"Bleeeergh…!"
Shiki belched like a cannon going off, slamming the now-empty tankard down on the creaky wooden table in front of him. His weathered pegleg, crudely fastened with bolts and sea lion hide, was shamelessly sprawled across the tabletop, shaking the mugs of everyone seated near him.
"You little brats sure know how to get your hands on the finer things in life," he chuckled, golden mane swaying as he reached for a refill. "That was the best damn ale I've had in a long time…"
Neither Marco nor I were particularly fazed by the Golden Lion's crude behavior. The man was a relic of a wilder era—half-legend, half-madness. His reputation still echoed across the seas, but what sat before us now felt like a lion in twilight, his roar dulled by time and scars. Still dangerous. Still cunning. But something was missing.
I turned my eyes to Marco. Since arriving, I'd watched closely—Shiki might've come here for leisure or nostalgia, but Marco? Marco was here with purpose.
And a heavy one at that.
My gaze drifted downward to Shiki's pegleg. The man who once clashed with Gol D. Roger himself had lost a foot… but to whom? Or to what? The questions raced through my mind like cannonballs through mist, but I held my tongue. I didn't need to press. Not yet. I had a feeling that before the day's end, the answers would find me on their own.
I leaned forward, folding my arms across the small lacquered table, my tone even but curious.
"So then… to what do we owe the pleasure of both the Golden Lion and the First Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates gracing the Donquixote Family with a personal visit?"
My eyes never left Marco's.
Shiki had already begun pouring another round, humming a sea shanty under his breath. He was clearly going to let Marco do the talking.
The former commander of the Whitebeard Pirates met my gaze, calm as ever. There was a subtle gravity to his expression, a tension lurking behind his smile like a storm behind blue skies.
"I'll get straight to the point," Marco said. "I'm here to ask a favor—directly—from the Donquixote Family. Specifically, from the user of the Heal-Heal Fruit… who, as I understand it, is currently under your protection."
I didn't flinch. But my smile? That vanished in an instant. My eyes slid sideways—to Shiki.
The old pirate paused mid-swig. A guilty twitch pulled at his face. At least he had the decency to look embarrassed.
"Shiki…" My voice dropped, ice threading through it. "Back then, the only reason I lifted a finger to help you was because your first mate wagered his life for yours. I repaid that man's sacrifice by helping you. That should have been the end of it."
I leaned in slightly, my voice like a razor hidden behind silk.
"And now you're running your mouth about our family harboring the Heal-Heal Fruit user?"
Shiki looked down, frustrated, shame creeping into his golden eyes. Before he could open his mouth to explain himself, Marco spoke again—firm, direct.
"Rosinante… if it's the identity or safety of the fruit user you're concerned about, I give you my word—on my life—there's nothing to fear. I'll personally ensure their protection. Their anonymity will remain intact."
I raised an eyebrow, amused and incredulous.
"You shouldn't make such promises so easily, Marco." I leaned back in my seat. "Maybe you can vouch for your integrity. But can you say the same for the twenty-something divisions under Whitebeard's flag? All it takes is one loose tongue after too many drinks for a secret to travel halfway across the Grand Line."
Marco didn't blink. But I wasn't finished.
"And more than that…" I narrowed my eyes, the pieces slowly fitting into place. "From what little I know, the mythical phoenix flames coursing through your body possess healing capabilities that rival any fruit in existence. Some would even say yours is a miracle fruit."
My voice dropped.
"So then—why seek out the Heal-Heal Fruit now? Why risk stepping into the territory of another Emperor… alone?"
Marco exhaled slowly, the weight behind his silence finally tipping the air. For a moment, the sea itself seemed to hush. Shiki took another swig of ale, avoiding both our eyes.
And Marco… looked tired. Beneath the strength in his voice and poise in his posture, there was something else—urgency. Desperation, even.
He didn't answer immediately, but I could see the conflict playing out behind his gaze. There was someone he was trying to save. Someone important enough for him to beg. Someone even his flames could not mend.
"There are some wounds," he said at last, his voice low, "that even a phoenix can't heal."
