The Queen Mama Chanter was dying.
Its upper deck had been reduced to rubble—splintered wood, twisted metal, craters that smoked with the residue of starfire and lightning. The once-magnificent ship groaned beneath the weight of the battle, its frame cracking, its mast leaning, its hull taking on water that no one was alive to pump out.
In the center of the destruction, three figures moved like forces of nature.
Big Mom swung Napoleon in a blazing arc, the flame-infused blade leaving trails of fire that lingered in the air like scars. Leo met her with his claws, golden light exploding from each impact, his laughter wild and unbroken. Baal circled at the edges, his rune-covered stones floating around him like a constellation of shields, absorbing the blows that Leo could not dodge, redirecting the fire that would have burned him.
Perospero woke to the sound of shattering wood.
He had been thrown from the main deck, his body buried beneath a collapsed section of the quarterdeck. His candy armor had saved his life—barely—but his ribs were cracked, his arm hung at a wrong angle, and his vision swam with every heartbeat.
He pushed himself up, his candy arm reforming, his eyes searching for the battle.
What he saw made his blood run cold.
Big Mom was not winning.
She was fighting—raging, striking, unleashing power that had sunk islands—but she was not winning. Leo met her blow for blow, his claws tearing through her defenses, leaving wounds that did not close. Baal moved like a shadow, his stones intercepting every counterattack, his presence ensuring that Leo could fight without fear.
They are coordinating, Perospero realized. They are fighting as one.
Leo attacked like a lion—direct, domineering, every swipe of his claws aimed at vital points. His fingers were not claws but something sharper, something imbued with a rule-based power that tore through Big Mom's skin, through her muscle, through the very fabric of her being. Each strike left wounds that bled, that burned, that did not heal.
Big Mom tried to counter. She gathered flame and thunder in her hands, preparing a blast that would have incinerated a city.
Baal moved.
His rune stones formed a wall, their surfaces lighting up with starfire, absorbing the blast before it could reach Leo. The explosion that followed was swallowed by the stones, contained, nullified.
Leo pressed the attack. His claws raked across Big Mom's shoulder, drawing blood. His knee drove into her stomach, forcing her back. His forehead slammed into her face, splitting her lip.
Baal's stones reformed, ready for the next attack.
Attack and defense, Perospero thought. Leo the dominator, Baal the protector. They are not just fighting her. They are wearing her down.
He tried to stand. He tried to raise his candy arm, to summon a weapon, to do anything to help his mother.
A massive paw pinned him to the ground.
The lion—Leo's constellation beast—had been waiting. Its golden eyes stared down at him, its weight pressing him into the splintered wood, its claws resting on his chest. He felt his ribs crack further. He felt his breath leave his lungs. He felt the crushing weight of a hundred tons pressing down on him.
He passed out.
---
Big Mom felt the threat before she saw it.
Her Observation Haki screamed a warning—not of an attack, but of a shift. A change in the battle that she could not afford to ignore.
She had taken damage. Real damage. Leo's claws had torn through her skin, her muscle, her very soul. The wounds burned with a power she did not understand, a rule-based authority that said you can be hurt and made it true.
She needed more power. She needed the strength that had never failed her.
Her hand rose, and she reached into herself.
Her life force appeared in her perception—a burning candle, a flame that had burned for decades. She grasped it, pulled it, fed it into her body. The power surged through her, multiplying her strength, her speed, her endurance.
Prometheus blazed brighter. Zeus crackled with renewed fury. Napoleon's edge sharpened to a point that could cut the world.
Big Mom's face went cold. The madness faded. The fury dimmed. What remained was something older, something more dangerous—the calculating gaze of an Emperor who had survived everything the world had thrown at her.
She grabbed Prometheus and pressed him against Napoleon. The flame homie merged with the blade, fire and steel becoming one. Napoleon's edge blazed with heat that melted the air around it.
Zeus expanded. His cloud form swelled, covering the sky above, his face twisted with effort, his lightning gathering into a storm that would have drowned an island.
"Tenjin!"
Thousands of thunders rained down.
The bolts struck the deck, the sea, the sky—everywhere, anywhere, a storm of lightning that turned night into day. Baal raised his stones, forming a dome over himself and Leo, runes blazing, absorbing what they could. But there were too many bolts, too much power, and the dome began to crack.
Leo looked up at the storm. His grin did not falter.
He crossed his arms over his chest, and light exploded from him.
It was not a counterattack. It was not a defense. It was a statement. A blinding radiance that pushed back the darkness, that silenced the thunder, that made the lightning hesitate. The light spread across the deck, across the sea, across the sky, and for a moment, the world was white.
Baal's fist clenched. His rune stones gathered, forming a massive fist around his arm, pulsing with star power. He stepped forward, his eyes fixed on Big Mom, and punched.
The rock fist shot toward her, trailing light, trailing force, trailing the weight of a falling star.
Big Mom raised Napoleon. The flame blade met the rock fist, and the explosion that followed was a sun.
"Maser Saber!"
