"Divine Departure!"
Shanks' roar split the heavens as his blade swept downward, wrapped in a storm of Conqueror's Haki so dense it rippled reality itself. From that swing erupted a colossal ethereal gryphon, a beast born of pure will and killing intent. Its wings spread wide, spanning the horizon, its cry a thunderclap that shook the bones of every soul who bore witness.
The gryphon tore forward, a radiant force that made the very sea shudder. It collided headlong with the leviathan Dorian had birthed—a titanic kraken, its coils and tendrils forged from churning, awakened oil, each limb as vast as a mountain ridge. The sea had been his domain, blackened and glistening, a death trap that could swallow fleets whole.
But as Shanks' will-born strike met the beast, reality itself split down the middle.
The kraken shrieked as the gryphon ripped through its body, shredding colossal oil-tentacles as if they were parchment. The clash ruptured Dorian's domain itself—his sea of oil howled as waves evaporated in the wake of Shanks' haki, the surface of the ocean severed clean in two. For a heartbeat, it was as though the world had been carved open by a divine blade: water displaced, skies torn apart, oil boiling into vapor.
And at the heart of it all—Dorian.
The gryphon's talons and wings ripped through his towering construct, shredding his logia mastery into tatters. His domain collapsed, oil dissolving back into harmless black rain, as the Divine Departure bore down on him. The world trembled under the weight of Shanks' will as if the seas themselves had knelt to his power.
Yet… from within the storm, Dorian's laughter echoed.
The sea exploded as their clash resumed. Shanks was a blur of red and steel, his every step igniting the air as haki burned around him like wildfire. Dorian, his body slick and glimmering with oil, moved with an unholy resilience—each fatal cut closing before blood could spill, his very flesh bubbling into regeneration as he countered.
Shanks' blade screamed as it cleaved through torrents of oil compressed into spears, each strike shattering constructs that could level ships in a single blow. Dorian answered by morphing into a surge of liquid shadow, reappearing with an arm forged into a massive blade of hardened oil that collided with Shanks' saber. Sparks and haki-lightning erupted, blinding bursts flashing with every strike.
They moved faster than the eye could track—clashes splitting the ocean apart, shockwaves detonating like bombs, vapor geysers erupting skyward as the sea itself was bullied into submission. One moment Shanks was high above, his silhouette framed against the sun as he descended with a haki-coated strike that could cleave mountains—the next, Dorian's form twisted, his oil snaring around the blade and erupting into a boiling explosion that forced Shanks back.
Neither yielded.
The battlefield was no longer recognizable: the waters of the Grand Line were carved into trenches and whirlpools, oil raining in sheets, lightning born of haki dancing across the blackened horizon. Each exchange was faster, sharper, more brutal—Shanks' precision and ferocity versus Dorian's unrelenting endurance, his willingness to take every mortal wound and keep moving forward.
Far from the battlefield, the rest of the Red-Hair crew watched from the safety of distance, tension wound tight as a noose. The clash had raged for half a day, the horizon stained with light and shadow from the titans' battle.
The sea was no longer blue, but a silvery, shimmering slick, Dorian's awakened logia turning the ocean itself into a death trap. One wrong step, and a man would be drowned, burned, or crushed. Yet even in this disadvantage, Shanks was pressing his enemy back—or so it seemed.
"Do you think it's over…?" Yasopp muttered, his fingers twitching against his rifle. He had seen his captain's Divine Departure end monsters in a single swing, but Dorian… Dorian had taken it thrice, and still returned. No man should have been standing.
Silence answered him, until a voice cut through the tension.
"…No. Something's wrong with that guy."
Buggy's tone was unusually grim, his eyes narrowed as his Observation Haki tracked every flicker of movement between the two combatants. He had sailed with Shanks long enough to know—his old friend was not holding back. No, Shanks was serious. Deadly serious.
What was wrong was Dorian.
Every fatal wound—slashes that should have bisected him, strikes that should have ended even the mightiest pirate—he shrugged off as though they were nothing. His body twisted, melted, and reformed. His regeneration was unnatural, even by logia standards.
"Anyone else would be limping—or rotting in the sea by now," Buggy muttered, his voice low. "But him… those wounds close too fast. Too clean. That's not just oil. It's something else."
The others fell silent, the realization crawling down their spines. Dorian wasn't just resisting Shanks' fury. He was feeding on it. And the battle was far from over.
"More… more! This cannot be the end of your strength!" Dorian's cackling voice rang like broken glass, echoing across the battlefield. His body, mangled and torn from countless cuts, still reformed with sickening fluidity. Black oil bubbled and sealed the wounds as if mocking mortality itself. His grin stretched unnaturally wide.
"Who would have guessed a mere rookie hid so much strength? Show me! Show me what you can really do—before I rip everything apart from you!"
