Crocodile's face twisted with barely contained fury. His pride stung, his jaw clenched, but in the end—he turned away.
His voice came out cold, low, and heavy.
"Yes, Captain."
Gasps erupted.
The Straw Hat crew—and even the Franky Family—stared at him as if lightning had struck.
Crocodile.
The former Warlord of the Sea.
The tyrant once called "The Desert King."
Had just called this purple-haired young man... Captain.
The silence was absolute for a moment—then chaos.
"Wha—?! Did he just—did Crocodile just call him captain?!"
"You've gotta be kidding me…"
"That guy's strong enough to boss Crocodile around?"
The revelation hit like a cannonball.
But then they remembered that punch—the one that sent Luffy sprawling like a ragdoll.
The disbelief slowly faded.
Yes.
A man who could crush a rubber man with a single barehanded strike was not someone you mocked.
A brief tension passed, and both sides fell into a quiet, uneasy truce.
When the Rocketman Sea Train finally set off toward Enies Lobby, the two groups rode together in silence—mutually respectful, if not comfortable.
The Straw Hats were unusually stiff; Arthur's group, by contrast, lounged about as if they owned the train.
Even without another move, his earlier show of force had been more than enough.
That one effortless blow had been proof of something no one could deny.
Even Luffy—usually unshakable in the face of any challenge—sat cross-armed and brooding, a sour look twisting his face.
A rubber man who felt pain from a punch.
That had never happened before.
Terrifying didn't begin to describe it.
The Rocketman sped into the stormy sea.
Under the fearless driving of Granny Kokoro, the train's wheels shrieked as it reconnected to the submerged rails, charging across the turbulent waters toward Judicial Island.
But the Grand Line was merciless.
Before long, the ocean itself turned against them.
A shadow darkened the sky—an immense wall of water rising like a god's hand.
A wave, a hundred meters tall, loomed above them, blotting out the sun.
"Oh crap—what is that?!"
"That's not a wave, that's a damn mountain!"
"It's over—we're done for! Save yourselves!"
"Boss, I'm sorry! We can't save you this time!"
The Franky Family's bravado evaporated as despair sank its teeth in. The roar of the sea drowned out their screams.
The wave came down like the jaws of a leviathan—ready to swallow the Rocketman whole.
In the midst of the panic, Arthur opened his eyes, frowning faintly at the noise.
He took one look at the oncoming wall of death and sighed.
"Redfield," he said casually, waving his hand. "Deal with it."
"Understood."
The Red Count didn't hesitate. Without another word, he stepped to the front of the train, the blade Raiju gleaming in his hand.
To Kokoro, he said simply:
"Keep driving. Don't slow down."
Eight simple words—spoken not as reassurance, but as command.
The old mermaid blinked, but something in his tone, in that unshakable presence, made her hands tighten on the throttle.
She knew true strength when she felt it.
Luffy and Zoro, who'd been preparing to counter the wave themselves, both stepped aside instinctively, driven back by the sheer pressure rolling off the old swordsman.
Standing alone atop the train's prow, Redfield looked impossibly small against the oncoming titan of the sea—
and yet, somehow, he seemed larger.
The air around him warped. His killing intent pressed down heavier than the storm.
The wave drew closer.
Still, he didn't move.
The crew tensed. Even Arthur's smile faded into something thoughtful.
Was the old man… just going to stand there?
"Oi, is he… serious?" someone whispered.
"Maybe he's bluffing? Hey, if he can't—"
"Shut up!"
No one dared speak again.
Then—
The wave hit.
Or rather—it would have.
Because in that instant, Redfield moved.
A flash. A glint. A sound like thunder snapping the air.
Raiju left its sheath, but no one saw the swing.
In one breath, the blade was drawn—and sheathed again.
Even the sharpest eyes among them couldn't follow it.
Everyone except Zoro.
His hand trembled, eyes wide as he watched, barely able to process what he'd seen.
Eight afterimages.
Eight blades.
Eight perfectly fluid strikes in less than a heartbeat.
Each cut carried a precision and grace that made even Mihawk's calm precision seem... human.
This—this was something else.
Zoro's throat went dry.
"This old man's swordsmanship… it's beyond anything I've ever seen."
Could this be the level beyond the World's Greatest Swordsman?
Before the thought could settle, the sea itself answered.
The monstrous wave halted—then split.
Eight vertical slashes divided it neatly down the center.
Then another cut, perfectly horizontal—sixteen pieces in total.
The impossible sight froze every soul aboard.
The ocean—had been carved like glass.
The water hung suspended, sixteen perfect cubes gliding past the train in eerie silence, edges glistening like crystal.
Then, gravity returned.
BOOM!
Each block fell, crashing behind them in a roaring chain of detonations, sending up geysers taller than towers.
The passengers stared, speechless, hearts hammering in their throats.
For a long moment, no one moved. No one breathed.
Barorick Ledfield—
the man once said to rival the Roger Pirates and Whitebeard's crew alone,
the man the world called the Red Count—
had just proven those legends were no exaggeration.
Meanwhile…
At Marine Headquarters, Fleet Admiral Sengoku was in the middle of Magellan's incident report when the door slammed open.
A flustered Rear Admiral burst in, holding a den-den mushi.
"Fleet Admiral! Priority transmission—urgent!"
Sengoku frowned, rubbing his temple.
If it had the officers this rattled, it couldn't be anything good.
"Put it through."
He picked up the receiver—
unaware that, even as he did, the world outside was already beginning to tremble at the name of one man.
Arthur.
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