The frozen ruins of Grove 31 had become unrecognizable.
The bright carnival district that had once been full of music, shouting vendors, and children chasing bubbles was now nothing but shattered stalls, broken rides, and long roads of ice carved through the mangrove roots.
At the center of it all—
Shanks and Admiral Aokiji clashed again.
Their weapons met with a violent shriek.
Shanks' saber, coated in black Haki, slammed against Kuzan's ice-forged blade, and the shockwave from the collision blew loose fragments of frozen debris across the entire street. Half-buried signs, snapped railings, and broken carnival carts were sent tumbling down the path.
Kuzan slid back half a step over the ice he had created, one hand still in his pocket, the other holding the ice sword steady.
Shanks grinned.
"You're still standing."
Kuzan exhaled white mist.
"Will you please just let me capture you."
Then both men moved again.
Shanks stepped in fast, boots crunching across the ice, saber cutting in a sharp rising arc. Kuzan met it, but Shanks twisted his wrists immediately, turning the first strike into a second. Then a third.
The red-haired pirate's swordsmanship was wild to look at but brutally refined underneath, every strike flowing into the next like waves crashing against a cliff.
Kuzan held.
His ice sword bent and reformed as needed, taking the pressure without breaking. But even so, black Haki sparks burst with every impact, and the frozen ground beneath his feet cracked deeper each time Shanks pressed him.
Kuzan's lazy eyes narrowed.
Then his free hand shot out.
"Ice Saber."
A second blade of ice formed instantly from the air itself, stabbing toward Shanks' ribs from an impossible angle.
Shanks caught it at the last moment with the flat of his blade, turned his body just enough to avoid being pierced, then kicked off the ice and flipped backward.
The second he landed, Kuzan thrust his palm forward.
"Ice Ball!"
A compressed sphere of freezing force rocketed across the grove.
Shanks inhaled once, planted his feet, and slashed through it.
The ice sphere split in half—
Then burst around him in a storm of razor frost.
Frozen shards clawed at his coat and cheeks as they exploded past, but Shanks pushed through it anyway, his saber already raised for another strike.
Kuzan sighed.
"Persistent."
Shanks laughed.
"That's pirate spirit."
The two collided again.
This time Shanks swung low, trying to open Kuzan's stance. Kuzan blocked, but Shanks immediately reversed the cut and struck downward from above. Kuzan's ice blade met it, but the Haki coating on Shanks' sword cracked through the upper half of the frozen guard, sending a spray of shattered ice over Kuzan's shoulder.
Kuzan responded by freezing the ground under Shanks' feet.
A burst of ice raced up his boots.
Shanks jumped before it could fully catch him, twisting midair—
Only for Kuzan to already be waiting below.
His hand rose.
Cold rushed outward.
Shanks narrowed his eyes and brought his blade down hard, not at Kuzan's body—
But at his arm.
The Haki-coated steel crashed into Kuzan's hand before the freezing touch could land.
The Admiral's ice arm split at the wrist—
Then instantly regrew from the elbow down as his Logia power reformed it.
"Troublesome," Kuzan muttered again.
The grove trembled.
Then—
CLANG.
A third blade entered the clash.
The impact rang through the frozen street like a bell.
Both men stopped.
Kuzan's eyes widened.
Shanks' grin widened.
Standing beside him now, as if he had simply stepped out of the air itself, was an old man with yellow hair, glasses, and the calm posture of someone who belonged anywhere he chose to stand.
The Dark King. Silvers Rayleigh.
Rayleigh's sword was angled across Kuzan's ice blade, casually holding it in place.
Kuzan stared.
"…Dark King Silvers Rayleigh."
Rayleigh smiled faintly.
"Been a while, Kuzan."
Shanks turned his head.
"Rayleigh-san!"
His face brightened instantly, but Rayleigh didn't even glance at him.
"Now is not the time for a reunion."
His tone was calm, but firm.
"You need to leave the island quickly."
Shanks blinked.
Rayleigh finally looked at him from the side.
"We'll meet properly another time. I'll keep Kuzan busy."
Kuzan's expression flattened further, which for him was saying a lot.
"Oh, come on," he muttered. "This has officially become a pain."
He looked at Rayleigh with visible dissatisfaction.
He absolutely did not want to fight the Dark King himself.