I didn't press further. Not that I needed to. But deep inside, I knew. Only one person could warrant such a risk from Marco. Only one whose absence could leave a hole so vast that the Whitebeard Pirates would be left vulnerable, and that person… was Whitebeard himself.
My gaze slid toward Shiki, sharp and deliberate.
"I was wondering…" I said coolly, fingers drumming on the table. "What would drag the prideful Golden Lion this far into enemy territory? A man whose very blood is laced with arrogance and battle-lust. But now… I think I understand."
My voice dropped, the tension thickening like a storm tide.
"So someone out there managed to do what the world thought impossible—they bested both the Golden Lion and the Strongest Man Alive. They took your limb, and they left Whitebeard so broken, the second-in-command had to crawl to the Donquixote Family and beg for help."
My eyes locked with his, glowing faintly with the eerie shimmer of honed Observation Haki.
"So tell me, Shiki—who was it?"
Marco stiffened. "I never said it was Pops who needed treatment—"
But it was too late. Shiki slowly shook his head, swirling the last of his ale in the tankard, disappointment settling into his features.
"Tch. The more you panic, the more information you give away," Shiki muttered, casting a side glance at Marco. "You're too soft, Marco. He's been using his Observation Haki this whole time—not just sensing emotions but reading between the silence. You gave him everything without saying a damn thing."
A slow smirk curled across my lips. He was right. In those few precious heartbeats before Marco sealed his emotions again, I'd already seen the shape of the truth—seen it as clearly as if it had been spoken aloud.
What started as a gut instinct, a hunch, was now undeniable: A single person had taken Shiki's leg and dealt a blow to Whitebeard so devastating, it had shaken the very foundations of his empire.
Marco exhaled quietly, resigned. Shiki set his drink down with a heavy thud. The sound echoed in the tense silence that followed.
"Rosinante…" His tone shifted—no longer casual, no longer proud. There was gravity now, the kind that only came from desperation strangled by pride. "When I first came here, I swore I wouldn't ask for your help again. But I've come to realize something…"
He looked down at the table, jaw tight, then met my gaze again.
"If I keep clinging to my pride… If I face this enemy as I am now… I'll die."
Each word scraped out of him like stone dragged across iron.
"So yes. I'm asking—again. I want your help. I need the Heal-Heal Fruit user to restore my limb. And if it's within their power…" He hesitated, as though the next words were bitter poison."…to help return Whitebeard to his former strength."
Even Marco looked stunned to hear him say it out loud. That Shiki, of all people, would bow to necessity—surrender pride for survival. The silence hung thick as salt spray before I finally responded.
"Interesting," I said, leaning back. "To see you set aside your pride. That alone tells me your enemy must be something monstrous."
My voice sharpened.
"But you don't get to walk in here and ask for that kind of favor without payment—or information."
I leaned in, voice dropping to a whisper.
"So tell me, Shiki. Who was it? Unless I know who you're up against, you can forget about our help."
The tension was suffocating now. Even Marco shifted uncomfortably, his normally serene expression darkened by the gravity of the moment. For all his composure, it was clear—even he didn't know.
And that unsettled him more than anything. His gaze slowly turned to Shiki, breath shallow, as if he too awaited the name. Shiki didn't speak right away. He sat in silence, gaze distant, eyes cast into a memory that still clung to him like the stench of blood.
"Rocks D. Xebec," he said finally, voice low.
Marco frowned, the name at first tumbling through his thoughts like a puzzle piece that didn't fit. But then— His breath caught. His eyes widened.
The wooden stool beneath him screeched back across the deck as he bolted upright, so suddenly the table rattled and the glass tankard trembled on its edge. His voice, when it came, was laced with something rare and raw: fear.
"That's… impossible."
The words didn't stop—they spilled from him, fast and disjointed, like a dam bursting.
"Xebec died at God Valley. Pops himself told me. He said Rocks fell that day! The world government, Garp, Roger—they ended him! They had to! There's no way—no way!"
Even the sea, which had until now rolled gently beneath the ship's hull, seemed to hush… as if nature itself recoiled at the name.
Rocks D. Xebec.