The fire storm erupted from her blade, a slash of flame so powerful that it carved a trench in the sea behind her, that sent waves crashing against ships miles away, that would have turned a lesser opponent to ash.
Baal stood in the path of the flame. His rune stones rose, forming a wall, and the fire broke against them like waves against a cliff. The stones glowed, cracked, held.
Leo burst through the flames.
His body was covered in golden light, his mane blazing, his eyes burning with the heat of a star. The lightning that had rained down on him was gone—not dodged, not blocked, but repelled, as if the thunder itself had been commanded to leave him alone.
He met Big Mom's blade with his claws.
The impact shattered the deck beneath them. The force of it sent Baal sliding back, his feet digging furrows in the wood. Big Mom held her ground, her face cold, her eyes calculating.
Leo's grin was bloodthirsty.
"You're strong," he said. "I like that."
He pushed, and Big Mom pushed back, and they hung there, locked together, Emperor and General, power against power.
Baal's eyes glowed.
He had been waiting. Watching. Calculating. Big Mom's silhouette was large, unmoving, a target that could not be missed. The star power surged through him, gathering in his chest, his throat, his eyes.
"Heaven-Tier Ascension—"
The sky above cracked.
Zeus screamed.
The cloud homie had been charging, gathering lightning for another strike, his form covering the sky like a blanket. But something was coming through him—a pillar, massive and unstoppable, falling from the heavens with the weight of a mountain. It tore through Zeus's body, scattering his clouds, sending him spiraling away in pieces.
"—World Pillar."
Baal raised his palm, commanding the pillar, pointing it toward Big Mom. The stone column—larger than any ship, heavier than any anchor—shot toward her with the speed of a falling star.
Big Mom saw it coming. Her eyes widened. Her hand adjusted Napoleon's angle, her body twisting to meet both threats at once. Leo was in front of her, his claws pressing against her blade. The pillar was behind her, rushing toward her back.
She swung.
"Ikoku Sovereignty!"
The flame blade carved a crescent of death through the air, a slash that would have split an island in two. It caught Leo full in the chest, throwing him across the deck, sending him crashing through the remains of the mast, burying him in rubble.
But the pillar did not stop.
It passed through the space where Leo had been, through the flames of Big Mom's attack, through everything that stood in its path. It was not physical. It was not solid. It was something else—a weight, a judgment, a curse given form.
It entered Big Mom's body like smoke.
She gasped. Her hands went to her chest, her sword falling from her grip, her flame homies scattering in panic. The weight—the weight of an island, the weight of a mountain, the weight of the sky itself—pressed down on her.
Her knee hit the deck.
She tried to rise. Her muscles screamed. Her bones groaned. The fire sword—still blazing, still hot—had fallen point-first into the wood, its blade buried to the hilt. She reached for it, but her arm would not move. The weight was too much. The pillar was inside her, pressing down on her soul, on her very existence.
"What is this?!" Her voice was a snarl, but there was something beneath it—something that might have been fear.
Prometheus tried to escape. The flame homie detached from the sword, rising into the air, but the moment he left Napoleon's hilt, the weight that had been pressing on him vanished. He was free. Big Mom was not.
Leo rose from the rubble.
His body was battered—his lip split, his ribs cracked, his mane singed—but he was smiling. Golden light blazed around him, gathering at his back, forming something that had not been there before.
An ethereal throne of fire materialized behind him. It was massive, ancient, a seat built for a king who ruled over stars. Solar halos formed around his head, his shoulders, his hands, each one pulsing with heat that melted the deck beneath his feet.
"Ultimate Skill," Leo said, his voice echoing with power, "Solar Tyrant's Coronation."
The temperature spiked.
Water boiled. Wood ignited. The air itself became a furnace, thick and choking. Big Mom felt the heat pressing against her, felt her skin blistering, felt the weight of Baal's pillar and the fire of Leo's coronation combining into something that should not exist.
Leo stepped forward. His wounds were healing—burns fading, cuts closing, ribs knitting. The solar energy that was destroying everything around him was feeding him, making him stronger, faster, more dangerous.
He looked at Big Mom, and for the first time, she saw something in his eyes that made her pause.
Not madness. Not bloodlust. Certainty.
"You came to our home," Leo said. "You threatened our people. You thought you could take what we built."
He raised his claws. The solar halos blazed.
"Let me show you why you were wrong."
He lunged.
---
The Sea — Haven's Fleet
Shin watched the distant light.
The battle was reaching its peak. He could feel it—the pressure, the power, the weight of two ultimate skills colliding with an Emperor's fury. He could not see the details, but he did not need to.
He knew Leo. He knew Baal. He knew what they were capable of when they fought together.
And he knew that Big Mom was about to learn what the Beast Pirates had learned.
"The Big Mom Pirates are finished," he said to the officer beside him. "Signal the fleet. Prepare to receive the Generals."
The officer hesitated. "Commander... the battle is not over."
Shin looked at the distant light, at the fire that was spreading across the sky, at the storm that was breaking.
"It will be soon."