At the same time, aboard the small sailboat on the sea's surface, Gern slowly drew back the Conqueror's Haki he had released to its absolute limit.
"…Strange. Did he slip off to somewhere else again?"Gern clicked his tongue unconsciously, eyes lifting toward the utterly still sky."A powerhouse of his level—even with age—shouldn't have dulled his perception of Haki this much."
The heavens remained silent.
And so, in the very next instant—almost a zero-frame startup—
Gern raised both hands toward the cloudless sky above, fingers half-curled as if grasping at empty air, drawing inward.
HMMMM—CRACK!!!
Countless pale, high-frequency vibrating particles were created out of nothing, then violently converged between his palms.
In a heartbeat, they compressed into a massive, wildly unstable sphere of energy—its surface constantly caving in and bulging outward, expanding and contracting erratically.
The space around it began to warp and blur, emitting a shrill, tearing shriek.
The sheer terror of the energy made the small sailboat beneath Gern creak and groan in protest.
And just as he was about to hurl this highly compressed, catastrophically unstable "Calamity Star"—a mass of power capable of shattering the very airspace above—
"Oi, you bastard!!"
A voice filled with cold fury and barely restrained rage thundered down from the high sky behind him.
"Are you trying to shatter the heavens themselves?! GERN!!!"
Hearing that voice, Gern showed no surprise at all. Instead, a smile tugged at his lips—one that said so you did come after all.
The next moment, the extremely dangerous, on-the-verge-of-detonation energy sphere between his hands vanished with a soft pop, dispersing into nothingness at a mere flicker of his will.
Only then did Gern leisurely turn around and look up toward the source of the voice.
Suspended in midair behind the sailboat was "Golden Lion" Shiki.
His long golden hair and mane whipped violently in the turbulent airflow, his eyes locked onto Gern with unblinking intensity.
Anger, wariness—and unmistakable relief—were all mixed together on his face.
After all, had that attack actually been released, even his floating island might have been caught in the aftermath.
Gern looked at the old rival who had once stood shoulder to shoulder with himself, Whitebeard, and Roger—
Now clearly fallen from his prime, yet still radiating an undeniable, ferocious presence—
And broke into a dazzling, almost punch-worthy grin. He spread his hands casually and spoke in an easy, almost lazy tone.
"That was the plan."
Seeing that shameless I'm-here-to-pick-a-fight expression, Shiki's eyes narrowed dangerously.
"…You brat. Did you come here specifically for me?"
"What else?" Gern said, digging a finger into his ear, utterly nonchalant."You think I got so bored I came all the way to the East Blue just to let off some Conqueror's Haki for fun?"
"Your purpose." Shiki cut straight to the point, unwilling to waste words.
"My purpose?" Gern flashed a wide grin, rows of white teeth gleaming."Simple. I wanted to see if turning in the legendary Golden Lion's head would get G-10 a bit more funding for base operations."
The moment those words left his mouth—
The powder keg exploded.
Shiki's expression turned savage.
Even if a tiger had fallen to the plains, he would never tolerate such naked humiliation and provocation!
"You're still just as arrogant as ever, you Marine whelp!!!"
Shiki roared, kicking forward with his left leg—Oto flashing in an instant!
"Flying Slash!!!"
A colossal golden blade of compressed force—imbued with the mastery of a supreme swordsman and surging Haki—tore through the sea below, carving a bottomless trench as it surged forward with annihilating intent, racing straight toward Gern and the small sailboat beneath his feet!
This strike, born of pure rage, carried enough power to cleave a battleship in two.
Yet Gern's response was something Shiki never expected.
He didn't casually disperse it with vibration powers or brute force.
He didn't even move.
Gern's gaze sharpened—and his right hand snapped to the hilt of the black blade wrapped in aged bandages at his waist.
"BAANG!"A clear, ringing blade cry echoed across sea and sky!
The jet-black sword Hachikō was drawn in a single fluid motion, Armament Haki flooding over it as Gern twisted his wrist.
The blade carved a simple, flawless black arc through the air—
And struck the massive golden slash head-on.
SHHK!
There was no earth-shattering explosion. No violent clash of energies.
The ferocious golden slash was cleanly split in two the instant it touched Hachikō's obsidian edge.
The severed remnants screamed past Gern and the sailboat on either side, leaving long scars across the sea before fading into nothingness.
After his attack was neutralized, Shiki didn't immediately launch another assault.
He froze.
Suspended there in the air, staring in utter disbelief at the fully drawn black blade in Gern's hand.
From the day he was dragged into Impel Down, to the moment he severed his own legs to escape—
To these past twenty years spent hiding in the skies above the East Blue like a rat in the gutter—
Golden Lion Shiki had never truly stopped paying attention to the sea.
He understood better than anyone that the man before him—
"Heaven-Shaker" Gern Reginald Sigmar—
Was the true embodiment of the current era.
A monster that even old titans like Whitebeard, Kaido, and Big Mom were forced to confront with full caution.
And himself?
His peak strength had been eroded by long imprisonment and the relentless passage of time—lost by at least half.
He wasn't yet plagued by illness like Whitebeard…
But the ship's wheel embedded in his skull crushed his nerves, and the loss of his legs meant he had long been unable to wield blades with his hands—
He was no longer the Golden Lion of old.
Shiki knew it well.
In his current state, he wasn't even worthy of forcing Gern to draw the blade that symbolized his peak—the black sword that had cut down countless powerful foes.
And yet…
Gern had drawn it.
Shiki pressed his lips together, dry and tight, suppressing the turbulence in his heart. He descended and landed on the deck of Gern's sailboat, asking in a flat voice—
"Why… did you draw that sword?"
His gaze locked onto Gern as he demanded harshly,
"Against me as I am now… you shouldn't—shouldn't need it anymore, should you?!I know it myself…I no longer have the right… to make it—"
"Because…"
Gern slowly lifted Hachikō back, not sheathing it, but resting it casually on his shoulder. He looked up at the legendary pirate who had once ruled the seas, the frivolity fading from his face as he cut Shiki off.
"…You were the first man who ever made me truly feel death closing in."
"Golden Lion. Shiki."
Those words struck Shiki like a hammer to the chest.
They were neither mockery nor pity—
But the highest acknowledgment of that desperate, life-and-death battle at G-3 long ago.
The final—and most solemn—respect paid to a man who had once stood at the very pinnacle of the world.