chosen a path through probability rather than space. Lyra twisted, letting it graze her sleeve instead of her ribs, and her bio-fire surged forward, trying to lick across his knuckles.
Jinx's foxfire answered instinctively, swallowing the green flame at the point of contact. It didn't extinguish it—bio-fire refused to die like that—but it forced it back, the two flames snarling around each other like rival beasts.
A CP0 agent chose that moment to strike at Jinx's blind side, moving with perfect killing form.
Jinx didn't turn.
He just breathed once and flicked his wrist.
Moon Breathing First Form: Dark Moon, Evening Palace.
A crescent slash carved the air, and a storm of chaotic crescent blades erupted along its path, shredding the space where the CP0 agent was. The agent barely escaped by throwing himself backward, but his mask split and blood misted across the ice.
The Marines watching from the decks went pale.
"That's not normal swordsmanship," a recruit whispered.
"That's… a curse."
Kenjong's eyes narrowed as he sensed it—the emotion in those invisible slashes, the cold intent braided into them.
So he moved.
He slammed his palms down and wax surged across the deck of the flagship, forming thick ramps and barricades—structures meant to control the ice battlefield, funnel movement, and block those strange cutting pressures. He coated them in Armament until they turned glossy-black, turning wax into armor.
"Hold the line!" Kenjong roared. "You let them reach the Celestial ship and we're all dead anyway!"
Whitebeard snorted from afar. "He's got a point."
Xebec bellowed laughter and swung again, not cutting, but blasting. A Marine ship on the left escort line took the shockwave like a hammer to the ribs and flew sideways, cannons snapping loose and rolling across the ice like metal dice.
Zephyr launched himself across the deck, wind tightening around his arms, and met Xebec's next shockwave head-on with a compressed air wall that split the blast like a wedge. The collision sent a sonic boom across the convoy, knocking sailors off their feet.
Xebec's grin widened.
"Oh, you're GOOD."
Zephyr grit his teeth. "You're insane."
"THANK YOU!"
Whitebeard's fist cracked again and another Kaishin punched the right wing of the escort. The frozen sea rippled, and tsunami-like waves—born not of water, but of quake pressure—reared up anyway, slamming into hulls and snapping mast poles like toothpicks. The ice held, but the ships didn't like being reminded that the sea under them was still the sea.
Amid that chaos, Garp moved.
He didn't announce himself. He didn't posture. He just vanished from where he stood beside Lyra and reappeared like a cannon shot, fist cocked back, grin feral.
Jinx's Sharingan caught the motion too late because Garp wasn't moving like a normal man—he was moving like a force of nature deciding to be funny.
"GOTCHA!"
The punch hit Jinx square in the ribs.
Armament-coated impact detonated through his body like a quake of flesh and bone. Jinx's feet left the ice. His cloak snapped behind him. He slammed backward through a cabin wall and into the Celestial Dragon liner's side structure with enough force to splinter gold-trimmed beams.
Wood exploded. Silk curtains tore free like flags.
Jinx landed hard, rolling once, then pushing up to a knee as dust and glittering debris drifted around him.
His first thought wasn't pain.
It was annoyance.
"…Cheap shot."
Outside, Garp laughed like he'd just discovered comedy. "You're not boring! Good!"
Lyra's eyes widened for half a heartbeat, then narrowed. She didn't scold Garp, but the look she gave him carried a clear message: don't ruin my fight.
Jinx stood and the dust cleared enough for him to realize where he'd landed.
The treasure room.
Or rather, a mobile vault stuffed into the belly of the Celestial Dragon ship like a shrine to greed. Gold chests. Velvet stands. Seastone locks. Artifacts wrapped in silk. A room that smelled like perfume and fear.
And in the center, displayed like a holy relic, was a sword resting on an ornate stand.
A Western-looking cruciform blade with a curved, single-edged black profile. Ornate. Heavy. The kind of weapon you could feel even without touching.
Jinx's eyes narrowed.
Yoru.
But something about it was… wrong.
He stepped closer, ignoring the distant screams and the shaking of the ship as the battle continued outside. His fingers hovered near the blade, Sharingan studying it like a scientist.
It wasn't black the way he remembered.
Not the deep, permanent, true-black blade quality of legend.
This one had darkness, yes—polished, threatening—but it lacked that final absolute. It looked like a blade that had not yet been fully baptized in the will of its user.
He focused harder and felt it.
The grade.
Not Supreme.
Great Grade.
Jinx's lips parted slightly as the thought slid into place.
"So the theory was true…"
The old debate that had never made sense in his other life—the question of how someone like Mihawk could turn Yoru black when monsters like Roger or Whitebeard didn't have a confirmed black blade. If Yoru had started as a Great Grade, it would be far easier to raise it—far easier to force it through the crucible of Haki until it became something legendary.
A Supreme Grade turning black would be… almost impossible without a lifetime of obsession.
But a Great Grade?
A Great Grade could be pushed.
Could be forged by will into myth.
Jinx's eyes glinted with interest that was almost childish.
"That makes way more sense."
He grabbed Yoru.
