-Real World-
The blonde girl standing beside the golden Buddha was not what she appeared to be.
This was the assessment every person on the deck made after watching her for three seconds. Artoria Pendragon carried herself with the bearing of someone who had ruled rather than someone who had been appointed to rule — the specific difference between a monarch who had earned their throne through competence and an administrator who had received their position through institutional mechanics.
She was not a delicate flower grown in greenhouses. She had been a Knight King before she became a Fleet Admiral.
"Uchiha Madara," she said, and her voice had the quality it always had when addressing threats directly, "if you want my life so badly, come take it yourself."
The sword in her hands — invisible until this moment, concealed behind Invisible Air's bounded field of wind — began revealing itself.
She lifted the weapon with both hands, her grip firm, her stance resolute. The seal dissolved. Light emerged not gradually but as though it had been compressed and was now released, breaking through the wind-shackles that had hidden it.
Excalibur appeared in full.
The blade was magnificent in the way that legendary weapons were magnificent — not merely functional, not merely sharp, but carrying the specific aesthetic weight of something that had been forged with purpose beyond ordinary combat. Gorgeous patterns ran along its length. Gems set into the hilt caught light and returned it amplified. The whole weapon seemed to produce illumination rather than reflect it, as though the sword itself was a light source.
The Knight King and the Sword of Promised Victory became one.
This was the effect Excalibur had when properly revealed — not just a weapon appearing but an identity asserting itself. Artoria's presence expanded. The royal aura that she normally kept compressed to Admiral-appropriate levels filled the available space. Her figure became tall and majestic in the way that kings appeared tall and majestic regardless of their actual height — the visual language of sovereignty operating independently of mere physical dimensions.
Every Marine present felt it.
The weak ones — those who couldn't operate at Admiral-level Observation Haki, whose combat capacity was measured in how long they'd survive rather than who they could defeat — widened their eyes and stared. The transformation wasn't Devil Fruit-based. It was presence, the kind that made you reassess whether the person in front of you was someone you'd underestimated.
The girl they'd been protecting had just become a king they'd follow.
The scene achieved something close to sacred — the entire deck becoming a stage for this revelation, Excalibur's light the only brightness that mattered, the moment carrying the weight of something historic occurring.
The golden Buddha smiled with compassion.
Sengoku, in his Daibutsu form, looked at the knight girl with the expression of someone witnessing a generational transition he'd hoped to see. She had the courage to stand against an enemy of this caliber. She possessed the will to protect the weak rather than using them as shields. The Marine's future could finally transfer to the next generation's shoulders.
The older generation's obligation was clear: pave the way for the new era. Remove the obstacles. Create the conditions where successors could flourish.
"Uchiha Madara," Sengoku said, and the Buddha's voice carried across the water between ships, "abandon this plan. Artoria represents the Marine's future. I will not allow you to succeed even if it costs my life."
His conviction deepened through the enemy's presence.
The Hito Hito no Mi, Model: Daibutsu responded to his resolve — the golden Buddha's form swelling again, larger than it had been, the Buddha-light intensifying until it was uncomfortable to look at directly. The edge of Mythical Zoan awakening was something Sengoku could feel approaching, that boundary between mastery and transformation, and his belief in protecting the next generation was pushing him toward it.
Madara assessed this without concern.
Two opponents. He was accustomed to numerical disadvantage. In the Valley of the Gods thirty-eight years ago, he'd fought multiple Admiral-class combatants simultaneously and survived to speak of it. Two was manageable.
His hands moved through seals.
"Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu!" (Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique)
The water vortex formed in front of him with the speed that high-level ninjutsu produced when channeled by someone who'd been using it for centuries. It appeared as a black hole might appear — not dark exactly, but carrying the visual quality of something that was consuming space around it, drawing matter inward through centripetal force so powerful it became visible as distortion.
The water spiraled upward.
