Time passed.
Pirates kept testing Area 62.
Sometimes Jango led the raid. Sometimes Kuro. Sometimes Ain.
Ryder learned to handle logistics, supplies, and sniping all at once.
Nutrition improved. Spirits rose.
Every morning, the base was full of marines running laps with sandbags on their backs, doing pushups until they puked.
If you didn't train, you didn't fight.
If you didn't fight, you didn't get a share.
Simple.
Brutal.
Effective.
One afternoon, Ain returned from patrol, uniform spattered with dried blood.
"I'm back, White— ah, White sir."
Even now, she sometimes slipped and called him "White-bro," which Jango found hysterical… right up until Jin kicked him through a wall for trying it himself.
Jin glanced over her, then nodded.
"You're improving. But you're still one step away from becoming a real swordswoman."
He stood.
"I'm taking you somewhere that'll push you into the next realm."
Ain's eyes widened. "Where?"
"The Florian Triangle. Pirates call it the Devil's Triangle."
Jango's head shot up.
"Moria's territory, right? One of the Seven Warlords?"
Jin nodded.
"Yeah. And inside his ship is a swordsman — or what's left of him."
"A zombie?" Ain asked.
Jin's gaze turned distant.
"A legendary samurai from Wano. Once known for slaying a dragon."
"His name was Ryuma."
Ain's fingers tightened around the hilts at her waist.
"I understand."
They took a small Marine ship and sailed into a fog-drenched stretch of sea.
The world turned gray.
The water grew silent and heavy.
The Florian Triangle.
A lone barrel bobbed on the waves.
"Pull it in," Jin ordered.
Jango hooked it and dragged it aboard.
"Open it."
"Got it, Boss…"
Jango pried the lid off.
"Whoosh!"
A flare shot into the sky, bursting above them in a spray of sparks before fading into the mist.
Ain frowned. "A signal?"
"Moria's trap for idiots," Jin said. "Lets him confirm which guests wandered into his playground."
As he spoke, his Observation Haki spread out, feeling through the fog.
Someone was out there.
Invisible.
Watching.
Approaching slowly.
At first, the presence had hesitated when it sensed a warship.
But when Jin's aura remained calm, it crept closer.
Jango and Ain felt it too now that they were paying attention.
"Our guide's here," Jin said, lips curling.
A warped, beast-like figure shimmered into view on the sea ahead, body stitched together, face like a bad nightmare.
"Ho-ho-ho… such a beautiful woman… I must take her… must marry her…" the thing slobbered, eyes fixed on Ain.
She recoiled.
Jango's fists clenched.
Jin pointed lazily at him.
"Hey. You. The invisible creep."
"Mind showing us the way?"
The patched-up creature — Absalom — froze.
"H-he can see me?!"
He spun to run.
"Where do you think you're going?!" Jango shouted, using Moonwalk to drop from above, heel smashing into Absalom's head.
BOOM.
Absalom bounced off the deck and lay there, dazed.
Jin looked down at him.
"You aim that stare at anyone around me again, and I'll cut you in half," he said mildly.
"Now. Take us to Moria."
Absalom nodded so fast his head blurred.
"Y–yes sir!"
Their ship slid through the fog until a giant shadow swallowed the horizon.
A moving island.
Thriller Bark.
On deck, silhouettes waited.
Gecko Moria, with his massive bat-like form.
Perona, floating with parasol in hand.
Doctor Hogback, sweating behind them.
Moria glared.
"Marine, are you trying to break the Seven Warlords agreement?" he snarled.
"No," Jin replied. "I'm here for one swordsman. Nothing else."
Moria's eyes sharpened.
"You want Ryuma?"
"Bring me to him."
Shadows writhed around Moria's feet.
Wind curled lazily around Jin.
Pressure crackled between them.
"If you attack me…" Jin said softly, "that counts as legitimate self-defense, right?"
"You little—!" Moria bristled.
Jin flicked his wrist.
"Gale: Big Strength Slash."
A single line of sword aura tore across the island.
Trees split.
A tower in the distance cracked neatly in half.