Rayleigh chuckled softly.
"That's too bad then."
Shanks' grin remained, but his eyes sharpened with understanding.
He nodded once.
"Thanks."
Then he leapt backward, boots crunching off the ice, and turned.
"Don't die, old man!"
Rayleigh smiled.
"Watch your own back first."
And with that, Shanks ran.
Behind him, the air exploded as Kuzan and Rayleigh's weapons met properly for the first time, frost and Haki bursting outward in a storm of white and black.
Kuzan clicked his tongue.
"This day was supposed to be simple."
Rayleigh raised his blade lightly.
"You're in the wrong profession if you wanted simple."
---
Shanks moved through the archipelago fast, leaping between mangrove roots and broken railings, boots barely touching the ground for more than a heartbeat at a time.
Ahead of him, more Marine voices were shouting.
Behind him, the pressure of Kuzan and Rayleigh's clash continued to pulse across the grove like distant thunder.
As he turned into another connecting path—
A figure vaulted over a shattered market roof and landed beside him.
Limejuice.
His coat was torn in two places, and there was dried blood at the corner of his mouth, but his eyes were sharp and alive.
Shanks laughed immediately.
"There you are!"
Limejuice kept pace beside him.
"Unfortunately."
Shanks grinned.
"So? Did you beat your opponent?"
Limejuice twirled his staff once and rested it on his shoulder.
"Yes."
Then his mouth flattened.
"The Vice Admiral pissed me off."
Shanks laughed harder.
"Sounds like you had fun."
"I absolutely did not."
The two of them kept running, then slowed as the path ahead opened into another battle-scarred section of the grove.
From the distance, they could see two figures still fighting.
Golden saber.
Blonde swordsman.
Giovanni and Gion.
Limejuice frowned.
"What the hell is Giovanni doing?"
Shanks' grin returned at once.
"Let's go say hello to the pretty lady."
Limejuice stared at him for half a second.
"…That is not a sentence a captain should be saying in the middle of a battlefield."
Shanks ignored him and accelerated.
A short distance ahead, Giovanni ducked under another slash.
Gion's golden blade carved through the air where his head had just been, slicing a drifting bubble in half and sending rainbow liquid spraying across the mangrove bark.
Giovanni spun away with a grin.
"Close."
Gion clicked her tongue.
He had been doing this the entire fight.
Dodging.
Redirecting.
Twisting away at the last second with that infuriating smile on his face.
His Observation Haki was sharper than hers. She knew it now. Every feint, every short-angle cut, every change in rhythm, he was reading them just a fraction before they completed.
And that fraction was enough.
She stepped in again with a fast crossing pattern of slashes, forcing him back toward the edge of the path.
Giovanni leaned, stepped, bent, and pivoted through all of them with maddening ease.
Gion's eyes narrowed.
"Coward."
Giovanni blinked.
"Huh?"
"You keep dodging everything," Gion said, pressing him with another clean thrust. "If you're so good, then stop dancing around and fight properly."
Giovanni skipped back over the thrust and landed lightly on a broken handrail.
"That hurts," he said. "I'm fighting beautifully."
"That's not what I meant."
"I know."
He smirked.
"I just enjoy irritating you."
Gion's grip tightened.
She stepped in for another attack—
Then both of them felt it.
An absurd pressure.
Haki.
A monstrous wave of intent slammed through the grove.
Giovanni's eyes widened.
Gion turned.
Shanks was already there.
He moved so fast it looked wrong, like the world had failed to update quickly enough to keep up with him.
His hand was on his sword.
Then it wasn't.
Then the blade was already through its arc.
"Divine Departure."
A black-red burst of Supreme King's Haki erupted from the slash at point-blank range.
Gion barely managed to bring her golden saber up before it hit.
The collision was instantaneous.
Her body was launched backward.
Blood sprayed from her mouth as the force tore through her guard and sent her crashing across the mangrove root, destroying two railings and a stack of bubble crates before finally stopping.
Giovanni was blown off the broken handrail by the shockwave and landed in a roll several meters away.
The grove went quiet.
Gion coughed once, blood staining her lips.
Then her eyes rolled back.
Shanks completed the slash and, without a wasted motion, slid the sword back into its sheath.
Click.
He smiled.
"Hi, Gio."
---
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