It rose like an arrow fired vertically, carrying tremendous kinetic force, gathering mass as it climbed. The ascending column reached the sky and there — at the apex of its trajectory, hundreds of meters above the ocean surface — began consolidating.
The dragon took form.
Massive, crystalline, its body constructed from water but holding coherent shape through the ninjutsu's architecture. It held its head high, chest out, majestic in the way that religious sculpture was majestic. The body sparkled as though made from diamonds, each scale catching light individually, the aggregate effect producing something that looked carved rather than summoned.
It reached its peak and began descending.
The dive carried overwhelming force — gravity and the dragon's own mass and the ninjutsu's directed intent all operating together, the water construct opening its mouth and releasing waves that resembled waterfalls, that hit with the impact of waterfalls, that drowned with the efficiency of waterfalls.
The waves struck the Fleet Admiral's ship directly.
Marines were submerged instantly. The weak ones — those whose combat training hadn't included how to survive in churning water while your lungs were demanding air and your body was being thrown in directions you couldn't control — were washed overboard without time to process what was happening. The stronger ones managed brief resistance before the current took them too.
The screaming stopped when the water entered throats. After that there was only the sound of the ocean consuming everything the technique touched.
Artoria moved immediately.
Excalibur cut through water — the blade's edge parting the flow, redirecting portions of it, creating spaces where Marines could surface and breathe. But she was one person with one sword against a dragon's worth of water, and the mathematics were against her. She saved dozens. Hundreds went into the sea anyway.
Most were swept into depths where water pressure became the lethal variable. They drowned on the spot or their internal organs were crushed by pressure differential or they simply ran out of air while being held under by currents they couldn't fight. The ocean took them with the indifference it always had.
Artoria looked quite different afterward.
Her uniform was soaked through. Her hair was plastered to her face. Tears were present at the corners of her eyes — not from the water, from the rage and grief and helplessness of watching subordinates die while being unable to prevent it. She wanted to rush Madara immediately, close the distance, put Excalibur through his chest.
Reason held her back.
Acting on impulse now would accomplish exactly what the enemy wanted. He'd cleared the deck of non-combatants deliberately — not because they were threats but because clearing them simplified the tactical environment. Charging into that simplified environment without preparation would be suicide, and suicide served no one.
"As soldiers," Sengoku said, and his voice carried the Buddha's compassion mixed with the Fleet Admiral's acceptance of casualties, "they will die eventually. Artoria — prepare your technique. I will buy time."
He looked at his subordinates who'd been buried in the sea with the specific kind of grief that commanders felt when watching their people die. He couldn't save their lives. He could avenge them. Uchiha Madara would pay with blood.
The Buddha moved.
Not slowly — the Daibutsu form was massive but mass didn't prevent speed at this level, and Sengoku crossed the distance to Madara's position in the time it took to blink. His palm came up wreathed in golden light, the shock wave already forming, aimed directly at the ancient Uchiha's head. Anyone touched by this technique would be killed or crippled; there were no intermediate outcomes.
The blue-white Susanoo appeared again.
The Buddha's palm struck the skeletal construct at the first moment of contact. The forces clashed — enlightened compassion versus ancient defense, Mythical Zoan power versus ninjutsu energy construct. Susanoo in its initial form began showing disadvantage immediately. Cracks appeared on the skeleton at visible speed, spreading from the impact point outward like fractured glass.
Madara's hands moved through another seal.
The Susanoo transformed.
Not gradually — the transition was immediate, the initial form's blue skeleton erupting upward and outward, growing to match the Buddha's height. The second form manifested with four arms extending from the ribcage and shoulders, the lower body still absent, the whole structure operating as upper-body combat platform.
Two arms seized the Buddha's arms, controlling them. The other two grabbed the Buddha's head with precision, rotating it — not violently, but with the specific careful movement of someone positioning a target.
Sengoku realized the trap too late.
His eyes met the Mangekyō Sharingan.