The moment his fingers closed around the hilt, the room's air changed. Not because the sword loved him—it didn't—but because it recognized a predator. Hyōmeishu pulsed at his hip like it didn't appreciate competition.
Jinx smirked. "Relax. You're still my favorite."
A scream erupted from behind silk curtains.
Saint Renlor Donomore stumbled into view, face flushed, eyes wild, wearing enough gold to fund a war. He saw Jinx holding the sword and his voice jumped into hysteria.
"PUT THAT DOWN! THAT IS DONOMORE PROPERTY!"
Jinx turned his head slightly, bored. "You should breathe quieter."
Renlor's lip curled. "CP0! CP0! KILL HIM! GET IT BACK! I DON'T CARE HOW MANY MARINES DIE!"
CP0 agents swarmed into the vault doorway like white ghosts, killing intent sharp as needles. Two moved to block the exit. One launched forward to stab.
Jinx didn't waste time.
Moon Breathing First Form: Dark Moon, Evening Palace.
His slash wasn't meant for them. It was meant to create a path. Crescent blades ripped through the air, shredding velvet banners, carving deep scars into gold frames, forcing CP0 to dodge or die. The chaotic crescents slammed into the corridor beyond, opening a bloody route back toward the deck.
Jinx moved through it like a shadow slipping through a crack.
He emerged onto the deck with Yoru in one hand and Hyōmeishu still strapped at his hip, cloak fluttering, eyes bright with a dangerous amusement.
The moment Renlor saw him on deck again, he screamed louder, voice cracking.
"STOP HIM! THAT SWORD IS MINE! MINE!"
Marines faltered as if the scream itself could whip them back into obedience. CP0 surged again.
Jinx's crescent blades carved a clean lane across the ice corridor between ships, forcing enemies to retreat. He didn't even look at them. He was already tracking Xebec's position by sound alone—by laughter alone.
Xebec was in the center of the chaos, trading blasts with Zephyr, his blunt-force swordsmanship turning the air into a battlefield. Every swing was a cannon. Every impact was a statement.
Whitebeard was further right, cracking the ice with quake pulses, forcing ships to tilt, hulls to groan, men to cling to rigging for their lives.
Jinx reached the edge of the lane and then he threw the sword.
Not gently.
He whipped Yoru end-over-end across the ice like he was tossing a spear at a friend.
Xebec caught it one-handed without looking, like he'd been born to do exactly that.
The moment the hilt hit his palm, he froze for half a breath.
Then his face split into a grin so wide it looked painful.
"OHHH… now THIS," Xebec purred, voice dripping approval, "this is more my style."
He swung Yoru once and the air boomed—blunt-force power amplified by a heavier, nastier weapon. The shockwave smashed into Zephyr's wind wall and this time the wall buckled, forcing the Commodore to skid backward, boots tearing grooves into the deck.
Zephyr's eyes widened. "He just—switched weapons mid-fight—"
Xebec laughed. "KUAHAHAHA! I LIKE THIS ONE!"
Jinx landed beside the lane he'd carved, leaning slightly as he watched Xebec test the blade like it was a new toy.
"Don't get attached," Jinx called, voice calm.
Xebec didn't even turn around. "Attached? Brat, I'm IN LOVE!"
Jinx's eyes narrowed. "I'm taking it back."
Xebec finally glanced over his shoulder, grin feral. "Then come take it."
Whitebeard heard that and snorted, still punching quakes into the battlefield like he was casually rearranging geography. "You two are gonna fight each other in the middle of a war."
Jinx shrugged. "He started it."
Xebec barked laughter and swung Yoru again, blasting away a cluster of Marines trying to form a line. Their bodies flew across the ice, sliding until they hit Kenjong's wax barricades with dull thuds.
Kenjong's face twisted with anger as he saw the blade. He didn't know it was Yoru, not by sight, but he could feel the weight of it. "CP0!" he shouted. "Forget the pirates—secure the Celestial vault!"
Renlor was still shrieking in the background like a dying bird.
Lyra moved again, stepping onto the black ice lane Jinx had carved, golden katana in hand. Her eyes flicked briefly to the sword in Xebec's hands, then back to Jinx. The memory she'd regained didn't soften her. It sharpened her.
Garp cracked his neck and grinned, standing beside her. "So you still wanna fight him yourself?"
Lyra didn't blink. "Yes."
Garp's grin widened. "Good. I'll just punch anyone else."
Jinx's Sharingan spun once, then faded as he exhaled, settling into rhythm.
"Fine," he murmured, more to Xebec than Lyra. "We'll fight for it."
Xebec's eyes gleamed. "That's the spirit!"
Whitebeard's laughter rolled across the battlefield like thunder. "This crew is insane."
Then everything surged again—Marines charging, CP0 slicing through lanes, Zephyr whipping the air into blades, Kenjong raising wax walls, Renlor screaming about property, and the Rocks Pirates answering with pure violence and joy.
