After Garp's "friendly spar" and Newgate's "polite greeting," the Oro Jackson finally enjoyed a few days of genuine peace on the seas.
Yet the aftershocks of the duel with Whitebeard lingered aboard the ship. For days, the crew especially rookies like Elio couldn't stop talking about that heart-stopping clash. Their eyes still gleamed with awe and reverence whenever it came up.
Kael, meanwhile, sat alone in his quarters, carefully polishing the black-and-gold naginata that had been with him for years. In his mind, every moment of the fight with Newgate replayed in vivid detail.
Pure Haki and raw strength… a power entirely different from Devil Fruits, direct and unyielding.
"Still not enough…" Kael muttered, running his hand along the cold blade.
That day, the skies were clear and the sea calm rare weather on the Grand Line.
"Fleet ahead! Five ships! Closing fast!" Dorlinger's alarm rang from the lookout post.
"Five?" Gaban set aside his dumbbells and strode to the rail, narrowing his eyes. "Who needs that kind of entourage?"
Rayleigh stepped to the bow with a telescope. After a moment, his lips curved with faint amusement. "So, it's him."
The crew stopped what they were doing and looked out. The five dark specks on the horizon grew larger, soon revealing their forms.
Five massive pirate ships approached in a formation that threatened to encircle them. The sails bore a glaring emblem: the head of a snarling lion.
At the prow of the lead ship stood a man whose presence radiated unrestrained arrogance and ambition even from afar.
Golden hair cascaded like a lion's mane. He held two famed blades Sakura Ten and Kiku clutched in his hands. The grin on his lips dripped with hostility.
The Golden Lion, Shiki.
Another of the great overlords of this era, a living legend ranked alongside Roger and Whitebeard.
Kael folded his arms, muttering to himself with biting sarcasm.
Here he comes. The Pirate King's number-one fanboy the golden-haired loser! Right now he's snarling like he wants to slaughter the whole crew, but give it a few years and he'll be begging Roger to team up and rule the world together. When Roger is executed, he'll storm Marineford all by himself to demand an explanation. Tragic, dramatic, heart-wrenching… tsundere never goes out of style.
Seriously, Golden Lion this vicious "I'll kill your family" act now versus your future brokenhearted self? If this were a movie, it'd win Best Tearjerker of the Year.
"Oh? More guests already?" Roger emerged from the cabin with half a bottle of rum in hand. Seeing the incoming fleet, his grin only widened. "Quite the spectacle!"
Before his words even faded, Shiki's roar thundered across the sea like a storm.
"Jihahahaha… Roger! Finally, I've found you!"
His voice was wild, domineering, filled with an ego that brooked no equal. "Stop playing your ridiculous games of adventure! Your crew, your treasure, will all become the stepping stones of my conquest! With your corpse under my feet, I will be the one and only king of this sea!"
"Jihahaha! What's wrong, Roger? Did my fleet scare you speechless?" Shiki's laughter grew louder, more derisive.
Roger downed the last of his rum and tossed the bottle into the waves. He drew his sword Ace from his waist, grin fierce and unafraid.
"What a noisy bastard, Lion Head. Want to be king? Then come prove you're fit for the title!"
"All hands, prepare for battle!" Rayleigh drew his blade, voice low and steady.
The Roger Pirates readied their weapons, fighting spirit blazing.
Outnumbered five to one, retreat was still not in their dictionary.
"Perfect!" Shiki barked a laugh. He stabbed his twin blades into the deck and slammed his hands down. "Lion's Might: Earth Scroll!"
Invisible power rippled outward. The sea around his fleet churned violently, whipped into chaos as if gripped by a giant unseen hand.
The water heaved skyward, forming five titanic lions made of surging seawater. Their roars shook the heavens as they lunged at the Oro Jackson.
"A Devil Fruit ability!" Elio gasped.
"What the hell? He can control the ocean itself?!"
"Don't panic!" Kael barked, stepping forward. He spread his arms wide toward the five water-lions. "Tidal Resonance!"
Unseen vibrations pulsed outward, colliding with the watery beasts.
No explosions followed. Instead, ripples spread eerily across the surface.
Then the lions collapsed midair, their massive forms dissolving into torrents of water that crashed back into the sea, raising towering waves.
Nice try, cub. Train harder.
"Oh?" For a heartbeat, Shiki's grin faltered. He eyed the black-haired youth who had nullified his technique with sudden interest. "Amusing. But the game has just begun!"
He slammed his hands onto the deck again. This time, the very air trembled.
"Jihahaha! Witness true supremacy! Float!"
Before their eyes, Shiki's entire fleet five colossal warships and even a handful of nearby islands tore free from the sea, slowly rising into the sky.
The five floating ships blotted out the sun, casting a suffocating shadow over the Oro Jackson below.
"Roger! Do you see it?!" Shiki spread his arms wide at the prow of his flagship, like a god embracing the heavens. "This sky will belong to me as well!"
The fleet hung suspended overhead, a wall of death descending from the clouds.
"T-the ships… they're flying…" Elio's voice shook.
The rookies on deck grew pale. They had never imagined such a power existed.
