"Gah..." Queen's eyes popped so wide they looked ready to burst straight out of his skull.
Are you kidding me?! Talk about completely destroying my leverage! I literally just finished executing a monologue stating it was mathematically impossible for anyone to breach those gates!
"Huh?!" The surrounding garrison and prisoners stood completely paralyzed by the data loop.
The iron blast gates, widely cataloged across the empire as an unyielding, permanent barrier, had been systematically obliterated within a single microsecond!
"The macro-war is approaching the activation threshold. What exact trajectory you choose to log for your own survival parameters is a calculation only you can finalize," Locke noted calmly, resting his gleaming golden staff back across his shoulders as he took a slow, deliberate stride into the basin.
The inmates of the Udon sector fell into an absolute, heavy silence...
Onigashima Sector - High Altitude
Meanwhile, high above the atmospheric perimeter of Onigashima, a subtle, high-velocity streak of crimson light flickered across the dark sky.
The displacement velocity was exceptionally high; any ordinary lookout tracking the horizon would fail to log even a single pixel of an anomaly.
Ace propelled his physical frame using controlled, high-intensity thermal bursts, shifting seamlessly through the upper air currents. As the fire dancing within his eyes narrowed, he smoothly killed his momentum, dropping down to anchor his coordinates onto a secluded cliffside.
Deep within the structural interior of Onigashima's gargantuan stone skull, every level was fully illuminated, the local garrison maintaining an exceptionally high-density, rigorous guard loop.
However, Ace's baseline transit speed had been scaled to its absolute apex; to the naked eye of the common patrol infantry, his silhouette was entirely invisible.
Expanding his Advanced Observation Haki across the entire geographic framework of the island fortress, Ace methodically executed a comprehensive diagnostic scan of every single sector. A few moments later, his eyelids slowly flickered open.
At this microsecond, he had successfully mapped his coordinates to the highest exterior tier of Onigashima, yet running a macro-sweep of the quadrant had returned an absolute zero on the specific tracking signature he wanted.
Still, the data collection phase had been highly successful; he had accurately calculated the layout of the Beast Pirates' primary military garrison. Within the fortress perimeters, only a solitary combat asset qualified as an elite, top-tier powerhouse: King the Conflagration, the Lead Performer occupying the absolute apex seat of the Three Disasters!
The remaining defensive forces lacked the necessary stats to disrupt his equations; they were entirely negligible.
Yet, despite expanding his tracking field across a significant timeline, the primary asset his search sub-routines were scanning for remained completely unmapped.
Could her coordinates be anchored entirely outside Onigashima? Just as a wave of irritation began to fluctuate through Ace's internal processors, a microscopic, scraping resonance suddenly tripped his tactical sensors from the adjacent shadow.
"WHO GOES THERE?!"
Ace compressed his index and middle fingers into a rigid sword-blade, unleashing a high-intensity thermal slash without a single millisecond of latency.
SHING!
A spectacular arc of concentrated sword intent sliced cleanly through the dim atmosphere.
CRACK!
The sharp resonance of a clean fracture echoed across the stone floor. Ace's pupils violently contracted to pinpricks, his internal motor controls executing an instantaneous, sub-second halt to freeze his fingers in mid-air.
Clink... Clang...
Two distinct structural shards tumbled loosely onto the parched stone, the metallic echo cutting through the quiet. It was as if the localized atmosphere had instantly congealed, the entire world dropping into an absolute, heavy silence.
Not a single line of background text registered across the sector.
A lone strand of pristine hair—white at the root, bleeding into a soft, sea-green gradient—drifted lazily through the air tracks, executing a slow, poetic dance before finally settling onto the dirt.
"You..." Ace's vocal cords vibrated, but he found his processors entirely unable to formulate a follow-up line of verbal text.
His rigid fingertips remained locked mere millimeters away from an exceptionally delicate, flawless face. The stray strand of hair that had just drifted to the floor had been severed cleanly by the residual air friction of his thermal blade.