The genjutsu invaded in the moment of eye contact — not a gradual thing, not something he could feel approaching and defend against preemptively, but an immediate rewriting of sensory input. His brain received false information and had no mechanism to determine it was false. The Buddha became a puppet. Sengoku's consciousness became confused, dazed, no longer capable of threat assessment or tactical response.
The Haki training system this world had developed could resist Sharingan illusions.
But resistance required time — the process of recognizing the intrusion, rejecting the false inputs, reasserting control over one's own perception. And time was exactly what Sengoku didn't have. A fighter of his caliber, trapped in genjutsu, could only endure while his will worked to break free.
His fighting spirit was formidable. Even pulled into the illusion, the Mythical Zoan transformation remained active — the Buddha form didn't collapse, didn't revert, held its shape through sheer conviction. But he was no longer directing it tactically.
The Susanoo's four arms released him.
Madara controlled the construct to throw the Buddha aside — not far, just clearing him from immediate engagement range, depositing him where he wouldn't be a factor for the next thirty seconds. Which was all the time required.
The blue skeleton turned toward Artoria.
She felt unprecedented pressure in her grip on Excalibur.
The Knight King had never imagined Fleet Admiral Sengoku would be neutralized so easily. One exchange. Eye contact. Genjutsu. Combat capability removed. The man who'd held the position for decades, who'd commanded at Marineford, who embodied the Marine's institutional continuity — defeated through a trap so simple it seemed absurd in retrospect.
But effective traps were always simple. Complicated traps created opportunities for escape.
Artoria wanted to release Excalibur's true power.
The Anti-Fortress Noble Phantasm, the technique that had destroyed portions of Loguetown during her demonstration, the sword of promised victory operating at the output level that made observers call her an Ancient Weapon. She could do it. The technique was available. All she needed was time to gather the necessary energy, to channel her power through the blade, to aim properly.
Uchiha Madara would not give her that time.
This was obvious from his movement — the Susanoo advancing toward her position with the deliberate pace of something that understood she was preparing a technique and intended to kill her before completion. Charging Excalibur required her to remain still, to focus inward, to build the output gradually rather than releasing it prematurely.
Remaining still while an Emperor-class opponent closed distance was suicide.
The life-and-death crisis concerning the Marine's future was immediate and present.
The three Admirals and Marine Hero were engaged in close combat with Nika Kaido — their battle was several hundred meters away across the ruined Thriller Bark, too distant to provide support, fully occupied with preventing the resurrected Emperor from joining Madara's assault. They had no attention to spare for the flagship.
The Shichibukai who might have intervened had chosen to flee. Crocodile, Mihawk, and Hancock had made their calculations and departed. Pirates were unreliable at critical moments — when battles approached mutual annihilation, only the Marine's own personnel remained.
And the Marine's own personnel were either drowned, unconscious, or trapped in genjutsu.
Artoria stood alone with Excalibur drawn, facing an ancient Uchiha in his Susanoo's second form, without the time required to use her strongest technique.
On the World Government's vessel, Saint Saturn stood at the railing with his God's Knights arranged behind him.
He was paying attention to multiple battlefields simultaneously — the island where Garp fought Kaido, the flagship where Madara advanced on Artoria, the surrounding waters where Shichibukai were attempting escape. His expression suggested satisfaction rather than concern.
The Five Elders would not intervene to save the knight girl.
This required no discussion, no formal decision. Saturn's presence here was observational rather than participatory. If someone else solved the Marine problem — if Uchiha Madara eliminated the future Fleet Admiral and dismantled the vision of twelve Admirals before it could be implemented — that was an outcome the World Government could accept.
Better that Madara bear the consequences than the Five Elders bear the political cost.
The knight girl had performed too well. The Marine she was building was too independent, too powerful, too unified under principles that didn't include unconditional service to the Celestial Dragons. Removing her was necessary. Having someone else remove her was convenient.
Saturn watched Madara's Susanoo approach Artoria's position and did nothing.
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