It was a bizarre power.
It felt like it was dragging him backward, making him younger.
If he didn't resist with Haki, it could probably shrink him straight into a seven or eight year old kid, back to the age before he ever boarded Roger's ship.
A child Ozz.
But Ozz didn't like looking up at people.
So he used Haki to cancel out part of that strange force. In the end, his body's age rolled back to around eighteen or nineteen.
His Haki, though, still hovered at the level of his nearly forty year old self.
Only the rest of him dipped with youth.
Of course, if he wanted to return to his original age, it would be easy. One burst of Conqueror's Haki through his body and it would snap back.
But that would ruin the fun.
To outsiders, the change was obvious.
The maturity in Ozz's face and presence slowly peeled away.
He was still over three meters tall, but his hair grew a bit shorter, and his features became younger, brighter, full of vitality.
He now looked about the same age as Luffy and Zoro.
With Observation Haki, Ozz could feel it clearly too.
This really was his eighteen or nineteen year old self.
"What?!" Bonney stared, confused. "My power is supposed to turn you into a little kid!"
But the others were thinking something completely different.
"So the legendary monster has reverted to his younger self."
Capone Bege, the mafia boss, smiled as if he'd found the hidden crack.
"Isn't that our chance?"
If it were the terrifying Ozz from earlier, the one who could freeze them in place just by standing there, Bege would have knelt immediately.
He might even have offered to join under him, wait for an opening, then backstab later.
But this Ozz had been dragged down into their generation.
Just like in those fantasy novels. You didn't dare challenge an ancient monster, but if he was in the same realm as you, why not?
Every Supernova believed they were invincible among their peers.
They all assumed Ozz was that strong because he had the "buff" of age, like the old era monsters.
If they'd been born decades earlier, maybe they too could've fought for a legendary name.
Except…
A king is still a king.
At any age.
Ozz remembered what he was doing at this age.
He was probably still carving out territory and playing "Emperor," wasn't he?
"Men, move!!"
Bege's grin widened as he pointed forward.
"Take Black Gun's head and make the world remember our name!!"
In an instant, countless subordinates poured out of Bege's body, viciously opening fire at Ozz. Some even sprayed with machine guns.
"Interesting…"
This younger Ozz was visibly more domineering, more reckless. Maybe the youth in his body dragged back some of that old blood heat.
"Castle Castle Fruit. Swarm tactics, huh?"
He bared his teeth in a wicked grin.
Then he decided to beat Bege at his own specialty.
"Alright. Your men are mine now."
He snapped his fingers.
Suddenly, Capone Bege clutched his stomach like he'd been poisoned. He spat blood, his eyes filling with terrifying red veins.
"What are you doing… you bastards?!"
Inside his body, his own men revolted, going wild, tearing the "castle" apart from within.
Even the subordinates outside, the ones beside him, abruptly swung their guns around and started firing at Bege without discrimination.
"What… what is this?!"
Bonney and Hawkins went wide-eyed.
He only snapped his fingers.
Why was Bege imploding from the inside?
This wasn't something a Devil Fruit could explain.
For a moment they almost believed Ozz wasn't a Devil Fruit user at all, but some kind of…
Snap Snap Fruit "Snap-Man," or a Magic Fruit "Mage," where the spell gesture just happened to be snapping fingers.
"Even as a young man… he's still this terrifying?"
Hawkins swallowed.
Watching Bege get beaten bloody by his own crew, he felt it more strongly than ever.
This man might truly be the strongest.
"Bullshit!!!"
Bege, getting dogpiled by his own men with zero Godfather dignity left, snapped.
His eyes turned bloodshot.
"Big Father!!!"
"Oh, scary."
Bege's battered body suddenly hardened into a stone-like color, swelling and expanding, shooting upward.
He transformed into a massive fortress-man, a walking castle.
He hurled his subordinates out through windows like trash, then turned his rage toward Ozz.
"Stop playing cheap tricks. I'll crush you flat!!"
Up to now, Ozz had shown nothing but impossible Devil Fruit nonsense.
It gave them the illusion that getting close meant there was a chance.
"Not good!"
Hawkins' expression changed as that enormous castle body pressed down.
He could redirect fatal damage with straw dolls, but if a normal person got flattened by that, they would be paste.
"It's just a big toy."
Ozz held a cigarette between two fingers, wearing a look of pure contempt.
With his young body, he reached out with one hand and caught the descending castle, stopping a structure that weighed hundreds of tons.
"What?!"
Bege froze.
In the next instant, his body felt like it no longer belonged to him. A force like a colossal Sea King slamming into him lifted him up.
"This young body might not be as strong…"
Ozz's smile widened.
"But it's got energy."
Like an ant lifting an elephant, Ozz raised a castle with one hand, then tossed it up into the air like it was nothing.
His body vanished.
Reappeared in midair.
And then he kicked down.
Hawkins' pupils shrank.
He instantly turned into straw, countless strands whipping out to wrap everyone present and drag them far away.
Boom!
The ground shook like an earthquake.
Ozz landed lightly beside a crater and didn't even bother looking inside.
He simply walked toward Hawkins and the others, calmly making a mark in his little notebook.
"Done. Plus one."
Under Hawkins and Bonney's trembling stares, the guards climbed down into the crater, dragged out Bege, who had already been beaten back into human form, and was unconscious.
Another Supernova added to the collection.
Kid and the others, seeing yet another "new member" delivered, stared in disbelief.
"That's Capone Bege… one of the Supernovas on Sabaody."
"And Hawkins… and Jewelry Bonney…"
Out of respect for Kuma, Bonney didn't get beaten down. She was simply cuffed in Seastone for being unruly, and thrown into the captured Supernova lineup.
Only Hawkins was still standing.
At this point, he felt nothing but relief.
And when Kid and the others looked at him with disdain, he didn't even feel ashamed as he justified himself.
"This man cannot be defeated."
"I did the right thing."
"The rest of the Supernovas will fall to Mr. Ozz too."
Hawkins said it without the slightest guilt.
Because he could already see it.
Ozz was flipping through the rest of the Supernova list.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The tides are shifting, and secrets linger in the dark... Step into the shadows early on P@treon, where the next chapter awaits before the world sees it.
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"