"So this is Wano Country?"
After making landfall, everyone disembarked and began touring this ancient island.
Only Aos stared into the distance with barely contained excitement, a red light flaring in his eyes,
"They're here?"
"Hey, Aos, where are you going?"
Seeing Aos suddenly leap to a nearby hillside as if to watch for something, Shanks—squatting with a captain's hat and munching chocolate—tilted his head and asked,
and Buggy trailed right after.
Without Aos's over-the-top Kenbunshoku, Buggy could only use a spyglass to survey the distance. Suddenly he spotted something.
"Captain Roger! The Whitebeard Pirates—they're on the far side of the island!!"
Roger, by contrast, barely reacted—he just laughed.
"Good. Then let's fight!!!"
Right then, a figure rushed in fast,
"Captain, a samurai's charging us."
Aos said it calmly. He didn't make a big fuss like Buggy—one sweep of his senses and he knew who it was. No surprise there:
Kozuki Oden—the hardheaded samurai with a one-track mind.
With a single Gun Modoki, Oden knocked two crewmates sprawling.
At that, Silvers Rayleigh and Scopper Gaban both drew their weapons, ready to fight.
"Just as strong as the rumors say. Stop him, Rayleigh!"
"Let's do it."
"Hold up, Gaban. Rayleigh!"
Roger, grinning from ear to ear, bounded past them and charged ahead. "Can't have you getting hurt!"
"You just want to fight yourself."
Aos chuckled, but his eyes locked tight on Roger and Oden as they closed.
Kenbunshoku flooded over the pair; Aos didn't want to miss a single detail.
Roger charged in smiling, black-red lightning gathering along his blade,
"Divine Departure!!!"
Such exquisite control of Haoshoku!
Watching Kozuki Oden blasted away in a single stroke, Aos was still savoring that Conqueror's coating.
The more he witnessed it, the more he grasped its workings. It was just like what Rayleigh had taught him:
compared to an indiscriminate outpouring that knocks out small fry, Conqueror's coating compresses it to a point and unleashes far greater force.
Shanks at his peak used it the same way—extreme Haoshoku condensed into black-red lightning; even a Vice Admiral would buckle under it, and an Admiral would be blunted.
But unlike Busoshoku, it isn't tangible—can't just be concentrated anywhere at will.
A year later, Aos could rub out black-red arcs across his palm—but it was still only a smattering.
Everyone watched Oden, sent flying for a hundred meters and only stopping after felling a swath of trees,
while only a few—Aos and Roger among them—had their eyes on the sky. A powerful presence was closing fast!
Here it comes!!!
Aos's eyes went wide, locked on the towering figure sweeping in from afar,
a body exaggeratedly massive, long golden hair, a white cloak, and that signature crescent moustache:
the World's Strongest Man,
Edward Newgate!
He came straight for Roger, and Roger didn't yield—an ocean of Haoshoku coiled over his blade as he hewed upward.
Their blades didn't even touch—only their coatings wrestled.
Black-red lightning crackled between them; the shockwaves flung everyone but the duelists themselves aside.
The sky seemed to rip; the clouds for miles were scoured clean.
Even though Aos wanted to feel it up close, he couldn't resist that power—he had to clamp his monstrous strength around a still-standing ancient tree farther back.
As for Buggy, Shanks, and the others, Rayleigh had already grabbed them and hauled them clear of the field.
Facing that world-rending force, Aos refused to flinch—he poured out his own Haoshoku and tried to wrap it around himself.
"Gurararara… an interesting brat!"
Whitebeard noticed the kid still hanging on nearby, lips quirking up.
"One of yours, Roger?"
Roger laughed loud.
"Hahahaha—yeah. The kid's a real monster! Jealous, Newgate?"
"Hmph… my sons won't lose to anyone!"
After their customary sniping, the two held for a few seconds, then both burst out laughing, set their weapons at their sides, and made their greetings.
"Hahahahahahaha~"
"Leave everything you've got on you." ×2
At the captains' word, the crews clashed in earnest.
No one noticed that, out on a distant tree, a very capable sniper had already shouldered a long rifle.
A red glint rose in his eyes,
"You slipped up, Marco."
Bang!
It was Aos, taking a sneaky shot.
Fresh from feeling the might of coating, he had no desire to wade into the rabble; that wouldn't elevate his spirit anymore.
Having tasted fine rice, he wasn't about to gnaw coarse grain.
And Aos could clearly feel it now—ordinary fighting and killing no longer grew his Haoshoku.
There were only two ways forward:
wait for age to hone body and mind across the board,
or cross wills with Haoshoku users stronger than himself.
So he picked up his old trade again:
taking potshots.
As for why he didn't snipe Whitebeard—of course he'd thought about it. But no matter how many futures he peeked into, the result was always the same:
failure!
Failure!
Still failure!
Fine. He couldn't pick that fight yet.
So he settled for the next best target—the 1st Division Commander of the Whitebeard Pirates,
Marco the Phoenix.
Marco spread his wings, just about to charge, when one shot shattered his pirate dream—
his wings snapped back into a human shape, and he toppled, unable to move, nearly trampled by the comrades rushing past.
"This is… Seastone?"
After landing the shot, Aos didn't bother trying to stay hidden; he stepped out openly.
He dropped from the tree and slung the black rifle across his back—a black-haired youth in uniform emerging from the shade—
and slowly drew the confiscated long blade from his belt.
"Clang!"
Jet-black Busoshoku wrapped both arms, then slowly slid over the blade,
and if you looked closely, fine threads of black-red lightning ran through it!
Seeing who it was, Whitebeard's brothers erupted in fury.
"Damn it—an ambush!!!"
The Roger Pirates, for their part, took it in stride.
"Oh, it's Aos… figures. Very him."
Even after showing himself, Aos clearly had no interest in the Whitebeard crew's small fry. His eyes went straight to one man:
one of the only two Haoshoku wielders among the Whitebeard Pirates,
Kozuki Oden!