The streets of Grove 31 had become a battlefield.
What had once been a noisy carnival full of laughter, music, and bright-colored stalls was now a chaotic blur of screaming civilians, overturned stands, and charging Marines. Boots thundered across the mangrove pavement. Rifles were raised. Swords flashed. Orders were shouted from every direction.
And right in the middle of it all stood three men who looked far too calm for the amount of trouble surrounding them.
Shanks rested his saber over one shoulder, his red hair swaying lightly in the breeze. Giovanni stood slightly ahead of him, eyes sharp, blood hot, body still buzzing from what he had done to Saint Mjosgard. And a few steps to their side was Limejuice, staff in hand, expression caught somewhere between irritation and disbelief.
"This," Limejuice said flatly, "is exactly the kind of thing I try to avoid."
Giovanni smirked.
"And yet here you are."
"Against my will," Limejuice muttered.
Shanks laughed.
The Marines tightened their formation around them, some positioned on the streets, others on the rooftops above, rifles aimed downward. More were still arriving, rushing in from every connected path of the grove. The circle was growing tighter by the second.
A Marine Captain near the front stepped forward and shouted, "Red-Haired Shanks! Giovanni! Lay down your weapons and surrender yourselves at once!"
Shanks tilted his head.
"No."
The Captain's eye twitched. "Then we'll take you by force!"
Giovanni rolled his neck once, then glanced at Shanks.
"Before we start…" he said.
Shanks looked sideways at him. "Hm?"
Giovanni's expression shifted slightly. Not serious in the grim way of a man standing before an army. More like someone who had just remembered something important and didn't want to lose the thought.
"In my fight with Mihawk," Giovanni said, "I felt something."
Shanks' smile faded into curiosity.
"Oh?"
Giovanni kept his eyes on the Marines ahead of them. "At the time, I didn't understand it. I still don't fully understand it. But for a moment…" He lifted his saber slightly. "I felt the Breath of All Things."
Limejuice blinked.
"The what?"
Shanks' eyes sharpened.
Giovanni exhaled slowly.
"It was weird," he continued. "Like the air, the steel, the ground, the intent—everything had a rhythm. Not a sound exactly. More like… a presence." He narrowed his eyes. "And I think…"
The front line of Marines began charging.
"I think I've got a better grasp of it now."
Giovanni stepped forward.
His hands shifted on the hilt.
His stance lowered.
And then, for the first time in his life—
He swung.
A pale crescent of force ripped forward from the blade.
A flying slash.
It tore through the street like a compressed wave, shattering wooden stalls, cutting rifles in half, and blasting through a row of advancing Marines before crashing into a mangrove root behind them in a violent spray of splinters.
For one heartbeat, nobody moved.
Then—
"WHAAAAAT?!" Limejuice shouted.
Shanks' grin exploded across his face.
"GIO!"
Giovanni stared at his own blade.
Then slowly looked at the fallen Marines scattered across the street.
"…I did it."
Shanks burst out laughing.
"You actually did it!"
Giovanni turned to him, eyes wide with childlike excitement despite the battlefield around them. "You saw that, right?! That was me!"
"Oh, I saw it," Shanks said, laughing hard enough to bend slightly at the waist. "That was awesome!"
The nearby Marines, meanwhile, had the exact opposite reaction.
"Flying slash?!"
"He's still just a rookie!"
"What kind of monsters are these?!"
Giovanni's shock faded quickly, replaced by a proud grin.
Then he pointed his blade toward the Marines again.
"Alright," he said. "Now I'm motivated."
The charge resumed.
This time all at once.
Marine swordsmen rushed from the front. Riflemen fired from the flanks. Others came down from the rooftops with ropes and nets, hoping to pin them in place.
Limejuice clicked his tongue and twirled his heavy iron staff once.
"Just for the record," he called out while stepping into a defensive stance, "I'm not actually part of their crew."
Nobody cared.
A Rear Officer on the right shouted, "That's Limejuice! Pirate! One hundred million berry bounty!"
Limejuice froze.
"…Excuse me?"
"Capture him too!"
"I literally just said—"
Three Marines lunged at him.
Limejuice sighed.
"Of course."
He moved.
His staff swept low first, cracking one Marine across the knees and dropping him instantly. The reverse motion came up like a whip, slamming into another's ribs and sending him flying sideways into a food cart. A third swung a saber at Limejuice's neck, but Limejuice stepped inside the arc, twisted his staff in both hands, and drove the weighted end of it into the man's stomach with enough force to lift him off the ground.
He flowed into the next movement seamlessly, staff spinning, feet light, attacks crisp and practiced.
Shanks noticed and laughed even while ducking under a rifle shot.
"Not part of the crew, huh?!"
Giovanni kicked one Marine in the face, then sliced another across the chest with the flat of his blade and shouted, "For a bystander, you're doing great!"
Limejuice growled as he blocked a spear thrust with the shaft of his staff.
"I hate both of you!"
A Marine swung from above.
Limejuice caught the strike—
And blackened one hand.
Basic Armament Haki hardened across his knuckles and forearm. He grabbed the staff one-handed, pivoted, and smashed the incoming Marine off the roof with a brutal backhand swing.
Giovanni saw it and immediately shouted, "You have Armament Haki too?!"
Limejuice knocked another Marine down with a short jab to the throat.
"Yes!"