Even the fog peeled apart for a heartbeat.
Moria's blood ran cold.
"Do you want to fight?" Jin asked, suddenly right in front of him, blade leveled at his forehead.
Silence.
"…Follow me," Moria muttered at last, teeth grinding.
They descended into the heart of Thriller Bark.
In a misty courtyard, a lone samurai sat on a cracked stone, hands resting on a sheathed black blade.
His skin was desiccated. His eyes were strange and empty.
Yet when Jin's group stepped in, those eyes turned toward them — and focused.
Ryuma.
"Oh-ho-ho…" the zombie samurai chuckled. "That slash earlier… I felt it from afar."
Jin smiled faintly.
"Even dead, your instincts are sharp, Ryuma."
Ryuma tipped his head.
"A faint echo of what I used to be," he said. "But enough for one last lesson."
Jin stepped back and jerked his chin at Ain.
"Go."
"Your path to becoming a true swordswoman starts here."
Ain's heartbeat thundered in her chest.
She drew her twin blades — Shuten and Kudoki.
Ryuma rose, joints creaking, hand closing around the hilt of his black blade.
"Used as a whetstone, am I?" he asked, tone amused. "Very well."
He vanished.
So did Ain.
Steel howled.
Their first clash sent a shockwave rolling across the courtyard.
Ryuma pressed her hard.
His movements were precise, economical, relentless. Every angle cut off her retreat, every swing probed a weakness.
Ain was pushed back, then back again.
A shallow cut opened across her shoulder.
Another nicked her side.
"Your spirit wavers," Ryuma said calmly, blades ringing. "A swordsman's heart must be still."
Jango's fists trembled.
"White Boss, she—"
"She's fine," Jin said.
"Let her fight."
Ain forced her breathing to slow.
Fight. Feel. Learn. Break through.
Jin's lessons flashed through her mind.
Footwork. Timing. The moment a blade commits.
The line between fear and focus.
Her pulse steadied.
Ryuma's dead lips stretched into a smile.
"Ah…"
"Your sword is awakening."
Ain stepped in.
This time, her swing didn't just carve the air.
It bit it.
A thin blade of sword aura whispered out ahead of her strike, slicing a groove into the stone.
Her first flying slash.
"A swordswoman," Ryuma declared.
"Now…"
"Fight me as one."
The battle jumped to a higher gear.
Sword auras flickered and clashed, carving gouges in the ground, chipping stone, splitting the fog.
Ain's twin blades and Ryuma's black sword danced in a blur.
She lost ground, then reclaimed it. Got cut, then adapted.
Her Haki flared, raw but present.
At last, the two of them crossed in a final, full-commitment strike.
For a heartbeat, neither moved.
Then—
Ain dropped to one knee, panting, blood at the corner of her mouth.
Ryuma remained standing.
A line slowly opened across his chest.
He laughed quietly.
"You have won… young swordswoman."
His body began to burn from within, flame seeping out of his cracks.
He unhooked the sword at his waist and tossed it toward Jin.
Jin caught it.
Shusui.
One of the twenty-one Great Grade swords.
Wano's national treasure.
"Take it," Ryuma said, voice fading.
"To a worthy successor."
His body crumbled into ash and scattered on the wind.
Jin walked over to Ain.
She swayed where she knelt, still gripping her blades.
He set Shusui aside and placed a hand lightly on her shoulder.
Golden flames — Yinglong's power — bloomed beneath his palm, licking across her wounds, closing them, returning color to her skin.
"Well done, Ain," he said softly.
"Welcome…"
"…to the realm of true swordsmen."
Ain let out a long, shuddering breath.
A small, disbelieving smile tugged at her lips.
Exhausted, she finally slumped forward, collapsing into his arms.
Jin held her easily with one hand, Shusui in the other, and looked up into the fogged sky.
Ryuma of Wano. Dragon-Slaying Swordsman.
I'll make sure your blade keeps walking the world.
He hefted Shusui onto his back and turned toward the way they'd come.
"Let's go," he said to Jango and Ain's unconscious form.
"Training's over."
"For now."
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