Though Ace had successfully overridden his offensive loops to abort the lethal strike at the absolute threshold, the kinetic force had already shattered the asset's disguise, leaving two fragmented pieces of a Hannya mask scattering across the stone.
The exact microsecond the mask cleared her features, a look of profound, unadulterated ecstasy illuminated the woman's face. Stepping into his perimeter with zero hesitation, she violently threw her arms around his frame, locking Ace in a vice-like embrace.
"Ace... it really is you! It's Ace!"
"Talk about an astronomical timeline since we last balanced our logs, ahahaha...!"
"Yamato..." Ace's gaze slowly softened, the volatile combat metrics fading from his eyes. "Mmm, it truly has been a massive interval since our last shared coordinates. Tell me... has your structural integrity remained stable all this time?"
The data was absolute: this striking, peerless young woman was the biological "son" of the Governor-General, Yamato!
And she stood as one of the most trusted, cherished entities logged in Ace's personal database.
"Ace... the morning editions circulating across the New World report that your profile has officially upgraded to claim a throne among the Yonko! Is that data track verified?" Yamato asked, breaking the physical embrace to look him over, her eyes burning with pure excitement.
Hearing her prompt, the relaxed demeanor on Ace's features rapidly re-stabilized into an expression of absolute, professional gravity. "Yamato... your systems should already possess the necessary intelligence files to compute the exact objective of my deployment to this hot zone, correct?"
"Naturally, I grasp the parameters..." Yamato noted, her gaze subtly shifting away as she looked toward the horizon. "My internal coding has never once processed that tyrannical monster under the header of 'Father'."
"Therefore... during this campaign... your vanguard will permanently delete his life signs from the ledger... correct?"
"Without a single doubt!" Ace's output line carried an absolute, unyielding conviction that permitted zero statistical arguments.
This deployment was far more than a conventional, linear clash between rival Emperors; it was an absolute macro-war engineered to completely rewrite the geopolitical future of Wano Country.
An infinite sea of broken, suffering civilian assets were currently anchoring their entire survival probability onto the success of their coalition, alongside the sacred, unyielding bushido beliefs of the loyalist samurai.
And above all else, his internal honor code was bound to the explicit vow he had downloaded into little Tama's files!
Wano Country was mathematically owed a future that belonged strictly to its own people.
This battle was an equation they were forced to solve with an absolute victory.
"Splendid! Then you hold my total, uncompromised endorsement!" Yamato declared, her tone spiking with a fierce, burning anger. "Don't permit your memory tracks to omit the data: my own core protocol has always been to personally beat Kaido into the dirt!"
"Heh... that variable is deeply integrated into my files," Ace replied, a warm, genuine smile breaking through his serious facade.
Following that brief exchange of data, the two of them suddenly fell into an absolute, heavy quiet.
Two individuals whose core personalities were hard-coded to be boisterous, expressive, and entirely open had somehow hit a severe processing bottleneck, plunging their immediate perimeter into motionless silence.
The natural law of time was an inescapable force; when two highly aligned assets are isolated across vast spatial intervals, the underlying calculation of 'longing' expands exponentially. Once that emotional metric has been left to scale up over a long timeline, computing the exact configuration of that feeling is an equation they themselves struggle to parse.
To Yamato's isolated existence, Ace represented the solitary, true comrade she had ever successfully integrated into her life. He was the one asset with whom she could safely share her deepest internal algorithms and download her grandest dreams, entirely secure in the knowledge that his system would never return a mockery subroutine.
To Ace's perspective, having spent his entire childhood wrestling with a world that rejected his right to exist, Yamato represented the absolute first genuine, intimate female presence to validate his identity.
The sheer level of psychological synchronization they shared had scaled to a point of absolute alignment.
The fact that their systems had simultaneously triggered a total silence loop was definitive proof of that baseline harmony.
"Would you care to... synchronize your transit parameters with my unit?" After a tense microsecond, Ace forced his vocal tracks online to initiate the prompt.
The exact millisecond the line cleared his jaw, a massive wave of strategic regret flooded his processors.