Shanks stood opposite him, the weight of silence pressing against the madman's laughter. His single eye narrowed, sharp as the edge of his saber. A gnawing suspicion tightened in his chest. Dorian's regeneration—his disregard for wounds that should have ended him ten times over—was too unnatural. It was not unlike those undead husks Shanks had once glimpsed in the Holy Land. Not the same… but eerily similar.
Dorian grinned wider, oil dripping from his maw. "At first, I thought this would be easy. After I killed you, I'd go after that Rosinante… see if he was even worthy of my time—"
SLASH!
Before the name could leave his lips, Shanks moved. Faster than thought, his blade screamed through the air, infused with Conqueror's Haki, tearing across Dorian's shoulder. The madman twisted aside with his Observation Haki, barely escaping instant death—yet even the grazing blow sent a jolt through him, a searing pain that made his face twitch.
"You talk too much," Shanks growled, haki crackling off his body in red-black arcs that scorched the very air. "If this is all you've got… forget Rosinante. You can't even best me."
The sea roared as Shanks surged forward.
The ocean became their battlefield, each exchange faster than the last. Dorian erupted into a storm of oil, his body stretching outward into writhing tendrils that ignited into flame. An inferno of burning oil surged across the sea, a wall of death consuming everything in its path. The air grew molten, the water beneath them hissing into steam as the black firestorm swallowed the horizon.
Shanks met it head-on. His saber burned with haki, arcs of red lightning splitting the inferno apart as his strikes cleaved through flaming tendrils. Each swing of Gryphon carved through constructs meant to suffocate and overwhelm him—spears of black oil shattered, waves of molten flame parted, detonations of boiling slick dispersed into harmless vapor.
Dorian howled, reforming from the storm and slamming a colossal arm of hardened oil down like a hammer. Shanks' blade met it, haki tearing straight through the mass and bisecting the ocean with the shockwave. Water geysered upward in pillars a hundred meters high.
Again and again they clashed—Shanks moving with deadly precision, every strike honed, conserving nothing now. Dorian countered with sheer abandon, burning his body into explosions of black napalm, reforming, attacking again without pause. It was chaos versus control, madness versus mastery.
Their speed blurred them into streaks of crimson and shadow. The sky above was torn by their haki, thunder rolling with every meeting of blade and oil. And then, in a lull between strikes, Shanks' voice cut through the carnage.
"Tell me, Dorian…" His eye burned with contempt. "Are you even capable of invoking a Davy Back Fight? From what I see, you're nothing more than a hound acting on someone else's orders."
The words pierced deeper than any blade. Dorian froze mid-strike, his face twisting—half sneer, half tortured snarl. The grin shattered. Veins bulged as his oil writhed uncontrollably, flames bursting from his body like a tantrum of fire.
"SHUT UP!" he roared, his voice raw, animalistic. "I AM MY OWN MASTER!" His scream tore the air as his body expanded, a storm of burning oil surging outward, consuming the battlefield in a suicidal attempt to drown Shanks in rage.
And yet, in his fury, Shanks' sneer only widened. His haki flared, brighter, sharper, ready to carve through the storm.
****
Dressrosa, New World
Coral Port—normally the beating heart of Dressrosa's tourist splendor—stood in eerie silence. On any other day, its vibrant cafes spilled laughter into the air, street performers dazzled wide-eyed travelers, and crystal-blue waters shimmered with ships coming and going, their sails a rainbow of color.
Coral Port was famed across the New World, a crown jewel of entertainment and indulgence. But today, it was a ghost town. Not a whisper of chatter, not a single merchant's call. Every door was shut, every cobblestone empty. For the first time in decades, the bustling district was utterly still.
The reason was singular: a command from the Dressrosa monarch himself, Donquixote Doflamingo.
Inside one of Coral Port's most renowned establishments—the famed café currently owned by the famed former Kuja Empress—sat the Heavenly Demon. His lean frame reclined lazily, but the flames of menace he carried filled every corner of the room.
Across from him sat a guest whose presence no one in Dressrosa could have imagined: King Neptune of the Ryugu Kingdom. His towering frame strained the café's dainty chairs, his expression carved with grim determination.
Arnold, acting as intermediary and host, sat silently to the side because this was a matter that even he couldn't weigh his mind on. He alone knew the stakes of this meeting, for he alone had escorted the Sea King here under layers of secrecy. Neptune had told no soul—not even his most trusted retainers—of his journey to Dressrosa.
"Fuffuffuffu…" Doflamingo's laughter echoed like glass breaking. He poured steaming tea into Neptune's cup, then his own, and finally Arnold's, his movements unnervingly casual. "Well? Are we going to stare at each other all day, King Neptune? You said you had something urgent to tell me—so urgent you demanded I clear an entire district for your sake."
The clink of porcelain cups echoed in the empty silence.
