"You should be able to handle this, right, Shanks?"
The uproar was no small thing.
Prince Loki of the giants had rebelled, slain the king, and run Elder Jarul through the head with a longsword. The scandal shook the island.
Perched atop a pile of giant corpses, Ozz watched Shanks, whose face was solemn and properly serious, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.
A few short years and that Shanks had started to carry real presence.
"If it is just subduing Loki, I am enough."
The three scars at the corner of his eye only sharpened the impression. Red-Haired Shanks no longer looked young. He looked like a man.
Ozz popped his bubble.
"Gone a few years and you came back with a scar over your eye. Is Teach really that strong?"
He could not make sense of it. Without any Devil Fruit, Teach was not terrifying on his own. Yet he had managed to scar Shanks during the exact years when Shanks' power was rising fastest. It made no sense.
"Hey, you two. What are you mumbling about?"
Loki was in no state for patience. Two top fighters had stepped out of nowhere, and after his first jolt of surprise he had planned to speak with them. Instead they chatted breezily as if the Giant Prince standing before them were air.
He hefted his warhammer. His face darkened until it was almost black.
On an ordinary day, anyone barking at Ozz in that tone would have eaten a teleporting kick on the spot, and whether they lived would be their own business.
Today was different.
Ozz knew Loki came with a destiny attached. He might not be Joy Boy, but Shanks would lock him away to await the fated one.
"Do not move, Loki."
Just as Loki was about to explode, Ozz, swaddled in bandages and annoyed by the noise, cut him a cold glance.
In those crimson pupils, emperor-tier Conqueror's Haki stirred, the gaze of the world's deadliest predator.
Pinned by those eyes, even Loki felt his back turn cold. Blood still wet on his skin, he could not stop the sweat beading at his temples.
For now Ozz's raw strength lagged a hair behind Rocks' overwhelming Conqueror's Haki, simply because of age. Even so, intimidating a Loki was easy work.
Bandages or not, wounded or not, he was not someone you could take liberties with.
At Ozz's side, Shanks felt his breath hitch under that tidal pressure. Instinct told him to flare his own Conqueror's Haki to push it back.
He swallowed the impulse.
"Your Conqueror's is terrifying, Ozz. Even I got chills."
Ozz only flicked a glance at Shanks' arm and narrowed his eyes.
"Terrifying? With that mark on your arm, you are just about unkillable now, Shanks."
Shanks touched his arm and paused.
"Do not joke. Other people might not know, but you know. The Holy Knights die like anyone else."
They traded a few light jabs. Then Shanks looked back at Loki.
How to deal with him?
Before either Ozz or Shanks spoke, Loki ground his teeth and lunged for the argument.
"Hey. Black Emperor. Red Hair. Are you going to live under the World Government forever?"
"Joy Boy defeating the Government is fate."
Loki wanted to sway them. He knew how strong they truly were.
Their blank faces broke his composure. Shanks even drew his sword. Loki's eyes reddened.
"Do not tell me you are cowards."
Ozz's patience frayed.
All this talk of overturning the World Government. Did he really think he had that kind of power?
Loki was strong. He was nowhere near over the line.
Even Loki's idol, Rocks, had not been a match for the World Government. What chance did a giant prince who fancied himself Joy Boy have?
In the end, it did not matter how many Red Hair pirates had joined the original arrest. This time Ozz and Shanks alone were enough to put Loki on the ground without breaking a sweat.
They wrapped him head to toe in Seastone chains and tossed him into the Underworld.
…
"Done."
Shanks looked a touch disheveled. Ozz was spotless. The two of them returned to Gaban's house.
Ripley was feeding the baby. She smiled as they came in.
"O-kun. Shan-kun."
Gaban stepped out as well. One look at their state told him all he needed.
"Clean and tidy work. It had to be you youngsters."
They stayed a while. Shanks was the first to take his leave.
He always acted mysterious, as if he carried the world's gears on his back. Ozz knew why but did not care to pry. He simply watched him stand.
As he reached the door, Shanks turned back.
"Right. Ozz, are you not going to see Uta?"
"All those top-tier scores and recording Den Den Mushi you have been sending her these years. She treats them like treasure."
Shanks smiled as he spoke about Uta, a father through and through, without a trace of the earlier rivalry with Ozz.
"Uta."
Ozz started, then thought it over and shook his head.
"Let it be. If there is fate, we will meet."
It was not the main storyline yet. He and Uta did not have a real father-daughter bond. Being a stranger she thought well of would do.
After Shanks left, Ozz and Uncle Gaban had some time alone.
Ozz even asked him how on earth one had a child with a giant woman.
Gaban was very proud of that answer. He extracted several dozen bottles of world-class liquor before he finally told him.
"Ah."
Ozz was honestly shaken.
He also quietly wondered whether he should find a giant maid someday.
In the days that followed, Ozz rested at Uncle Gaban's, letting his body knit. With strength and charm to spare, he also spent a pleasant while in the company of more than a few giant beauties of Elbaf.
When his monstrous constitution had done its work and the worst of his wounds had closed, Ozz told Uncle Gaban it was time for him to go.
News of his departure made the giant maidens of Elbaf reluctant to let him leave. They would have been happy to drown him in a sea of tenderness.
But a good man's heart points to the four seas.
Ozz stood on Elbaf's harbor and waved at the crowd that came to see him off.
"O great sea. Ozz is back."
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