Momonosuke had been born right aboard the Moby Dick decades ago. Beneath the watchful eyes of the entire Whitebeard Pirates fleet, he and Hiyori had taken their very first breaths.
To Marco, those days represented the most cherished, beautiful chapters of his past. Now, he was forced to process a brutal, blood-drenched reality.
"Where is Ann?! Find her immediately!" Kenshin barked, his voice tight with anxiety.
In a critical scenario of this scale, Ann was the solitary asset capable of stabilizing Momonosuke's life signs.
While Marco's flames of rebirth could efficiently cauterize the external trauma of the severed shoulder, they lacked the specialized properties to fully restore the boy's failing internal organs.
The child was still firmly locked in a fatal crisis window.
Only Ann possessed the necessary medical utility to perform a total system overhaul and extract him from the brink.
"Kenshin, our unit has established a lock on your position!" A shout echoed from across the water as a secondary transport vessel pulled alongside the pier, carrying Ann and Locke.
Following their successful liberation of the Udon sector, Marco had abruptly exited the grid to retrieve Izo, leaving the remaining fighters to march alongside the main rebel deployment.
Locke and Ann wasted zero time, vaulting onto the dock planks to reinforce the line.
Staring down at the mangled, blood-smeared form of Momonosuke shivering in agony, a profound wave of maternal tenderness and sorrow washed over Ann's delicate features. She knelt immediately, running a swift diagnostic sweep over his shattered body.
Even a hardened fighter like Locke couldn't help but let out a grim sigh at the data. To subject a toddler to a crushing, physical deficit of this magnitude... what a complete horror.
"Ocean Grace: Celestial Restoration!"
Ann expanded her palms, a brilliant, liquid-blue luminescence erupting from her fingers to envelop Momonosuke's small frame in a soothing shell of energy.
Almost instantly, the pale, deathly complexion draining the boy's face began a visible, steady recovery.
Meanwhile, the massive armada of rebel warships slammed into the Onigashima docks. Thousands of Wano samurai spilled over the railings like a roaring tide, their drawn steel flashing in the dawn light as throat-shredding battle cries tore through the air.
"Exterminate every single monster serving under the Governor-General! We carve out our vengeance for Lord Momonosuke!"
"CHARGE!!"
"Deploy defensive blockades! Repel the invaders!" King commanded flatly, his dark wings cutting through the smoke.
The two massive armies slammed together in a cataclysm of steel.
Moving like synchronized phantoms through the thick of the tens of thousands of combatants, Ace and Yamato fought back-to-back, carving a path of absolute destruction through the imperial lines.
"Yamato, maintain the momentum!" Ace barked. He unleashed a high-intensity barrage of piercing fire lasers from his fingertips, systematically deleting dozens of Beast Pirates infantrymen from the ledger.
"Right behind you!" Yamato roared, swinging her massive spiked club to pulverize a row of armored enforcers.
The Entrance to Wano
Down along the parched coast of Kuri, a magnificent pirate ship featuring a cheerful, sun-crested lion figurehead slowly cast off its lines, sliding out into the deep currents.
On the deck of the Thousand Sunny, Drake, Luffy, and the core vanguard of the Straw Hat Pirates stood monitoring the horizons as they charted a high-speed heading straight toward Onigashima.
"Excluding Usopp, who is currently anchoring an independent operation, our primary combat strength has fully consolidated!" Luffy declared, scaling a high crate to overlook his crew. "I am logging a critical update into our roster files."
"Jinbe officially finalized his enlisting protocols back during the Whole Cake Island campaign. From this microsecond forward, he is a verified member of our family!"
"The exact millisecond we smash Kaido's regime into dust, we are throwing the most spectacular, unprecedented celebration feast in the history of the four seas! Shishishishi...!"
"YEAH!" Nami and the others cheered, their morale scaling to absolute peak capacity.
The corners of Zoro's lips curled into a sharp, confident smirk, a dangerous glint flashing through his eye. Drake's gaze flicked down toward the swordsman's waist, his sensors registering a highly peculiar, chaotic spiritual pressure radiating from a newly secured hilt.
The masterwork steel, Enma.
While Drake's database lacked the precise timeline detailing when Zoro executed the transaction to swap his steel, the physical evidence was absolute. The sword replacement protocol had achieved perfect completion.
Suddenly, Drake's features hardened, his tracking arrays sharply swiveling toward the absolute perimeter of the nation.
His sensors had just logged a massive anomaly breaching the outer maritime boundaries of Wano Country.
"To think that her system would actually choose to push its deployment parameters to this coordinate after all..."
Pivoting on his heel, Drake turned a calm, serious look toward his younger brother. "The execution of Kaido's line remains strictly under your jurisdiction, Luffy."
"Huh?" Luffy blinked, his brow furrowing in confusion.
"Big Mom has officially matched coordinates with this sea," Drake noted, a cold, focused smirk playing across his lips before his expression turned grim.
He had initially calculated that after sustaining a catastrophic structural deficit at Whole Cake Island, the Big Mom Pirates would focus entirely on internal recovery loops rather than navigating a volatile deployment to Wano. Yet, defying all probability models, the matriarch had mobilized her assets.
An entity holding the rank of the Four Emperors was a cataclysmic hazard that permitted zero complacency. Even though Drake had already secured a verified victory against her fleet once before, he refused to under-calibrate her raw lethality.
"I'll blockade her intercept vector. The primary board here belongs to you and Ace." Before the final syllable could clear his jaws, Drake executed a spatial displacement loop, vanishing from the deck in a flash.
He accelerated his signature through the spatial currents, rocketing straight toward the extreme perimeter of the country.
Within a handful of seconds, Drake materialized atop the monolithic, roaring waterfalls that functioned as the absolute geographic gateway separating Wano from the open sea.
