"Admiral Rosen, is he alright?"
Dol watched as Bartholomew Kuma placed a paw on Rosen's back, hesitating to activate his Devil Fruit power. The sight made her heart tighten.
"Mr. Rosen," Kuma said, his voice uncharacteristically heavy. "Even the Paw-Paw Fruit can't alleviate this exhaustion."
"Despite carrying fatigue that no technique should be able to remove," Kuma continued, his eyes narrowing slightly, "you casually crushed the Seven Warlords of the Sea. How... how is that possible?"
The question hung in the air.
Silence fell over the battlefield. The resurrected Marines—the hundreds Rosen had brought back from death—clenched their fists, eyes wide. They wanted to speak, to protest, to volunteer, but their throats closed up.
"Refusing death always demands a price," Rosen said, shaking his head. He wasn't surprised. His physique had surpassed Charlotte Linlin and Kaido's after the battle with the Three Emperors. In terms of raw stamina, he was practically a perpetual motion machine.
He simply didn't know fatigue.
Yet the weight of refusing hundreds of deaths was so immense that even he needed assistance to walk.
"Please," Kuma said, taking a deep breath. "Let me try again."
The pacifist wasn't ready to give up. He respected Rosen's justice, his kindness to Bonney and Ginny.
"Thank you," Rosen replied, sensing the other's determination.
"Healing Bullet!"
This time, Kuma used both palms. He pressed them against Rosen's chest and back, ignoring his own exhaustion. Like the Foolish Old Man moving mountains, he summoned the awakened power of the Nikyu Nikyu no Mi to expel the Red Line's worth of fatigue.
Whoosh.
A red light flashed. A bubble slowly emerged from Rosen's back.
As Kuma pushed harder, the detached bubble rapidly expanded. In seconds, it grew from palm-sized to mountain-sized. Then larger.
The bubble expanded, and Kuma's face paled visibly. His breathing grew ragged.
A few more moments.
When the bubble reached the size of Fort Worth Island, Kuma's massive body staggered. His knees buckled, hitting the ice.
"Huff! Huff!"
He knelt on one knee, panting, but didn't retract his hands. He gritted his teeth, pressing his paws against Rosen's body, pushing until his arms went limp.
"That's... impossible!"
"A bear paw island!"
"Admiral Rosen... he carried that much exhaustion?"
"Even after killing the world's strongest swordsman and the King of the Desert..."
The Marines stared at the red bubble floating in the void. It was larger than their eyes could comprehend, a bear paw-shaped island hovering in the air. Just looking at it made them feel crushed.
Even the Admirals—Borsalino, Sakazuki, Kuzan—felt it. If they touched that bubble and absorbed even half, they'd die from exhaustion.
"I'm sorry," Kuma rasped, slumped on the ice. "Mr. Rosen. I... I can only expel one-third of your fatigue."
"What?"
"An island-sized bubble... only one-third?"
"If he took it all..."
The Marines paled.
"That's enough," Rosen said, patting Kuma's shoulder. "Thank you for your hard work."
He summoned the Shield of the Six Flowers, creating an orange-yellow barrier around the final Marine corpse.
"Double Heaven Return Shield."
"I refuse."
Losing one-third of his fatigue made reviving an ordinary Marine effortless. A snap of his fingers.
After bringing back the last Marine, Rosen turned to Kuma. But before he could speak, Kuma shook his head.
"No. Don't waste your energy on me."
"I'm just exhausted. I'll recover after rest. But your fatigue hasn't subsided!"
Kuma activated the Shield of the Six Flowers, restoring his own stamina.
"My plan was to expel your fatigue and bear it myself. But I can't. Your exhaustion is too immense. Even ten of me wouldn't be enough."
The surrounding Marines understood immediately.
"If no one takes the burden," Gion said, her beautiful face pale, "it returns to Lawson's body?"
"Yes," Kuma confirmed. "The Paw-Paw Fruit only expels. If no one bears it, it returns over time."
"Can an inanimate object take it?" Kuzan asked, glancing at the ice.
"No. It must be alive."
"Then let me bear it," Sakazuki stepped forward without hesitation.
The Admiral of Absolute Justice was a nightmare to pirates and often inspired fear in Marines. But when crisis struck, he was always first to step in. That was why Marines both feared and respected him.
"Excuse my bluntness," Kuma said. "People will die. Even a Marine Admiral can't bear this fatigue."
"What if Sakazuki and I split it?" Borsalino stepped forward.
"Three Admirals sharing the Grim Reaper's fatigue shouldn't lead to death, right?" Kuzan smiled.
"One more," Douglas Barrett grinned, as if receiving a prize rather than bearing island-sized exhaustion.
"Don't move," Gion said, placing her hands on Rosen's shoulders. Her beautiful eyes locked onto his. "This time, let us help you."
Kake smiled beside her. "You've carried the Marines for so long. It's time to rest. If you've been the protagonist, let me have a turn."
"While we don't have the Admirals' strength," Gion added, "we want to contribute. My life was given to me by Admiral Rosen. Please let me bear it."
"Let me bear it!"
Not just the three Admirals, but the Devil's Heir, Gion, Kake, every Marine present—they all volunteered.
Kuma sat on the ice, surveying the scene. Such unity moved even him.
"Actually," a voice cut through, "there's another way."
Gild Tesoro, silent until now, finally spoke.
"What method?" Dol asked. The Marines turned to the world's richest man.
"What do you all think of those pirates over there?"
Tesoro glanced at the tens of thousands of pirates stunned on the ice.
"Let the pirates suffer, and the Marines prosper!"
The Marines who had been ready to bear the burden suddenly brightened.
Brilliant.
Letting the remnants of the Big Mom Pirates and the Whitebeard Pirates bear the exhaustion would indeed be poetic justice.
"Agreed," Sakazuki said immediately. He wasn't stubborn. He'd endure anything for the Marines, but he wouldn't waste effort if unnecessary. And these pirates were the ones he hated most.
As for whether this would spark resistance among the surrendered pirates? He didn't care. They either bore the fatigue, or they bore his Magma-Magma Fruit. Pirates didn't have human rights.
"Let them take it first," Borsalino nodded. "If they can't handle all of it, we'll share the rest."
"Then leave it to me," Dol said.
She activated her Op-Op Fruit, opening a vast space. But the bear paw bubble was simply too enormous. Even expanded to its maximum, the space covered less than a tenth.
She didn't panic.
Instead, she cut the portion within her space into thousands of pieces, transferring them to unconscious pirates nearby.
Pfft.
Each fragment entered a pirate's body. Their unconscious forms convulsed violently.
Even a small piece contained overwhelming fatigue—too much for pirates of the Twin Emperors' crews. Countless pirates woke screaming.
"Ah!"
The screams echoed across the battlefield.
—-
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