"Kuahahaha! Same old Shiki, always with the flashy tricks!" Roger roared with laughter. Fearless, his eyes only blazed hotter.
"Troublesome. Fighting in the sky won't be easy," Gaban muttered, hefting his axes.
"Then we'll just go up there."
Kael's calm voice cut through the tension. He strode to the very front of the ship, facing the five floating fortresses that loomed above.
Closing his eyes, he reached deeper. His golden irises vanished into darkness as he cast his senses downward into the endless blue beneath their keel.
The sea answered his call.
Rayleigh's eyes sharpened as he caught on. He shouted, "All hands! Grab the rails and rigging!"
Shiki misread the movement as surrender. His grin widened arrogantly. "What's this, Roger? Already bowing your head? Kneel now and perhaps I'll "
He broke off.
The ocean beneath him was rising.
Not waves. Not tides.
The entire sea itself heaved upward, as if an invisible hand lifted it from the abyss, forming a slanted wall of water that towered higher and higher.
"Tidal Resonance: Heaven's Fall!"
Kael's eyes snapped open, both hands thrust forward.
Boom.
The ocean roared. The monstrous sea wall crested into a wave so vast it pierced the sky itself higher even than Shiki's flying fleet. Its sharp crest gleamed like the blade of a god.
The Oro Jackson rode its peak, launched skyward like a spear hurled by the sea itself.
"What ?!" Shiki's triumphant laughter froze.
Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined an attack that used the ocean itself to strike the heavens.
"Damn you!" Shiki howled, forcing the Float-Float Fruit to its limit. His ships clawed upward, desperate to avoid the titanic wave.
Too slow.
The "Heaven's Fall" rose with terrifying speed. The two rearmost ships failed to climb fast enough.
The wave slammed them from below with apocalyptic force.
"Waaaaghhh!!" Screams filled the air as Golden Lion pirates were hurled overboard like ragdolls, swept into the maelstrom below. Masts snapped. Sails shredded. Both vessels cracked and listed, crippled beyond repair.
In an instant, Shiki's proud formation was ripped open.
The Oro Jackson now soared at the wave's peak, its prow level with Shiki's three surviving ships.
"Now's the time!" Roger's laughter rang like thunder.
He bent his knees and launched skyward. Ace flashed free, coated in Haki, black-red lightning dancing wildly across the blade.
"Divine Departure!"
A slash of unstoppable Conqueror's Haki tore through the sky toward Shiki's flagship.
"Not so easily!" Shiki roared. Crossing Sakura Ten and Kiku before his chest, he coated both in Armament Haki and met the strike head-on.
The collision erupted with a deafening clang. Conqueror's Haki clashed in midair, ripping the sky open with crackling thunder.
The true battle had begun.
Rayleigh's body blurred, his blade cutting arcs of silver light as he landed on one of the enemy ships. Pirates collapsed where they stood, unable to track his speed.
"Ohra ohra ohra!" Gaban hurled his great axe like a spinning guillotine. It ripped through an enemy deck in a single devastating sweep, destroying cannon batteries and scattering foes like chaff.
Punklow flung black spheres that burst into choking fumes, incapacitating dozens of men where they stood.
"Sound Slash: Phoenix Burst!" Kael swung his naginata, unleashing a shrieking wave of compressed sound that tore through a ship's hull, blasting pirates into the sea.
The Roger Pirates showed why their crew of elites needed no numbers.
The Golden Lion Pirates, despite their massive fleet, were shredded. Their so-called advantage became a trap, their ships isolated and overrun.
"Damn it all!" Shiki raged, straining against Roger's unrelenting offense. His eyes bulged with fury as he watched his fleet crumble.
This was supposed to be his godlike declaration, his overwhelming show of force. Instead, he had been humiliated, undone by a single Devil Fruit power he hadn't anticipated.
"Roger! I'll kill you! Lion's Might: Thousand Fang Valley!" Shiki's twin blades flashed, unleashing a storm of slashing strikes that forced Roger back.
He glanced at the chaos of the battlefield, then at the black-haired youth with the naginata who had upended the tide.
He had lost. Lost to poor intelligence, to arrogance, to a power he didn't understand.
"Roger!" Shiki's voice dripped with venom and fury. "This isn't over! Next time, I'll bury you and the sea itself along with me!"
Snarling, he unleashed the Float-Float Fruit once more. His three remaining ships two barely holding together shot upward at insane speed, vanishing into the clouds.
All that remained were shattered wrecks, hundreds of flailing pirates crying out from the waves, and the calm surface of the sea reclaiming its peace.
The Oro Jackson settled gently back onto the water.
The deck was silent.
Elio and the other rookies stood slack-jawed, their minds blank.
It was… over?
That had been the Golden Lion Shiki, the terror of the East and South Seas, commanding a fleet unmatched. And yet…
Roger landed lightly on the deck, sheathing Ace with a click. He scowled at the empty horizon. "Tch. Not fun. He ran faster than a sea gull."
Then he clapped his hands together, grin returning in full force. "All right, boys! Quit staring! Fish those survivors out, keep the valuable ones, tie up the useless ones, and dump them at the nearest Marine base!"
He raised his arm high.
"And then… we feast!"