Jinx stepped forward into the chaos, Hyōmeishu's ghostflame blooming, crescent blades forming at the edge of his swings, and his gaze locked onto Lyra's like the world was narrowing down to only their rivalry again, while Xebec swung Yoru like a wrecking ball in the corner of his eye, laughing and daring Jinx to come take it back right now, right here, in the middle of the storm
Ten miles away from the chaos, where the sea should've been quiet and forgettable, a tiny fishing boat bobbed along like it had no business being anywhere important.
Gold D. Roger was sprawled on his back near the bow, one arm hanging over the side, lazily trailing fingers through the water. At twenty-five, he looked more like a reckless traveler than someone history would eventually choke on. His laugh came easy, loud and unbothered.
Rayleigh sat cross-legged near the mast, sharpening a blade that didn't actually need sharpening, eyes half-lidded but alert in the way only dangerous men ever were. Scopper Gaban leaned against the stern, arms folded, watching the horizon with a thoughtful frown.
"So," Roger said, grinning at the sky, "next stop—do we go north and freeze our asses off, or south and burn to death?"
Gaban snorted. "You're assuming we survive long enough to choose."
Rayleigh didn't look up. "We go wherever the wind takes us. It hasn't killed us yet."
Roger laughed. "Yet!"
Then the boat lurched.
Not a gentle sway. Not a passing wave. The entire sea heaved, like something massive had just shifted beneath the world. Roger rolled to his side with a grunt, boots scraping wood as he grabbed the railing.
"…That's new," he muttered.
The waves grew rough fast—violent, directionless. The kind that didn't follow weather or tide. The mast creaked. The fishing boat pitched hard enough that Gaban had to widen his stance.
Rayleigh finally looked up.
The sky ahead split.
Not metaphorically. Not dramatically.
It split.
Clouds tore apart like fabric ripped by unseen hands, revealing jagged seams of light and darkness colliding. The air itself seemed to scream without making a sound.
Roger's grin faded.
A second later, the cold hit.
Not wind. Not chill.
Cold.
The kind that made his bones ache and his breath fog instantly, even under the sun. The kind that felt like the absence of warmth rather than its loss.
And layered on top of it—
Power.
Raw, suffocating, overwhelming.
Roger dropped to one knee without realizing it, palm slamming into the deck as if gravity itself had increased.
Rayleigh's eyes widened, sharp and focused now. His blade rang softly as it vibrated in its sheath.
Gaban's teeth clenched. "What… the hell… is that?"
Then the wave hit them.
Not water.
Will.
A diluted shock of Conqueror's Haki rolled across the sea like an invisible tsunami. It wasn't aimed at them, but it didn't care. It pressed down on their chests, their lungs, their souls.
Roger gasped, breath stuttering, vision tunneling for half a heartbeat.
And then—
Life.
A surge of it.
The pressure didn't just crush; it ignited. His blood roared. His heart hammered. Every nerve in his body lit up like it had just been reminded what it meant to be alive.
Roger started laughing.
Not loudly. Not yet.
Just a breathless, incredulous sound.
"Hah… hah… you guys feel that?"
Rayleigh forced himself upright, eyes locked on the horizon. "Yeah."
Gaban swallowed, steadying himself against the mast. "That wasn't just one person."
The cold lingered, biting at their skin, while the life-rush pulsed underneath it like a second heartbeat. Death and vitality braided together so tightly it made Roger's head spin.
Then he heard it.
At first, he thought it was the wind slipping through the torn clouds.
But it wasn't.
It was faint. Distant. Barely more than a whisper brushing the edge of his hearing.
Not words exactly.
Intent.
A pull.
Roger's breath slowed as he focused, tuning out the crashing waves, the groaning boat, even the weight of that monstrous will still hanging in the air.
The whisper sharpened.
Not commanding.
Inviting.
His eyes widened slowly.
"…Heh."
Rayleigh glanced at him. "You hearing something?"
Roger pushed himself to his feet, wobbling, then straightening as if something unseen was holding him upright. His grin crept back, wider this time, feral and bright.
"Yeah," he said. "I think so."
Gaban frowned. "What is it?"
Roger closed his eyes for a second, listening harder. Images flickered in his mind—ice, fire, clashing wills, something ancient waking up in the middle of absolute chaos.
When he opened his eyes, they were shining.
"It wants me to go there."
Rayleigh stared at him. "…'It'?"
Roger pointed toward the split sky, toward the distant horizon where the world looked like it was breaking and being reforged at the same time.
"Center of whatever the hell that is."
The boat lurched again, waves slamming against its sides like the sea itself was urging them forward.
Gaban laughed under his breath, a nervous edge creeping in. "You're insane."
Roger's grin widened. "Probably."
Rayleigh sheathed his blade and stood, calm as ever despite the madness in the air. "If you're going, we're going."
Roger turned, surprised for half a second, then laughed loud and free. "That's what I like to hear."
He grabbed the rudder, muscles burning as another distant ripple of power washed over them.
"Alright then," he said, eyes locked on the chaos ahead, excitement crackling through him stronger than the fear. "Let's see what kind of monsters are throwing tantrums out there."
The tiny fishing boat angled toward the storm.
And somewhere far ahead, amid ice, fire, gods, pirates, and legends colliding, something unseen shifted—like the world itself had just noticed Gold D. Roger for the first time.