The name that had once brought the world to its knees. Shiki, seated across from him, didn't so much as blink. His eyes were on me. Marco's outburst was expected. My reaction was what truly mattered.
"You don't seem as surprised," Shiki said, voice low, speculative. "That name would've sent most pirates into a panic. Were you already aware that Rocks was still alive?"
There was something in his tone—half surprise, half caution. A silent calculation. Just how far does the Donquixote family's influence reach?
I met his gaze calmly, unfazed.
"Let's just say," I replied smoothly, "it would be a lie if I said we hadn't suspected it. Not with how the world's been moving lately."
My fingers tapped against the wooden armrest as I leaned forward, eyes sharp.
"I've long wondered why Whitebeard let Kaido walk free, even when he had him beaten and broken. It made no sense back then. But now…"
I narrowed my eyes.
"It was Rocks, wasn't it? Even back then, he was pulling the strings."
Shiki gave a grim nod, the air around him heavy with bitter truth.
"He's been moving in the shadows for years. Watching. Gathering. Rebuilding. He's no longer just a man—he's something else now."
Marco stood frozen, the disbelief still churning in his chest. But then came the next blow.
"And just so you know," Shiki added, his voice quieter now, but heavier with menace, "Linlin isn't dead."
Marco's head snapped toward him.
"What…?"
"She's alive," Shiki repeated, gaze unwavering. "And she's no longer herself. She's one of his puppets now. One of three."
He let the words hang before dropping the next name.
"Two of them currently parade around under the World Government's nose… as Shichibukai."
"Izumi and Dorian."
Marco staggered back a step, looking as if the ground beneath him had suddenly vanished. This wasn't just impossible—it was madness. The kind of madness that made sense only when the world itself had gone off its axis.
He turned to me.
"Rosinante—you killed Linlin," he said, almost pleading for confirmation. **"I saw the bounty report. I saw the explosion. You ended her!"
I nodded slowly.
"Yes. I did."
"Then how—?"
Shiki answered, his voice like the scrape of iron chains.
"Because Rocks has found a way to defy death itself."
The deck fell into silence. Not just the stillness of quiet—but a graveyard hush, the kind that settled only when something sacred had been desecrated.
Shiki leaned forward now, elbows on the table, and for the first time… his voice wavered.
"I don't know how he did it. I don't know if it's science, sorcery, or some forgotten devil fruit power… but he's brought people back. People who should've stayed dead."
He looked at the both of us.
"And he's using them. Turning legends into weapons. Linlin, yes. But who's next? Roger? Garp? What if he finds a way to use even them?"
Marco looked like the world had turned upside down. The name Rocks D. Xebec had once been the stuff of ghost stories told to rookies and nightmares whispered by the old guard. A name erased by the World Government, buried under the sands of God Valley.
Shiki met Marco's stare. "You understand now why I came here… why I asked for a favor that scorches my pride like fire?"
Marco's breath had finally begun to settle when the truth clicked. It hit him like a delayed explosion—why Shiki, the Golden Lion himself, had chosen to accompany him all the way to Dressrosa instead of simply flying off on his own from the Moby Dick. It wasn't about diplomacy, nor friendship.
It was pride.
Shiki didn't want to come here alone and beg. He needed someone from Whitebeard's crew beside him—to mask the fact that he was seeking help, that he was asking for a favor... Again. I exhaled and rubbed the bridge of my nose, piecing everything together.
"This changes quite a few things…" I murmured, mostly to myself.
If I had managed to deduce Rocks D. Xebec's return from nothing more than fractured rumors and buried instincts, then surely the World Government had already reached the same conclusion. Perhaps that explained their silence. Their lack of retaliation for the little souvenir I left them on the Red Line...
No bluster. No threats. Just a terrifying silence. I had assumed it was calculated restraint. Now I saw it for what it was—fear.
Suddenly, the board had shifted. We weren't just dealing with powerful pieces anymore. A new player had stepped into the game, dragging along with him his own pieces, rules, and intentions. Rocks wasn't a storm on the horizon—he was a maelstrom, already at the center of everything.