For King Neptune, even speaking these words today required the full weight of his will. To face Doflamingo in private, with no army, no guard, no court—only Arnold as his confidant—was a gamble against fate itself. But the truth he carried could not be entrusted to letters, nor whispered across seas. It had to be spoken here, face-to-face, even if it meant standing in the lion's den.
"Sugar…?" Doflamingo's voice slithered across the silence, mocking and playful. He plucked a cube between his fingers and let it fall into his tea with deliberate slowness. Plink. Then another. Plink. Four in total, each one sinking into the steaming liquid like a ticking clock.
King Neptune's massive hands trembled around his porcelain cup. His throat tightened, but he gave the faintest nod. Two cubes dropped into his tea as well, Doflamingo's long fingers almost taunting in their pace.
"So," Doflamingo murmured, swirling the spoon through his cup with languid grace, "is this about your… recent guests in the Ryugu Kingdom?" His sunglasses tilted slightly, but he never lifted his gaze. To him, it was no more than idle conversation—yet every syllable coiled tighter around Neptune's chest like a noose.
The Fishmen King's pulse thundered in his ears. His breath hitched. His grip on the cup nearly cracked the porcelain. How? How did Doflamingo know? This was knowledge kept from even his most trusted court, a secret carried across the sea under cloak of shadows. In that instant, Neptune understood—his gamble had been the right one. If anyone could sense the tides beneath the world's surface, it was the Heavenly Demon.
"Yes…" Neptune rasped, his voice heavy, his tone carrying the weight of confession. "I do not know how much you already know… but a week ago, a higher-up of the World Government appeared before us. They brought an offer. An offer that would guarantee my people a place in this world… to see the Fishman race recognized at last as equals to humanity."
The Fishmen King's words cracked as he forced them out. "It was… Saint Garling Figarland himself. And… and one bearing your own bloodline. A Donquixote… among the Celestial Dragons."
Doflamingo's stirring hand stilled. The air thickened. A razor edge of silence carved through the café.
Neptune drew a sharp, ragged breath before finishing. "They promised equality, legitimacy for all Fishmen. But their price… was blood. They demanded the life of either you—Donquixote Doflamingo—or your brother, Rosinante."
The porcelain spoon snapped in Doflamingo's hand. The sound echoed like a gunshot.
The Heavenly Demon sat motionless, yet the pressure in the room swelled like an oncoming storm. The flames of his rage were invisible but suffocating, coiling around the air, pressing down on Neptune's chest. His smile was gone. His teeth clenched. Behind his glasses, his eyes burned with an old, venomous hatred that no tea, no honeyed words, could hide.
"Fuffuffuffu…" The laughter came, sharp and broken, more a blade than amusement. "Those pampered gods…" He dragged a hand across his face, his grin twisting wider, uglier. "They dare. They dare barter with the lives of my family as if we were coins to be tossed on their table."
The tea in his cup trembled as pitch-black flames began to hum faintly in the air, shimmering like spider silk in the dim light. The café walls creaked. The floor beneath Neptune's chair groaned.
Doflamingo leaned forward, his voice low, seething, every word dripping venom. "The World Government thinks they can erase me… erase Rosinante… as though we are nothing but stains on their divine carpet. But I'll tell you this, King Neptune…" His grin widened into something monstrous, predatory, a demon unchained.
"…if they want my head, they'll have to drown the world in blood to take it." The tea between them steamed, untouched. The silence returned—but it was not peace. It was the silence before cataclysm.
"But that isn't why you personally dragged yourself across the seas, is it, King Neptune…?" Doflamingo's voice slithered across the table, smooth but edged with steel. He leaned back, tapping a finger idly against his cup. "If it was merely to deliver this news, Arnold would have more than sufficed. No…" His grin widened, cruel and knowing. "You're here for something more. You've come to make a plea. So tell me, King Neptune… who is it you're asking me to forgive this time, and why?"
His words cut sharper than blades. Neptune's throat tightened. The air around him was suffocating, every breath heavier than the last.
Doflamingo tilted his head, as if jesting, as if toying with the thought. "Don't tell me…" His tone dropped, knife-like. "…that Queen Otohime is considering going through with this little proposal?"
For a heartbeat, it was only a jest. A taunt. But then his voice froze. The spoon stilled in his hand. Behind his sunglasses, his eyes narrowed. He studied Neptune's trembling face, his glistening sweat, his silence.
He had struck the bull's-eye. For the first time in years, even Doflamingo himself faltered, stunned by the sheer audacity of what he'd uncovered.
"Shatter—!" The sound ripped through the stillness. Arnold's hand had crushed the porcelain cup he was holding, shards spilling across the floor. His jaw clenched tight, fury written all over his face. Now he understood why the King had begged him for secrecy, why this meeting had to be hidden from all eyes and ears.
