Fish-Man Island.
Neptune arranged a grand procession and openly escorted Shirahoshi out to pay respects to her mother.
In truth, this memorial wasn't fake.
Shirahoshi really hadn't been able to leave the Shell Tower for years.
And with Oguro and the others present, her safety was guaranteed.
So Neptune decided to make it a genuine ceremony.
"Shirahoshi… when you see your mother later, make sure you talk with her properly," Neptune said, his eyes slightly red.
Shirahoshi nodded hard. After all these years, she missed her mother deeply.
The procession slowly moved toward the outskirts of the city.
Suddenly, someone pointed at the sky and screamed in terror.
"H-Hey! What is that?!"
Everyone looked up, only to see several black dots rapidly growing larger in the air.
Hidden in the shadows, Oguro recognized them immediately.
Pirate ships.
And there were people on them.
"Vander Decken really has zero creativity," Oguro shrugged.
In the original timeline, that guy knew a frontal assault on Fish-Man Island was a bad idea, so he used his Devil Fruit ability to airdrop a large group of pirates straight toward the Shell Tower.
Using the chaos they caused in the palace, he secretly infiltrated the place himself.
And damn it… he really did find Shirahoshi.
Too bad that after being flatly rejected, he went completely insane and even tried to use the gigantic ship Noah to destroy Fish-Man Island.
Honestly, that was pure Devil Fruit privilege.
Without it, there was no way he could've moved a ship that massive.
But this time, Oguro wasn't going to give him that chance.
"Soul King, I'll intercept those ships," Soi Fon said, volunteering immediately.
Oguro nodded. "Let them get a bit closer. If we want to draw Vander Decken out, things need to look chaotic."
If they didn't deliberately hold back, Soi Fon could've wiped out those pirate ships long before they got close.
But if that happened, Vander Decken would never dare show himself.
Soi Fon understood and deliberately waited as the ships approached.
As the pirate ships drew nearer, panic began spreading through Neptune's procession.
At that height and speed…
If they got hit, they'd be dead on the spot.
"Your Majesty, what should we do?!" the Left Minister and Right Minister cried out in panic beside Neptune.
It was painfully obvious just how weak Fish-Man Island's combat power really was.
Something like this, and they already couldn't find anyone capable of stopping it.
Neptune, however, remained surprisingly calm.
He made a decisive call. "Create bubbles. Use them to cushion the pirate ships."
Merfolk couldn't stand on land, so they used bubbles to float while moving.
These bubbles had excellent elasticity and worked perfectly as shock absorbers.
With Neptune's order, the Sea Kings Army immediately used machines to generate massive bubbles and sent them upward toward the falling ships.
Pop!
The first bubble burst almost instantly under the sheer speed.
Neptune's expression didn't change at all as he growled, "Keep going!"
Countless bubbles linked together like a beaded curtain, enveloping all the pirate ships.
After hundreds of large bubbles shattered, the ships' speed finally dropped noticeably.
Seeing this, everyone let out a breath of relief.
Watching Neptune's quick response, Oguro thought they wouldn't need to intervene.
Then, in the next second, a Sea Kings Army soldier shouted.
"Bad news! There's another one behind them!"
Behind the intercepted ships, there was a smaller one.
Everyone had been focused on the front and completely missed this little one.
Now, it was charging straight toward Shirahoshi at terrifying speed.
"Make bubbles, now!" Neptune roared, his eyes bloodshot.
"It's too late!"
The Sea Kings Army scrambled in panic, completely helpless.
As the ship closed in, despair appeared on everyone's faces.
Whoosh.
A figure suddenly appeared in midair.
Soi Fon moved head-on toward the "straggler," her voice cold and sharp.
"Bakudo #81… Danku!"
A massive transparent barrier instantly formed in the air, directly in front of the pirate ship.
Boom!
The ship slammed into Danku with a deafening crash.
A fully incanted Bakudo #81 could perfectly block any Hado below #89.
Even without incantation, the impact of a single pirate ship was nowhere near the power of an eighty-plus Hado.
The result was simple.
The pirate ship shattered completely, reduced to debris scattered everywhere.
As for the people onboard…
They probably went pretty peacefully.
They were pirates anyway. Dying like this was doing the world a favor.
Seeing the ship stopped, Neptune's wildly pounding heart finally calmed.
Honestly… he'd completely forgotten that Lord Oguro was right there watching over everything.
This was someone who would never allow Shirahoshi to come to harm.
But the relief didn't last even a second.
A wave of grotesque laughter immediately dragged his heart back into his throat.
"Hahahaha! So this is Fish-Man Island?! It really is paradise!"
"Vander Decken wasn't lying at all… he really sent us in!"
"Too bad for that guy Sunlas. Ship and crew gone just like that! Hahaha!"
"Enough chatter! Look at all these mermaids! Catch just one and sell her, and we're set for life!"
From the stopped pirate ships poured out over a hundred pirates.
The moment they saw the beauty of Fish-Man Island, their eyes filled with naked greed, like dragons staring at treasure.
At a single command from their leader, the pirates rushed toward the island's residents.
Beautiful mermaids, in particular, were their primary targets.
"Sea Kings Army! Arrest all these pirates immediately!" Neptune roared, deploying every available unit.
Any pirate capable of crossing the first half of the Grand Line and reaching the entrance to the New World was no weakling.
In an instant, the area around the ships descended into complete chaos.
Of course, that chaos was only on the surface.
In the shadows, Oguro had already mobilized a unit of Shadow Dragon Guards to deal with the more vicious pirates.
Rukia and the others watched from the sidelines as well, preventing any accidents.
Fish-Man Island was already his territory.
There was no way he'd let this trash run wild.
The streets sounded chaotic, but in reality, barely anyone was even injured.
Even Soi Fon, at Oguro's signal, turned away to help suppress the unrest.
With that, the defensive force around Neptune and Shirahoshi became as thin as paper.
"Now then… the fish should be taking the bait," Oguro murmured with a faint smile.
Sure enough.
From a shadowed corner of the street, a grotesque fish-man wearing a top hat, with raised hair and four legs, slowly walked toward Shirahoshi.