Marco, still reeling, could barely form the words. "But… how could someone survive an Ancient Weapon?" he asked in disbelief.
I turned to him, calm. "Is it really that hard to believe?" I gestured toward Shiki with a nod. "Didn't he survive it? So did Charlotte Linlin. Why not Xebec?"
Marco's mouth opened but no sound came.
"You need to understand something, Marco. The Ancient Weapon the World Government used at God Valley… it was already running on fumes. By my estimate, at best, what it unleashed back then was a fifth of its original power."
I leaned back, eyes narrowing in recollection.
"As for the 'strike' during the Native Hunt in South Blue? That blast wasn't even a tenth of what the weapon was truly capable of."
Shiki flinched slightly at the mention, his eyes narrowing into slits. He muttered under his breath, as if the very memory of that moment—being scorched by the weapon's light—still haunted him.
I gave him a sidelong glance.
"You don't need to doubt me, Shiki-san." My voice was low, even. "If that weapon had been operating at full capacity… you wouldn't be here. You'd be a smear of dust on some forgotten seafloor. Even Whitebeard himself might not survive a true strike from it, not head-on."
Shiki's fists clenched. But his mind wasn't on that anymore. No—his gaze sharpened, and when he spoke again, it was with sober weight.
"You know an awful lot about Ancient Weapons. Too much."
His voice had lost its usual bravado.
"Don't think me naive enough to believe your family gathered all this in under a decade. So tell me, Rosinante… was it that bastard Roger who told you everything before he died?"
There it was. The raw wound.
He wasn't just suspicious—he was resentful. Resentful of a dead man's secrets.
He knew I had history with Roger. He knew I once sailed under Garp, interacted with the Pirate King and his crew. In Shiki's mind, there was only one possible explanation.
"Tell me," he growled, voice trembling not with rage, but bitterness. "Did Roger tell you about the One Piece too?"
The air thickened. His hands drifted to the hilts of his twin swords. And mine? Mine were already resting casually on Shusui's hilt, calm as ever.
My eyes met his, unblinking. "And what if I told you yes?"
His jaw tightened.
"What if I told you I know exactly what the One Piece is? That I know the truth of this world… the real truth?"
The wind stilled. Marco stood frozen, his heartbeat practically audible. He wasn't even trying to process the implications anymore—he was just struggling to breathe. This wasn't a pirate skirmish. This wasn't politics. This was myth turning to reality right in front of him.
For a long moment, neither Shiki nor I moved. The tension between us wasn't violent—it was existential. A cold war of understanding and ancient wounds.
And then… Shiki exhaled. He slumped back into his chair, twin blades untouched.
"That damn bastard…" he muttered.
His voice was hoarse with a frustration that had clearly festered for decades. "I asked him to join me. Again and again. I knew he held the truth. That with his knowledge of the Ancient Weapons, we could rule this world. But no…"
He looked at me, eyes filled with the same scorn he once reserved for Roger.
"He chose to trust a brat with everything. Damn him. I want to bring him back just to kill him myself…"
I couldn't help but laugh. A low, cold chuckle.
"Still chasing thrones, Shiki-san?" I said with a smirk. "You think the One Piece is a crown? That it hands out titles?"
He scowled.
"Contrary to what you believe," I continued, voice now razor-sharp, "finding the One Piece doesn't make you king. It doesn't grant you the world. It reveals something else—something far more dangerous."
He gritted his teeth. But I could see it in his eyes—uncertainty. Doubt.
"It shows you truths, Shiki. About the world. About the people who truly rule it. And once you see that truth… you can never unsee it."
He stared at me. So did Marco. The next question came quieter. More afraid than furious.
"So tell me, Rosinante…" Shiki asked, "…do you know where it is?"
Even Marco looked as if he'd forgotten to breathe. To know the location of the One Piece—that wasn't just power. That was godhood. I smiled slowly, reaching for the bottle of rum beside me.
"Perhaps I do. Perhaps I don't," I said cryptically, taking a long swig. "Who knows?"
The rum burned as it slid down my throat. But not half as much as the weight of the truths I carried.