The café fell silent. No sound but the faint crackle of the fire in the hearth. Then came the laughter. Cold. Cruel. Unforgiving.
"Fuffuffuffuffu…" It poured out of Doflamingo like venom, echoing through the chamber, rattling the bones of everyone present. Arnold froze mid-motion, even as rage seethed in his chest. The sheer chill in that laughter rooted him where he stood.
"King Neptune…" Doflamingo's voice dropped into a dangerous growl, a demon's whisper. "Your wife… she truly knows how to test my patience—no, my very bottom line. I've met fools before. I've met dreamers. But never—" He rose to his feet, flames of pure killing intent vibrating in the air, cutting into the furniture, scoring the very walls. "—never in my life have I met such a naive idiot as Queen Otohime."
He moved, and the café erupted. Flames roared into existence, haki lashing through timber and stone, detonating the air itself with his fury. The massive form of King Neptune was thrown like a ragdoll, crashing through the splintered remains of the café wall into the deserted street beyond. The ground trembled under the sheer force of the Heavenly Demon's rage.
Doflamingo stepped through the wreckage, his shadow stretching monstrous against the firelit ruin. His smile was gone now, replaced by the twisted snarl of an emperor betrayed.
"I have spared your people more times than I should have," he spat, his voice laced with venom.
"For Rosinante's sake, I overlooked their missteps, forgave their debts, tolerated their insolence. But this… this treachery… this is something I will not allow. Not from your kingdom. Not from your queen."
The air shimmered as threads like blades hissed around him, ready to tear apart everything in their path. The sea itself seemed to recoil, as though the heavens recognized the wrath of a man no longer laughing.
This time, the Fishmen had crossed a line. A line carved in blood, fire, and conquest. A line that even Rosinante's name could not erase.
Arnold appeared at Neptune's side in a blur, the scorched flesh on the king's chest still smoking from the Heavenly Demon's wrath. The towering merman's face was twisted in pain, but his spirit had not broken. Arnold's own expression was pure rage—rage not only at Doflamingo's fury, but at the reckless naivety that had forced them all into this abyss.
"Are you mad, Neptune?!" Arnold roared, his voice shaking the charred ruins around them. His broad body planted itself firmly between the fallen king and the inferno that was Doflamingo. His arms spread wide, muscles coiled like steel cables, every fiber of his being screaming that he would not let Neptune die here—not like this.
"Do you want a death sentence?! Has Queen Otohime lost her mind?! You make a deal with those who would chain us, plotting to stab our allies in the back—and then you come here… boldly… to plead for her mercy?!"
His voice cracked with disbelief, but he did not waver. Even as a Fishman himself, even as one who had endured the same prejudice and cruelty Otohime dreamed of erasing, he could not defend her this time. This was a line no ruler should ever have crossed. Yet Arnold knew—he also knew—that he was the only thing standing between Neptune's life and the demon's threads that quivered hungrily in the air.
Doflamingo's voice thundered through the flames, low and merciless. "Move, Arnold." His shades reflected the fire, his grin carved with malice. "Stand aside, and let me erase the Ryugu royalty from the pages of history. Perhaps then—perhaps—someone competent will finally rise to rule the seas in your stead."
The killing intent in his tone left no doubt. He meant every word.
But Neptune… Neptune pushed himself upright from the rubble, his enormous form trembling, but his eyes clear. Dust and blood streaked his face, and yet his expression was not defiance—it was resignation. Acceptance.
"Arnold… it's all right." His deep voice rumbled, heavy with the weight of inevitability. "I came here knowing full well… that my fate was already sealed." He staggered to his feet, his hand clutching the scorched wound on his chest, his frame shadowed against the burning ruin of the café. His tone softened, trembling with sorrow. "But all I ask… all I beg… is that you spare my foolish wife. Jamon."
Arnold's eyes widened, his fists tightening in grief and fury. Neptune did not resist. Did not raise his fists. Did not summon his strength as the king of the sea. He stood tall in silence, prepared to meet his end.
This was the only way he knew to shield Otohime—by offering his own life in exchange for hers. For though her ideals were naive, Neptune's heart understood them. He had watched his queen dream of peace her whole life, dream of equality for their kind. A dream too fragile, too blind to the ways of this world.
And yet… he loved her. Enough to burn for her sins. Enough to sacrifice his crown, his pride, and his very life if it meant sparing her.
He knew Doflamingo would learn eventually—he always did. The Heavenly Demon had ears everywhere. So Neptune chose to walk into the fire of his own will, to offer himself rather than watch his beloved be torn apart by the wrath of an emperor.
The silence that followed was unbearable. The flames crackled. Doflamingo's threads hummed in the air, straining at the leash of his rage. Arnold's teeth ground together until they bled. This was no longer a plea for diplomacy. It was a requiem—a king's final gamble, staking his life on the hope that love could purchase mercy from a demon who knew none.