What an absolute system error! Your current deployment objective is to literally execute a lethal offensive against her biological father, so what brand of broken logic prompts you to invite her into the immediate combat grid?!
But completely defying his internal risk simulations, Yamato bypassed her analytical loops entirely, delivering an instantaneous response: "Absolutely, yes!"
A fraction of a second later, perhaps computing that her rapid acceptance lacked standard behavioral optimization, she hastily appended a defensive data line: "After all, your database logs the metric perfectly—my primary directive has always been to dismantle his regime..."
"Agreed!" Ace noted smoothly. Since the conversation had stabilized at this coordinate, he held zero intention of being foolish enough to inject a counter-argument.
Formulating a line like, 'He's your biological father, so let my flames handle the execution alone,' was a level of absolute, unmitigated idiocy that his processors completely rejected.
Yamato had explicitly delivered her terms. He accepted them, choosing to let the specific variables of the deployment be re-calibrated in real-time based on the shifting parameters of the battlefield.
If the data permitted a scenario where Yamato could be filtered out from directly engaging her father, he would actively engineer the perimeter to secure that buffer.
"Let me download the current real-time telemetry of our operational forces into your system," Ace said softly, lowering his frame to settle smoothly onto the floor beside her. This specific sector of the highest tier functioned as a completely isolated, secure hidden vault.
Under standard parameters, the common infantry patrols lacked the administrative clearance to breach this threshold.
The solitary variable explaining Yamato's presence within this dark, hidden room was simple: she had been utilizing the coordinates as a staging ground, biding her time to launch a high-speed breakout attempt to escape Onigashima entirely.
It was a sheer twist of cosmic alignment that Ace had chosen this exact millisecond to infiltrate the sector. Even though his wide-range Haki sweep had methodically parsed the entire fortress architecture, this specific room had been completely omitted from his initial search routines.
His sensors had simply calculated that a completely dark, silent, and abandoned subterranean vault stood zero statistical probability of housing a live asset.
And yet, the asset anchoring his thoughts was nesting right inside.
Running a standard probability assessment would suggest a scenario of this nature was an absolute mathematical impossibility.
Yet reality had delivered a direct, undeniable verification.
Perhaps this was the absolute definition of an immutable destiny.
"WHAT?! WHAT EXACT DIRECTIVE DID YOU JUST DEPLOY?!" Yamato suddenly shrieked, her voice exploding with absolute, paralyzed shock. "The loyal retainers who served Lord Oden... they are actively alive in this timeline?!"
"Mmm," Ace nodded heavily, verifying the data track.
Watching her features instantly illuminate with a profound, pure wave of unadulterated joy and excitement, Ace felt an echo of that same happiness ripple through his own internal systems.
"Furthermore... Oden's legitimate successor... Kozuki Momonosuke... is active on the board?!"
"Mmm, mmm!"
"This... this data is far too... sniff... to think that my precious son has successfully survived the purge all these years...!" Yamato broke down, delivering a linguistic output so completely anomalous it caused Ace's internal logic gates to misfire in pure shock.
"Hold the phone! Your... son?!" Ace's expression underwent a radical shift, his brain entirely unable to compute the maternal variable.
"My ultimate algorithm dictates that I must become Kozuki Oden! Therefore, by extension of that data framework, doesn't Kozuki Momonosuke mathematically map to the header of my son?" Yamato clarified, her tone dripping with absolute, unshakeable logic.
Ace: "..."
Momonosuke...?Fantastic.
Staring at the radiating, ecstatic energy vibrating from Yamato's frame, Ace chose to keep his sudden wave of internal displeasure entirely locked within his silent servers, refusing to disrupt her celebration.
After all, within his tracking files, logged instances of Yamato experiencing a pure, uncompromised moment of joy within this prison-nation were exceptionally rare.
He held zero intention of corrupting her current psychological peak.
However... a high-priority administrative directive was covertly logged into his system: The exact microsecond I cross paths with this Momonosuke brat, he is receiving a severe, high-intensity physical lesson.
Under zero parameters am I permitting that little parasite to anchor himself near Yamato's coordinates!