Giovanni's eye twitched.
"…And your bounty is one hundred million?"
Limejuice frowned.
"Yes?"
Giovanni pointed accusingly with his saber.
"That's not fair."
Shanks laughed so hard he almost missed the rifleman rushing him from behind.
Almost.
Without even turning fully, he drew his saber in one smooth flash.
A black crackle ran along the blade.
His slash came out short, sharp, and impossibly clean.
The Marine's weapon broke first.
Then his courage.
The man was launched backward into three others, all of them collapsing in a tangled heap.
Giovanni's eyes widened.
Limejuice stared too.
"…That's disgusting," Giovanni said.
Limejuice nodded. "Very."
Shanks sheathed his saber halfway, smiling smugly. "You two are just jealous."
"We are," Giovanni and Limejuice said at the same time.
A dozen more Marines rushed in.
Shanks moved to meet them.
Where Giovanni fought like an aggressive young predator and Limejuice fought like a seasoned weapon master, Shanks fought like joy made violent. There was no wasted movement in him. No strain. No hesitation. His saber carved through the battlefield with fluid grace, and every now and then a burst of Haki would flash along the blade, turning a normal swing into a devastating sweep that dropped multiple Marines at once.
One slash cracked the pavement and sent four men tumbling.
Another cut through a rifle volley before the bullets even reached him.
Then Shanks stepped forward, Haki flaring around his saber just faintly enough for both Giovanni and Limejuice to notice, and unleashed a broad arcing strike that tore across the street like a black-edged wave, knocking down an entire formation of Marines trying to regroup.
Giovanni stared.
"I need that."
Limejuice spun his staff, sending a Marine helmet flying. "Get in line."
Giovanni gritted his teeth in dramatic frustration.
"First Mihawk. Then Smoker. Now you two and your stupid cool Haki tricks…"
He sidestepped a bayonet thrust, grabbed the attacker's wrist, and headbutted him hard enough to send him flat on his back.
"I'm surrounded by show-offs!"
Shanks laughed. "Then get stronger."
"I AM getting stronger!"
To prove it, Giovanni swung again.
The first flying slash had been instinctual, rough, born from a sudden grasp of something larger than himself. This one was less stable—but no less real.
It blasted forward with more width than precision, tearing through a stack of crates and dropping another row of Marines who had been trying to flank them from the side.
Giovanni's face lit up.
"I did it again!"
Shanks grinned. "That's my best friend!"
Limejuice ducked under a punch and cracked a Marine in the jaw with the butt of his staff.
"You two really know how to celebrate during combat."
The Marines were faltering now.
Their numbers still surrounded the grove, but every clash only widened the gap between courage and reality. These weren't monsters they could overwhelm with basic formation tactics. These were pirates who hit back harder the more pressure you applied.
A Lieutenant barked desperately, "Hold the line! They're only three men!"
Giovanni looked at him.
Then at the sea of injured Marines littering the grove.
Then back at the Lieutenant.
"That line," Giovanni said, "is not holding."
He vanished forward and reappeared in front of the officer, one hand grabbing the man by the collar before flinging him bodily into a nearby bubble stand.
POP POP POP.
A rain of giant bubbles burst over the battlefield.
For one ridiculous moment, Marines and pirates alike were drenched in shimmering soap-like spray.
Shanks blinked once.
Then laughed.
Giovanni looked down at his soaked shirt and sighed dramatically. "Now I have to kill whoever designed this island."
Limejuice cracked another man across the temple. "Focus."
More Marines came from the left.
Shanks stepped into them, Haki humming along his blade.
Giovanni met the next wave from the center.
Limejuice broke the right flank apart with spinning staff strikes and bursts of hardened impact.
Together, the three of them carved a path through the grove.
Not because they were working as a practiced unit.
Not yet.
But because each one of them was individually too much for ordinary Marines to deal with.
Eventually, the front line broke.
Then the side lines.
Then the rooftop shooters started retreating.
The grove fell into a strange kind of silence, broken only by groans, collapsing stalls, and the distant sound of more forces mobilizing elsewhere on the island.
Shanks rested his saber over his shoulder again.
"Well," he said cheerfully, "that went pretty smoothly."
Giovanni looked around at the utterly destroyed street.
"…Your definition of smooth is concerning."
Limejuice planted his staff on the ground and exhaled.
"Can I leave now? Before I accidentally become a permanent member of your crew's problems?"
Shanks laughed.
"No."
Limejuice groaned.
Before any of them could say more, a Den Den Mushi somewhere in the grove rang.
Not theirs.
A Marine one.
On a half-conscious officer near the wall.
Buru Buru Buru.
The man fumbled weakly for it.
"K-Krrk… yes…"
A voice came through the receiver, calm and lazy.
"This is HQ. Patch me through to Admiral Aokiji."
The Marines still awake went pale.
Shanks' grin faded just slightly.
Giovanni tilted his head.
"Admiral?"
Then, somewhere else on Sabaody, beneath the shade of another mangrove tree, a tall man in a white coat slowly opened one sleepy eye as his own Den Den Mushi began to ring.
Kuzan picked it up.
"This is Aokiji…"
The voice from Marine HQ answered immediately.
"Admiral Aokiji. We've confirmed visual contact with Red-Haired Shanks and his associates. You are ordered to intercept."
Kuzan sighed.
"…Troublesome."
---
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