Back on the deck of the Sunny, the atmosphere had grown exceptionally tense, Chopper and the more fragile members of the crew swallowing hard as the intelligence processed.
Big Mom! The terrifying tyrant had actually launched a trans-marine pursuit to hunt them down!
"Luffy..."
"Omit the anxiety!" Luffy barked, giving his hat a firm tug. "As long as Drake has stepped out to anchor that sector, the outcome is guaranteed. Our solitary objective is to beat Kaido until he breaks!"
SPLASH!
Suddenly, a colossal biological structure erupted from the churning waves ahead of their bow. As the water cascaded off its armored frame, the Straw Hats realized the asset was a high-tech naval submarine.
The Heart Pirates, commanded by Trafalgar Law.
Simultaneously, navigating along the right flank of the Sunny, a secondary, aggressive pirate battleship sliced through the swells—the flagship of the Kid Pirates.
"You guys?!" Luffy shrieked, leaning over the railing.
"Hmph! Keep your grimy hands off my prize, Straw Hat! Kaido's head belongs strictly to my ledger!" Eustass Kid sneered, casting a profoundly arrogant, dismissive glance across Luffy and Law's coordinates.
"What exact garbage did you just output?!" Luffy's temper instantly spiked, his face twisting in fury. "The man destined to smash Kaido into the dirt is me!"
"Huh?!" Kid's brow furrowed aggressively.
Right then, a calm, mocking voice drifted across the wind from the absolute vanguard of their formation: "My unit is initiating its final approach ahead of schedule. Omit your squabbling; the Governor-General's life signs belong to me."
Luffy and Kid snapped their heads forward, realizing with absolute fury that Law had completely bypassed standard tactical courtesy, using his spatial loops to steal the lead vector while they were arguing!
"Hold your tracking loops, Tora-o! Kaido is my assignment!" Thick columns of steam erupted from Luffy's nostrils as his outrage crested. "Nami! Maximize our speed parameters and run them down!"
"Damn it! Don't you dare calculate that you can outpace my ship!" Kid roared, violently waving his metal arm as his battleship accelerated into a high-speed chase.
The Sovereign of Totto Land
High atop the massive precipice of the gateway waterfall, Drake looked down, his eyes methodically scanning the churning basin below. Within a limited timeframe, a gargantuan, candy-coated flagship breached the lower mist layers.
Staking her presence at the bow was Charlotte Linlin, surrounded by a dense officer cabinet of her powerful children.
The Big Mom Pirates!
BOOM!
Tethered to a pod of massive, native koi fish, the flagship began its vertical, high-power ascent up the roaring wall of water.
"Mama! Recalibrate your visual sensors toward the highest peak!" Perospero, the eldest son, gasped, a sharp jolt of pure dread fracturing his voice as he locked onto Drake's silhouette.
Drake stood calmly atop the rushing water tracks, tracking their vertical progress with an look of intense amusement.
"What a spectacular synchronization! I was actively running a search subroutine to extract your coordinates, Drake! Exactly what brand of underhanded spatial corruption did your system execute within my sacred treasure vaults?!" Big Mom roared, her pupils expanding with a lethal, bloodshot light. A brand-new, massive broadsword materialized in her iron grip.
Shortly after the Drake Pirates had successfully engineered their breakout from Whole Cake Island, the administrative units operating the security loops of her capital had downloaded a catastrophic diagnostic report into her files: The imperial treasury had been systematically vacuumed of every single coin, artifact, and masterwork asset. The balance sheet returned an absolute blank.
The entity commanding the spatial utility to execute a flawless heist of that magnitude was a calculation that pointed to a solitary suspect.
Because her original Homie, Napoleon, had been neatly bisected by Drake's blade during their previous clash, the matriarch had been forced to expend a massive chunk of her soul to forge a replacement weapon.
"Sovereign Extinction: Devastating Slash!"
Linlin shrieked, swinging the massive sword through an apocalyptic arc aimed directly at Drake's coordinates. The strike was layered with a dense, roaring current of Advanced Conqueror's Haki that warped the barometric pressure of the entire canyon.
The sheer volume of fury twisting through Big Mom's mind was an astronomical calculation. It was bad enough that her global military reputation had sustained a severe deficit from their previous encounter, but to discover that her entire ancestral family fortune had been cleanly liquidated down to the last scrap of gold was a trauma her psychology completely rejected!
Who the hell executes a heist with that tier of absolute greed? If an intruder misappropriates a few chests of gold, it falls within acceptable parameters. But to systematically strip the masonry bare and leave an absolute zero behind?
Not a single scrap of fabric remained. It was a level of pure, unadulterated disrespect that she refused to tolerate!
Staring at the apocalyptic thermal wave charging toward his position, Drake felt a massive urge to scream: I am completely innocent in this scenario, you old hag!
Naturally, he kept the verbal output at zero. Dropping a line like that into this specific conversation would look hilariously petty. Besides, watching her lose her mind was far too entertaining.
"Descend back to the lower grid!"
Operating with a complete index of the original timeline of the world, Drake's expression remained perfectly relaxed. He was intimately familiar with the properties governing this specific script.
Extending his hand with casual grace, he materialized a monumental, dual-layered spatial wall directly beneath the hull of the ascending flagship. With a sharp, upward flick of his wrist, the compressed space expanded violently, forcefully flipping the massive ship completely upside down.
"System failure! Ahhhhh...!"
As the frantic, terror-stricken shrieks of the Charlotte family officers echoed faintly through the mist from the canyon depths, the corners of Drake's lips curled into a sharp, satisfied smile.
Perhaps this cyclic, vertical plunge back down the waterfall was simply an immutable law written into the destiny of the Big Mom Pirates whenever they attempted to enter Wano Country.
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